Well they generally believe that Moore is pretentious and difficult for the sake of some higher literary ambition rather than just telling a story through his chosen medium, which is more or less what I gathered from your post. Which I think is wide of the mark.
Not at all - I have no problem with "difficult" works. It seems I just don't rate Watchmen as highly as an overall creation as you do Klaus. De gustibus non est disputandum.
There's little subversive about the premise itself in my opinion
Well, to me the premise is exactly your thesis statement: that Watchmen is about superheroes as strange, flawed sexual deviants who like to dress up, coming into bracing contact with forces and events that actually are supernormal. I'd suggest it does subvert, by leading readers to question the nature of character types with which, heretofore, they've been inclined to identify, and problematising them morally, aesthetically and politically.
In turning Manhattan into the decider of Vietnam, for example, it's situating the superhero concept in unfamiliar, ambivalent terrain. In showing a decidedly flabby Dreiberg clambering into his outfit it's highlighting the mortality and ultimately, the absurdity of the costumed superhero.
Yeah, the 2000 char limit got me as well, and I had to trim my last post. Never mind I'm sure the world's not much the poorer.
It has been quite a while - nearly ten years I think - since I last read Watchmen by the way.
