This Watchmen crossover has made me look at something from the original series in a different way.
Dr. Manhattan got his powers after he was atomized in a lab accident, and was able to use his prodigious intellect to reconstitute himself, molecule by molecule.
Ozymandias, on the other hand, is the guy who calls himself “The Smartest Man on Earth,” and his primary character trait is an enormous (and largely justified) ego.
At the end of the book, it’s revealed that he’s developed a machine that perfectly replicates the conditions that gave Dr. Manhattan his powers.
How long could Adrien Veidt keep that machine around without trying it out on himself? After all, if John Ostermann could do it, surely…
So, my guess is the cosmic big bad that’s made DC so gloomy for the last few years is going to be heavily hinted at being Dr. Manhattan, but will be revealed in the end to actually be an Ozymandias who has replicated Manhattan’s powers, and then [del]took a job as DC’s editor-in-chief[/del] started warping reality to meet his expectations.
Making the Question into Rorschach would be a weirdly recursive editorial decision, given the story behind the Charlton Comics characters and the creation of the Watchmen, but the very little we know about the guy who was turned into the New 52 Question doesn’t fit Rorschach at all. For starters, the other two members of the Trinity of Sin are Pandora and Judas Iscariot. What did Rorschach ever do that would warrant that sort of company? The moral implications of drowning a criminal dwarf in a prison toilet are surprisingly layered, but the other two in the trio are working at a much larger scale.
We also have at least one hint to 52Question’s identity, though, and while it doesn’t quite fit any of the Watchmen characters backgrounds, I think there might be kind of a weird lateral connection there. In the comic where they set up the Trinity, we see the three being punished. When it’s the soon-to-be Question’s turn, he starts monologging: “I will not beg, wizards! I defy the authority you claim! Do what you wish to me, but if you do not kill me, I will rise to power again! And you will fear my name as does the world!” To which a wizard replies, “You will forget your name, as will everyone.”
So, this is just a guess, but if I had to put money on it, I’d say that character was originally intended to be a reference to Ozymandias. Not Moore’s; Shelley’s:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Now that they’ve decided to fold in the Watchmen characters to the main DCU, I wouldn’t be surprised if that ends up being Adrien Veidt. He’s the only character in Watchmen whose crimes are big enough to be included in that company.* It would also make absolutely no sense. That’s supposed to be a trial from the age when mankind first discovered magic. Adrien Veidt is a celebrity crime fighter from the 1980s. But, then again, his companions are a person believed to be ancient by Bronze Age Greeks, and a 1st century Palestinian Jew, so the time frame is already ultra screwy.
(*Actually, what did it turn out that Pandora’s crime actually was? In the myth, she’s literally responsible for every bad thing that happens, ever. In the comics, she… opened a portal to the world where the Justice League is evil? Isn’t that how that story line shook out? I mean, the Crime Syndicate are dicks, don’t get me wrong, but just opening a door to their place is “Trinity of Sin” material? The Justice League accidentally open portals to dimensions full of evil dicks on a semi-monthly basis, and they don’t get a Council of Wizards all up in their business, calling them a Septet Of Ill Intent and erasing Hal Jordan’s face.)
