Parting Shot: Jim Lee's 'Before Watchmen: Nite Owl' #1 Variant Cover

What do you know? I do hate everything Jim Lee does

Dang. Jim and Michael? Potential has hit the fan.

It's...fine. Pretty generic, but I'm glad he didn't do one where he's jumping around rooftops like Batman. I thought Lee's comments regarding his thought process on this piece was interesting. He wanted to depict him with a more realistic body type, as opposed to the broad shouldered types he normally trades in. I can kind of see that, but this is still typical Lee.

Honestly, bad move here. The key to winning over any 'haters' is proving to them that those working on Before Watchmen GET Watchmen and will retain the spirit of the characters. While I do actually like Jim Lee art, this is the worst thing they could have shown.

Its not going to win over any haters, that's for sure.

While the shadow looks like Batman, the costume looks like Owlman - a lot like Quitely's design that was put into the Earth-2 graphic novel he did with Morrison years back (and the design that was used in the animated movie adaptation of the same).

Is that on purpose? 'cause the Kubert original cover doesn't look nearly as much like Owlman as this one does.

Jim Lee has been rehashing his work for years now. This looks any of the characters Jim has drawn in recent years and it's a stylistic issue. All his male/female leads are the same person.

I always thought Nite Owl was more Blue Beetle than brooding Batman...
Jim Lee is an amazing artist but he's too "90's grim & gritty" for this job.

Watchmen is a piece of art held hostage by accountants, suits, attorneys for DC. It's a modern museum piece, deemed too valuable to be returned to the creators as promised. And now, Watchmen is finally being turned into soda pop cans and gum wrappers for the DC machine. Jim Lee has simply joined with the other fanfiction writers and artists involved in this project, unmoved by history, willing to condone what has been done to fellow creators, and making money off Alan Moore's creativity.

For all the pleasure that I've gotten from the work of Alan Moore over the years, for his place in comic history, for his and Dave Gibbons' swindling at the hands of DC corporate, and for the willingness of DC to abuse their ownership of this purloined art, for these reasons, I'm not going to buy any of these books. But if you really feel you must read these things or look at the art, I urge you to pirate them.

Pelvic thruuuust....

This is so awful. Aren't there enough "badass" vigilantes out there?