Two of the original members of the Minutemen, forerunners to the Crimebusters - or Watchmen, as they’re incorrectly known.
They’re seen here, Captain Metropolis in the red bandit mask next to Silk Spectre I and Hooded Justice at the far right. Hooded Justice also has the distinction of being the first costumed hero. He also gives The Comedian a beating when he sees him raping Silk Spectre I. Captain Metropolis was the leader of the first lot, and formed the second.
Rorschach in the movie mentions the fates of most of the originals. Dollar Bill, a bank mascot, gunned down in a robbery when his cape is caught in a revolving door. Silhouette is murdered by a jealous lover, a victim of her own lifestyle as Rorschach puts it. Mothman was dragged to an insane asylum. Nite Owl I is murdered by Top-Knots. The Comedian is murdered by Ozymandias. Silk Spectre I is still alive at the end of the events.
No mention is given to Hooded Justice or Captain Metropolis. Were they gay lovers who faked their own deaths? Did The Comedian kill them (I can imagine him itching for some revenge on Hooded Justice - and he treats Captain Metropolis with nothing but contempt)? Are the two in the foreground of this panel?
It’s implied strongly that the Comedian killed Hooded Justice in revenge for the beating (Hollis, the first Nite Owl, mentions this idea in his autobiography, I think). Captain Metropolis, according to Wikipedia, died in a deliberate car accident. I never noticed the guy with the mask around his neck in the panel before. Interesting. I’ll let the other Watchmen experts chime in about that.
It aint a mask, it’s a bowtie. And I’m pretty sure the gay couple in the forefront has nothing to do with Metropolis and Justice but just there to show that society has evolved somehow and gay couples (and displays of affection) are far more easily accepted.
That said I had never picked up the clues that Metropolis was gay AND Hooded Justice’s lover (though HJ’s sexuality is questioned by Nite Owl in his book)
You’re right about the bow-tie - the reflections looked like eyeholes on first glance. You’re probably right about the purpose of the gay couple too - the frame is showing other changes to(like 4-drumsticked turkey)
ETA - and thanks to enalzi too for pointing out that it’s a bow-tie.
I don’t know who, it might have been Silk Spectres publicist/husband mentioned Hooded Justice and Captain Metropolis acting like an old married couple at some point.
Metropolis’s death was by all indication accidental. Hooded Justice disappeared and while Hollis Mason speculated that a washed-up corpse might have been that of a disappeared circus strongman (and, Mason speculates, HJ’s secret identity), he had no evidence nor any idea of who killed the washed-up victim. Later on, Adrian Veidt comments that during his own research into his costumed predecessors, he also speculated (and again, admitting his lack of evidence) that the Comedian killed HJ. Sally Jupiter’s husband did indeed write a letter to her complaining that HJ’s and Metropolis’s “old married couple” squabbles were getting public and embarrassing, and Sally herself commented in a mid-seventies interview that two of the Minutemen males (in addition to the lesbian Silhouette) were gay and that one (Metropolis, presumably) had died recently, though she didn’t name them. The implication was that Sally was HJ’s beard.
The older gay couple drawn in the restaurant, I admit, do look a lot like Metropolis’s and HJ’s (speculative) secret identities in middle age. I doubt it’s a coincidence.
In the comic, that scene has Rorschach kick off those asides by first mentioning that “Captain Metropolis was decapitated in a car crash back in '74” before following up the rest by saying that “Hooded Justice went missing in '55.”
Very doubtful. If you’re talking about the moustache guy, he looks way gaunter and thinner than Hooded Justice. The one on the right might be Metropolis, but let’s not forget that Gibbons doesnt have a huge variety of faces in his repertoire. Both old fat Metropolis and the gay guy on the right also look a lot like President Nissen from “Give Me Liberty” (and the gay moustached guy on the left looks like President Rexall). So, as this is the only panel from Watchmen offered in link with the topic, it is not surprising to think you can almost see Hooded Justice and Captain Metropolis in this gay couple.
I really think it’s just a gay couple, put there to show a somewhat different mid eighties America (both more tolerant or more decadent, depending on your views). It echoes the lesbian couple near the neswpaperman and the comic book reading kid.
If Gibbons says they were not trying to draw Metropolis and Hooded Justice, that’s pretty conclusive. But it’d be a hell of a coincidence. The bow tie certainly looks like it’s supposed to resemble a domino mask, and that part seems so obvious it’s hard to accept as an accident. I’m not sure which interpretation I prefer, but I very much like the idea that on first reading, you accept that The Comedian killed Hooded Justice, and that after you keep re-reading, you might notice this couple and think that the truth could be more complicated. The only people who would know for sure are the guys in the picture.
An intriguing theory. There’s just enough evidence to suggest it may be true, but if Gibbons says he didn’t do it on purpose, I’m inclined to take his word for it. I’m the sort who thinks the original artist retains some measure of control over the later (re)interpretation of his or her creation.
As an incidental note, has anyone noticed that when Rorschach is surprised (realizing Grice’s dogs are chewing on a human femur, finding Moloch shot in the head, finding the Comedian’s costume and gear) his mask pattern is the same?
Don’t have the book here. I remember the mask conveyed surprise somehow - was it the “raised eyebrows” effect? - but I never realized it was the same expression all three times.
She was murdered by a villian who found out her real name from a press release after she was publically outed and kicked out of the Minutmen. The movie even has “Lesbian Whores” written on the wall (in blood?) of the room where she & her partner (the nurse) were killed. That’s a very odd thing for a jealous (& presumbably female) lover to write.
I’ve never read the original comic, but I sort of got the impression from the movie that Rorschach murdered her himself. It seems in line with his style of psychopathy to blame his victims rather than himself for his killings.
That’s one of the best things about the artwork, I think. The mask makes faces for him, and not just when he is surprised. It does anger and a bunch of other emotions. It’s a very cool and artistic way to show the expressions of a character whose face is almost always covered.
You can watch the opening credits of the film on YouTube. The crime scene where Silhouette and her nurse lover are found dead is immediately followed by another scene where men wait their turn to be serviced by Walter (Rorschach) Kovacs’ prostitute mother. One is reading a newspaper with the blazing headline RUSS HAVE A-BOMB which I guess would place the scene sometime in 1949. Kovacs is just a child in this scene (the character’s first appearance in the movie, I guess) and for Rorschach to be the killer means creating some seriously improbable plot-holes.
It never even occurred to me that Rorschach killed Silhouette. It also never occurred to me that Manhattan didn’t kill Rorschach at the end, though at least one editor of the Watchmen wiki page was determined to get this theory recognized, a while back.
