there certainly isn't [a hero] within the Watchmen

I think you might be able to make a case for Hollis Mason. Much good that it did him...

If you're stuck in a foxhole with Rorshach he is probably just as likely to kill you as the enemy is.

I just realized that the guy who plays the Comedian is the main character in the cable show Magic City.

I think that misses the point, which is that there are no heroes, and there certainly isn't one within the Watchmen.

That may have been Moore's point, but he doesn't get to exercise veto power over how his work is interpreted. Moore created a narrative that pitted a smug, treacherous jerk who wants to rule the world (for the greater good of course) and is willing to kill millions to make it happen vs. a crazy vigilante who is willing to fight to the death to stop him. Nothing could be more predictable than for people to MAKE the latter the hero of that narrative, no matter how flawed or crazy he may be.

Sure, Moore may have been making one of those navel-gazing arguments about how "we are none of us heroes, for behold the flaws inherent among men!", but it betrays a fundamental misunderstand of how people respond to stories. Human brains are sorting and categorizing machines, and most people will sort Rorschach into the "less bad" pile when you put him next to Ozymandias. He becomes a hero by default.

Look at it this way: Ozymandias is akin to a Stalin or Mao, or perhaps Ghengis Khan. To him, the slaughter of millions is justifiable because of the greater unity/peace/etc. that that would allow him to bring to the world. (A grandiose vision worthy of someone who would call himself Ozymandias, no?) Rorschach, on the other hand, is somewhere between a terrorist and a serial killer — not someone you should root for. In many ways, Ozymandias is just Rorschach with vision. A world run by Rorschach would be a terrifying place, but unlike Ozymandias, Rorschach just doesn't have the brains to carry that off.

Rorschach certainly had strong (and scary) beliefs about right and wrong, but I'd argue he was less ambitious than Ozymandias (and less capable, both physically and mentally), and that's what makes all the difference. Rorschach was largely content to beat up, and occasionally kill, criminals and assorted low lifes. He wasn't willing (or able) to attempt to re-make the world in an image that pleased him. The average law abiding citizen had nothing to fear from Rorschach... not so Ozymandias.

Really? I think the Comedian is the only one who it's impossible to like.

He might be tough to outright like, but you should at least be able to respect him, if for no other reason than that he's the most honest one of them all (except maybe Jon, who's so honest he's not really human anymore). He didn't manipulate others or pretend to be motivated by ideals that he didn't hold. He knew what he was and why he did the things that he did, and while his life wasn't happy or fulfilling, it was the best life that a nihilist like him knew how to live.

Ozy's "I did it 30 minutes ago" is the most stunning moment in any from of fiction I've seen. Perhaps, in retrospect, I should have seen it coming, but it was like running full speed into a brick wall.

Rorschach is based on "superheros" who are above the law, and do whatever they want to achieve what they think is right. That he isn't a good guy is Moore's commentary on those characters, but to be compared to them, he has to have the same general role in the narrative.

I think you're absolutely right. I'm biased because I take the same dim view of characters like Punisher. My love of comics began to wane with the popular rise of murderous anti-heroes and the efforts to mold classic characters into cynical, lethal new ones.

To finish my thought (I've thought about this a lot; yes, I really love comic books) this is why the Comedian had to die, why Ozymandias had to kill him. The Comedian was the one who inadvertently taught Ozymandias that the world was going to hell regardless of how superheroic the Watchmen were. If you had to distill it,
• The Comedian sees chaos around him and revels in it
• Rorschach sees chaos around him, hates it, and wants to beat it back
• Ozymandias sees the chaos and wants to change it

Only Dr. Manhattan is able to rise above and realize that all these attempts by these little men to control their little world is going to fail. The only characters who find any fulfillment at all are Nite Owl and Silk Spectre, because those are the only two of the group who managed to make an actual human connection with each other outside of their masks.

Behind, but from the flip -

If the chips were down and you had to be stuck in a foxhole with one of those two guys, I'm guessing most readers would pick Rorschach.

Yes, but what percentage of people have ended up or WILL end up stuck in a foxhole with anyone, ever? Basing your judgment on that seems a worse disconnect than any of Moore's.

Nothing could be more predictable than for people to MAKE the latter the hero of that narrative, no matter how flawed or crazy he may be.

Yes and he wants you to examine that tendency in people to do just that.

