It’s time for Eddie Blake’s funeral, and everyone is having fond memories about the departed Comedian. Just kidding, he was a monster, as we discover through flashbacks and stories. But how much does the extremely non-comedic Comedian represent America? And comic book characters of the time? Find out, as we break down Watchmen #2, “Absent Friends.”

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The theme music for Watchmen Watch was written and performed by Jeff Solomon.

Plus, here’s a transcript of the episode for you to read through as you listen:

Alex:                 Welcome to Watchmen Watch, apodcast about HBO’s Watchmen where we watch Watchmen, talk about Watchmen andwatch you watching the Watchmen. I’m Alex.

Justin:              I’m Justin.

Pete:                I’m Pete.

Alex:                 And we are going to be talkingabout the second issue of the Watchmen comic book series as we ramp up to theHBO series here. Very exciting. It’s coming out October 20th. We know that now.

Justin:              We know that now.

Alex:                 It has been known. We’re veryexcited.

Pete:                10/20.

Alex:                 But to bone up, we’re readingthrough the book. So, issue two, this is not called Almost Friends as I wantedto call it.

Justin:              No. And it’s not called Friends,the pilot of the TV show Friends.

Alex:                 Right, because Alan Moore andDave Gibbons were on a break.

Justin:              That’s true. We should mentionAlan Moore can’t be here today.

Alex:                 Right.

Justin:              Our fourth host for this podcast.He texted me. I accidentally told him we were meeting at a campsite outside ofStonehenge. We had a mix-up.

Alex:                 Oh, okay.

Pete:                How can you accidentally mix upthis address with that address?

Justin:              Just a classic mix-up.

Alex:                 Auto-text, right?

Justin:              Yeah.

Alex:                 I hate that.

Justin:              I meant to write the pit loftwhere we tape our show. Instead I wrote a campsite just outside of Stonehenge.So, he’s there. It’s my bad because he was definitely showing up this week, butI texted him back. He’s totally fine with the mix-up.

Alex:                 Oh, he’s going to be back nextweek?

Justin:              He’ll be back next week.

Pete:                It kind of works out because thetitle of this is Absent Friend, and he’s our absent friend.

Justin:              That’s true. He said the samething.

Alex:                 Oh, that’s very true. AbsentFriend, not Almost Friends because me and Alan Moore almost hooked up that onetime.

Justin:              That’s true.

Pete:                Really? Yeah.

Justin:              And he’s not weird about it.That’s not the real reason he’s not showing up.

Pete:                Was that at that San Diego ComicCon when you were wasted, and you almost hooked up with him?

Justin:              Careful. Don’t start-

Alex:                 I don’t want to talk about it.I don’t want to kiss and tell.

Justin:              Don’t start talking about SanDiego Comic Cons and being wasted, Pete.

Pete:                Yeah. What?

Justin:              You know what you did.

Pete:                I was the one who told Jim Leehe was the king of San Diego.

Justin:              No, that’s true. You tried tosmoke a joint with …

Pete:                I didn’t try.

Alex:                 This is very far off field.

Pete:                Yeah, I didn’t try nothing.

Alex:                 Let’s talk about Watchmen, youguys. So, chapter two of the book, issue number two, Absent Friends. Definitelygoing to remember that by the end of the episode. So, to get you guys caughtup, there has been a murder of Eddie Blake. Rorschach is investigating it, andthat’s pretty much kind of where we pick up this issue. But I got to say aswe’re going back through this, I know I said this the last time as well, goodcomic.

Pete:                Man, great comic.

Alex:                 This is a good comic.

Justin:              Great comic.

Pete:                Also, it was nice to see BlueMan Group put on a suit for the funeral. I thought that was very classy of him.

Alex:                 That is rude to DoctorManhattan. I do want to seriously say, though, I know we mentioned this lastepisode. It continues to be surprising to me, and it shouldn’t be, how goodWatchmen is.

Justin:              100% agree. It’s crazy how goodthis is, how much Alan Moore is mixing up here. It’s important to remember whenyou’re re-reading this or reading it for the first time, this shit had neverbeen done before. The idea of mixing up a comic this dark where the charactershave sort of nothing going for them or they’re all failing super hard. To seethat and to see all the references to comic book history, topical politics whenhe was writing this, and just science, science fiction, everything, worldevents. It’s amazing.

