Watchmen is a 1986 graphic novel written by Alan Moore and drawn by Dave Gibbons. It is one of the most important superhero stories, ushering in a new era of adult-oriented mainstream comics.

The title is a reference to the Latin phrase "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes", often translated as "Who watches the watchmen?". The story takes place in a world parallel to ours, one in which superheroes actually exist. Alan Moore explores their impact on this society and postulates a situation where unaccountable supermen arrange the lives of common people.

As of November 2004, Paul Greengrass will direct a movie based on the series for Paramount Pictures, with a script by David Hayter. No actors have yet been cast, although Jude Law has long maintained interest in such a project.

Plot summary, not containing spoilers

Cover art for both the U.S. and U.K. collected editions of the Watchmen comics, published 1987 by DC Comics/Titan Books

A right-wing extremist vigilante, Rorschach, investigates the murder of the Comedian, another costumed adventurer. This triggers another investigation that causes him to track down and interview his former associates, whom he believes are being targeted by an enemy who is out to eliminate the superheroes. In a world that has been drastically changed (Nixon is still President, the Vietnam War was won by the U.S., etc.) by the superhuman powers of another adventurer, Dr. Manhattan, the team members start to reconsider who they are in the midst of a complex situation that seems to push events even closer to the brink of an impending global disaster.

In the early 1980s DC Comics, who had acquired a number of existing characters from Charlton Comics, commissioned a treatment from Moore for a mini-series about them. The resulting story, recast with new heroes to avoid continuity problems with DC's mainstream comics, was often hailed as a breakthrough in comic book writing and, along with Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns, sparked an interest in comics amongst a wider adult audience than traditionally associated with them.

The principal cast and the Charlton Comics characters that inspired them:

• The Comedian, adapted from the Peacemaker.
• Dr. Manhattan, adapted from Captain Atom.
• Nite Owl I, adapted from Blue Beetle (Dan Garrett).
• Nite Owl II, adapted from Blue Beetle (Ted Kord).
• Ozymandias, adapted from Thunderbolt.
• Rorschach, adapted from the Question.
• Silk Spectre, adapted from Nightshade

Plot Summary

Rorschach's investigations into the murder of the Comedian lead to a meeting between Nite Owl II and the Silk Spectre II. This meeting indicates there is attraction between Nite Owl II and Silk Spectre II. Superheroes have been banned for the last decade apart from Dr. Manhattan who is regarded as a national defense asset. Silk Spectre II lives with Dr. Manhattan but his increasingly unhuman philosophy is leading to them becoming estranged. Rorschach confronts Manhattan with a theory about a plot being organised to murder former superheroes. Appearing at a television interview Dr. Manhattan is ambushed by the media and charged that a number of his close associates have died of cancer. Manhattan responds in anger teleporting the audience and crew out of the building. He then travels to the Los Alamos facility where as a young scientist he had been caught in the nuclear accident that had lead to his transformation to Dr. Manhattan. This episode also gives an opportunity to reflect on his relationship with the Comedian (they had served together in Vietnam where Dr. Manhattan had not intervened when the Comedian murdered his pregnant Vietnamese lover). Dr. Manhattan teleports himself to Mars which causes a panic in the U.S. government. Silk Spectre II, having no one else to turn to, seeks out Nite Owl II and they become lovers after becoming operational as Superheroes again. Meanwhile Rorschach has been captured by the police and is interviewed by a Criminal Psychologist. Nite Owl II and Silk Spectre II break Rorschach out of prison knowing that he holds the key to what has been going on.

Dr. Manhattan teleports the Silk Spectre II to Mars. Through flash-backs, it is revealed that the Comedian was Silk Spectre II's father. She has an emotional breakdown as she has always hated the Comedian as she knew that he had raped and beat her mother (the original Silk Spectre). During their debate it is clear Dr. Manhattan has little concern for humanity but the details of her birth shows him how low are the probabilities of any particular person being born are as to constitute a statistical miracle. This convinces him that life is worth saving and to return to earth to intervene.

Rorschach pieces clues together to implicate Ozymandias as the only person capable of organizing the plot to kill off the masked adventurers. Rorschach and Nite Owl II track Ozymadias to his secret Arctic base while Dr. Manhattan and the Silk Spectre II go there direct. When confronted, Ozymandias reveals that he killed the Comedian in order to hide a much larger global conspiracy. By pure luck, the Comedian had found an island where Ozymandias was creating a genetic experiment. The genetic experiment was the construction of a giant squid-like mutant with great telepathic abilities. The mutant would be teleported into New York City to send a psychic shockwave which would kill several thousand innocent people. His logic was that the apparent threat of an alien invasion will convince the world powers to unite. This is his solution to stop global warfare. Knowing that Rorschach and others would investigate the murder of the Comedian, Ozymandias started a smaller falsehood of a serial killer murdering masked heroes in order to hide the true reason for the Comedian's death. Ozymandias also reveals that he was behind the incidents which caused Dr. Manhattan to leave the planet. The heroes ask him to stop his plot but Ozymadias tells them that they are too late and the teleportation of the creature happened before they arrived. He then asks the others not to reveal his conspiracy as it would undo the good that he intends. Only Rorschach disagrees and wants to disclose the plot to the world. In order to keep these secrets, Dr. Manhattan kills Rorschach. Dr. Manhattan leaves the Earth for the last time.