That may have been Moore's point, but he doesn't get to exercise veto power over how his work is interpreted. Moore created a narrative that pitted a smug, treacherous jerk who wants to rule the world (for the greater good of course) and is willing to kill millions to make it happen vs. a crazy vigilante who is willing to fight to the death to stop him. Nothing could be more predictable than for people to MAKE the latter the hero of that narrative, no matter how flawed or crazy he may be.

I don't think Moore's comments are to tell people who they should like. Rather, I think he's expressing disappointment that audiences seemed incapable of making judgements beyond "good guy" and "bad guy" (or "bad guy" and "less bad guy", if you wish). Rorschach saw the world (literally) in terms of black and white; Moore created a world where every issue was drenched in shades of gray.

Rorschach was largely content to beat up, and occasionally kill, criminals and assorted low lifes. He wasn't willing (or able) to attempt to re-make the world in an image that pleased him.

I think he absolutely would have been willing to do that. Capability was the only thing stopping him.

Nothing could be more predictable than for people to MAKE the latter the hero of that narrative, no matter how flawed or crazy he may be.

Yes and he wants you to examine that tendency in people to do just that.

::shrug:

If so, than it's just "old man yelling at kids on lawn" type stuff. People are people and they're gonna do the #### that people do.

But I don't believe that's the case. Moore was surprised and appalled that people viewed Rorschach as the hero of the story. He wasn't doing what you're suggesting he was.

I've thought about this a lot

It shows, man. Your posts in this thread are legitimately impressive.

It does not speak well of me that my deepest contributions to BTF are comments on comic books and The Doors.

Moore was surprised and appalled that people viewed Rorschach as the hero of the story.

I don't think he was surprised and appalled by the fact that people were, but rather by the number of people that were, which is a little bit different.

What Vlad said. The Watchmen gets a lot of ink about how it approached comic books and comic book themes. So you'd think that fans of the book would look a little deeper than simply the surface.

It's right around here (actually, on page two) where my girlfriend commented that "...you baseball nerds are the wordiest nerds that ever nerded."

sorry to hijack the thread back to original topic, but tj simers is in the LA times today asking a lot of questions about the ownership group and generally p1ssing all over everybody in it.

i know this makes some peoples' heads spin, but imho he really is doing a good job of trying to get these guys to be accountable.

It's right around here (actually, on page two) where my girlfriend commented that "...you baseball nerds are the wordiest nerds that ever nerded."

I'm the best around.
Nothing's gonna ever keep me down!

"We tried to set up four or five radically opposing ways of seeing the world and let the readers figure it out for themselves; let them make a moral decision for once in their miserable lives! Too many writers go for that “baby bird” moralising, where your audience just sits there with their beaks open and you just cram regurgitated morals down their throat. Heroes don’t work that way anymore… although I think Frank Miller would disagree with me on that. What we wanted to do was show all of these people, warts and all. Show that even the worst of them had something going for them, and even the best of them had their flaws." - Alan Moore in 1988

I'm greatly enjoying this discussion; while I agree with Vlad and co.'s side, I am also finding Good Face's points compelling.

That said, are we all thinking too deeply about why the masses like Rorschach the best? Isn't it because he looks the coolest? It might really be that shallow a reason.

The average law abiding citizen had nothing to fear from Rorschach... not so Ozymandias.

Are you sure about that? Rorschach brutally murdered or maimed several police officers. Rorschach's "laws" didn't coincide with society's.

------

The only characters who find any fulfillment at all are Nite Owl and Silk Spectre, because those are the only two of the group who managed to make an actual human connection with each other outside of their masks.

Yes!

Really? I think the Comedian is the only one who it's impossible to like.

Well, you are not a teenage boy full of angst, sexual frustration, and nihilism, are you? One hopes that by the time they turn 17 or so and read Ayn Rand they move on to Rorshach, for his "integrity" and "unwillingness to compromise".

Maybe if they aren't dead in a gang fight or war at 26 they start to understand Watchmen. Of course this doesn't apply to you higher evolved types.

I think the tell that Moore anticipated the audience's reaction to Rorschach is that one self-referential page with the Veidt Enterprises concept art of the action figures of the various characters, including Rorschach. IIRC, Veidt vetoes the Rorschach figure not because he thinks people wouldn't buy them, or because it's distasteful to profit from the crimes of a serial killer, but because he's not sure that they'd be able to secure the rights to the likeness.

Are you sure about that? Rorschach brutally murdered or maimed several police officers. Rorschach's "laws" didn't coincide with society's.

