List of characters in Watchmen

The six main characters of the 1986 comic book limited series Watchmen (from left to right): Ozymandias, the second Silk Spectre, Doctor Manhattan, the Comedian (kneeling), the second Nite Owl and Rorschach.

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 were originally based on the Mighty Crusaders^[1] and then reworked in an unsolicited proposal to fit 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.^[2]

Main characters

The Comedian

The Comedian is Edward Morgan Blake. The Comedian was initially based on the Shield and then 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".^[3] 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.^[4] 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".^[4] 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.^[5] 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".^[5] Nicholas Michael Grant said the Comedian is "the only character in the Watchmen universe who is almost totally unlikeable."^[6]

In "Before Watchmen: The Minutemen #1", additional details are revealed about Comedian. It is revealed that the Comedian got his start as a costumed adventurer at the young age of 16 and had a prior criminal record for assault. Unlike the rest of the costumed heroes of the Minutemen, he is shown to be driven by greed and a love for violence. In particular, he assaults a bartender after breaking up a bar fight and steals liquor and money from the cash register. The issue also implies Blake may have been a victim of severe child abuse as he claims that a "caseworker" told him that the abuse he suffered was the cause of his violent outbursts.^[7]

"Before Watchmen: Comedian #1" rewrites the character's back-story further. It is revealed that Blake was close personal friends with Robert Kennedy and John F. Kennedy as well as Jackie Kennedy. This contradicts the main Watchmen series, which cast Edward Blake as a close personal friend of Richard Nixon (for whom he had worked as an assassin). The mini-series reveals that Blake was responsible for the murder of Marilyn Monroe (ordered by Jackie Kennedy, behind her husband's back) as well as revealing that, despite strong innuendo from both Blake and Ozymandias,^[8] that he did not kill John Kennedy and was attempting to confront Moloch when he found the villain watching the live coverage of the assassination, including Kennedy's death.^[9]

In the Watchmen film, he is played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan. The film also places him as John F. Kennedy's assassin, as shown in the opening montage.

Doctor Manhattan

Dr. Jonathan "Jon" Osterman is a physicist who was transformed into a blue-skinned, radiated powerful 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, after several hideous partial reconstructions. 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.^[10] 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".

In the Watchmen film, Doctor Manhattan is a CGI character whose body is modeled after fitness model Greg Plitt, with voice, motion capture, and facial performance provided by Billy Crudup (who also plays Osterman prior to his transformation).

Nite Owl

Nite Owl II (Daniel Dreiberg) 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."^[11] Nite Owl was partly based on the Ted Kord version of the DC Comics 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.^[3] 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.^[12] 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.^[13] According to Geoff Klock, his civilian form "visually suggests an impotent, middle-aged Clark Kent."^[14] The second Nite Owl is another Crimebusters vigilante who has not revealed his identity in the post-Keene Act era throughout the novel.

"Before Watchmen: Nite Owl #1" establishes that Dan Dreiberg's mother was physically abused by his father. Dreiberg's obsession with the original Nite Owl led him to plant a remote microphone device on Hollis' vehicle in order to track him down.^[15] It also establishes the events of how he was taken in as his apprentice: His father dies of an apparent heart attack while beating Dan's mother (Dan and his mother hold off calling for an ambulance) At the funeral, Hollis, having since discovered Dan's abusive childhood via police reports, confronts Dan and agrees to take him on as his sidekick. However, after training him, Hollis announces his retirement and informs Dan that he is giving him the Nite Owl identity rather than creating a sidekick persona for him. It is also revealed that Rorschach met Nite Owl on Dan's very first patrol and offered his assistance as a partner to the young rookie hero.^[15]

In the Watchmen film, he is played by Patrick Wilson, who put on 25 pounds (11 kg)^[16] in between the filming of his flashback scenes and the 1985 scenes, showing the physical decline of his character.

