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Before Watchmen: Silk Spectre
Series · 6 books · 2012-2018

Books in series

Before Watchmen book cover
#1

Before Watchmen

Silk Spectre #1

2013

Laurie Juspeczyk would one day play a pivotal role in the fate of the world in the pages of WATCHMEN, but before then, she was a young girl trying to follow in her mother’s footsteps as one of the world’s greatest crime-fighters—whether she wanted to or not.
Before Watchmen book cover
#2

Before Watchmen

Silk Spectre #2

2012

Laurie Juspeczyk would one day play a pivotal role in the fate of the world in the pages of WATCHMEN, but before then, she was a young girl trying to follow in her mother's footsteps as one of the world's greatest crime-fighters—whether she wanted to or not. "I’ve just come to a horrible realization...My mom would be really proud of me right now." Plus: Don’t miss the CRIMSON CORSAIR backup story by writer LEN WEIN and artist JOHN HIGGINS!
Before Watchmen book cover
#3

Before Watchmen

Silk Spectre #3

2012

Laurie Juspeczyk would one day play a pivotal role in the fate of the world in the pages of WATCHMEN, but before then, she was a young girl trying to follow in her mother's footsteps as one of the world's greatest crime-fighters—whether she wanted to or not. “San Francisco, baby. The best part of the trip...is the trip.” Plus: Don’t miss the CRIMSON CORSAIR backup story by writer LEN WEIN and artist JOHN HIGGINS!
Before Watchmen book cover
#4

Before Watchmen

Silk Spectre #4

2012

Laurie Juspeczyk would one day play a pivotal role in the fate of the world in the pages of WATCHMEN, but before then, she was a young girl trying to follow in her mother's footsteps as one of the world's greatest crime-fighters—whether she wanted to or not. “I don’t know who this broad thinks she is, but I want her deader than my last wife.” Plus: Don’t miss the CRIMSON CORSAIR backup story by writer LEN WEIN and artist JOHN HIGGINS!
Before Watchmen book cover
#1-4

Before Watchmen

Minutemen/Silk Spectre

2013

Darwyn Cooke tells the tragic tale of the Minutemen, assembled to fight against evil in a world spinning out of control. Then, Cooke and Amanda Conner take an look at the Silk Spectre’s early years with her overbearing, Super Hero mother, chronicling her journey down the winding path toward becoming her own kind of hero.
Before Watchmen Omnibus book cover
#1-4

Before Watchmen Omnibus

2018

The New York Times best-selling prequels to the best-selling graphic novel Watchmen are collected together for the first time and in a special DC hardcover Omnibus! Takes a look at the world before the critically acclaimed graphic novel Watchmen, by some of comics' top talents, including Eisner Award-winning authors Brian Azzarello and Darwyn Cooke, multi-award winning authors Len Wein and Michael Straczynski. With art from Joe Kubert, Amanda Conner, J.G. Jones, Lee Bermejo, Adam Hughes, Jae Lee and John Higgins. Dive deeper into the world of Watchmen by following the famous characters around in their own solo stories. Witness Rorschach's story to see how one of the most dangerous vigilantes in the comics world started down his dark path. Find out how the Vietnam War and the Kennedy assassination revolve around the Comedian. Take an introspective look at Silk Spectre as she struggles with her overbearing superhero mother and her scattered path toward taking the mantle of the Silk Spectre. Find all of this and more when you discover what happened before Watchmen in Before Watchmen Omnibus. Collects Before Comedian #1-6, Before Rorschach #1-4, Before Minutemen #1-6, Before Silk Spectre #1-4, Before Nite Owl #1-4, Before Dr. Manhattan #1-4, Before Moloch #1-2, Before Ozymandias #1-6, Before Crimson Corsair #1 and Before Dollar Bill #1.

Authors

Len Wein
Author · 20 books

Len Wein was an American comic book writer and editor best known for co-creating DC Comics' Swamp Thing and Marvel Comics' Wolverine, and for helping revive the Marvel superhero team the X-Men (including the co-creation of Nightcrawler, Storm, and Colossus). Additionally, he was the editor for writer Alan Moore and illustrator Dave Gibbons' influential DC miniseries Watchmen. Wein was inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2008.