From the perspective of Rorschach, and more importantly the audience, that was justified resistance against obstructive authority. Rorschach (and the audience) are privy to information the cops aren't and we've been conditioned through years of action movies that resisting/eluding arrest, even violently if need be, does not put a hero across the moral event horizon.

A big reason why I think Rorschach has the audience support he does is that the vast majority of his violence is directed against ####### victims. Criminals, costumed villains, convicts, guys hanging out in designated bad guy bars, etc. If instead of torturing some random thugs in a seedy bar, he instead broke into a middle class home and brutalized some guy (who wound up knowing nothing) in front of his wife and kids, that would have been much more effective IMO. Instead he comes off as a fairly typical anti-hero. A violent, dangerous guy, but one who restricts his violence to socially acceptable targets. Audiences generally like those type of characters.

That said, are we all thinking too deeply about why the masses like Rorschach the best? Isn't it because he looks the coolest? It might really be that shallow a reason.

That's certainly one of them. Rorschach is a wildly extreme case, but the fundamental characteristics of the classic comic book hero is all there:
- Worked in a group/with a partner, but general a loner
- Vigilante
- Detective skills
- No super powers, but excellent combatant
- Awesome mask/costume
- Awesome name

Rorschach recalls outlaw heroes like Zorro, Robin Hood, the Lone Ranger, Sherlock Holmes, Batman. Cinematically, he recalls Sergio Leone's Man With No Name, The Searchers' Ethan Edwards, and Taxi Driver's Travis Bickle. These are all great, great characters, extremely attractive as heroes (and anti-heroes) — and that's the trap. Moore takes all these familiar, comfortable character elements of a classic hero creature and twists them into a hateful, spiteful, ugly man, so ugly inside and out that he can't even stand the sight of himself without the mask. He despises women, gays, liberals, the rich, the middle class, the educated, cops, anyone who is happy with their lives. Anyone who doesn't fight — like his ex-partner Nite Owl — has "given up." He fights because he doesn't know how NOT to fight, and he's uncompromising because he can't find the middle ground in anything.

He's an utterly compelling character, and he's the reason why Watchmen works. He pushes the story — he's the one who discovers that the Comedian was murdered, he's the one who reaches out to the rest of the Watchmen, he's the one who pulls Nite Owl back into costume, he's the one who uncovers Ozymandias' plot. It's only natural that so many fans would finger him as the "hero" of the story. I would say he's the protagonist, but not a hero. It's an important difference.

Good Face, I can't tell what your point is. Is your point that Moore actually wrote a hero when he wrote Rorschach? Or that he should've predicted that people who didn't think very deeply about the piece would latch onto him as the hero? If you just mean the second, are you saying that he should've written it otherwise because it is too easy to read Rorschach as a real hero?

I can't tell when you're making claims about how good Rorschach is and when you're making claims about how people read him. I'm mostly uninterested in whether people who don't think deeply enough about Watchmen read Rorschach as a respectable hero or not; I'm interested in exactly how heroic Rorschach was, and the answer is: not very.

If instead of torturing some random thugs in a seedy bar, he instead broke into a middle class home and brutalized some guy (who wound up knowing nothing) in front of his wife and kids, that would have been much more effective IMO.

How about a feeble old man with cancer, who got into some trouble in his youth but hasn't broken any laws in years?

Good Face, I can't tell what your point is. Is your point that Moore actually wrote a hero when he wrote Rorschach? Or that he should've predicted that people who didn't think very deeply about the piece would latch onto him as the hero? If you just mean the second, are you saying that he should've written it otherwise because it is too easy to read Rorschach as a real hero?

Moore has expressed dismay/disgust that so many people view Rorschach as a hero. My point is simply that based on the way Rorschach is written, it is utterly unsurprising that the audience sees him as such, and I don't think that applies only to people who "didn't think very deeply". Dirty Harry, the Punisher, any number of Charles Bronson characters all preceeded Watchmen, and all were popular. Rorschach is just a particularly well done version (see #226) of that type of anti-hero.

I can't tell when you're making claims about how good Rorschach is and when you're making claims about how people read him. I'm mostly uninterested in whether people who don't think deeply enough about Watchmen read Rorschach as a respectable hero or not; I'm interested in exactly how heroic Rorschach was, and the answer is: not very.

Rorschach is as good (or bad) as how the people reading him determine him to be. The general (and unsurprising) consensus is that he's preferable to Ozymandias. I think that's the most reasonable interpretation based on how Moore wrote the characters, which is why I've consistently said the issue here is with Moore, not the readers. IMO the shades of grey were too easily distinguished.

