A Brother to Dragons (1987)

A Brother to Dragons Review

A Brother to Dragons is the seventh issue in the twelve-issue series Watchmen, written by Alan Moore and drawn by Dave Gibbons.

This issue is once again a character study, but unfortunately the only one that I did not love. In a rare departure for the series, it focuses on two hardly all that interesting members of the team – Silk Spectre and Nite Owl. Laurie and Daniel have never been riveting characters, especially not Dan himself, so this issue focusing on just the two of them was not the greatest idea from Alan Moore.

There is this sexual energy and tension between these two that is ridiculously pronounced. It’s a whole thing. But why did we need to see them have sex multiple times? Needless to say, this is where this graphic novel reached its campiest and most overly indulgent moments.

That is not to say that it’s without its strengths. The illustrations by Gibbons are still stellar and his use of color is particularly fantastic here. The two characters are definitely well developed, but hardly all that interesting, though their relationship is well explored. Laurie is the deeper and more interesting of the two while Dan’s obsession with owls was explored in the literary supplement at the end of the issue, the weakest one so far. The dialogue is definitely very good, but overwhelming as the issue suffers from having too many bubbles throughout.