So I’m pretty excited about this movie. I have a bit of a problem with this essay, which basically argues that Watchmen failed in its project to get ride of superheroes. Fine, maybe it did, if that was its project. I certainly agree that superheroes create moral complications that remain unexamined in the vast majority of comics, and that the superficiality of grit and gore has come to function for what ought to be psychological depth–despite the fact that the Watchmen comic had both. Yes. That’s true. But analysis like this misses the point that people really, really like superheroes–we always have!–and to say that superheroes are ultimately destructive is not to say that they’re not interesting or fun to talk about or beautiful. Go back to Achilles–that dude almost lost the war for the Trojans, but he made for a good story.