Dirty Harry usually shot the guys who talked like Rorschach.

Rorschach is as good (or bad) as how the people reading him determine him to be. The general (and unsurprising) consensus is that he's preferable to Ozymandias. I think that's the most reasonable interpretation based on how Moore wrote the characters, which is why I've consistently said the issue here is with Moore, not the readers. IMO the shades of grey were too easily distinguished.

People think lots of dumb stuff. It's not at all clear to me that he's preferable to Ozymandias, and a general view that he obviously is reflects, I think, a general failure to be clear about a variety of moral issues. I am perhaps inclined to see such a general failure, because I teach ethics and see that general failure in my students every day.

As far as Rorschach being as good or bad as the people reading him determine him to be, I think that's false. Rorschach is as good or bad as the actions he takes justify. The fact that people might be inclined to read him as better than he is because he is evocative of other characters, better than he, does not make Rorschach better; it just means people were deceived by things that were similar in some general ways but different in some critical ways.

EDIT: Don't take this as a claim that in fact, the Punisher, Dirty Harry, etc, were on balance praiseworthy. To figure that out, we've gotta get clear on which version of the character we're talking about, what exactly they did, etc. The point is that people can fail to make the right moral assessment of fictional characters because of facts that have very little to do with the moral status of that fictional character, and insofar as people think they recognize in Rorschach an archetype that is praiseworthy, they are making exactly that kind of mistake.

"FJ: Looking back at Ozymandias making this decision “I will kill so many million people to save the world” one thing that struck me is that when Dr Manhattan teleports the people away from the riot and kills 2 of them he says that’s okay because many more people would have died, and Rorschach, in his essay…
AM: About Truman.
FJ: Yes—about Hiroshima—says “I’m glad they dropped bombs on Hiroshima because lots more people would have been killed”.
AM: Yes, more people would have died.
FJ: So although they’re diametrically opposed in one way, they’ve all made this same statement, they’ve all made this same decision… but only Ozymandias has followed it through.
AM: The thing with Rorschach was intentional. He mentions President Truman on the first page of Watchmen and there is that brief essay which ends up saying “I think President Truman was right to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, and that’s all I have to say about my parents”, and so, you know… that was a pretty common thought, that Truman was right to drop the bomb for that reason. Rorschach is—at least at that point in his life, where he still believes in God…
SW: He’s living very emotionally.
FJ: And he still believes in Daddy being an aide to President Truman and… a fantasy life.
AM: But at the end of the book, Ozymandias—who does this awful thing to New York… which is really, by extension, no more horrible than Hiroshima—you’ve got that parallel there.
FJ: It’s only the degree that differs, it’s not the act—because they’ve already done it."

-from a 2006 roundtable discussion on Watchmen

FJ is comics journalist Fiona Jerome, AM is Alan Moore, and SW is artist Steve Whitaker (who worked with Moore on "V for Vendetta").

If instead of torturing some random thugs in a seedy bar, he instead broke into a middle class home and brutalized some guy (who wound up knowing nothing) in front of his wife and kids, that would have been much more effective IMO.


How about a feeble old man with cancer, who got into some trouble in his youth but hasn't broken any laws in years?

Rorschach was heroically trying to fight the cancer. With his fists.

Rorschach was heroically trying to fight the cancer. With his fists.

"Stop metastasizing, you!" Pow! Right in the tumor!

Rorschach was heroically trying to fight the cancer. With his fists.

So you had me all intellectually engaged in this serious conversation, and this made me burst out laughing.

Dirty Harry, the Punisher, any number of Charles Bronson characters all preceeded Watchmen, and all were popular. Rorschach is just a particularly well done version (see #226) of that type of anti-hero.

I agree, but there's an important difference between the above and Rorschach. Even Dirty Harry has lines he won't cross. Bronson's Death Wish character isn't driven by hate, but by the loss of love, as is the Punisher, the "just man in an unjust world" character. Those characters (even the loathsome Punisher) care about a justice greater than themselves. I'm not sure that Rorschach, the one that we experience through the investigation of the Comedian's death, has that type of vision.

(The comic hints that Rorschach was very different before a kidnapping case that ended in a horrific fashion. There's a Rorschach comic mini-series that's supposed to come out later this year that tells the stories of the Watchmen before the Alan Moore storylines take place — Moore is not involved and has objected to it.)

