Watchmen is a twelve-issue comic book limited series created by Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons, and John Higgins, published by DC Comics in 1986 and 1987. Watchmen focuses on six main characters: the Comedian, Doctor Manhattan, the Nite Owl, Ozymandias, Rorschach, and the Silk Spectre. These characters are primarily based on superhero properties DC had acquired from Charlton Comics in the early 1980s. Series writer Alan Moore created the main characters to present six "radically opposing ways" to perceive the world, and to give readers of the story the privilege of determining which one was most morally comprehensible.[1]
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The Comedian is Edward Morgan Blake. The Comedian was based on the Charlton Comics character Peacemaker, with elements of the Marvel Comics spy character Nick Fury added. Moore and Gibbons saw The Comedian as "a kind of Gordon Liddy character, only a much bigger, tougher guy".[2] Gibbons went with a Groucho Marx-style appearance (mustache and cigar) for the Comedian in his design, deciding that the "clown" look had already been appropriated by the DC Comics supervillain the Joker.[3] His costume itself was noted by Gibbons as being particularly problematic; he was initially designed with a more militaristic costume which was later dropped for a black leather outfit with a "rapist mask".[3] He believes that humans are savage in nature, and that civilization can never be more than an idea. He therefore chooses to become a mockery of society, fighting and killing without reservation.
Blake's murder, which takes place shortly before the story begins in 1985, sets the plot of Watchmen in motion. The character appears throughout the story in flashbacks and aspects of his personality are revealed by other characters.[4] Richard Reynolds described The Comedian as "ruthless, cynical, and nihilistic, and yet capable of deeper insights than the others into the role of the costumed hero".[4] Nicholas Michael Grant said the Comedian is "the only character in the Watchmen universe who is almost totally unlikeable."[5]
In the Watchmen film he is played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan.
Dr. Jonathan "Jon" Osterman is a physicist who was transformed into a blue-skinned god-like being after he was disintegrated in an Intrinsic Field Subtractor in 1959. He had returned to the chamber to retrieve his girlfriend's watch (which he had repaired), and was accidentally locked inside when the Subtractor started automatically. Jon was blown into atoms, with nothing left of his body. Within a few months, his disembodied consciousness managed to reconstruct a physical body for itself. Following his reanimation, he is immediately pressed into service by the United States government, which gives him the name Doctor Manhattan, after the Manhattan Project. He is the only character in the story that possesses actual superpowers.[6] Though he dabbles briefly in crime-fighting, his greatest influence is to grant the U.S. a strategic advantage over the Soviet Union during the Cold War, with his most significant action taking place after he is personally asked by President Richard Nixon to intervene in the Vietnam War, leading to an unqualified victory for the U.S. with the defeat of North Vietnam and the Vietcong, preventing the collapse of the Saigon government. Since he works for the U.S. government, he is exempt from the provisions of the Keene Act, but spends much of his time doing advanced technology research and development, and physics research. He is single handedly responsible for the shift to electric-powered vehicles (by synthesizing the needed elements and chemicals himself) and Veidt credits him with causing a huge leap forward in myriad areas of science and technology. As a result, the technology of the alternative 1985 of the Watchmen universe is far more advanced. After the death of his father in 1969, he does not conceal his birth name and is referenced as "Jon" or "Dr. Osterman".
