Finally, after months of promotion and waiting for HBO to release one of the series that I had been waiting for the longest as it is a series that gives continuity and somehow follows the story of one of the best comic films that have been made in recent years; Watchmen. Perhaps you think differently from me, you might even consider that Watchmen (the film) is somewhat overrated and that its director Zack Snyder did not manage to highlight all the narrative material that was available, in short you may think thousands of things, but what is impossible to deny is that Watchmen's film is extremely entertaining and has a spectacular narrative because of the tone and dark rhythm that was able to develop to take such a complex story to a point where it was really entertaining.

Watchmen, it represents a universe of different superheroes in every sense, here there are no adored superheroes nor super powerful everywhere, in this universe complexity is the most outstanding breaking point of heroes, human heroes with hundreds of problems.

Before exploring in detail the first recently released chapter of the series I will make you a small recap of the film that contemplates the first step to this great universe of different superheroes.

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The Watchmen Universe (movie)

As this series is made to give continuity to what we saw in the film it is extremely necessary that we understand in detail what this universe is like, a universe where superheroes are not so heroic; they are more masked vigilants who defend the weak in moments of crisis than glamorous men and women used to cause excitement in the public. In the universe of Watchmen those who act as superheroes are not always the best people, many are disturbed people and addicted to violence who wear masks but discharge their anger against those who deserve it, in short common people who also have complex problems.

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In this universe we also have hundreds of political and social conflicts that take over the story constantly and give life to the problems and complexities of the characters, making them land when they should and above all showing them the reality when they lose it. Without forgetting that this world of darkness, political and social debates, and where the air of outbreak is present at all times there is also a really super powerful being capable of everything and that was born from human error to become something superior to all humanity, a being that does not have as a priority to intervene in the affairs of humanity but instead wants to create something different and superior to humanity, something that forces it to withdraw and leave the planet to its fate.

That is basically the universe of Watchmen, a world where there are vigilantes who take charge of distributing justice in moments of social and political crisis, and where there is also the clear presence of a being who could put an end to everything and everyone if he wanted to, a kind of personification of God who chooses to withdraw from the world but who has undoubtedly left his mark on humanity.

Watchmen: It's Summer and We're Running Out of Ice. (S01E01)

As I mentioned at the beginning the series is a direct sequel to the film, but nevertheless it establishes its chronology mainly in the current future to build a new base from which stories can evolve and where new characters take the full protagonism of the plot.

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The series begins abruptly with a kind of flashback where we see a key event that marked the lives of some characters in the series, a racist conflict that shows one of the points that marked this series throughout its chapters, a constantly class struggle that is felt and is evident in all the bars of the first chapter. This chapter advances quickly and when we think that after that beautifully directed flashback we would have some calm we find a scene that goes from being typical and that gives a tremendous turn letting us see that in this more modern version of the universe the policemen wear masks to avoid retaliation of the criminals and that they also see their actions constantly monitored, so much so that they are not even free to use weapons without a meticulous authorization. Finally a policeman arrests a man who apparently was drinking and just when we were about to take the side of the arrested person BOOM! This turns out to be an extremist who ruthlessly shot the policeman while he was asking for the release of his weapon. This first scene was shocking and left me with my mouth open waiting for more to come.

Well, what was to come was the retaliation of a diminished, hidden police system that is constantly forced to look over its shoulder to watch its back and see who is after them, a police system that does not have the authority to act at will to protect itself or to serve others, a police system that is the target of a KKK-style supremacist groups only now wearing a different mask - a mask that reminds us of someone we met in the first film, Rorschach, a man who has apparently become the symbol of the white racists and supremacists who now want to destabilize society.

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Let's continue...

After the attack on the police, the police meet and form an attack group that is in charge of hunting who has wounded them; there we see how the police dynamic is, we see that they are now the ones who are treated as outcasts, now they are the ones who must hide while the terrorists and armed groups are the ones who apparently represent the clamor of society. In short, we can see how are the dynamics and interactions when it comes to investigate something, with psychological interrogations and that are marked and aimed at attacking the senses of the suspects in order to draw conclusions and act. The police apparently manage to discover the lair of the attacker but are received as what they are, enemies of war and therefore begins a battle of sides that ends with all the supremacists killed, something that more than clarifying the picture tarnishes it more because it leaves us with no answers.

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All the events of the chapters are finished with a final scene that leaves us more confused and excited than anything else, a scene where we see how the police captain is hunted like a wild animal and executed, hanged in a tree and with something even stranger than his body bleeding out; an old man in a wheelchair with a message that reminds us of the child from the initial scene.

This first chapter represents the perfection of the pilots episodes, after all it achieves its task in a fantastic way, at least I fell in love with the series and want to know more, I want to know more about why the attacks, why the resurgence of supremacists, the specific reasons that generated chaos in the police system to the point of having to hide and especially why the different strange phenomena that occur. Because perhaps for some it has gone unnoticed but that strange alarm that warns us of the apparent "rain" of some kind of squid or similar creature is extremely disturbing.

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