Rating: - Well executed but pretentious and pointless
Obviously, Watchmen was a landmark achievement. The narrative complexity, the "realism" and the more-thoughtful-than-average consideration of what superheroes would do to the world were they to really exist all make Watchmen shine.

But if you peel away all of the glamor and try and figure out what the work is really about, what it really says, you'll be disappointed. The self-destructive nature of man that sets the stage for the whole drama, as expressed by the imminent apocalypse, may have been convincing in 1985 but after the fall of the Soviet Union, it's hard to buy in to. History sure seems to have sided with the United States. The nuclear stand-off ended peacefully. Perhaps Moore is mocking those who thought that there could be no peaceful resolution. Given his other views and works (re conspiracy theories, cia secret missions) it seems he really bought into it. I'm sorry for him that he didn't have a chance to say, "I told you so."

As a student of physics, the made-up science stuff always makes me cringe and Dr Manhattan was no exception. When I understood that Moore introduced Dr Manhattan as a way to ask the question, "What would a truly SUPER hero do to global politics?" I was more forgiving. When I realized that all he wanted to say was that all political entities should always have exactly equal powers, my stomach started to turn again.

Dramatically, though, I think that the total suspension of the physical laws of nature for Dr Manhattan while everyone else was bound to all that and more (psychic shock wave??? come on!) made for a fundamentally unbelieavable story. A bit of suspended disbelief is expected but having two sets of rules for the universe simultaneously operating and affecting one and other??? Of course, he has artistic license but then again, I have the ability to stop caring about the story when it becomes too ridiculous.

SPOILER WARNING
So, was Ozymandias right? Why would a momentary external threat erase millenia of conflict between people? Ozymandias' plan was supposedly going to end all conflict including the simple inter-personal street conflicts taking place on the street. He is presented as "the smartest man in the world" and then has this infantile naive idea of how to solve the worlds' problems a la the gordian knot. No justification is given for how one small catastrophe could so easily change human nature. And yet, Ozymandias and Dr Manhattan, the characters that have been presented as being wiser than all others think that it would work. If Moore meant to mock everyone in his universe, then I agree. But if he really buys into this drivel, and it seems that he does, the ideas that he is presenting are SO childish and ridiculous, they are insulting to be exposed to.

The beginning of Watchmen showed great promise. Fascinating characters, a sort of puzzle--piecing together all of the heroes' pasts, some intelligence, fun references, detailed images. But the story gets more and more ridiculous and when Moore starts to actually reveal what the real story is, the reader is hit with a two-headed attack: [1] he has had to go through so many suspensions of disbelief that he doesn't really care anymore and [2] the "real story" is so patently absurd that the reader wishes he hadn't discovered it.

One might claim that I "didn't get it." I just think that ultimately, there isn't much in it to get. And what there is is either obvious or obviously stupid. Maybe I should re-read it. Frankly, I regret having read it once.

If you're interested in the issues broached in Watchmen, about superheros in the real world and don't want to feel insulted and bored by the end of the work, don't waste your time with this drivel. Just watch "The Dark Knight." (If you must waste as much time as it took me to read this book, watch it a few times. And maybe throw in "Batman Begins" as well.) Nolan obviously was influenced by Watchmen but created a much finer, more intelligent and less painful-to-experience work of art.