But in 1986, a lot of people assumed a nuclear war was a high likelihood. So Ozymandias’ plan may have seemed cold-blooded but it wasn’t seen as necessarily insane. In the modern post-Soviet world, it seems unnecessary and therefore inexcusable.
I think this was a large part of what Moore was trying to say. It’s unrealistic that Superman would think like a normal person. He’s not a normal person - he’s an alien, he has super-powers, and he spends most of his time fighting crime and saving the world. With his life being so different from everyone else’s, why shouldn’t he be different from everyone else?
Same thing with Batman. If a person is crazy enough to dress up like a bat and go out and beat up criminals night after night for decades, why should we think he’s going to be a normal functional human being during the daytime? Barring a split personality, he’s the same obsessed person during the day when he’s Bruce Wayne as he is at night when he’s Batman.
It was even a bigger shock when you read it issue by issue. It wasn’t until almost a year after you first saw Ozymandias that you found out he was the secret master mind behind everything.
Which is possibly why “Watchmen” divides the Batman persona into Rorschach (the obsessed crime-fighter) and Nite Owl (the wealthy dilettante crime-fighter) and makes them partners.
Well, my point was that Jon makes that assumption, not that I do. But to take it a step further, I’ll cheat by quoting Moore’s notes: “the balance of power would be completely different, and I should imagine that Russia would be growing increasingly frightened and restless as they watched the Western alliance growing in strength. The international situation, as a result of this, would be very tense indeed … If the doomsday clock in our own world stands at five minutes to twelve, then in the world we’re talking about, the big hand is just a fraction of a second away from midnight”. Which goes to Little Nemo’s point:
Moore’s already making the point, in that academic piece in the comic, that America’s political leaders “continually push their unearned advantage until American influence comes uncomfortably close to key areas of Soviet interest. It is as if – with a real live Deity on their side – our leaders have become intoxicated by a heady draught of Omnipotence-by-Association”. As soon as Doc leaves the planet, the situation changes and both sides can start dealing with each other rationally – first acting like the only-five-minutes-to-midnight world, and eventually transitioning into the modern world – if the superpowers who’ve never yet seen eye-to-eye enough for meetings in Geneva can avoid doing something crazy during the period when all the old rules go out the window, when “opportunistic hostility” from the East sparks “Western alarmism” and “throughout the world there is tension with no sign of a breakthrough”.
In the immediate aftermath of Doc leaving, the USSR will invade other countries and the US will be called on to intervene – unless the decision-makers unite in some us-against-them undertaking until rationality prevails in a world where ain’t nobody intoxicated by a heady draught of overconfidence.
No, there’s nothing like that - Adrian’s first punch draws blood from Eddie’s mouth and knocks his head into the wall, and he doesn’t get the chance to get back in the fight after that. Veidt beats on him until he’s semi-conscious, then defenestrates him from forty stories above street level. If Blake has the edge in strength - very possible - he never gets the chance to make anything of it. Veidt’s coldly planned and executed assassination doesn’t require Blake to be taking any dives.
Here’s what Ozy says about Blake to Niteowl and Rorschach:
“Upon learing the creatur’s intended purpose, Blake’s practiced cynicism cracked. Though appalled, exposing my plan would precipitate greater horrors preventing humanity’s salvation. Even Blake balked at that responsibility, telling only Moloch, who he knew wouldn’t understand…But I had Moloch’s place bugged, and I understood perfectly. The plan Blake ahd uncovered was this: to fiighten governments into cooperation, I would convince them that Earth faced imminent attack by beings from another world. I’m afraid the discovery rather drove the wind from his sails…Blake understood, too. He knew my plane would succeed, though its scale terrified him. That’s why he told nobody. It was too big to discuss…but he understood. At the end, he understood. He understood the portents, knew a dazzling transformation was at hand for mankind. The burtoal world he’d relished would simply cease to be, it’s fierce and brawling denizens rushing to join the Mastodon in obsolesence…in extinction.”
This may be the Imaginary Novel (Imaginary Story, in the vernacular) ““The Abominable Brats” (both Supe and Batman are greying and have sons–you-all must see the cover sometime) in World’s Finest 157, 1966. But there were other Imaginary Stories, including “The Death of Superman” Superman 149 (1960), with major realistic events in them–they just didn’t occur in the"reality” of the characters.
There were other old Supes stories (Supersons in the mid-70s, and indeed a disabled old Supes in a wheelchair Action 396, also from the 70s) DrDeth may have seen–but these came after my Superman days and I don’t know if they were Imaginary.
Also, the element of variations on known heroic characters goes back to the 40s at least (Some Batman newspaper strips featured Batman/Robin type teams from other nations). I also direct researchers to the Crime Syndicate, introduced in JLA 29 (1964), alternate versions of DC characters and “real,” just from Earth 3.
Arguably, as the Watchmen are not in any other comics “reality,” they are no more original than any Imaginary Story.
But as a stand-alone, complete story published in relatively short order in a handy, mainstream format and manner AND well done, Watchmen deserves much respect.