Watchmen Chapter II: Absent Friends

II.2.4 "Life goes on, Honey" (Sally Juspeczyk); this remark is juxtaposed in panel with Signboard Man's sign: "The End is Nigh."

II.3.2 Comedian's full name: Edward Morgan Blake. Pirates and poets. Comedian is the mad Blake to Hollis Mason (Nite Owl)'s mild Wordsworth.

II.4.3 Sally Jupiter's "Tijuana Bible" -- reference to the seamier side of comic books.

II.5.1 Newspaper on table at superhero assembly (1940): "Scientists make first artificial wonder element: Plutonium"

II.6 Comedian assaults Sally Jupiter (1940). II.6.7: brutal attack reflected in parabolic face of "Moloch's Solar Mirror Weapon" Compare this to various mirrorings, but most notably Laurie's memory of the snow-globe in Chap. IX.

II.7.6: Comedian's bloody face in the hands of Hooded Justice, taunting him as a not-so-closeted sadist.

This image matches I.3.3 (though in that image, the Comedian looks tired, sad). This suggests red herring connection to Hooded Justice as "mask killer"; but more important, it sets up image of Comedian promising the Last Laugh.

II.7.9 Clock face on door as Comedian exits scene of Sally's rape: 5 to midnight.

II.8.1-2 Hooded Justice to Sally: "Get up... and for God's sake, cover yourself." Cut in frame 2 to page of Tijuana Bible, in which Sally is saying "Oh! Treat me rough, Sugar" as she has sex with a brush salesman. Strong link here to Rorschach's primal scene in Chapter VI (his mother belly-to-belly with a customer) -- the source of Rorschach's obsession with Fearful Symmetry (William Blake).

II.8.5 Copy of Nova Express on Sally Juspeczyk's bed, with the headline, "How Sick is Dick?" "Nova Express" is the title of a novel by William S. Burroughs.

II.8.5 Sally to Laurie: "At least I don't sleep with an H-Bomb." Note foreshadowing of the cancer scare plot against Dr. Manhattan. And as we learn later, Nova Express is intimately connected to that plot. Multiple connections, multiple convergences.

II.10.3Comedian in 1966: close resemblance to Nick Fury, Marvel's military/spy/techno hero. Right down to that see-gar. See also Moore and company's parody in issue 2 of 1963, where Nick Fury and Captain America meet -- Ronald Reagan... or is it JFK? J.D. Lafrance points to a Dave Gibbons interview citing Nick Fury among other sources for the Comedian.

II.11.4 Comedian predicts nuclear holocaust by 1996.

II.11.5 Comedian's exit line: "See you in the funny papers."

II.11.7 Captain Metropolis's pathetic plea: "Somebody has to save the world..." In foreground of this panel is Adrian Veidt. See next panel.

II.11.8 Veidt in exactly same position, 1985, at Comedian's funeral (without his mask) -- the villain -- or savior -- unmasked?

II.12.2-3 Edward Jacobi (a.k.a. Moloch) comes up behind Dr. Manhattan with flowers for the Comedian's grave.

NOTE: I originally thought this unseen figure was Rorschach, but Manlio Loconte and Joshua Merrill both corrected me. See Loconte's note regarding this scene. The clincher was Luis G. Nakano's note (4-15-96): "This can only be Moloch, since Walter Kovacs was not using a hat (see II.19.9) nor was he allowed to enter the cemetery (see II.1.5). Small detail, but then again, Watchmen would not be what it is were it not for the details, would it? :-)"

There are no small details. Thanks, you guys. -- sam.

II.12.3-4 These panels "dissolve" from 1985 to 1971. See II.15.7-8, II.11.7-8, for similar transitions.

These panels illustrate what is called in fim theory a "match cut," where the virtual camera dissolves or wipes from one scene to another leaving the foreground figure either unchanged or in a position very similar to its original state. (Thanks to Timothy Kreider for correcting my ignorance of this term; Mr. Kreider points out the famous dissolve from thighbone to orbiting spacecraft in 2001 as a classic illustration.)

