Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons aimed to deconstruct the superhero genre in their seminal eighties work Watchmen, and nowhere is that more clear than with the ending of the series. Which we shouldn't be spoiling for you, because you should have read it by now. Seriously, what have you been wasting your time with if not Watchmen? The film of Watchmen? Please. Anyway, the basic set up is that the villainous plot that the washed-up superheroes have been unravelling the whole time turned out to be work of their former colleague, Ozymandias,a super-smart billionaire who has something of an unconventional way of creating world peace. Monologuing in the style of a classic Bond villain, the anti-hero tells his friends how he was going to unleash a psychic attack - in the form of an alien squid monster - on New York, killing thousands but bringing together the warring nations of the globe against a common enemy from the stars. Getting a little cocky, Nite Owl points out that now they know what his plan is, they can easily stop him; which is when Ozymandias drops the bombshell that he already put his plan into action, half an hour before the so-called heroes turned up. Dang, dude. That is pretty damn supervillainous.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