Alex:                 And to give it even morecontext, the comic book industry was going through this massive change at thispoint when this is being published. Who knows, necessarily, when it waswritten, but 1985 you had Crisis of Infinite Earths that condensed the entireDC Universe, had huge events. Killed off The Flash, killed off Supergirl. So,those were traumatic in their own ways for superhero fans, and then on theother side of the fence in Marvel, you had Secret Wars, which is this bigmarketing grab that changed characters in a very different way and brought allof these superheroes together. This always gets lumped in with The Dark Knight.Was that ’84, I want to say?

Justin:              Yeah.

Alex:                 Something like that. So, thiswas in ’86, so they get lumped together as they’re these other takes while DCwas going darker and darker and Marvel was going light but more complicated ina very different way.

Justin:              Going big, I guess you could say.

Alex:                 Going big in a very differentway. This was huge. This was promoted very heavily, but this almost eschewssuperheroics. That’s one the things I was really struck by with this issues, iswe got the murder mystery thing going on, but whenever there’s a fight, theycut away from it.

Justin:              Yeah.

Alex:                 That’s not the point of what’sgoing on. The point is the characters.

Pete:                I got a little confused, butthank you for explaining it when you said shoes superheroics. I didn’t knowwhat-

Alex:                 Eschew. Eschew.

Pete:                Oh.

Alex:                 Which is different than hisshoe.

Justin:              Yeah.

Pete:                I thought you meant it shooes itlike, “Shoo, get away heroics.”

Justin:              Oh, I see.

Alex:                 I’ll tell you what, you shouldlisten to our spelling podcast, which is very different. We read through-

Pete:                You joke about me slurringwords, but …

Justin:              E-S-C-H-E-W-S.

Alex:                 Yes. Eschews.

Justin:              Not cashews, which was anotherthing he says a lot.

Pete:                I’m just saying. Glass house,motherfucker.

Alex:                 The interesting thing aboutthis though is The Comedian eschews shoes and cashews for this issue.

Pete:                Wow.

Justin:              That’s true. Wow.

Pete:                I would also like to point outnot only … We got into this a little bit in talking about the last issue, butthe panels are amazingly put together, but the transitions … Instead of justshowing a flashback, it’s the light off a picture frame that reminds her of flashphotography that brings her this flashback. Just really smart things.

Alex:                 The structure of this issue, toget to it a little bit, is Eddie Blake’s funeral. We get to see flashbacks fromeverybody, whether they’re there or not, to the past. We find out a lot moreabout the event that was hinted at the last issue, which was Eddie Blake’sassault of, not Laurie Jupiter, Sally Jupiter. The first Silk Spectre. So, wefind out a lot more about that as well as other aspects of all of thecharacter’s lives and their relationships to Eddie Blake. We find out moreabout him as The Comedian. But the interesting thing about this issue, I thinkstructurally, to your point Justin, the first issue tracks very heavily in veryspecific juxtaposition where you get the text and the images are not fightingagainst each other, but complement each other in a different way. You get thathere, but it’s much more about the actions where you see Dr. Manhattan at thefuneral, but he’s also potentially in another time at the same time, flashingback to his relationship with Eddie. It’s much more about a temporaljuxtaposition than a spatial juxtaposition like it is in the first issue.

Justin:              The first issue moves so quicklythrough a lot of sort of superhero tropes. It just takes them as accepted thatthey were a superteam, and the past was a lighter, more fun period just likethe way comic history went. So, the juxtaposition now of actually seeing thatbackstory and the temporal shifts that all the characters go through, I think itreally sets up what’s coming forward and gives context to what we read in thelast issue.

Alex:                 The other thing that’sinteresting with the whole superteam of it all is we get to meet two“superteams” in this issue. The first on is the Minutemen, which islike an analog of the Justice Society of America but without super powers.They’re all masked vigilantes. It seems a little bit more like a social club.That’s really only how we get to see them together. We never get to see themfight crime together. The second one is the Crimebusters, which as far as wecan tell, meets once, and that’s it.

Justin:              Yeah.

Alex:                 Nothing else happens with them,so again, it’s Moore and Gibbons and company really eschewing thesuperhero-ness, the structure of it, where we would expect, okay, there’s ateam get together and then some big event breaks them apart, but in this case,it’s just not the right time.

