
Manhattan is accused of causing the cancers afflicting his former girlfriend and others who spent time with him after the scientific accident that gave him superpowers. Dreiberg is skeptical, but nonetheless relates the hypothesis to billionaire Adrian Veidt (Ozymandias), who dismisses it.Īfter Blake's funeral, Dr.

Manhattan's lover Laurie Jupiter (the Silk Spectre). Jonathan Osterman (Doctor Manhattan), and Dr. He attempts to warn his retired comrades-his former partner Daniel Dreiberg (Nite Owl), the emotionally detached Dr. Investigating the murder of government agent Edward Blake, Rorschach discovers that Blake was the Comedian, and concludes that someone may be trying to eliminate the Watchmen. By the 1980s, however, the Watchmen have been outlawed by Congress after an outpouring of anti-vigilante sentiment in the country, and tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union have escalated the Cold War with threats of nuclear attack.īy 1985, only three Watchmen remain active: the Comedian and Doctor Manhattan, both of whom act with government sanction, and the masked vigilante Rorschach, who refuses to retire and remains active illegally. The American victory in Vietnam, due to the intervention of the godlike being Doctor Manhattan, leads to Richard Nixon's third term as President following the repeal of term limits in the United States. Various historical events are shown to have been altered by the existence of superheroes, such as the assassination of John F. Decades later, a second generation of "superheroes" attempts to form a similar team called the Watchmen. In the 1930s and '40s, some of the vigilantes formed a group called the Minutemen to "finish what the law couldn't." Of the eight Minutemen, three died violently, one disappeared, and one was committed to an asylum.

The story takes place in an alternate timeline in which masked, costumed heroes fight crime in America, originally in response to a rise in masked and costumed gangs and criminals.