Doctor Manhattan was based on Charlton's Captain Atom, who in Moore's original proposal was surrounded by the shadow of nuclear threat. However, the writer found he could do more with Manhattan as a "kind of a quantum super-hero" than he ever could have with Captain Atom.[2] Moore sought to delve into nuclear physics and quantum physics in constructing the character of Dr. Manhattan. The writer believed that a character living in a quantum universe would not perceive time with a linear perspective, which would influence the character's perception of human affairs. Moore also wanted to avoid creating an emotionless character like Spock from Star Trek, so he sought for Dr. Manhattan to retain "human habits" and to grow away from them and humanity in general.[1] Gibbons had created the blue character Rogue Trooper, and explained he reused the blue skin motif for Doctor Manhattan as it resembles skin tonally, but has a different hue. Moore incorporated the color into the story, and Gibbons noted the rest of the comic's color scheme made Manhattan unique.[7] The blue skin color is explained as being a result of Cherenkov radiation. Moore recalled that he was unsure if DC would allow the creators to depict the character as fully nude, which partially influenced how they portrayed the character.[8] Gibbons wanted to tastefully depict Manhattan's nudity, selecting carefully when full frontal shots would occur and giving him "understated" genitals — like a classical sculpture — so the reader would not initially notice it.[9] Dr. Manhattan's forehead is marked with the atomic structure of hydrogen, which he himself put on, declining a helmet with the atom symbol.
His powers include superhuman strength, telekinesis, teleportation, control over matter at a subatomic level, and near-total clairvoyance. He perceives the past, present and future as happening simultaneously, but states that he cannot act on that knowledge since his own actions and reactions to events (as is reality itself) are predetermined. His ability to see the future can be blocked by a surge of tachyons, such as that released when Ozymandias puts the final step of his plan into action.
In the Watchmen film, Doctor Manhattan is a CGI character modeled after Greg Plitt with voice, motion capture, and facial performance provided by Billy Crudup.
Daniel Dreiberg (Nite Owl II) is a superhero who uses owl-themed gadgets, in a manner which led Dave Gibbons to consider him "an obsessive hobbyist... a comics fan, a fanboy."[10] Nite Owl was based on the Ted Kord version of the Charlton superhero Blue Beetle. Just as Ted Kord had a predecessor, Moore also incorporated an earlier adventurer who used the name "Nite Owl", the retired crime fighter Hollis Mason, into Watchmen.[2] While Moore devised character notes for Gibbons to work from, the artist provided a name and a costume design for Hollis Mason he had created when he was twelve.[9] Richard Reynolds noted in Super Heroes: A Modern Mythology that despite the character's Charlton roots, Nite Owl's modus operandi has more in common with the DC Comics character Batman.[11] According to Geoff Klock, his civilian form "visually suggests an impotent, middle-aged Clark Kent."[12] The second Nite Owl is another Crimebusters vigilante who has not revealed his identity in the post-Keene Act era throughout the novel.
In the Watchmen film he is played by Patrick Wilson, who put on 25 pounds (11 kg)[13] in between the filming of his flashback scenes and the 1985 scenes, showing the physical decline of his character.
Adrian Veidt (Ozymandias) was a former superhero who is drawing inspiration from his hero Alexander the Great and the Egyptian pharaoh Ramesses II, for whom he is named. He inherited a fortune, but gave it away to see if he could be a success by himself. Ozymandias traced Alexander's path himself. He is the story's main antagonist. At the start of Watchmen he has retired to devote his attention to the running of his own enterprises. Ozymandias was directly based on Peter Cannon, Thunderbolt, whom Moore had admired for using his full brain capacity as well as possessing full physical and mental control.[2] Veidt is believed to be the smartest man on the planet, even capable of outsmarting Dr. Manhattan. His combination of intelligence and highly advanced fighting skills makes him perhaps the most feared and dangerous of the mortal vigilantes. He was even able to catch a bullet fired at him. He is often accompanied by his genetically-engineered lynx, Bubastis. Richard Reynolds noted that by taking initiative to "help the world", Veidt displays a trait normally attributed to villains in superhero stories, and in a sense he is the "villain" of the series.[14] Gibbons noted "One of the worst of his sins [is] kind of looking down on the rest of humanity, scorning the rest of humanity."[15] In 2008, he was ranked number 10 on the Forbes Fictional 15.[16] Wizard magazine also ranked Ozymandias as 25th greatest villain of all time and IGN ranked him as 21st Greatest Comic Book Villain of All Time.[17]
In the Watchmen film he is played by Matthew Goode.
