The third issue of Before Watchmen: Minutemen shifts most of the focus to Ursula Zandt (aka The Silhouette) and her battle with a child sex trafficking ring. Her friendship with Hollis Mason is spotlighted as well. It’s interesting to see the Silhouette’s story filled out since it was left wide-open in the original book.
The Comedian (Eddie Blake) is the other focal point of issue #3. Readers are shown how Blake was kicked out of the Minutemen after the attempted rape of Sally Jupiter (Silk Spectre). His in-fighting with the group and work after being ousted is also explored.
How Darwyn Cooke keeps up with the art and scripting of this book month-to-month is beyond me. While most titles of the Watchmen prequels are handled by separate writers and artists, Cooke handles both duties successfully. At least he knows he’s getting exactly what he had in mind when illustrating the book from his own narrative.
The newest chapter of The Curse of the Crimson Corsair reveals if the pirate specters our castaway Gordon McClachlan is seeing are real or hallucinations brought on by injuries or sickness. If he is hallucinating, could reality be just as bad? John Higgins continues to fly solo with part three of “The Evil That Men Do…”
Before Watchmen: Minutemen Issue #3 is another exciting and insightful addition to the world Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons, and John Higgins created. I grow more and more impressed every week with DC and the creative teams of this prequel event. It must be hard to keep such a level of perfection up from one week to the next. Before Watchmen: Minutemen will make an excellent graphic novel companion to place next to the original on your bookshelf when all the separate issues are compiled together.