Justin:              Yeah. And they’re not the rightpeople, and it doesn’t make sense. That’s what’s also so good about this is beinga superhero never makes sense for any of these characters in this comic, andit’s great. They’re either way off, they’re not good people, or they’re justway beyond it like Doctor Manhattan.

Alex:                 We talked about this a littlebit in the first two episodes of the podcast with Rorschach, and I think thisvery heavily comes up here in terms of how people misinterpret Watchmen thatbeing a superhero is bad. It is clearly a bad thing to do, it’s not a goodlifestyle choice. There’s nothing to hope for, and in fact, there’s a prettygood argument to be made, particularly after this issue, that the rise ofsuperheroes leads to a worse world than we are currently in. They do not makeit better the way that they do in the DC Comics Universe or the Marvel Comics Universe.Their addition cuts down on crime maybe, but it makes things ultimately worse.

Justin:              Yeah. Should we walk through theissue a little bit?

Alex:                 Yeah, sure. Well, actuallybefore we do though, there was one thing, an overall thing that I wanted totalk about which is The Comedian. He’s the focus of this issue. His characteris the focus of this issue. He’s not that funny, it seems.

Justin:              No, he’s a dick.

Alex:                 That’s surprising with his namethe way it is.

Justin:              Yeah. What a weird accident.

Alex:                 Yeah.

Pete:                You want to stop and explorethat some more?

Justin:              He should have been The Tragedian.

Alex:                 Well, I mean, this gets back tothe juxtaposition as well, right? The Comedian, do you think … He certainlymakes this argument, but do you think The Comedian is the one who actually seesthe world the way it is? Is he actually seeing some joke there, or is it thejuxtaposition of, well, he is The Comedian, but he’s not funny at all?

Justin:              I think, yeah, it’s thejuxtaposition. In the original Minutemen, he’s the goofiest, yet he’s the onewho assaults Sally Jupiter. In this issue, he’s wearing an old-timey, Italianclown uniform. Then later in Crimebusters, he’s just being a regular dick, andhe’s sort of dressed like a ’90s superhero. He actually dresses like NFLSuperPro a little bit.

Alex:                 Yeah, he does a little bit.

Justin:              Which is a funny connection. Idoubt that was purposeful. And then, you see him doing more horrible things. Heshoots a woman who is carrying his baby in Vietnam, and we get to see thathappen, and then The Comedian moving forward. I think he’s meant to be areflection of the time, the different time periods. Back in the ’50s, ’60s,everything is bright and sunny, but all the horrifying things are happeningbehind closed doors. In Vietnam, it’s like Americans are being horribleoverseas. It is that sort of satirical take and juxtaposing this thing calledThe Comedian. The bright veneer we paint over everything overlays horrifyingactions.

Alex:                 He is definitely a representationof America. I think that’s very clear. It’s possible he might also be AlanMoore commentating on comedy in comic books because Alan Moore, maybe not somuch at this time, but famously hates comic books. We know that when we hangout with him off of this podcast.

Justin:              Yeah, let me text him thatquestion and see what he says.

Alex:                 Yeah, well, maybe he can bringit up on the next episode, but comic book superheroes aren’t actually usuallyvery funny, and so it’s possible he might be amping that up because he is oneof the only ones that actually acts like a comic book superhero. It might bethat he’s hitting this very old-timey kind of humor, which is like, “Heytoots, why don’t you take off your dress?” And everybody is like,“Haha,” but it’s not actually funny in a particular way.

Justin:              It’s saying the horrifying thingor saying the thing that this person actually wants to happen.

Alex:                 Exactly. So, that all said, Iwas curious because I think that’s an overall character thing that we delveinto pretty deeply in this issue. But, yeah, let’s walk through it.

Justin:              The first couple scenes we havehere are Laurie talking to her mom. They don’t get along very well. Sally sortof wishes she was young again, basically, and is sort of bitter about the world,saying she would rather go back to the life she had back then even though it’shorrible. They set up the sexual assault from The Comedian.

Alex:                 This also ties into somethingthat we find out later, which is … Not Laurie. Sally.

Justin:              Sally.

