Before Watchmen: Nite Owl/Dr. Manhattan

by J. Michael Straczynski

Other authors: Adam Hughes (Illustrator), Andy Kubert (Illustrator), Joe Kubert (Illustrator), Eduardo Risso (Illustrator), Bill Sienkiewicz (Illustrator)

Series: Before Watchmen, Before Watchmen: Moloch (1-2), Before Watchmen: Nite Owl (1-4), Before Watchmen: Dr. Manhattan (1-4)

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192	12	142,800	(3.3)	4
Discover what happened before Watchmen as writer J. Michael Straczynski is joined by Andy Kubert and the legendary Joe Kubert to take flight with the gadget-savvy vigilante known as Nite Owl! And then in Before Watchmen: Dr. Manhattan, JMS teams with fan-favorite artist Adam Hughes on the all-powerful super-man Dr. Manhattan. For Dr. Manhattan, past, present, and future are one and the same. But as he observes the events of his life, do they remain the same? Or are they changed? The very fact of his existence may have altered the nature of what will or will not be... Collects Before Watchmen: Nite Owl #1-4 and Before Watchmen: Dr. Manhattan #1-4.… (more)

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freixas | Mar 31, 2023 |

The Dr. Manhattan story-line did some experimentation with formatting and layout, and while I always like to see authors/artists do new weird shit and push boundaries, it didn't push it enough.

Nite Owl's story was pretty stereotypical and rote, complete with being rewarded with the "hooker with the heart of gold" trope. Had some odd scenes with Rorschach that I am not sure entirely fit his characterization in Watchmen.

The Moloch 2-parter was easily the strongest of the 3, and why this gets 2 stars rather than 1. There's a continued theme of the best parts of Before Watchmen being characters with little to no time in the original series. (

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kaitlynn_g | Dec 13, 2020 |

Actually, I gave it 3.5 out of 5 stars, but y'all know GoodReads by now.

You can read my full review of this over at my blog The Itinerant Librarian. A small excerpt from my review:

"I was interested in this volume in part because J. Michael Straczynski was involved; I happen to like his work from Babylon 5, and I have read some of his other work in comics. So, with that said, let's see how this volume fares."

Click the link to read the full review:
http://itinerantlibrarian.blogspot.com/2013/08/booknote-before-watchmen-nite-owl... (

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bloodravenlib | Aug 17, 2020 |

No matter how good the Watchmen prequels were, an unavoidable side effect if you paid attention to them at all was that they'd drag Watchmen back towards being an ordinary superhero comic. Whether or not you believe the original series is a masterpiece, it was singular and self-contained.

And these stories? These are far from good. (

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scarequotes | Jan 23, 2016 |

This volume contains the stories of Dr. Manhattan and Nite Owl. Nite Owl's story featured and focused on Rorschach almost as much as it did Nite Owl and to be honest I liked this version and story better then I did his own book. Dr. Manhattan's story was high science and almost confusing at times, but once I got the hang of it the premise was amazing. Moloch's story was sad but I was glad to see that part of the story filled in. I had always wondered whether he was a willing participant. (

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Rosa.Mill | Nov 21, 2015 |

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Author name	Role	Type of author	Work?	Status
Straczynski, J. Michael	Author	primary author	all editions	confirmed
Hughes, Adam	Illustrator	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Kubert, Andy	Illustrator	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Kubert, Joe	Illustrator	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Risso, Eduardo	Illustrator	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Sienkiewicz, Bill	Illustrator	secondary author	all editions	confirmed

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Canonical title

Before Watchmen: Nite Owl/Dr. Manhattan

Original title

Alternative titles

Original publication date

2013-07-16

People/Characters

Nite Owl (Daniel Dreiberg)

Doctor Manhattan (Jonathan Osterman)

Moloch the Mystic (Edgar Jacobi)

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Important events

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▾Book descriptions

Discover what happened before Watchmen as writer J. Michael Straczynski is joined by Andy Kubert and the legendary Joe Kubert to take flight with the gadget-savvy vigilante known as Nite Owl! And then in Before Watchmen: Dr. Manhattan, JMS teams with fan-favorite artist Adam Hughes on the all-powerful super-man Dr. Manhattan. For Dr. Manhattan, past, present, and future are one and the same. But as he observes the events of his life, do they remain the same? Or are they changed? The very fact of his existence may have altered the nature of what will or will not be... Collects Before Watchmen: Nite Owl #1-4 and Before Watchmen: Dr. Manhattan #1-4.

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