From the extremely large stacks of this cash grab...excuse me, series....left on the shelves at my local store, I don't think DC is going to be happy with the final numbers when all is said and done. IMO, I hope they lose tens of millions. 

I get the same response from my comic shop...the first issue of the this whole crapfest sold out and then more and more...they stay on the shelves.

Of all the books so far, I see no need for this one in particular. ''Adding'' more depth into Ozymandias takes everything away from what he did in Watchman.

Still don't see the logic, need or purpose of any of these books.

I'll be interested to see what th June sales charts look like. Marvel regained the top spot in May with A vs X, but I have a feeling Before Watchmen will be snagging many of the top spots.

 Daforce1 and Jedibanner, I noticed it too and asked my comic store what was selling better than Before Watchmen, their answer, A vs. X. I think a lot of people are waiting for the trades of Before Watchmen. 

In a way...I think if they would've kept it at 3 books or 2...maybe the interest would've been larger.

In the end, some like it, no problem...I'm glad Marvel is taking names and kicking butts.

Well I myself will be waiting for the TB, in fact that is about the only way I keep up with any comics. That being said I'm a different mind from Jedi. I always wanted to see the motivation behind OZ. Some villians are great because they need no normal human motivation like the Joker, others are made all the more believable when their reasons are made clear such as Magneto. OZ is the main charater in the BW that I wanted to see fleshed out, hopefully with a good story he will wind up a beter villian (antihero?)

I don't quite get people's criticism of Before Watchmen being a cash grab.  Well of course it's a cash grab...Every freaking thing DC puts out is a cash grab.  Do you think they sit around the meeting room thinking, "Hey,. here's an idea for a title that won't sell well, let's publish it."  It's a business...they're there to make money, not to sate the tastes of the fans.  If anything, I'd say the comic book business is less about making money today than it was 40 or 50 years ago.  If it was the books would still be printed on cheap newsprint. vAs far as stores having lots of issues left on the shelf, that could be as likely do to poor ordering on the part of the manager.  The store i go to, 90% of the business comes from customer pull sheets so the manager has a very good Idea on how many copies to order.

I used to work at the largest comic book store in the Detroit area back 1989 - 1991.  One day we  went to the owner's house and in his basement he had literally hundreds of long comib boxes filled with backstock going back to the mid-1970s.  he had a full box filled with Joker #1's that come out in 1975!!!  Of course by this time, the first Batman movie had just come out as well as things like Dark Knight, the Killing Joke, Death or Robin, Batman year One so EVERYTHING Batman was hot.  We were selling those .25 cent Joker #1's for $5 a pop all day.  In that case poor ordering helped but it took 15 years to see a profit

tjanson....The critisism (IMO) is more from the creative aspect of the idea which in the end makes it a ''supposelly'' need that collectors apparently would like to get more.

Of course it's a business and they need to put books out...from my end? why destroy the original by adding things that the creator didn't meant, want or ask for.

But, without going back to the whole debate, I would say DC (or any other) do try to put books out to ''sate the tastes of the fans''. That's how some of the cross battle, events or character's fight got created over the years. People have always wondered who would win in Avengers Vs X-Men...now we will know more and fans ask for it, and we got it.

Did fans begged, asked all the time to get ''before Watchmen''? Hello no. DC thought they needed to create it and obviously, it is in their own right. Many fans don't want it...many people don't read it...some are waiting for the trade.

I just live in a world where I can disregard any crap they've added in Watchmen so I can enjoy what was initially intended.

Can it be well written? Of course...is it needed? 10000000000000% no (yes, again, IMO).

 Sorry to change the rating but another Mania critic has added his review. - Robert (News Editor)

Ya but comic characters don't exist in a vacuum.  Writers have always come along and changed or added new details to characters created by other writers.  I understand Watchmen was a mini series first but what happens happens...10 years from now who's going to care.  I'm pretty sure Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster never intended for Superman to be split into Red and Blue versions.  but who really cares about that now.  I know for a fact that Joe Simon was none too thrilled about Captain America being killed (stupid Ed Brubaker!)