The point is that people can fail to make the right moral assessment of fictional characters because of facts that have very little to do with the moral status of that fictional character, and insofar as people think they recognize in Rorschach an archetype that is praiseworthy, they are making exactly that kind of mistake.

I was having trouble articulating this exact thought. This is exactly it.

People think lots of dumb stuff. It's not at all clear to me that he's preferable to Ozymandias, and a general view that he obviously is reflects, I think, a general failure to be clear about a variety of moral issues. I am perhaps inclined to see such a general failure, because I teach ethics and see that general failure in my students every day.

They do indeed, although it's wrong to project that onto your poor students.

Rorschach was heroically trying to fight the cancer. With his fists.

Thumbs up.

"FJ: Looking back at Ozymandias making this decision “I will kill so many million people to save the world” one thing that struck me is that when Dr Manhattan teleports the people away from the riot and kills 2 of them he says that’s okay because many more people would have died, and Rorschach, in his essay…
AM: About Truman.
FJ: Yes—about Hiroshima—says “I’m glad they dropped bombs on Hiroshima because lots more people would have been killed”.

At the end of the story, Ozymandias celebrates because we see the nations of the world uniting against a common perceived threat. Because of Ozymandias's plot, wars end on the spot. The other three Watchmen — Nite Owl, Spectre, Manhattan — compromise, and agree to keep secret what happened. Only Rorschach does not, because Rorschach isn't capable of making compromises.

That's why Rorschach takes his mask of in the end. Rorschach can't — doesn't want to — live in a world where Ozymandias's gigantic lie brings about peace and goodwill, and he knows that he can't stop it from happening. By taking his mask off at the end, Rorschach commits suicide, and all that's left is for Walter Kovacs to be obliterated by Manhattan.

From the same roundtable as before:

SW: I’d really like to know why Osterman lies… well, he doesn’t exactly lie, he withholds the truth about Rorschach from Veidt.
AM: He doesn’t mention it.
SW: Veidt says something like “What about Rorschach?” and Osterman says “I doubt if he’ll reach civilisation”. He doesn’t say “Don’t worry, I’ve just blasted him to atoms”…it comes across as a mercy killing.
AM: It’s almost a mercy killing. When I was writing that bit where Veidt and Osterman sort of confront each other at the end and have that conversation, Dr Manhattan put it that way because, I would imagine that he realised that put otherwise it could possibly make things worse for Dan and Laurie: they’ve already got the death of an entire city to carry round with them in their heads and never tell anyone about for the rest of their lives. It was a small act of mercy so they could believe that Rorschach had just wandered out alone and died.
DG: Although I think that Veldt would have calculated the probability… and, really, there was nowhere else for Rorschach to go.
SW: He knows he’s going to die.
DG: In that situation he could only die.
SW: I know we’re given ample demonstration of what a psycho and what a sociopath he is, but this almost makes him the hero of the story.
AM: We tried to make it so that all of them are the heroes. Like, Rorschach is, definitely, in that he never steps out of character—apart from that moment when you see him cry and he says “Go on—do it!”
[...]
DG: The people who have the situation summed up at the very end—namely Ozymandias, Rorschach and Dr Manhattan—all know that something like the scene in the snow was going to happen. So the death scene was something both Osterman and Rorschach knew they were going to have to play out. Rorschach is just saying “You’ve got to do it so just do it!”
AM: He knows in issue 8. “I don’t expect to come back; I feel cold tonight”.
SW: He finishes his diary.
AM: Yeah, that’s it.

DG is Dave Gibbons, the artist for Watchmen.

One more bit, which seems relevant and may be of interest:

MS: One of the things I was interested in—getting on to the politics of it—was that you’ve said the hero is Ozymandias, who saves the world and sets it onto a new course—a very positive one from what we see in the concluding pages. Now, he’s doing that through a benevolent dictatorship. It probably doesn’t seem so but he’s manipulating, controlling the whole world.
SW: With his role model revealed as Alexander the Great…
MS: So he’s achieved what he wanted to. But in another way the hero—the one who refuses to compromise—is Rorschach. They’re the two clearest cases—far clearer than Dr Manhattan, say. Now, to me, from whet I know of your politics that’s pretty contrary to your own ideas, Alan.
AM: Yes, but I’d be a pretty poor writer if all the characters that I did reflected my own politics. All the characters in Watchmen have a bit of me in them. I mean, Dr Manhattan has, Rorschach has and Veidt has .. … Probably Dan and Laurie as well, to a degree. Amongst the many other things I was trying to say in Watchmen was just that in this world we live in, with all its disparate characters and ambitions there are probably no two people who want the same thing. The world doesn’t work like that anyway. If there’s a central line in Watchmen it’s “Who makes the world?” Then again, that’s just my opinion. I’m sure other readers can find lines that are more meaningful to them, to me that’s the core of it: you’ve got all these vast powers—and Rorschach is a vast power in his own way just as Veidt is a vast financial power and Osterman’s a vast physical power. You’ve got ordinary people just muddling along, you’ve got people who don’t know what the fuck’s happening which is, like, most of humanity. You’ve got the Nixons and all this sort of stuff but… Who makes the world? Is the world really under the control of its most powerful people or are they just part of the design, the same as the rest?

