In an alternative 1985, costumed heroes are real, most of them are retired or outlawed, Richard Nixon is still president and a blue-skinned superman has won the Vietnam War. Somebody has thrown a retired hero called the Comedian out of a window, and a masked vigilante named Rorschach, who does not believe in retirement or in washing, sets out to find out who did it. The answer leads to the brink of nuclear war.
Watchmen is the superhero comic that rethought what superhero comics could do, and it is also a fine piece of science fiction, with a genuine theory of how the existence of one real superhuman would warp the world. Gibbons' rigid nine-panel grid, John Higgins' colours and a structure full of mirrored scenes and hidden patterns reward re-reading more than almost any other comic. It won a Hugo Award, which is more than most of its imitators managed.