Ozymandias

Ozymandias (Adrian Veidt) was a former superhero who draws inspiration from his hero Alexander the Great and the Egyptian pharaoh Ramesses II, for whom he is named. A child prodigy, he graduated from high school and college before he was 18 and learned the art of lying as he hid the full scope of his brilliance for most of his childhood after being accused of cheating. When he inherited his family's fortune upon his parents' death in a car accident, Adrian gave it away to see if he could be a success by himself. Veidt traced Alexander the Great's path himself across the globe and ultimately returned to the United States, where he became a successful businessman. However, when his business partner and would-be love interest overdosed on drugs (purchased with funds given to her by Adrian as a gift to allow her to have fun in New York City one night), Veidt decided to avenge her death as a superhero. His costume was conceived as a Halloween costume but he quickly developed a name for himself as a hero.^[17] Two years before the Keene Act passed, Veidt went public with his secret identity and began merchandising his alter ego as he became one of the most important businessmen in America. However, his fear of a nuclear war between Russia and America, plus a rivalry with Comedian (who unknowingly planted the idea of stopping the inevitable nuclear holocaust into Veidt's head), led to him engaging in the vast conspiracy at the heart of the Watchmen series.

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.^[3] 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; however, he purposely acts for an objective greater good, thus avoiding the traditional "villain" classification, which is typically self-serving, delusional or evil.^[18] Gibbons noted "One of the worst of his sins [is] kind of looking down on the rest of humanity, scorning the rest of humanity."^[19] In 2008, he was ranked number 10 on the Forbes Fictional 15.^[20] 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.^[21]

In the Watchmen film, Veidt is played by Matthew Goode. His costume was designed to parody the rubber suits featuring nipples in the film Batman & Robin. This incarnation of Veidt uses a German accent when speaking with friends and an American accent when speaking publicly. Instead of breeding a giant monster and placing it in New York to massacre half the city as in the comics, Veidt destroys New York with an energy blast designed to look as though Doctor Manhattan caused it, bringing the world to peace.

Rorschach

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, after which he began working in a garment factory. 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, according to him, 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 creations The Question and 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".^[22] 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.^[3] 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'".^[23] 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.^[2]

Rorschach is close friends with the second Nite Owl. He is the first hero Rorschach meets with when Comedian is killed^[24] and Nite Owl organizes a rescue mission to free Rorschach from jail when he is arrested.^[25] Before Watchmen reveals that Rorschach was active as a hero before Nite Owl made his debut and on the latter's first night out as a hero, Rorschach sneaks into his owl ship and offers his services to Nite Owl as a partner.^[15]

In the Watchmen film, he is played by Jackie Earle Haley.

Silk Spectre

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.^[3]

"Before Watchmen: Silk Spectre #1" revealed that Laurie got her start as a super-hero being trained by her mother to continue the family legacy, before running away from home at the age of 16^[26] and relocating to San Francisco with her boyfriend.^[27]

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. An offhand comment to Dan, in which she claims to want a better costume, with leather and a sidearm, implies she's thinking about taking over her late father's identity, thus becoming the second Comedian.

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".^[28] 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. Silk Spectre was ranked 24th in Comics Buyer's Guide's 100 Sexiest Women in Comics list.^[29]

Minor characters

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."^[30] Moore and Gibbons deliberately wanted all their characters "to have a place in this vast organic mechanism that we call the world."^[30] 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."^[31] Moore adds that it is possible to see the story as being as much about the supporting as the main characters:

What Nixon does and what Dr. Manhattan does and what Veidt does — it affects the people on the street corner but only peripherally, indirectly... And yet, in some ways, those people on the street corner, it's their story. They're the people we're concerned about.^[31]

Minutemen

• Hollis Mason - The first Nite Owl who is retired in 1962 and author of the autobiography "Under The Hood" which appears in excerpts throughout the story. Hollis was the only member of the Minutemen who did not have any social problems and mainly enjoyed being a costumed adventurer. On Halloween, The Knot-Tops led by Derf assault Hollis in retaliation for the release of Rorschach, which was caused by The Nite Owl II (Daniel Dreiberg) and The Silk Spectre II (Laurie Juspeczyk). Derf hits Hollis on the head with Hollis' Nite Owl trophy killing the former superhero (this event is only depicted in the director's cut version of the film). In the film, he is played by Stephen McHattie, while his younger self is played by Clint Carleton.

