List of Watchmen characters

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

Watchmen is a twelve-issue comic book limited series created by Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons, and John Higgins, and was initially published by DC Comics in 1986 and 1987. Watchmen focuses on six main characters: The Comedian, Doctor Manhattan, Nite Owl II, Ozymandias, Rorschach, and 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 four or five "radically opposing ways" to perceive the world, and to give readers of the story the privilege of determining which one was most morally comprehensible.

Main characters

The Comedian

Born in 1924, Edward Blake started out trying to clean up the New York waterfront in 1939. He joined the Minutemen after the team was formed that year, but was expelled for trying to rape Sally Jupiter (Silk Spectre I) in 1940. After nearly getting killed in a fight in 1941, he switched his original costume for one of heavy leather. He then went on to fight in World War II in the Pacific theater, returning a hero. In 1949 he met with Sally Jupiter and ended up fathering Laurel Jane Juspeczyk (Silk Spectre II). He was present at the Crimebusters meeting in 1966 (where Ozymandias first conceived his idea for saving the world from itself). At some point (possibly the late 50's) he became a government agent, working in Vietnam and rescuing the Iranian hostages. His career came to an end in 1985, when he discovered Ozymandias' island and the creature project housed there. Shortly after he returned to New York, Ozymandias killed the Comedian.

As the Comedian, Edward Blake is deliberately amoral. Despite his crimefighting resume, he is implied in the comics to have contributed to the murders of John F. Kennedy (he is said to have been with Nixon in Dallas the day of the assassination) and of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein (preventing Watergate from occurring in the Watchmen universe). As Dr. Manhattan puts it in Chapter 4, "Blake's different. He understands perfectly... and he doesn't care." Rorschach states he admires Comedian for his worldview; his forceful, uncompromising personality, and the fact he did not care if people liked him or not. Rorschach also commented that the Comedian was the one who understood where the world was going and what was happening to society.

Quote: "Once you figure out what a joke everything is, being the Comedian's the only thing that makes sense."

The Comedian is a "normal" human. Despite his age, Comedian has abundant physical strength and health. Comedian's primary powers are his hand to hand combat skills and weapons. He normally carries two Colt M1911 pistols, an Ingram MAC-10 (with silencer), tear gas grenades, a knife, and a billy club as well as a flamethrower. His trademark is a yellow smiley face button that he habitually wears; after his murder, it is found by Rorschach, stained with a drop of his blood.

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".

Already deceased when the story begins, his murder is what 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. 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". He and Doctor Manhattan are the only two superheroes to be government-sanctioned after the Keene Act banning vigilantism is passed. Although he attempted to rape the first Silk Spectre in the 1940s, issue nine reveals that years later he fathered her daughter Laurie (Silk Spectre II) consensually.

In the Watchmen film he is played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan. A scene from the opening credits builds on the comics' implication of the Comedian's involvement in the Kennedy assassination, revealing him to be the rumored shooter on the grassy knoll. He is also believed to have murdered Woodward and Bernstein. (In reality, the two are alive and well). Also in the film, it reveals his birth date to be 1918, a contradiction to the birth date in the comic books to be 1924.

Doctor Manhattan

Jon Osterman's father was a watchmaker and he expected to become one himself, but following the destruction of Hiroshima by an atom bomb, the elder Osterman perceived that his son's future depended upon his success in this new atomic age. Jon attended Princeton University, graduating ten years later with a Ph.D in atomic physics.

While working at a nuclear research center, Jon was accidentally locked into a test chamber and caught in an "Intrinsic Field subtractor" in 1959. This turned him into a blue-skinned superpowered being and he became a superhero contracted by the United States government, who gave him the name Doctor Manhattan. He is the only character in the story who possesses real superpowers. He enabled the US to win the Vietnam War and his powers were such that he gave America a strategic advantage over the Soviet Union, which has increased tensions between the two nations at the start of the series. Over time, however, Manhattan becomes more and more distant from humanity, illustrated in the fact that he wears fewer clothes over the passing decades to the point that by the time his girlfriend Laurie walks out on him, he wears no clothes at all (except in public appearances) and goes into self-imposed exile away from Earth.

Doctor Manhattan was based upon 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. In opposition to other superheroes that lacked scientific exploration of their origins, 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. 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. 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. 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. In the Watchmen film he is played by Billy Crudup and his incredibly muscular physique is modeled on fitness model and actor Greg Plitt.

