Chuff’s death precipitates the promotion of Worsley Porlock, another fan turned writer, who becomes editor-in-chief at American during the dark years of the Trump administration and the Covid pandemic. The dinner is interrupted by the belated revelation that American’s editor-in-chief, Brandon Chuff, has been dead for the entire conversation, despite his smiling presence at the table (somewhat like the real-world comics industry, Moore implies). “Massive” and “American” replace Marvel and DC Comics, respectively, and the story’s titular Thunderman is (of course) our very own Superman. The comics business dehumanises people, drawing them into ‘an insane alternative reality’ akin to cocaine addictionĪs the story begins, four fans turned comics writers chew over industry gossip at a New York diner, and we quickly discover that the fictionalised comics business in which they labour is a thinly veiled allegory for the real industry in which Moore himself first became famous.

What We Can Know About Thunderman may be said to offer a similar deconstruction of the American comics industry itself.

Moore’s Watchmen has been described as a deconstruction of the “silver age” superhero genre, painstakingly exposing its conventions in order to subvert its entire undertaking. The original novella What We Can Know About Thunderman is the savage heart of the volume – and not just because it takes up more space than all the other stories combined.

Alan moore dave gibbons