Other cinematic techniques of relevance here: blue screen mattes ("chroma-key"), cel animation.

II.13 VVN (Victory in Vietnam) Night, 1971. In this world, Vietnam was not a debacle. Alternative history.

II.15 Panels 1-2: Dr. Manhattan watches Comedian murder his pregnant Vietnamese concubine, declining to intervene. Panels 7-8: Dr. Manhattan stands impassively over her corpse in 1971; then stands in same attitude in 1985 at funeral. Compare II.11.7-8 (Veidt).

II.16.1 Iconography of the Comedian: Captain America (colors, shoulder shield) meets Doctor Doom (face mask, facial scarring) meets Nick Fury (moustache, cigar). It's a Marvel-ous world where Kirby is king.

II.18.6-7 Dan Dreiberg (Nite Owl): "What happened to the American dream?" Comedian: "It came true. You're looking at it." (This during police strike and riots of 1977). Comedian as the Evil Captain America, America's dark dream.

II.19.3 Dan Dreiberg throws away the Smiley button.

II.22.1 Comedian breaks into Edward Jacobi (Moloch)'s apartment. "It's a joke. 's'all a joke."

In fact it's a practical joke. Very dark humor. The ultimate prank.

II.22-23: The page as matrix.

A beautiful example of the energy and obsessiveness Moore and Gibbons invested in their page designs. On both these pages and several following, the frames are alternately lit blue and orange as the neon sign for the "Rum Runners" club flashes on and off. Note that on these two pages the flashes are in symmetrical arrays...

But this pattern is broken in panels 8-9 of page 23 (panel 9 is yellow, but should be blue).

II.23.8-9: The breaking of symmetry.

Panel 8: Comedian holding Jacobi by lapels, obviously terrified, dismayed: "Somebody explain it to me." This image echoes I.3.3, but here the Comedian is assailant, not victim. Panel 9: Cut to Rorschach holding Jacobi by lapels after Comedian's death, substituting the Rorschach mask with its symmetry for Blake's scarred (hence asymmetrical) face.

William Blake's poems, like Songs of Innocence/Songs of Experience and The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, explore collapsing polarities, for instance between good and evil, devil and angel -- or here, hero and villain. More topically, comparison might be made to Frank Miller and Lynne Varney's The Dark Knight: Batman Returns, which also looks at the dark side of the superhero.

II.25.1 Rorschach walks past porno show featuring "Enola Gay and the Little Boys" J.D. LaFrance points out a subtle homage to Scorsese here [See further].

II.26.1 Rorschach: "In the cemetery, all the white crosses stood in rows, neat chalk marks on a giant scorecard." Compare the alternating blue/orange matrices of pages 22 and 23.

II.26.7 "...the future is bearing down like an express train." (Rorschach's journal) That is, from Rorschach's point of view, the future is unstoppable and linear. Is he right?

II.27.2 "He saw the true face of the 20th century and chose to become a reflection of it, a parody of it."

REFLECTIONS and SYMMETRIES.

II.27.3-7 The Comedian's defining joke: "I am Pagliacci." His original costume was an operatic clown suit. Note how this relates to the reflection/symmetry theme: Pagliacci is the tragic clown, the weeping funnyman. "A Comedian died in New York."

II.Doc.1 The superhero-identity of "Nite Owl" stems from Hollis Mason's avoidance of ordinary male bonding. Note all the other linkages between costumed crusading and homoeroticism (Captain Metropolis, the Satin Silhouette, perhaps even Rorschach and Dan Dreiberg).

II.Doc.2 "Dollar Bill" is a glorified bank dick, an in-house not-so-superhero. He is caught in a revolving door and shot to death because his costume (designed by the bank) is impractical. Gosh, I wonder if there's a message here...

II.Doc.3 "Minutemen" formed as a publicity stunt by Sally Jupiter's husband, Lawrence Shexnayder.