Nite Owl II

Nite Owl is Dan Dreiberg, a retired superhero who utilizes owl-themed gadgets, in a manner which led Dave Gibbons to consider him "an obsessive hobbyist... a comics fan, a fanboy." Nite Owl was broadly based on the Ted Kord version of the Charlton superhero Blue Beetle. Drawing on the history of the Charlton character's multiple incarnations, Moore also incorporated an earlier adventurer who used the name "Nite Owl", the retired crime fighter Hollis Mason, into Watchmen. 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. 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. Drawing inspiration from Nite Owl's dual origins, while commenting on superheroes in general, the characters' costume in the 2009 movie is much more Batman-like in appearance than that drawn in the comics. According to Geoff Klock, his civilian form "visually suggests an impotent, middle-aged Clark Kent." Like Batman's use of the Batmobile, Nite Owl in the film operated a large hovering aircraft which he named "Archimedes" (or "Archie" for short) which he named both after the Greek Inventor and the Owl which Merlin had for a pet. "Archie", like the Batmobile, was fully armored and carried with it heavy weaponry such as a Flamethrower, Missiles, and a built in M16 Vulcan Cannon. In the Watchmen film he is played by Patrick Wilson.

Ozymandias

Adrian Veidt was formerly the superhero Ozymandias (pronounced "aw-zee-MAN-dee-us"), drawing inspiration from his hero Alexander the Great and the Egyptian pharaoh Rameses II for whom he is named. 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. Veidt is believed to be one of the smartest men on the planet, and is often accompanied by his genetically-engineered mutant 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. Gibbons noted "One of the worst of his sins [is] kind of looking down on the rest of humanity, scorning the rest of humanity." In 2008, he was ranked number 10 on the Forbes Fictional 15.

In the Watchmen film he is played by Matthew Goode.

Rorschach

Main article: Rorschach (comics)

A vigilante who wears a white mask that contains constantly shifting ink blots, Rorschach continues to fight crime in spite of his outlaw status. He was born Walter Joseph Kovacs, the son of a prostitute, and was raised in an orphanage, later working in the garment industry. By the time the story begins, he is seen walking around New York carrying a "The End Is Nigh" notice. In 1975, after a failed attempt to find and rescue a young kidnapped girl before she was murdered, he loses his sanity, viewing Rorschach as his real identity and Kovacs as his real "disguise". In the comic, it is shown by changing the character's voice and manner of speaking. When he puts on his mask, his speech bubbles are wavy, also Silk Spectre remarks to Manhattan about his "creepy, monotonous voice". He prefers using infinitives and omitting the subject from his sentences.

When the story begins, Rorschach is investigating the murder of the Comedian on his own; in some panels, a red-haired man is seen walking the streets and carrying a sign that reads "The End Is Nigh." Only after several chapters does the reader discover 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". 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. 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'". 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.

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

Silk Spectre II (Laurie Juspeczyk)

Laurel Jane "Laurie" Juspeczyk (pronounced "yoo-SPEH-chick"), the second Silk Spectre, 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.

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. In a 2003 draft script of Watchmen by David Hayter, which was reviewed by IGN, Despite Laurie's insistance on always using her real name of Juspeczyk, Hayter lists Lauries family name as Jupiter and the alter ego name "Slingshot."

In the Watchmen film she is played by Malin Akerman.

Supporting 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." Moore and Gibbons deliberately wanted all their characters "to have a place in this vast organic mechanism that we call the world." 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." 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."

