Watchmen Club

The title Watchmen is derived from the phrase quis custodiet ipsos custodes, from Juvenal's Satire VI, "Against women" (c. AD 60–127), often translated as "who watches the watchmen?" <img src="http://www.thefishshow.com/Archive/watchmen-logo.gif" border="0"> Watchmen is set in 1985, in an alternate history United States where costumed adventurers are real and the country is edging closer to a nuclear war with the Soviet Union (the Doomsday Clock is at five minutes to midnight). It tells the story of a group of past and present superheroes and the events surrounding the mysterious murder of one of their own. Watchmen depicts superheroes as real people who must confront ethical and personal issues, who struggle with neuroses and failings, and who—with one notable exception—lack anything recognizable as super powers. Watchmen's conventional superhero archetype, combined with its innovative adaptation of cinematic techniques and heavy use of symbolism, multi-layered dialogue, and metafiction, has influenced both comics and film. The maxi-series Watchmen is composed of twelve chapters. These chapters were originally separate issues of the limited series, which were released sequentially starting in 1986. Each chapter begins with a close-up of the first panel, originally the cover to each issue. Each chapter has an epigraph from classical or pop literature, which appears in abbreviated form early on, and acts as the chapter's heading or title. The quote is given in its entirety at the end of the chapter, summarizing the events that have just occurred.