List of Watchmen characters
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, Nite Owl II, Ozymandias, Rorschach, and the Silk Spectre II. These characters were originally based on the Mighty Crusaders and then reworked in an unsolicited proposal to fit superhero properties DC had acquired from Charlton Comics in the early 1980s. Moore later based the team's predecessors, the Minutemen, on the Mighty Crusaders. Since the publisher planned to integrate Charlton's superheroes into the main DC Universe and the script would have made many of them unusable for future stories, series writer Alan Moore eventually agreed to create original characters. Moore wished 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.
The protagonists of Watchmen were reused in the prequel series Before Watchmen, which also gave backstories to several minor characters from the original graphic novel, and introduced new characters.
Later on, several Watchmen characters reappeared in the limited series Doomsday Clock, bringing them into the main DC Universe.
The television series Watchmen is set in the same canon as the limited series, taking place in 2019 in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Overview
Key- A model served as a body double, with the actor's likeness superimposed onto the model.
- Actor lent only their likeness for their film character.
- Appearance through a photographic still.
- Appearance by an in-universe actor portraying the character.
- Character was not in the film.
Crimebusters
The Comedian
The Comedian is a vigilante, 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". Gibbons went with a Groucho Marx-style appearance for the Comedian in his design, deciding that the "clown" look had already been appropriated by the DC Comics supervillain the Joker. 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". 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. 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". Nicholas Michael Grant said the Comedian is "the only character in the Watchmen universe who is almost totally unlikeable."
In the Watchmen film, he is portrayed by Jeffrey Dean Morgan. The film also places him as John F. Kennedy's assassin, as shown in the opening montage. In Watchmen: The End Is Nigh, the Comedian is voiced by Mark Silverman.
Due to his death in the graphic novel, he does not appear in the HBO sequel series Watchmen, but he is mentioned and his legacy lives on through his daughter Laurie. The Comedian is seen briefly in a flashback episode in which he is portrayed by an uncredited actor. According to a Peteypedia article, Lady Trieu's mother Bian My had encountered Blake during the Vietnam War in 1971 in which he and his battalion of Blazin' Commandos' burned down her village.
In Watchmen Chapter I, Comedian is voiced by Rick D. Wasserman.
Doctor Manhattan
Dr. Jonathan "Jon" Osterman is a vigilante and the only character with superpowers. His character was based on the Charlton Comics character Captain Atom. He was originally a physicist who was transformed into a blue, irradiated 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, and was accidentally locked inside when the Subtractor started automatically. Osterman 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. 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 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 referred to as "Jon" or "Dr. Osterman".Perhaps due to his own transhumanist nature, Doctor Manhattan is not only able to perceive time as non-linear, with him often describing past, present and future events as though they were all happening within the time of his retelling of them, this also leads to him acting in accordance with a personal philosophy which most closely resembles determinism. While he can change reality to his will, he believes himself and all of his actions to be pre-determined. He therefore both does and does not possess free will and is, in a way, controlled by forces well within his control. He refuses to change the pre-ordained course of events.
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. In Watchmen: The End is Nigh, Doctor Manhattan is voiced by Crispin Freeman.
In the Watchmen TV series, he is portrayed by Yahya Abdul-Mateen II. For much of the series, he is solely known by the name Cal Abar, the husband of series protagonist Angela Abar and the survivor of an unnamed accident in 2009 which wiped all his memory. Instead, Manhattan had in fact installed a device into his forehead that suppressed his superpowers and his omniscient sense of time, allowing him to pursue a comfortable relationship with Angela, though this did remove his memory prior to 2009. Late in the series, in 2019, Angela discovers a plot by the white supremacist ring the Seventh Kavalry to destroy Manhattan and harness his powers; Angela subsequently forcibly removed the device from his forehead, causing him to regain his abilities and appearance, though immediately afterward he is captured by the Kavalry and transported into a synthetic lithium cage. As Senator Joe Keene, the Kavalry's leader, prepares to destroy Manhattan while harnessing his powers, Lady Trieu intervenes, kills the rest of the Kavalry, and continues the demonstration in attempt to take his powers for herself so that she can do improvements to the world which Doctor Manhattan never got around to doing. Trieu is successful in killing Manhattan and he shares a final moment with Angela before he dies, though Trieu's plans are ultimately upended by Veidt and she is killed by another of his attacks. At the end of the series, Manhattan is implied to have transferred his powers to Angela.
In Watchmen Chapter I, Doctor Manhattan is voiced by Michael Cerveris.
Nite Owl
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." 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" 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. According to Geoff Klock, his civilian form "visually suggests an impotent, middle-aged Clark Kent." The second Nite Owl is another 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. 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 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.
In the Watchmen film, he is portrayed by Patrick Wilson, who put on in between the filming of his flashback scenes and the 1985 scenes, showing the physical decline of his character.
He is not present in the HBO Watchmen series, having been under federal custody since the events of the graphic novel.
In the animated film Watchmen Chapter I, Nite Owl is voiced by Matthew Rhys.