Before Watchmen: Moloch by Eduardo Risso
Although the Before Watchmen titles have been met with controversy and criticism, they’ve been a huge success so far with current titles selling out and now we have word of an addition to the Before Watchmen line – Before Watchmen: Moloch!
Before Watchmen: Moloch will be a two issue story written by J. Michael Straczynski (Before Watchmen: Nite Owl, Before Watchmen: Dr. Manhattan) and drawn by Eduardo Risso (100 Bullets) with the first issue hitting shops on November 7 and the second issue to hit shelves December 26.
Apparently, Straczynski had already finished and turned in his scripts for the other Before Watchmen titles he was working on when Dan Didio saw an opportunity to have him write a short miniseries based around the short-live, but influential, character.
“In our early conversations, Dan [DiDio] indicated that he really wanted to explore Moloch because he’s central to the mythology of the original “Watchmen,” even though only see him at the end of his life, and the rest is just a few facts and dates tossed around in text or dialogue. He would’ve liked to have included this from the git-go, but felt that everybody was maxed out on what was already on our plates. Fortunately, I got my scripts finished, done and in before anybody else, and long before they were due, so when I was done Dan asked if I’d be willing, and of course I said yes.”
Straczynski explains his plans for the character as a way to give Moloch a serious history:
“Most of what we know from the material in the first book is expressed in narrative, in bits and pieces in “Under the Hood” and elsewhere — we don’t actually see any of it, and thus we don’t understand the why of the what. Yes, we know he went through all these changes, but what prompted it? How did it happen and what did it mean? I wanted to give his history the same serious treatment we were giving to all the heroic characters.”
At this time, more issues of Before Watchmen have been published than its predecessor (Watchmen was only 12 issues) and a concern is that maybe these characters are being spread too thin? To that Straczynski replies,
“A character is stretched too thin when you can’t tell any more good stories about them, and with the Watchmen characters, we’ve barely scratched the surface, even though I kinda doubt they’re going to go back to the well on this again too often or too soon.”