MS is the late Martin Skidmore, who wrote about comics in a bunch of different venues.

Even though I disagree with Good Face, I think there's at least a grain of truth to some of the stuff he's saying about the audience having the right to decide who's good and who's bad on their own. I just think Moore is disappointed that so many of them aren't thinking about it more deeply before picking... they're arriving at a reasonable destination, but taking the wrong road to get there.

Talking about Rorschach reminds me a line from Braveheart --

You admire this man, this William Wallace. Uncompromising men are easy to admire. He has courage; so does a dog.

I came to Watchmen fairly late -- I stopped reading comics in the late 80's when I started moving around (India; Phoenix; Salt Lake City; Honolulu) -- a friend got me the trade paperback just as the movie came out.

I have enjoyed reading about the themes expressed here, it actually gives me a deeper insight into the comic. But I always had a problem with Alan Moore's political worldview, even in the alternate world he set up. Is it funny or ironic that his view of the world as being held in balance between the two implacable superpowers was going to be wholly upended by the sudden collapse of the Soviet system?

Avengers has $100 million in its second weekend, a first for movies, and has done $1 Billion worldwide.

Marvel did a fantastic job with this buildup in introducing the characters that would appear in this film. I think I loved every choice they've made along the way.

So next we have Iron Man 3, sequels to Thor and Cap and the Avengers sequel, probably in 2015. There is an Ant-Man script that Edgar Wright is working on with Marvel. That could be fun. There is also talk of Dr. Strange, Inhumans and Guardians of the Galaxy. Those are interesting choices. It's not like Marvel can just stamp their name on a project and it will be a hit.

Charge 12 dollars or more for a ticket and it it going to happen more often.

I think I loved every choice they've made along the way.

You loved the Hulk movie?

I did. I actually like things.

Charge 12 dollars or more for a ticket and it it going to happen more often.

Average national movie ticket price in 2011 was $7.93.


There is also talk of Dr. Strange, Inhumans and Guardians of the Galaxy.

Dr. Strange would be awesome, if done well, although that's gotta be a big "if". Inhumans would be very fun, Guardians of the Galaxy far less so, IMO. It seems there would be a lot better choices than the Guardians, who basically no one knows. I would die if someone decided to go full-bore batshit with a Defenders movie.

The best-known and most prominent Defenders are Doctor Strange, the Hulk, Namor the Sub-Mariner, the Silver Surfer, Valkyrie, Nighthawk, and Hellcat. Many other heroes worked with the team in its original incarnation, and several became official members. Notable associate members include Clea, Hawkeye, Son of Satan, Luke Cage (Power Man), Red Guardian, Gargoyle, Devil-Slayer, Moondragon, the Beast, Iceman, and Angel.

Or, just use the brand new series:

Marvel launched a new Defenders series in December 2011, written by Matt Fraction and drawn by Terry Dodson. The new book features Doctor Strange, Hulk, Red She-Hulk, Namor, the Silver Surfer and Iron Fist.

It would actually be a good place for the Hulk to end up after the Dr. Strange movie, if no one feels like having him carry his own film.

Average national movie ticket price in 2011 was $7.93.

Which just means that almost everybody is paying a much higher price than that to see a major release like The Avengers.

New York City-Regal: $14
DC-Regal: $12
Chicago-Regal: $11.50
Philadelphia-Regal: $11.50
LA-Regal: $13.50
San Diego-Regal: $12.00

Suburbs?
Naperville-Regal: $9.25
Conshohocken&King; of Prussia-Regal: $11.50
Fishkill-Regal: $10.00

And that isn't for 3D or IMAX. That is to watch the Avengers tonight on a small little theater screen.

Isnt Dreiberg the hero? Or at least the morally relatable character? And completely useless, for what it worth.