Friday, October 23, 2015

Long odds.

There is a scene in Alan Moore's uneven-but-sometimes-brilliant Watchmen that has always stuck with me.

Long story short: Watchmen is set in an alternate 1985 where superheroes exist. The most powerful of them is Doctor Manhattan, a godlike superbeing accidentally created during a nuclear experiment gone wrong. His powers give the United States an advantage in the Cold War, and we take it, keeping the Soviet Union cowed. His powers have also left him detached from humanity, almost amoral.

The American advantage ends. Manhattan flees the Earth after being told that his powers have given those around him cancer. It turns out that this is part of a sweeping conspiracy involving the murder of superheroes which also has some unexplained connection to the resurgent Cold War. Manhattan also decides humanity is beneath his concern and he cares nothing for the fact that the world is tottering towards nuclear war.

Manhattan brings Laurie Juspeczyk (his former girlfriend) to Mars (it's not like he needs to breathe) to try to persuade him to help address the plot and save the Earth. He declines. Then he learns that Laurie's biological father was an important superhero murdered early in the film and...one who had unsuccessfully tried to assault her mother a few years before she was born. Laurie is horrified, but the Doctor takes a different view:


If you are unfamiliar with the book, the smiley face at the end is an ironic logo worn by Laurie's superhero father.

All of this brings me in a very, very roundabout and desperately geeky way to announce that today is our sixteenth wedding anniversary.

It is, quite truly, a miracle. As are our children. Any number of decisions--or indecisions--would have deflected us away from each other. And yet here we are. The same holds for you, dear reader, whether you are in a relationship or not. Your very existence is so unlikely that you should marvel at it from time to time.

I love you, Sweetheart. Here's to us, and our miracle.

5 comments:

  1. Congratulations on your anniversary. Another time, and perhaps I'll engage you in a discussion about Watchmen and Comic Books. I, too, was a geek once.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Congrats from me too.
    At one time, in my mis-spent youth, after sowing what little oats I had, I prayed and asked the Holy Mother to send me a woman who'd be by wife and raise my smelly kids. She did and 25 years of sacramental marriage later we are still happily together.

    I liked the movie sorta. I thought the casting was great and the soundtrack equally great. Didn't like the smutty parts. Still don't.

    Enjoyed the Watchmen book much, much better. maybe we can talk about how some of Alan Moore's finest got hacked in the movies.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Happy Anniversary!!! October is a beautiful month for weddings (not that there is any bad one). Ours was 10-9-82. Golden color all around; you are not far from us, as Midwesterners reckon distance, so I hope you're seeing similar, to further sweeten your celebration of your miracle!-from Sybil Marshall

    ReplyDelete
  4. Never heard of it, but I agree with your conclusion. Congratulations!

    ReplyDelete

Be reasonably civil. Ire alloyed with reason is fine. But slagging the host gets you the banhammer.

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