The Annotated Watchmen, Doug Atkinson [fb2 epub reader txt] 📗

some point for Dimensional Developments,

where she was given cancer. #'s 3-4.

WEAVER, WALLY (1937-1971): "Dr. Manhattan's buddy," who worked with

him at Gila Flats, later worked at Dimensional Developments, and died of

cancer in 1971. #4.

TIMELINE

1916: Hollis Mason is born.

1929: Jon Osterman is born.

10/13/38: Hooded Justice makes his public debut.

1939: Silk Spectre, Nite Owl, Captain Metropolis, the Comedian,

Silhouette, Dollar Bill, and Mothman all debut. The

Minutemen are formed.

Adrian Veidt is born.

3/21/40: Walter Kovacs is born.

10/?2/40: The Minutemen group photo is taken. The Comedian attempts

to rape Sally Jupiter.

1941: The US enters World War II.

1945: World War II ends.

1946: Silhouette is expelled from the Minutemen, and killed.

1947: Sally Jupiter resigns and marries Laurence Schexnayder.

1948: Jon Osterman enters Princeton.

1949: Laurel Jane Juspeczyk is born.

The Minutemen disband.

1951: Walter Kovacs attacks and partially blinds a bully, and is

taken from his mother and put into the Lillian Charlton home.

1956: Sally and Laurence are divorced.

Sylvia Kovacs is murdered.

Both his parents dead, Veidt decides to follow the

footsteps of Alexander the Great.

1958: Jon receives his Ph.D. in atomic physics from Princeton.

Ozymandias becomes active.

5/12/59: Jon's first day at Gila Flats.

7/59: The photograph of Janey and Jon is taken.

8/59: Jon Osterman is seemingly killed in an accident at Gila

Flats.

9/59: Jon's funeral is held.

11/10/59: "There is a circulatory system walking through the

kitchen..."

11/14/59: "A partially muscled skeleton stands by the perimeter fence

and screams for thirty seconds before vanishing..."

11/22/59: Jon first appears fully reassembled.

2/60: The government devises the Dr. Manhattan identity for Jon.

3/60: Dr. Manhattan is announced to the world.

6/60: Nite Owl, Dr. Manhattan and Ozymandias meet for the first

time at a charity function.

11/60: Dr. Manhattan invades Moloch's "underground vice-den."

9/61: Dr. Manhattan meets President Kennedy.

5/62: Hollis Mason retires.

1962: Dan Dreiberg debuts as the second Nite Owl.

Under the Hood is published.

11/22/63: President Kennedy is assassinated; Dr. Manhattan does not

prevent it.

3/64: Inspired by the rape and murder of Kitty Genovese, Walter

Kovacs becomes Rorschach.

1965: Nite Owl and Rorschach, working together, bring down Big

Figure and the Underboss.

1966: Laurie debuts as Silk Spectre.

The abortive first meeting of the Crimebusters is held.

Janey leaves Dr. Manhattan.

1968: Nite Owl arrests Twilight Lady.

Richard Nixon is elected President for the first time.

1969: Jon's father dies.

1970: Gila Flats closes. Jon and Laurie move to Washington.

1/71: Nixon asks Dr. Manhattan to intervene in Vietnam.

3/71: Dr. Manhattan meets the Comedian in Vietnam.

5/71: The Viet Cong surrender.

6/71: VVN day.

11/71: Wally Weaver dies.

1973: Woodward and Bernstein turn up dead while investigating the

Watergate break-in.

1975: Nixon proposes a constitutional amendment allowing him to

run for more than 2 terms.

Ozymandias retires and announces his identity publicly.

8/3/77: The Keene Act is passed. Silk Spectre and Nite Owl retire.

1981: Laurie and Jon move to Rockefeller.

1985: The Comedian runs across Ozymandias' secret island.

10/85: Blake tells Moloch about the island.

10/12/85: The Comedian is murdered. Rorschach visits Dreiberg.

10/13/85: Rorschach visits Ozymandias, Silk Spectre, and Dr.

Manhattan.

Laurie and Dan go to dinner.

