Before Watchmen: Part III

Moloch, on the other hand, was a disaster. Describing the life of Edgar Jacobi and how his grotesque appearance plays a part in leading him into a life of crime, the novel finally shows us how he gets out of jail after years to find redemption only to be used and killed by Veidt for his plan to “save the world”. There was literally nothing remarkable about the plot and it wasn’t immediately obvious whether the horrendous art was intentional and supposed to be part of the theme that plays along Moloch’s malformed appearance (because how that extends to other characters like Adrian is beyond me) or it was simply shoddy work. This book truly felt like an afterthought in a hurried production of the series.
And finally, Dollar Bill, an ironic tale scripted by Len Wein and drawn beautifully by Steve Rude. The strangest thing about this book was that it was utterly pointless and yet drawn so fantastically that each page seems to be worth looking at. The story describes a man with no options finally finding a job which is to act like a superhero. And as he’s finally asked to play that part in real life, while being told that it’s all an act, he becomes one. And then you see his tragic and almost hilarious end which is actually the only thing we know about him from the original canon. All in all, this is probably the best drawn comic book you should never read.

To wrap that up, Before Watchmen was DC’s attempt to capitalize on the Watchmen brand and it came with the very real risk of alienating loyal fans of the canon. They managed to save grace with stories like Minutemen, Dr. Manhattan and Ozymandias but all in all, it was a prequel that shouldn’t have been and incidentally, Alan Moore correctly told us that before we got the chance to actually read them.