Re-reading Watchmen

As Dave Gibbons, co-creator (with Alan Moore) of Watchmen, publishes a book charting the famous comic book's creation, in The Times Jonathan Ross reflects on re-reading the original.

I'm tempted to declare it Moore's most successful creation - a story that delivers as entertainment on a level playing field with the very best superhero epics out there*. But what makes this a genre-transcending bona fide masterpiece is that, alongside the pulse-pounding action and suspense, the soap-opera style romantic dilemmas and the story of some good but misguided people trying to apply simple remedies to complex maladies, Moore and Gibbons also manage to deliver a devastating critique that cuts to the very heart of the pitiful, timid male fantasy that is the superhero genre at its purest and worst: muscular men and busty women in tight costumes solving all the world's problems with a well-placed punch or a blast of super-breath.