Darwyn Cooke
Darwyn Cooke
Author · 14 books

Darwyn Cooke was an Eisner Award winning comic book writer, artist, cartoonist and animator, best known for his work on the comic books Catwoman, DC: The New Frontier and Will Eisner's The Spirit. In 1985, Cooke published his first comic book work as a professional artist in a short story in New Talent Showcase #19, but economic pressure made him leave the career and he worked in Canada as a magazine art director, graphic and product designer for the next 15 years. In the early 1990s Cooke decided to return to comics, but found little interest for his work at the major publishers. Eventually he was hired by Warner Bros. Animation after replying to an ad placed by animator Bruce Timm. He went on to work as a storyboard artist for Batman: The Animated Series and Superman: The Animated Series, and in 1999 he animated the main title design for Batman Beyond. He then worked as a director for Sony Animation's Men in Black: The Series for a year. DC Comics then approached Cooke about a project which he had submitted to the publisher years earlier which eventually became Batman: Ego, a graphic novel published in 2000. The critical success of that project led to Cooke taking on more freelance work, such as X-Force, Wolverine/Doop and Spider-Man's Tangled Web for Marvel Comics and Just Imagine... Stan Lee for DC. In 2001, Cooke and writer Ed Brubaker teamed up to revamp the Catwoman character. They started with a 4 issue serial "Trail of the Catwoman" in Detective Comics #759-762 in which private detective Slam Bradley attempts to investigate the death of Selina Kyle (AKA Catwoman). The story led into a new Catwoman title in late 2001 by Brubaker and Cooke, in which the character's costume, supporting cast and modus operandi were all redesigned and redeveloped. Cooke would stay on the series, which was met with critical and fan acclaim, up until issue #4. In 2002 he would write and draw a prequel, the Selina's Big Score graphic novel which detailed what had happened to the character directly before her new series. Cover to DC: The New Frontier #6. Cover to DC: The New Frontier #6. Cooke's next project was the ambitious DC: The New Frontier (2004), a six issue miniseries which sought to tell an epic storyline bridging the gap between the end of the golden and the start of the silver age of comic books in the DC Universe. The story, which was set in the 1950s, featured dozens of super-hero characters and drew inspiration from the comic books and movies of the period as well as from Tom Wolfe's non-fiction account of the start of the US Space Program The Right Stuff. The major DC characters are introduced in "The New Frontier" in the same order that DC originally published them, even down to the correct month and year in the story's timeline. In 2005, Cooke won an Eisner Award for "Best Limited Series", and a Joe Shuster Award for "Outstanding Canadian Comic Book Cartoonist" for his work on the series. Most recently, Cooke contributed to DC's artist-centric anthology project Solo. His issue (#5, June, 2005) featured several different stories in different styles with a framing sequence featuring the Slam Bradley character. In 2006, Solo #5 won an Eisner Award for "Best Single Issue." In July 2005, it was announced that in 2006 Cooke and writer Jeph Loeb would produce a Batman/Spirit crossover, to be followed shortly afterwards by an ongoing Spirit series written and drawn by Cooke. Batman/The Spirit was ultimately published in November 2006, followed in December by the first issue of Cooke's The Spirit. In June 2007, Cooke and J. Bone won a Joe Shuster Award for "Outstanding Canadian Comic Book Artists" for their work on "Batman/The Spirit", and Cooke won "Outstanding Canadian Comic Book Cartoonist" for his work on "The Spirit". In July 2006, it was announced that Warner Bros. Animation and DC Comics would release a series of direct-to-DVD animated movies based on important DC com

J. Michael Straczynski
J. Michael Straczynski
Author · 82 books

Joseph Michael Straczynski, known professionally as J. Michael Straczynski and informally as Joe Straczynski or JMS, is an American writer and television producer. He works in films, television series, novels, short stories, comic books, and radio dramas. He is a playwright, a former journalist, and author of The Complete Book of Scriptwriting. He was the creator and showrunner for the science fiction TV series Babylon 5 and, from 2001 to 2007, the writer for the long-running Marvel comic book series The Amazing Spider-Man.

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Before Watchmen: Silk Spectre