'Watchmen' Episode 6 slips in quick nod to comics legend Grant Morrison who famously claimed to have hated Alan Moore's original comics
HBO's 'Watchmen' is famous for its Easter eggs and in Episode 6 'This Extraordinary Being', we got a reference that only the most eagle-eyed comic book fans would recognize. The reference, however, isn't to the works of Alan Moore, but another legendary comic book writer, Grant Morrison.
In the very first scene of the episode, we see two investigators listing out some of the villains whom Hooded Justice sent to prison. Among the list of names is one that immediately caught our attention: King Mob, one of the lead characters in Grant Morrison's epic graphic novel series 'The Invisibles'.
Morrison created King Mob as an idealized version of himself, a psychedelic magician and counter-culture terrorist. The character isn't directly connected to 'Watchmen' in any way even though there was an unseen minor character of that name in the comics. So it's not likely to be of much importance, but it's still a nice nod to the greater world of comics from where the show draws its inspiration.
Interestingly enough, though both Morrison and Alan Moore, who created the world of 'Watchmen', are widely considered to be the figureheads of the British Invasion of American comics, they've never been particularly big fans of each other. They were both writers from the UK who wrote for DC Comics, bringing a high-degree of intellectualism and some extremely mindboggling ideas to the world of graphic novels.
Moore and Morrison have often been seen as polar opposites by many fans and they have had a very public feud for years. In a so-called "lost" interview that was published in 2018 in the IDW magazine 'Full Bleed Vol. 3: Heavy Rotation', Morrison had some choice words for Moore, claiming that he hated 'Watchmen' the first time he read it and that he still hates it years later.
"The fact that none of the characters were allowed to be smarter than the author, that really drove me nuts," Morrison said. "The world’s smartest man is an idiot. He makes a plan all his life that is undone by the end of the book in an instant. The psychiatrist sits with Rorschach for five minutes and Rorschach tells a super banal story of how he became a vigilante and the psychiatrist cracks. If you’re a criminal psychiatrist who deals with men in prison, you’ve heard a million of these stories. It was all to make a specific point about how the real world isn’t like superhero comics.
"In my school, I was taught in this Scottish Presbyterian way that structure is hidden: you don’t see the writer’s mechanics," he added. "Watchmen, you can’t turn the page without him saying 'Look at me, look at me, look at me.' Okay, we get it, man. You got thrown out of school at 16 for dealing acid, you’re clever."
'Watchmen' Season 1 Episode 7 'An Almost Religious Awe' will air on HBO on December 1.