• Sally Jupiter (real name Sally Juspeczyk) - The first Silk Spectre and founding member of the Minutemen who is now retired. She is later the domineering "stage mom" of Laurie Juspeczyk (Silk Spectre II). Sally married her manager, Laurence Schexnayder, shortly after retiring. She narrowly avoided being raped by the Comedian, although she later forgave him, and ultimately bore his child. Sally adores the attention she receives from fans of "The Silk Spectre", though Laurie is repulsed at her mother's sexually explicit exploits in promoting herself. In the film, she is played by Carla Gugino.

• Captain Metropolis (real name Nelson "Nelly" Gardner) - A former Marine Lieutenant. He was one of the more active members of the Minutemen, having organized its formation. Metropolis was involved in a sexual relationship with Hooded Justice, which in various supplemental material was abusive, with Hooded Justice abusing and cheating on Metropolis until H. J.'s death in the early 1950s, when the Comedian framed Hooded Justice as a child murderer. In the 1960s, he also unsuccessfully attempted to recruit the second generation of superheroes into a new group called the Crimebusters. He ultimately dies in a car wreck in 1974 that left him decapitated and the accident considered a form of suicide. He was played by Darryl Scheelar.

• Hooded Justice - The first masked vigilante, often initialled "H. J." by his teammates. His real identity is never conclusively revealed but in Hollis' book it is suggested to be circus strongman Rolf Müller. In Before Watchmen: Minutemen #6, we learn that he is not Rolf Muller (a character that sexually abused and killed children), but it is strongly implied that in fact he is Muller's son or ward. Assuming he, himself, was abused and tortured by Muller, it explains a great deal his violent persona, costume, and mask. A violent vigilante, Hooded Justice shared a romantic relationship with Captain Metropolis and a deep-seated rivalry with Comedian, after he prevented Blake from sexually assaulting Silk Spectre. Hooded Justice's relationship with Metropolis was a fractured one; Justice repeatedly cheated on his boyfriend with male prostitutes, physically abusing them in sadomasochist sexual encounters. This resulted in bribery of his lovers and the usage of Silk Spectre as his public girlfriend.
  He ultimately disappeared in the 1950s. In Minutemen #6 we learn that Hollis, mistakingly believing that Hooded Justice killed and tortured the children (that were killed and tortured by his apparent father), attacked Hooded Justice and snapped his neck, killing him. He was never actually unmasked, and Metropolis burned down the headquarters with his former lover's body inside; Ozymandias (who investigated his disappearance) assumes Comedian murdered him as payback for him voting him out of the Minutemen, while in fact Comedian orchestrated the events that led Hollis to mistake Hooded Justice for the actual child killer (thereby helping set up the circumstances leading to H.J.'s death). In the film he was played by Glenn Ennis.

• Dollar Bill (real name William Benjamin "Bill" Brady) - A bank-sponsored member of the Minutemen who was created for publicity purposes. Socially conservative, he is portrayed as homophobic in Before Watchmen and close friends with Comedian, ultimately siding with him when the group vote him out. He died during a bank robbery in 1947 when his cloak was caught in the bank's revolving doors, allowing the robbers to shoot him at point-blank range. In the film, he is portrayed by Dan Payne.

• Mothman (real name Byron Lewis) - A former member of the Minutemen who suffered from alcoholism and mental illness later in life. Lewis had a privileged upbringing and sought to help the less fortunate and fight oppression and corruption as a crimefighter. To this end Lewis created a costume with special wings that helped him glide, dubbing himself "Mothman". However, a series of near death experiences in perfecting his wings left Lewis in constant pain and a drug addict and an alcoholic, with him requiring a drink each time before he flew for "courage". Lewis's mental stability ultimately deteriorated after he was called before HUAC, leading to him being forcibly brought to a mental asylum in Maine, but was briefly released for the Minutemen's reunion. In the film, he is portrayed by Niall Matter.

• The Silhouette (real name Ursula Zandt) - A former member of the Minutemen. A gun-toting vigilante, Ursula was motivated by the murder of her parents at the hands of the Nazis and her sister's death as the two fled Nazi occupied Europe. According to the first Nite Owl, Silhouette was the first member of the Minutemen who went public with her career as a super-hero, when she busted a child pornography ring in New York. She had a close working relationship with Nite Owl and after being forced out of the Minutemen (upon being publicly outed as a lesbian) she continued to work with Nite Owl investigating a string of child murders until she and her lover were killed by a former super-villain she had fought years earlier. In the film, the words "lesbian whores" scrawled on the wall at the scene of her murder imply her killer was motivated by homophobia and not necessarily revenge. She is portrayed by Apollonia Vanova in the film.

