Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Jaume on November 9, 2009 at 4:15am

I didn't read the comics, but this one made me smile --

Permalink Reply by David Miller on November 9, 2009 at 1:02pm

AYFKM! I was going to use that one! Doc Manhatten's only draw back is that he only had one novel in which to share his wisdom (meanwhile competing with other awesome characters for page time).
I have to invoke a few Enigma quotes- I'm convinced anyone can read Enigma and become smarter (or insane):
"It's like the book of Revelations, but funnier. It's like the Last Trumpet, but hopelessly out of tune. It's like the perrenial battle between good and evil but no one can work out which is which anymore, and most people don't know what perrenial means."

"You know hat impresses me about you? Your ability to be as pathetic as you are and not want to kill yourself. If I were you, I'd have to kill myself."

Permalink Reply by Louis on November 20, 2009 at 10:20pm

"With great power comes great responsibility."

I'm sure we all know where that comes from.

When I was a kid, that was profound. It was the first moral code I had ever heard of that didn't depend on God.

Permalink Reply by Jaume on November 21, 2009 at 3:45am

Not very useful as a moral guideline for the overwhelming majority.

Permalink Reply by Klaus Motan on May 9, 2010 at 11:18am

"die spinnen, die Römer"

most famous quote from Obelix, one of the two main characters of "Asterix"; indeed, this qoute can be used for each people wanted, ie, "those Mericans are screwballs..."

and then "you dare...!", found in almost every superhero comic.

Permalink Reply by Vash on May 20, 2010 at 7:59am

A couple of my favorites from Spider Jerusalem of Transmetropolitan by Warren Ellis are:

"You want to know about voting. I’m here to tell you about voting. Imagine you’re locked in a huge underground nightclub filled with sinners, whores, freaks and unnameable things that rape pit bulls for fun. And you aint’ allowed out until you all vote on what you’re going to do tonight.You like to put your feet up and watch “republican party reservation.” They like to have sex with normal people using knives, guns, and brand new sexual organs that you did not know existed. So you vote for television, and everyone else, as far as your eye can see, votes to fuck you with switchblades. That’s voting. You’re welcome."

And good 'ol Spider has these words for a convention hall full of religious leaders and believers:

"Thieves, the goddam lot of you, thieves and leeches! Fucking vampires sucking the will from people whose only goddam crimes were to be frightened and tired! And you don't help them! You don't listen to them! They get no truth from you! All you do is scare them with stories of something that doesn't exist! And you bastards are winning! Hundreds more of you every day! Getting away with it in a place so noisy that no one could here the truth if it were ever told-- and I can't fight you alone, you fucks, couldn't when I was a kid and my dad went cultist and I can't now-- all I can do is tell the truth"

Angry, yet insightful.

Permalink Reply by Fred W. Hill on February 13, 2011 at 9:30pm

Curiously, at the end Dr. Manhattan goes off to roam the cosmos, contemplating creating life himself, to become a creator god himself.  Variations of this ascent to the heavens trope have been common with these sort of beings in comics at least since Lee/Kirby's initial Him (aka Warlock) story in the FF in 1967.  I wouldn't be surprised if their are earlier versions, but that's the first I'm aware of.  In relation to the Watchmen, based as it is on so much of Ditko's work for Charlton and his Objectivist views, Kirby conceived of the Cocoon/Him storyline as a critique of Objectivism but Lee whittled those aspects away in his script (add another straw to Kirby's load of frustrations with Marvel Comics). 

Also, of course, when Him was reborn as Warlock by Roy Thomas, he became an even more godlike, specificially Christian, figure. The original series as a whole wasn't so great, but Jim Starlin spun some gold with Warlock's post-resurrection stories.  As for what Dr. Manhattan adventures as a "god" in the depths of space, that'll be forever left to our imagination, at least as far as Alan Moore seems concerned.