The more I think about my take on the Silver Age--and the Lee-Kirby debates I took part in a while back--the more I become convinced that Ditko-Kirby is the more essential binary. Puritanism walks a fine line between the rage for Order and a passion for "assurance". Kirby's work most defintitely inclines toward the first, while Ditko's is just as strongly soteriological in orientation. Stan Lee functions mainly as the genial mediator between the two visions, and as moderator of the debate they generated amongst the readers...
Yesterday, I was on about the fact that Peter Parker's adventures as Spider-Man are primarily excercises in spiritual discipline--but I probably should have used Dr. Strange as my prime example. That's where Ditko dealt most explicitly with this theme! Just think about it--Strange's "heroics" almost always take place in psychedelic "elseworlds" that illustrate the proposition that "the mind is its' own place". Yes, it's a conceit of the story that the fate of the world is at stake during Strange's confrontations with his eldritch nemeses--however, as Steve Englehart's "trapped in the Orb of Agamotto" storyline later made explicit, what's really at stake is Stephen Strange's right to return to the world of everyday human relationships, fortified by his adventures in the land of the holy spirit. For Ditko, "life" is what you build upon the shifting foundation of "Grace" (the link to which is tenuous and must be reestablished every issue--which is never a simple matter and you risk losing yourself in the attempt). For Kirby, "life" manifests itself through decisive acts which presuppose Election...
What does this have to do with Watchmen? Well, one of the reasons I'm down on the series (as an influence upon the tradition--obviously, I think it has a great deal of intrinsic value) is the fact that Moore basically expels the Ditko elements (Dr. Manhattan, Rorschach) from the field, leaving the Kirby elements in the ascendant. I haven't said much in this space about Nite-Owl and the Silk Spectre, but it's clear that they're very important to the design of the series. They're likeable characters and they serve as stand-ins for the reader (Moore's idea of the superhero reader--who enjoys the genre primarily as a power/escape fantasy). Neither Dan nor Laurie is able to function very well in the "real world", and both seem to view adventuring as a "radical choice" (i.e. if you embrace it, it becomes your life--and, really, why wouldn't you, if your real lives are as vapid as theirs seem to be)... They can't even have sex unless they go through a good deal of costume-clad foreplay, and, you know, that's just not too healthy!
The lonely, Ditkoesque quest for "assurance" (which I associate with the creative life of an artist--and here's where Paul Auster comes in!) ultimately has no place in Moore's world, which, by the end of Watchmen, is wholly given over to Kirbyesque values of salvation through acts of courage and displays of power!
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1 - Al Barger
Co-incidentally, I just re-discovered my old Watchmen book buried in storage - and accidentally ran into a groovy little internet tidbit -- an unproduced 1989 screenplay for a Watchmen movie.