Unbeatable Comics: Ozymandias #1

writer: Len Wein
artist: Jae Lee

If Ozymandias has any reputation at all, it's as the member of the Watchmen who went rogue and thought he could fix the world with selective destruction.

In this introductory issue from the continuing Before Watchmen project, we're reintroduced to the man behind the mania, especially his obsession with Alexander the Great, another guy who thought he could make the world better by uniting it single-handedly.  As with Alexander, we know Adrian Veidt will ultimately (theoretically, at least, since Alan Moore ends Watchmen ambiguously) fail for the same reason of failing to secure his empire with able allies, capable of supporting his vision.

Yet we now have the chance, as I said, to see the humanity of the superhuman a little better.  A boy genius who felt compelled to hide his abilities, Veidt slowly learns that perhaps it's better to keep them out in the open.  Yet he becomes Ozymandias for the same reasons he reaches his flawed conclusion in Watchmen, failing to acknowledge those around him, in the instance of this debut issue a lover he leaves behind too much.  Writer Len Wein, a DC legend who often doesn't get the respect he deserves, understands that the story of Adrian Veidt is one long tragedy.

Illustrating this book is Jae Lee, whose last notable project was Marvel's Dark Tower comics.  Here he's shorn of the painterly sheen exhibited in that effort, but is no less sensational, filled with the appropriate level of presumption that defines Ozymandias.

Like many of these Before Watchmen books, it's not the first issue that defines what the rest of the mini-series will really be like.  This one's another superb setup, leading the reader to wonder what the rest of the story is going to be.