• Hollis Mason: the first Nite Owl (now retired) and author of the autobiography "Under the Hood" which appears in excerpts throughout the story. On Halloween the Knot-Tops, lead by Derf, assault Hollis in retaliation for the release of Rorschach, which was caused by the second Nite-Owl (Dan Dreiberg) and the Silk Spectre II (Laurie Juspeczyk); Derf hits Hollis on the head with Hollis's Nite Owl trophy, killing the former superhero (this event is not depicted in the theatrical version of the film). He is roughly based on the Dan Garret version of the Blue Beetle from, at different times, Fox Feature Syndicate, Holyoke Publications, and Charlton Comics. In the film, he is played by Stephen McHattie.
• Sally Jupiter, the first Silk Spectre (real name Sally Juspeczyk): Domineering mother of Laurie Juspeczyk, and founding member of the Minutemen, now retired. She 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 (Laurie, however, believed her father to be Hooded Justice, with whom her mother had been pretending to have a relationship). Sally adores the attention she receives from fans of "Silk Spectre." In the film, she is played by Carla Gugino.
• Captain Metropolis (real name Nelson Gardner): an ex-Marine Lieutenant and one of the more active proponents of the Minutemen, a group of superheroes formed in the 1940s; he suggested that a collaboration of forces would be the most effective way to fight crime. He is briefly mentioned as having been decapitated in a car accident in 1974. Allusions were made to a relationship with Hooded Justice, which Moore tacitly confirmed in 1988, saying "I wanted to approximate real life as much as possible and that meant giving each of the characters a sexual identity." He was played by Daryl Scheelar.
• Hooded Justice: The first masked vigilante, his real identity is never conclusively revealed but is strongly suggested to be circus strongman Rolf Müller. Involved in a phony relationship with Sally Juspeczyk to hide his involvement with Captain Metropolis, Hooded Justice disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Moore's hints within and without Watchmen suggest very strongly that "when the events of the 50s overtook him, Hooded Justice decided to go on the run to protect his identity." It is suggested that he was probably killed by the Comedian, however, a single panel in Watchmen strongly suggests that both he and Captain Metropolis were alive and together in 1985 up to the end of Watchmen. He was played by Glenn Ennis.
• Moloch the Mystic (real name Edgar William Jacobi): a former super-villain who was jailed for a time. He is dying of cancer, received from Adrian Veidt. Rorschach is later framed for his murder. In the film, he is played by Matt Frewer.
• Dollar Bill (real name Bill Brady): a bank sponsored member of the Minutemen who died during a bank robbery in the 1940s. His cloak was caught in the bank's revolving doors and Dollar Bill was shot at point-blank range. He was played by Dan Payne.
• Mothman (real name Byron Lewis): a former member of the Minutemen who suffered from alcoholism and mental illness later in life. He is forcibly brought to a mental asylum, but was briefly released for the Minutemen's reunion. He was played by Niall Matter.
• Silhouette (real name Ursula Zandt): a former member of the Minutemen who was forced into retirement after her status as a lesbian became public knowledge. She and her partner were later murdered. She was played by Apollonia Vanova.
• Detective Steven Fine: the policeman 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.
• Detective Joe Bourquin: the partner to Detective Steven Fine. Bourquin dies when Veidt's monster appears in New York.
• Janey Slater: Janey is the first girlfriend of Jon Osterman. She leaves him 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.
• Laurence Schexnayder: Laurence is the former agent of Sally Jupiter, who married her soon after she retired. The two were married for nine years.
• Bernard: Bernard is a news vendor who appears recurringly 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 pratt 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."
• Bernie: Bernie is a boy who reads Tales of the Black Freighter by Bernard's newsstand. Bernie dies when Veidt's monster appears in New York.
• Dr. Malcolm Long: the psychiatrist 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 psychiatric evaluation techniques useless. Rorschach's unveiling of events that shaped his uncompromising mindset greatly affect Dr. Long's own outlook and marriage. Malcolm dies when Veidt's monster appears in New York.
• Gloria Long: The wife of Malcolm, Gloria Long becomes frustrated by her husband's increasing devotion to the Rorschach case. Gloria dies when Veidt's monster appears in New York.
• Big Figure: underworld leader with dwarfism brought down by Rorschach and the second Nite Owl. Attempts to gain revenge on Rorschach in prison. It is implied that Rorschach murders him in a prison toilet. In the film, he is played by Danny Woodburn.
• Derf: the leader of the Knot-Tops, Derf kills Hollis Mason. Derf dies when Veidt's monster appears in New York.
• Seymour: junior worker at the New Frontiersman magazine offices, designed by Moore to be "the ordinary common slob" He is the final character in Watchmen, playing a pivotal role in the final pages, whom Moore describes as "the most low-life, worthless, nerdish sort of character in the entire book who finally has the fate of the world resting in his pudging fingers". In the film, Seymour is played by Chris Gauthier, though he only appears in the movie's finale.
• Joey: A homosexual taxi driver. She is killed when Veidt's monster appears in New York.
• Richard Nixon: The President of the United States. In the Watchmen storyline, Nixon's success in Vietnam resulted in the abolishment of term limits and Nixon remained president by 1985. It is strongly implied that the Comedian took action to contain the Watergate scandal by eliminating or intimidating investigative reporters hence his mentioning of Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward.

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