10/16/85: The Comedian's funeral. Rorschach visits Moloch.

10/19/85: Laurie leaves Jon. Dr. Manhattan appears on TV, goes to

Arizona, and leaves Earth. Laurie goes to Dan.

10/20/85: Rorschach visits Dan again. The Soviets invade

Afghanistan.

10/21/85: Rorschach visits Moloch again.

A failed attempt is made to assassinate Veidt.

Laurie moves to Dan's apartment.

Rorschach is framed for Moloch's murder, and apprehended by

the police.

10/25/85: Mal has his first session with Rorschach.

Dan and Laurie rescue several people from a tenement fire.

10/26/85: Mal and Rorschach's second session.

Rorschach attacks another inmate with hot fat, and is put

in solitary confinement.

10/27/85: Mal and Rorschach's third session.

Dan and Laurie plan to spring Rorschach.

10/28/85: Mal and Rorschach's fourth session; Rorschach relates the

story of the Roche kidnapping.

10/30/85: Steve Fine visits Dreiberg.

10/31/85: The prisoner Rorschach attacked dies, and Sing Sing erupts

in a riot. Dan and Laurie bust Rorschach from prison.

Dr. Manhattan takes Laurie to Mars.

11/1/85: Hollis Mason is murdered.

Rorschach and Nite Owl find the courier at Happy Harry's.

The participants in the alien project are killed by a bomb.

11/2/85: Rorschach and Nite Owl break into Veidt's office, and go to

Karnak. Veidt activates the transmission. The "alien"

appears in New York.

Laurie and Jon arrive in Karnak. Bubastis is killed. Dr.

Manhattan kills Rorschach.

12/25/85: Laurie and Dan visit Sally in their new identities.

SUMMARY OF NON-SERIES INFORMATION:

Mayfair Games, former publishers of the DC Heroes role-playing

game, have put out two modules and a sourcebook for the Watchmen universe.

The module "Taking Out the Trash" by Ray Winninger includes a section co-

written by Moore giving a capsule history of the characters and

world, including information not given in the series. The Watchmen

Sourcebook (not written by Moore) expands on this information considerably.

Because this information is a) partially written by Moore and b)

not in disagreement with anything in the series, it can be considered

partially canonical. Noteworthy information about the characters not given in

the series is summarized here. Wherever there is disagreement, the

module will be held as the higher authority (with the comic as the highest

authority, of course). (Unfortunately, its timeline contains several minor

errors. It lists Mason's year of birth as 1906, when it should be 1916.

Laurie was born in 1949, not 1950 (actually, opinions on this vary). It

also gives Hooded Justice as being born in 1905, which is theoretically possible

but difficult to believe. Several of the dates for the events of the series itself are

also wrong.)

CAPTAIN METROPOLIS: As a child, CM was asthmatic, but built himself

up and played football in college. He was unhappy with the way that many of

the Minutemen were more concerned with the social potential of the team

than crimefighting. When WWII was on he was brought back into the USMC.

COMEDIAN: He definitely murdered Hooded Justice, and was able to use

his government connections to prevent any investigation into the

disappearance. He also killed Woodward and Bernstein, and was involved in Kennedy's

assassination.

HOODED JUSTICE: Rolf Muller was indeed a name he used, but it was

only an alias and his true identity was never discovered. He was not a

communist, however, but an anti-Communist, as confirmed by his KKK connections.

He was the last person to agree to join the Minutemen. He spoke

publicly in favor of Hitler in an interview in 1940.

MOTHMAN: Byron was a bored playboy who fought crime to add spice to

his life. He was a conscientious objector during WWII and served as a

medical aide.

SILHOUETTE: Ursula was an Austrian aristocrat who fled to avoid the

Nazis. As a Jew she was greatly bothered by Hooded Justice's pro-Hitler

stance, but Larry managed to sweep the incident under the rug. The villain

who killed her and her lover was named the Liquidator.

SILK SPECTRE I: Sally Jupiter was a teen-aged runaway.

A NOTE ON THE ORIGINS OF THE CHARACTERS: Many of the super-heroes in

this series are based on the original versions of characters published by

Charlton Comics and acquired by DC. They are:

Comedian: Based on Peacemaker. Violent government operative.

