I mean... there I was, hanging out with a real hero, being his friend and everything. Being a crime-fighter, y'know? Like part of a brotherhood or something...That's why I sort of regretted the Crimebusters falling through back in sixty-whenever-it-was. It would have been like joining the Knights of the Round Table; being part of a fellowship of legendary beings... but eventually I realized the Comedian was right: it's all crap dressed up with a lot of flash and thunder. I mean, who needs all the hardware to catch hookers and purse-snatchers? I mean really? 
Watchmen #7 is an issue of the series Watchmen (Volume 1) with a cover date of March, 1987.
Synopsis for "A Brother to Dragons"
Laurie explores Dan's basement and looks at the Nite Owl equipment. When she enters the Owlship, Laurie accidentally turns on the vessel's flamethrower as she mistaken a button for a cigarette lighter. Dan quickly comes down and puts out the fire. After Laurie apologizes for the incident, Dan gives her a proper tour, showing her collection of crime fighting gadgets and mementos. Laurie is impressed but Dan often downplays his belongings.
Laurie and Dan then go back up and watches the television, which shows a news report of Rorschach's arrest (in which Dan is worried about Rorschach's stay in prison) and dire situation in the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. As they are watching, a passion sparks between them in which Laurie initiates making love. They fall asleep until Dan later wakes up from a nightmare in which he sees himself and Laurie burned in nuclear fire.
Dan sulks in the basement where he is eventually found by Laurie. He tells her how frustrated he is that he couldn't do anything when war could inevitably happen between the U.S. and Russia. Furthermore, he is also emotionally churned over Rorschach's mask killer theory that has become more believable with Manhattan's exile, Adrian Veidt's assassination attempt, and Rorschach's capture. But Dan is hesitant of whether he should don the Nite Owl costume to "set [himself] straight." Laurie approves his plan and they suit up in their old costumes and take the Owlship out.
While cruising over the city, they notice that a nearby tenement building is on fire. Dan and Laurie spring into action as they help the trapped residents board the Owlship and safely setting them on a nearby rooftop. This act of heroism revitalizes Dan's passion and confidence in which he and Laurie consummate their relationship inside the airship. Afterwards, Dan then tells to an incredulous Laurie that they should break Rorschach out of prison.
Appearing in "A Brother to Dragons"
Featured Characters:
Other Characters:
- Adrian Veidt (On a TV or computer screen)
- Benny Anger
- Dolores Shairp (On a TV or computer screen)
- Dr. Malcolm Long (On a TV or computer screen)
- Hector Godfrey (On a TV or computer screen)
- Red D'eath
- Rorschach (On a TV or computer screen)
- Seymour David (On a TV or computer screen)
- Twilight Lady (In a photograph only)
Locations:
Items:
Vehicles:
Synopsis for "Blood from the Shoulder of Pallas"
"Blood from the Shoulder of Pallas" by Dan Dreiberg is an article for an ornithological journal.
Appearing in "Blood from the Shoulder of Pallas"
Featured Characters:
Notes
- The title of this issue, "A Brother to Dragons," is a passage from the King James Bible version of Job 30:29. The passage appears at the end of the story: "I am a brother to dragons, and a companion to owls. My skin is black upon me, and my bones are burned with heat." This quote relates directly to a number of aspects within this issue: the Owlship that shoots forth flames from its flamethrower much like a dragon; Dan's nightmare is rife with the foreboding one might have imagined ancient soldiers feeling when going off into a wilderness said to hold dragons.
- Benny Anger reappears and along with Red D'eath of the Pale Horse.
- On page 18, panel 3, Daniel makes a spattered smiley-face image on a window; a streak, two raindrops, and a cloud. And on page 28, panel 9, Archie, with the smoke and the moon behind him, makes another smiley-face.
Trivia
- A Brother to Dragons
- The "magician's cave" comment by Laurie is symbolic of the wizard Merlin, from the legend of Camelot and King Arthur, who was an inspiration for Dan and, from which legend, Dan got the name for his Owlship, Archimedes – the name of Merlin's pet owl and familiar in some of the tellings of the Arthurian legend.
- Laurie comments Daniel's night-vision goggle as "kinda Devo." Devo is the name of an real-life rock band which began in 1972 and has since maintain a cult following.
- The TV news showing the Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp is an actual women's protest encampment established to protest against nuclear weapons being placed at RAF Greenham Common in Berkshire, England. The encampment lasted from 1981 through 2000.
- Daniel mentions about Hiroshima week, in which it was the real-life 40th anniversary of the first atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan in World War II and was only two months before the start of "Watchmen".
- Daniel's joke about Dr. Manhattan's teleportation as the "the old Manhattan Transfer." This is a reference to the real-world music group "The Manhattan Transfer."
- Laurie's comment regarding costumed heroics as "to come out of the closet". This phrase commonly means for revealing one's homosexuality. Others writers have commented that some superhero comics may be seen as a metaphor for the homosexual lifestyle.
- Blood from the Shoulder of Pallas
- "Pallas" refers to the epithet Athena.
- Dreiberg mentions several artists: Wassily Kandinsky, Claude Monet, and Max Ernst.
- Dreiberg mention English photographer Eadweard Muybridge and his study of animal and human movement through highspeed photograhy.
- The "V-bomb silence" is a reference to Nazi Germany's V-weapons.
- Dreiberg mention about Thomas Coward and his encounter with an Eagle Owl from his 1919 volume Birds of the British Isles and Their Eggs.
- "Hudson's account of the Magellanic Eagle Owl" is from William Henry Hudson's "On Eyes," published in the June 1885 issue of The Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science and Art.
See Also