Ozymandias's ploy to peacefully unite the world has worked but as a coda we see that Rorschach has sent his private journal detailing the fraud to a right-wing newspaper. Whether the journal is read, published or taken seriously by the public is left as an open question at the end.

The Keene Act

The Keene Act is a fictional law that was proposed by the fictional Senator Keene and passed in 1977 outlawing the activities of vigilantes and costumed heroes. The act was instrumental in ending the adventuring careers of many of the characters in the story. The act was passed as an emergency measure because the police had gone on strike in protest to the unaccountable adventurers, and the citizens were rioting aginst them as well. The only heroes allowed to continue working were the Comedian and Dr. Manhattan, both under government supervision and control. Other heroes revealed their identities and retired or cashed in on their persona, while some refused to quit and continued working illegally.

Critical concerns in Watchmen

The Watchmen presents numerous mysteries, some of which are not neatly wrapped up for the reader. The mysteries range from the personal to the global:

• The hidden relationship between the Comedian and the original Silk Spectre.
• What happened to the Hooded Justice - spy murdered by the Soviets, killed by the Comedian in revenge?
• The hidden atrocities of the Vietnam War which removes any humanity left in the Comedian.
• The plot by the U.S. government to only allow those super heroes under their direct control to operate.
• The plot to kill the super heroes.
• The plot to remove Dr. Manhattan.
• The conspiracy to save the planet from global war.
• Suggestions that John F. Kennedy was assasinated on orders from Nixon and that the Comedian killed Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein

The story presents some mature philosophical and ethical themes. Some of the characters portray these themes:

• The Comedian, is a cynic and nihilist in his beliefs of how individuals can't affect the geo-political realities of the possibility of global nuclear warfare. Over the years, he becomes more and more immoral with his participation in various atrocities that happen during wartime.
• Rorschach combines a nihilist viewpoint with moral absolutism. He believes that all moral and legal infractions, no matter how small, must be severely dealt with, without regard to what the greater consequences would be.
• Ozymandias believes in moral relativism, especially in that the ends justifies the means.
• Dr. Manhattan is totally amoral, in that he has placed himself outside of human interactions and concerns.

Watchmen uses false documents in a centrally important way; much of the story is told or illustrated with journals, invented news reports, articles on the world of the Watchmen, and particularly the diary of anti-hero Rorschach. The verisimilitude with which these documents are presented is important, as it works in opposition to the potentially-cartoonish origins of the material. While the work is not entirely composed of false documents, the documents that are used have a central thematic and technical role in the drama, especially Rorschach's psychiatric history ,and the EC Comics-style pirate comic book which counterpoints to the larger narrative, and is the product of one of the kidnapped artists. The fictitious right-wing magazine The New Frontiersman also proves important to the plotline.

Watchmen is concerned with levels of authenticity and the contrast between objective and subjective perspectives. Is Rorschach the 'hero', because of his intense personal conviction, or is he merely an emotionally-damaged liability, overshadowed by the superficially less complex Nite Owl, who dedicates equivalent levels of capital to more and more elaborate toys and masks?

The book is also concerned with props, masks and a general investigation of the "realness" and "perfection" of costumed crimefighters, all but one of which are ordinary human beings encased in physical, spiritual, and mental masks. It inspects the depth and literality of Übermenschen in a naturalistic setting. The evolution of superheroes is presented as an arms race of authenticity, starting with a masked wrestler, then a masked cop, then techno-dilettantes and madmen and vigilantes, finally culminating in the genuinely superhuman Doctor Manhattan—the hero that is so "real" that he not only makes the costumed crimefighters obsolete (he wears no costume, and is usually nude), he makes all of mankind irrelevant.

Related products

In 1987, Mayfair Games produced two adventure modules based on Watchmen for its DC Heroes role-playing game. These modules, entitled "Who Watches the Watchmen?" and "Taking out the Trash," included background information about the fictional Watchmen universe, approved by Alan Moore. His approval made these publications valuable to fans as the only outside source of supplemental information about the characters in the story (especially minor characters, such as the Minutemen and Moloch).

In 1988 British Acid House music act Bomb the Bass used the blood stained smiley badge on the cover of the "Beat Dis" single release. This influenced the adoption of the Smiley Badge as a feature of rave culture.

External links

• Links to Alan Moore Fansites (http://members.tripod.com/~sonofthelizardking/moorelinks.html)
• Ralf Hildebrandt's Annotations (http://www.stahl.bau.tu-bs.de/~hildeb/watchmen/)
• Doug Atkinson's Annotations (http://www.enjolrasworld.com/Annotations/Alan%20Moore/Watchmen/watchmen%20index.htm)
• Doug Atkinson's Annotations Mirror Site (http://www.capnwacky.com/rj/watchmen/chapter1.html)
• Toonopedia entry (http://www.toonopedia.com/watchmen.htm)

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