Chapter 171: Flawed Heroes I

Of course, what else could Alexander's Alan Moore-catered Flawed Heroes protocol be aside from Watchmen?

Watchmen is one of the most popular and influential comic books ever. Written in the 80s by English wizard Alan Moore and Alexander simply had to plunder from that.

Since DC and Alan Moore asked for it, then they should get what's coming for them and that was to have their magnum opus be used against them.

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Watchmen is a superhero story that questions the idea of a hero- which is symbolized by a bloody smiley face.

The smiley is the ultimate simplistic cartoon, representing the optimism of comic books where good guys fight bad guys and no one ever really dies. Watchmen splashes that smiley with blood because it adds flawed human characters, moral ambiguity, politics, philosophy, and darkness that was unusual in comics at that time.

Of course in the future, everything is a dark and gritty re-imagination of superheroes in the form of cinema, but Watchmen did it before it was cool and still holds up as a complex story about power, morality, fantasy, and giant psychic squids.

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The story's set in an alternate 80s America, where superheroes exists. None of them have superpowers-they're just vigilantes in costumes… except for Dr. Manhattan who has all the power, except pants.

With Manhattan's help, America won the Vietnam war, and Richard Nixon is still the president on his 5th term. A hero called the Comedian does dirty work for the government, and it's hinted that he covered the Watergate scandal, which in the real world ended Nixon's presidency. For heroes to embody such scandalous traits, it can already be seen how the story is set as a subversion to many heroic tropes.

So superheroes change the course of history and they also affect the culture.

The hero Silk Spectre was a hero and sex symbol in the 40s, and Ozymandias built a corporate empire selling action figures of himself. Because of all superheroes, people lost interest in superhero comics, so comics about pirates are popular instead.

Thanks to Dr. Manhattan, technology is more advanced- 1980s New York has electric cars, airships, and people eat genetically-modified, 4-legged chickens.

In the 70s, heroes were outlawed, so most of them retired. Only Manhattan and the Comedian are allowed to keep working by the government.

When the story starts tension is rising in the Cold War between America and Russia. Everyone fears nuclear annihilation, the doomsday clock approaches midnight, and the Comedian is mysteriously killed.

Although the Comedian is killed right off the bat, his pervading influence and warped morality still linger as the Watchmen starts off as a murder mystery story.

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The murder is investigated by Rorschach, a hero who refuses to retire. On the surface, Rorschach is like Batman. He lurks in the shadows, beats up criminals, says edgy shit in a gravelly voice.

But by day, Batman is Bruce Wayne, a sexy genius billionaire. While Rorschach is Walter Kovaks, a greasy loner weirdo, who walks the streets with a sign that says 'the end is nigh!'.

Cause realistically, the sort of person who dresses up and fights people at night isn't a functional person, he's a "nutcase".

So Rorschach is an asocial, violent, psycho with an extreme worldview. He thinks all of society is filthy and sinful and doesn't deserve mercy. Rorschach's black and white mask represents his black and white morality. Everything is either good or evil, and evil must be punished.

He says he never compromises in judgment but he's often biased, he spares people for personal reasons, and like when he hears the Comedian tries to rape Silk Spectre, he doesn't care, because he sees the Comedian as a patriot and Silk Spectre as a whore.

Rorschach is psychologically disturbed by sex. As a kid, his mother was abusive and he saw her working as a prostitute. Sexuality reminds Rorschach of his hatred and disgust for his mother and he expresses this anger by fighting criminals.

He becomes a vigilante when he hears about Kitty Genovese, a real-world murder victim in the 60s. Rorschach was still a rational person back then until he discovers the murder of a child. He saw the darkest side of humanity and it broke him. Convinced him that the world is random, godless, and has no meaning-save what we choose to impose.

The only way Rorschach could save himself from the despair and trauma was to impose his brutal ideology, punishing evil no matter the cost. Which often causes more suffering, like he gets his information routinely by breaking random people's fingers until he hears something useful. He terrorizes a sick old man, breaks into people's houses, and eats all their beans.

Rorschach calls other people as "parasites" but he's the one who lives off other people.

Rorschach calls other people as "filth" but he's the one who stinks.

He says he never compromises but he often does, and his obsession with punishing evil just leaves more bloody footprints behind him.

So Watchmen goes deep into the psychology of the masked avenger and it doesn't find a cool hero like Batman but a sad, gross, hypocritical, broken man like Rorschach.

However, Rorschach did help uncover a conspiracy that threatens millions of people.

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Dr. Manhattan explores what it means to be superhuman. He can effortlessly shape the world around him on an atomic scale, he can teleport, he can walk on the sun, sees the past and the future as one. He's like a god but he is a really bad lover.

Being superhuman makes it hard to relate with people, he doesn't have human needs or fears, he's cold and distant, and apparently really bad at sex. Being au naturale all the time must have taken quite the toll on his manhood.

Manhattan can see the universe, from the dance of atoms to ancient Martina geology, so humans seem like ants to him. The people around him grow old and die but he never changes.

When he starts relationships, he already sees a future of them breaking up. Through the medium of comics, one gets to see the time as Manhattan does. With past, present, and future being visible all at once. A story with a predetermined end.

Manhattan says that free will is an illusion. We're all puppets and he's just the puppet who can see the strings.

So in a way, being the most powerful also means that you are powerless. He can't change the future because to him it already happened.

Manhattan's superhuman perspective makes him not human. Without human feelings, he has no desire to be a superhero who saves the world. He is a deconstruction of Superman, suggesting that superhumans would actually not be great protectors of humans and humanity.

There's just something existentially terrifying about a being so powerful. He makes regular humans irrelevant, obsolete like how Neanderthals are replaced by the sapiens.

Manhattan gets falsely accused of giving people cancer and his girlfriend leaves him for a certain Owl Man. As such he leaves for Mars and builds his own Let-it-go Elsa Castle there.

Eventually, his ex-girlfriend does convince him that mankind has value due to its sheer human miraculous improbability. This would lead him to return to Earth and try to prevent the upcoming Cold War catastrophe and an even greater plot.

Of course, the Comedian, Rorschach, and Dr. Manhattan is just the first half of what flawed heroes could be.