Dr. Manhattan: Based on Captain Atom. Government employee gains

godlike molecular powers in nuclear accident.

Nite Owl I & II: Based on the first and third Blue Beetle. Original:

policeman, fights crime in spare time in chainmail costume.

(Published by Fox.) Third: Fights crime using science, has flying vehicle.

Ozymandias: Based on Thunderbolt. Trained in the East, honed his

mind & body to perfection.

Rorschach: Based on the Question. Tough, violent crimefighters with

featureless masks.

Silk Spectre: Based on Nightshade. Female crimefighter, influenced

by her mother, associates with ultra-powerful hero. [The mother-to-daughter

identity transmission and costume/MO may be inspired by DC character

Black Canary.]

It is theoretically possible that the rest of the Minutemen were

based on Golden Age superheroes; but if so, I have been unable to trace any

specific sources. They seem to be more archetypes than specific tributes;

Captain Metropolis is the patriotic hero, Mothman the Batman/Green Arrow-type

bored playboy, Silk Spectre and Silhouette two types of Golden Age heroine.

(Sally as Black Canary, Ursula as the harder-edged Iron Lady type.

Her homosexuality may have been inspired by common rumors/theories about

Wonder Woman.)

The series was originally intended to be about the Charlton

characters, but DC nixed the idea, probably because of the CAPTAIN ATOM and BLUE

BEETLE series that began about the same time. Moore re-worked the

characters slightly into the current versions.

HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL CHANGES IN THE WORLD OF THE WATCHMEN

This section summarizes the differences between our world and

theirs. I am ignoring certain obvious changes, such as the super-heroes,

major differences in technology, and the different consumer products and

magazines. (Mmeltdowns don't exist in our world, but that's not

really worthy of mention.)

HEINZ: In 1892 the founder of the Heinz corporation decided on

the slogan "57 varieties;" in our world. In their world, it's "58

varieties" (1:10:8)

VIETNAM: In our world and theirs, US attempts to oust the Viet

Cong led to US troops being sent there. In our world, these

attempts were unsuccessful, and troops were eventually withdrawn. In

their world, Nixon promised in 1968 (to ensure re-election) to send

in Dr. Manhattan, and did so in 1971. He brought about Viet Cong

surrender in just two months. In 1985, Vietnam became the 51st state

(1:4:3).

SPACE: In our world, treaties prohibit nuclear weaponry in

space. This is not true in their world, apparently, because the US

Congress approved the building of nuclear silos on the moon (1:14:5;

"Congress Approves Lunar Silos," a Gazette headline). (These

could possibly be grain silos, but that seems unlikely.) This also

indicates much more space travel than in our world.

GENETIC ENGINEERING: Besides the obvious (Bubastis) it's

apparently produced four-legged, wingless poultry (1:25:4).

SOCIAL ATTITUDES: Whether this is significant or not, we see

two men embracing in public in 1:25:4. Also, the accepted term for

homosexual females is "gay women," not "lesbians." This

change came about in the mid-'70s (9:32).

WORLD WAR II: In their world, the Nazis had costumed saboteurs

in the US (Screaming Skull and Captain Axis). There is no

evidence that the second nuclear bomb was used on Japan in Nagasaki in

their world, but there's no evidence against it either.

COMIC BOOKS: In our world, the most prominent comics were

super-hero comics in the '40s. They diminished after WWII ended, and

crime and horror comics rose to prominence in the '50s, led by EC

Comics; a public outcry led by Dr. Fredric Wertham led to the founding

of the Comics Code Authority, which put the kibosh on most horror

books. Superheroes came to prominence again in the very late '50s and

early '60s, with DC's revitalization of their old characters (Flash,

Green Lantern, etc.) and the rise of Marvel, beginning with the

Fantastic Four in 1961. Superhero comics continue to dominate the

industry.

In their world, ACTION COMICS #1 (with the first appearance of

Superman) helped touch off the masked hero craze. Superhero

comics continued for a while (the Flash existed, possibly as

"Flash-Man") but