Watchmen HBO vs. Watchmen the comic regarding race

Warning - This post will contain spoilers for the Watchmen HBO series.

    I'm presently tinkering with a blog post about the WATCHMEN series vs. the original. Unfortunately, my inner academic is interfering. Rather than talk about the show its ending up discussing the fact Alan Moore created a world where superheroes and vigilantism is fundamentally silly thing that white people engage in.

    There's not many black people in Watchmen (aside from the psychologist) because Alan Moore draws associations between superheroes and Radical Right ideologies (the Comedian, Rorshach). The exceptions are rich millionaires and fame seekers (plus one blue god). Partially this is due to the time period but the fact Captain Metropolis puts "black unrest" on his list of enemies means that he sees superheroes as dogged protectors of the status quo.

    Hooded Justice, for example, is the first superhero and he's inspired by KKK imagery and a Nazi sympathizer. This is because Alan Moore series vigilantism as something that has a very nasty history in the United States and was just an excuse for organized murder on racial lines. It's not an uncommon view. Black Americans and other minorities are simply not welcome in the fame-hungry conservative world of superheroes. They barely tolerate women and certainly did not with Silhouette despite her wartime heroism.

    Damon Lindelof, however, makes Hooded Justice an ironic superhero. He's a black man wearing a Klan outfit to terrify them and subject racists to the same unaccounted justice. He also recognizes minorities can't trust cops at various times in history and must make their own justice. Therefore, Will Reeves (The HBO Hooded Justice's real identity), must take matters into his own hands. He has a far better justification for this than, say, Bruce Wayne.

    I wonder if this is because Alan Moore is not an American because the reason this works versus other Watchmen adaptations is because it is also based in RL history. Black Americans have their own history of vigilante justice and groups organizing outside the law for community protection. Often called criminals (and sometimes were).

    The series isn't 100% perfect on its handling of racial matters as the primary conflict during the early part of the series is the police vs. white supremacists. This is possible and happens in my area (the white supremacists are the criminals in Appalachia) but is a conflict most people would say doesn't reflect reality across America. There's also the fact that Lady Trieu is dismissed as nothing more than a monster when her homeland has been forcibly annexed into the United States.

    Fundamentally, I see the television series having a completely opposite view of superheroes/vigilantes than the comic. Ironically, it's perhaps the reason why its the only Watchmen spin-off with any value.