Character Clues
Character Analysis
Clothing
Imagine there’s a DIY guide to superhero costume design. For example, should you go cape or capeless? Hollis Mason answers that one in Chapter B. Here’s the main takeaway: clothes make the (wo)man. Nite Owl is a high-tech geek, so he has gear for cold weather, underwater, and hazmat work (VII.6.6). Hooded Justice and Rorschach are hard-core and mysterious, so they keep their faces completely hidden.
Shall we go on? The original Silk Spectre has designs on being a model and actress, so she flaunts her best assets. Dr. Manhattan loses his clothing as he becomes less and less human. Veidt wears a crown and royal purple robes, because he fancies himself the next Alexander the Great. Clothing protects, hides, and distinguishes these heroes, not just from regular folks, but from each other.
Names
Not to beat a dead horse, but in some ways, a superhero’s costume is just an extension of his or her name. Some food for thought: which characters come up with their own names and which have names chosen for them? From childhood, Laurie Jupiter is groomed to be the next Silk Spectre, but she shows her free spirit by rejecting her mother’s fake last name, and going back to the original Juspeczyk.
Similarly, we know Dan Dreiberg is a respectful guy because he asks Hollis Mason’s permission before becoming Nite Owl. And the passive Jon Osterman doesn’t rebrand himself Dr. Manhattan; the government makes the decision for him. Sometimes, names can be deeply ironic or perfectly fitting. Is the Comedian really that funny? Then there’s Rorschach, who clearly suffers from psychological trauma. Ozymandias? Pompous and power-hungry, his name is Greek for the Egyptian pharaoh Rameses. And this is just for starters.
Family Life
One of the most tempting ways to chew on Watchmen is to trace each character back to his or her childhood. Did young Laurie Juspeczyk have issues with her stepfather, Laurence Schexnayder? Then it’s only natural for her to struggle in relationships with men (Dr. Manhattan and Dan Dreiberg, at least in the beginning). How about little Walter J. Kovacs? Simple. He was bullied because his mother was a prostitute and he had no father to protect him. Ever since, he’s punished men who’ve mistreated women with a particularly harsh brand of justice.
Alan Moore gives us a slice of life into every single major character. Even minor ones, like Dr. Long and his wife Gloria, or the newsstand vendor Bernard and his late wife Rosa, are round characters with a notable presence or lack of family life. Hopefully though, none of them—or us—are doomed or saved simply because of where we come from.
Occupation
Even superheroes get stuck in the rat race. Imagine you’re forty years old (scary, we know) and you’re at a cocktail party. The first thing somebody asks is… So, what do you do? In Watchmen, you can draw a straight line between profession and personality. Adrian Veidt is the CEO of a major corporation that sells perfume, action figures of Ozymandias, and self-improvement programs; he’s narcissistic and craves power.
Dan Dreiberg studied zoology and aeronautics at Harvard, therefore he’s whip-smart but a little dweeby around the edges. Dr. Jon Osterman is a nuclear physicist, which allows him to reassemble his body after the accident. And Rorschach? He spends his days holding a sign predicting the end of the world. Not too much money in that line of work.