Rorschach is a noir private detective-themed vigilante who wears a white mask with constantly shifting ink blots, Rorschach continues to fight crime in spite of his outlaw status, eventually making the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List. He was born Walter Joseph Kovacs, the son of a prostitute by a man whose last name his mother never bothered to learn, and spent much of his childhood in a home for troubled youth; later he worked in the garment industry. After reading about the murder of Kitty Genovese and the reported complete indifference of the witnesses of the crime, he modified a special fabric that she had ordered to create a mask and became a vigilante, eventually forming a productive partnership with Nite Owl II. In 1975, after failing to rescue a young girl, he lost all faith in humanity and began to embrace extremist right-wing ideology.
When the story begins, a man is seen walking around New York carrying a sign that reads "The End Is Nigh," but it is not until several chapters later that the reader learns that this man is Kovacs/Rorschach.
Moore based Rorschach on the Steve Ditko creation Mr. A. Moore said he was trying to "come up with this quintessential Steve Ditko character — someone who's got a funny name, whose surname begins with a 'K,' who's got an oddly designed mask".[18] As a result, Rorschach's real name is given as Walter Kovacs. Ditko's Charlton character The Question also served as a template for creating Rorschach.[2] Comics historian Bradford W. Wright described the character's world view as "a set of black-and-white values that take many shapes but never mix into shades of gray, similar to the ink blot tests of his namesake". Rorschach sees existence as random and, according to Wright, this viewpoint leaves the character "free to 'scrawl [his] own design' on a 'morally blank world'".[19] Moore said he did not foresee the death of Rorschach until the fourth issue when he realized that his refusal to compromise would result in him not surviving the story.[1]
In the Watchmen film he is played by Jackie Earle Haley.
Laurie Juspeczyk (Silk Spectre II) is the daughter of Sally Jupiter, the first Silk Spectre. Laurie's mother apparently wanted her to follow in her footsteps and so she fought crime for ten years before the Keene Act banned vigilantes. Unlike the other protagonists, Silk Spectre was not based on a particular Charlton character, although her relationship with Dr. Manhattan is similar to that between Captain Atom and the heroine Nightshade. Moore felt he needed a female hero in the cast and drew inspiration from comic book heroines such as Black Canary and Phantom Lady.[2]
Laurie is kept on retainer by the government because of her relationship with Doctor Manhattan and lives on a government base at the beginning of the comic. When Doctor Manhattan leaves Earth, the government has her removed from the base and suspends her expense account, forcing her to move in with Dan, with whom she starts a romantic relationship. At the end of the eighth issue, Doctor Manhattan appears and takes her to Mars because he knows she wants to convince him to save the world. On Mars, she realizes that The Comedian was her biological father. After the final encounter with Veidt at the end of the series, she assumes the identity of Sandra Hollis and continues her relationship with Dan.
In the Watchmen film she is played by Malin Åkerman. In a 2003 draft script by David Hayter, which was reviewed by IGN, Laurie uses the name, Jupiter, and the alter ego name "Slingshot".[20] The former detail seems to have been retained in the final version of the film (though the Nite Owl's goggles gave her last name as her mother's maiden name, Juspeczyk). The film gives her date of birth as December 2, 1949.
Key to the success of Watchmen is the wide range of characters it features beyond the 'main' stars. Moore stated in 1988 that, in Watchmen, "we spend a good deal of time with the people on the street. We wanted to spend as much time detailing these characters and making them believable as we did the main characters."[21] Moore and Gibbons deliberately wanted all their characters "to have a place in this vast organic mechanism that we call the world."[21] The fleshing-out of the world was, in Moore's words, to demonstrate that "all the way through the entire series human life is going on with all of its petty entanglements and minor difficulties and all the rest of it."[22] Moore adds that it is possible to see the story as being as much about the supporting as the main characters:
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