Adversaries

• Moloch The Mystic (real name Edgar William Jacobi, also known as Edgar William Vaughn, and William Edgar Bright ) - A former supervillain. Moloch was jailed for a time during the 1970s. He is dying of cancer which he received from Adrian Veidt. Moloch was later murdered by Adrian who frames Rorschach. In the film, he is primarily played by Matt Frewer, with Mike Carpenter playing Moloch as a younger man in various flashbacks.

• Big Figure - A jailed dwarfish crime boss and former adversary of Nite Owl and Rorschach. He tries to get revenge when Rorschach is imprisoned in the same jail as he is. In the film, he is played by Danny Woodburn.

Other characters

• Doug Roth - A reporter for Nova Express. He is present at Dr. Manhattan's interview with Ted Koppel and reveals that several of his coworkers died of cancer, presumably from Manhattan. This leads to Manhattan's self-imposed exile on Mars. Roth was played by John Shaw in the film.

• Janey Slater - The first girlfriend of Dr. Jon Osterman. She leaves him in 1966 after she perceives a relationship building between Osterman and Laurie. Veidt gives Janey cancer as part of his scheme to exile Dr. Manhattan; Janey erroneously believes that Jon Osterman gave it to her. In the film, she is played by Laura Mennell.

• Bernard - A newsdealer who appears periodically on the central New York street corner. Bernard is amongst the many characters who dies when Veidt's monster appears in New York, and he dies trying to protect his young namesake. Moore has stated that he "is in some ways every man, because he's a complete prat and doesn't know what's going on... [h]e is like a lot of people, he is a function of the news... [regurgitating news headlines] think[ing] that's an opinion."^[32]

• Malcolm Long, Ph.D. - The psychologist who is assigned to evaluate Rorschach after he is apprehended. He is initially very hopeful of curing Rorschach, even though his utter lack of emotion makes Long's psychological evaluation techniques useless. Rorschach's unveiling of events that shaped his uncompromising mindset greatly affects Dr. Long's own outlook and marriage. Malcolm and his wife die when Veidt's monster appears in New York. In the film, he's played by William S. Taylor.

• Detective Steven Fine - The police officer that investigates Edward Blake's murder, and captures Rorschach. He deduces that Dan Dreiberg is Nite Owl II, and hints at this to Dreiberg in an effort to warn him away from further activity. Fine dies when Veidt's monster appears in New York. He is portrayed by Jerry Wasserman in the film.

• Detective Joe Bourquin - The partner to Detective Steven Fine. Bourquin dies when Veidt's monster appears in New York. In the film, he is Detective Gallagher and is portrayed by Don Thompson.

• Seymour - A junior worker at the New Frontiersman magazine offices, designed by Moore to be "the ordinary common slob".^[30] He is the final character in Watchmen, playing a pivotal role in the final pages, whom Moore describes as "the most low-life, worthless, nerdy sort of character in the entire book who finally has the fate of the world resting in his pudging fingers".^[30] In the film, Seymour is played by Chris Gauthier.

References

• Klock, Geoff. How to Read Superhero Comics and Why. Continuum, 2002. ISBN 0-8264-1419-2
• Reynolds, Richard. Super Heroes: A Modern Mythology. B. T. Batsford Ltd, 1992. ISBN 0-7134-6560-3
• Wright, Bradford W. Comic Book Nation: The Transformation of Youth Culture in America. Johns Hopkins, 2001. ISBN 0-8018-7450-5
• Gibbons, Dave. "Watching the Watchmen: The Definitive Companion to the Graphic Novel". Titan Books, 2008. ISBN 978-1-84856-041-3

Notes

Watchmen Comics Watchmen Before Watchmen Adaptations Film Production Soundtrack Score The End is Nigh The Complete Motion Comic Characters Rorschach Nite Owl Doctor Manhattan Ozymandias Parodies Saturday Morning Watchmen Watchmensch Book