There was a thread online about villains and tropes relating to such and it prompted me to think of this moment, though I think of it fairly often as it is. I’m old enough that I first read Watchmen when it was in (gasp) issues, this new thing from DC; it came out right when I was starting to look past the oft-predictable adventures of my Marvel and DC staples towards indie comics, the darker X-Men stuff, and soon this new imprint called Vertigo . . . heady times, I tell ya.
I still get residual chills from this panel. Because I had expected it all, you see: the description of the nefarious plan, the fierce fight to stop it that would probably injure or kill one of the “heroes”, and then the return to a world that never knew how close it came to destruction . . . I thought myself above such things, and yet I wholly expected the story to go that way. It was a lesson in how some structures become so deeply ingrained we don’t even realize it; it’s why, I think, I’m hypersensitive to any kind of story “rut” I fall into.
35 minutes. Not even five, or ten. Long enough to exercise, eat something, watch a little television. It’s a long time, 35 minutes.