Though he dabbles briefly in crime-fighting, his greatest influence is to grant the U.S. He is the only character in the story that possesses actual superpowers. 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. Within a few months, his disembodied consciousness managed to reconstruct a physical body for itself. Jon was blown into atoms, with nothing left of his body. 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.

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. In the Watchmen film he is played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan.ĭr. Nicholas Michael Grant said the Comedian is 'the only character in the Watchmen universe who is almost totally unlikeable.'

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'. The character appears throughout the story in flashbacks and aspects of his personality are revealed by other characters. He therefore chooses to become a mockery of society, fighting and killing without reservation.īlake's murder, which takes place shortly before the story begins in 1985, sets the plot of Watchmen in motion. He believes that humans are savage in nature, and that civilization can never be more than an idea.

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'. 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. Moore and Gibbons saw the Comedian as 'a kind of Gordon Liddy character, only a much bigger, tougher guy'. 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.

Watchmen by alan moore