Alex:                 I keep mixing them up. Sallydoes not like herself very much. They pull out that Tijuana Bible or whateverit is that has her in a cartoon form. Somebody is having sex with her. Lauriehates it. Sally kind of likes it, and is flattered by it. It’s, again, not tokeep using the word juxtaposition, but it’s a very interesting juxtaposition ofas terrible as things were for her, she has this sadness and vanity about theolden times. Again, if you get into the comic book of it all because really, ifnothing else, Watchmen is a comic book that is commenting on comic books, youcan look at that as that nostalgia for the “golden age of comicbooks” that, “Bad things happened, but overall, wasn’t it sowonderful, and everything was so beautiful. Wasn’t that great?”

Justin:              Yeah. Someone who would dress upin a costume … None of these people have powers. They’re just regular people,and be like, “I’m going to go do this,” is goofy and vain.

Alex:                 Right.

Justin:              To take that for real, I thought,is interesting.

Alex:                 And we find out more aboutthat, I believe, in the under the hood section at the end where Hollis Masontalks about she was the first one to be like, “Hey, I’ll have a PR agent.What do you think about that?” She did it for the PR more than anything, morethan the crime fighting.

Justin:              Yeah.

Alex:                 So, that’s sad. It’s a sadcharacter.

Justin:              Indeed. So, we flash from that, asPete said, from the picture frame in the reflection to a flashbulb where we getto see Sally and the rest of the Minutemen. Their costumes are all sort ofgoofy, I mean, very much like the actual golden age comics where it’sridiculous. Dave Gibbons does such a good job of showing them as goofy people,and then you see this horrifying sexual assault scene where they’re all intheir costumes, but they’re talking like regular people doing horrifyingthings.

Alex:                 There’s an interesting thingthat happened in the first issue as well. I mean, it’s a pretty typicallycamera angle thing which is, again, one of the things that I don’t think wasunique necessarily to this comic book but that Dave Gibbons did so well isusing [filmic 00:14:30] framing angles for things. There’s a shot, I believe,of The Comedian on the floor between Hooded Justice’s legs, which is verysimilar to a shot of The Comedian from the first issue where it’s showing thatHooded Justice is dominant over him. Even if The Comedian pushes himself asthis uber mal, he’s really not. The other thing that happens, I believe … Idon’t remember which panel it is, but one of the panels in there, there’s asplash of blood on The Comedian that he’s wiping off that is the same as thesplash of blood that’s on the button from the first issue.

Justin:              Yeah.

Pete:                Wow.

Justin:              Showing that when he dies, he’sstill marred by all these horrifying things he’s done. He’s not a hero at all,and he goes out as not a hero.

Alex:                 Yeah. Again, I know we keepgoing back to, “Hey, great comic.” Big surprise, but it’s also thelayers of preparation that they clearly did to put this together. This is verydifferent from a modern comic book where it doesn’t get the chance to plan itin advance, right?

Justin:              Yeah.

Alex:                 You got to meet that monthlyschedule, so at most, they have three to four issues ready before they go.Here, I don’t know this for a fact, but I have to assume they had everythingplanned out before they were ready to go.

Justin:              It’s so meticulous. Every frame,every panel means something. The last panel of this scene, you see HoodedJustice who stops the assault is still such a jerk to Sally. He doesn’t helpher really. He says, “Get up, and for God’s sake, cover yourself.”He’s the hero of that scene, and he’s still a monster. She is surrounded bymonsters. And then, it cuts right back to this Tijuana Bible thing, and it justshows that, yes, she’s unhappy, but she’s dealt with all these horrifyingthings all the time.

Alex:                 Right. Well, let’s talk aboutHooded Justice for a second. He’s just a fascinating character who isn’t dealtwith, as far as I remember, a ton in the comic book series. But he’s the firsthero that comes out. He’s the one that sparks all of it, but he’s also the onlyone that really fully hides his face.

Justin:              Yeah, you never see it.

Alex:                 Right. Part of that, if Iremember correctly, he’s gay, right?

Justin:              Yeah.

Alex:                 I think that’s what-

Pete:                Because that’s the joke TheComedian makes when he’s being beaten up by him. He’s like, “You’re likingthis, aren’t you?” That makes the Hooded Justice stop.

Alex:                 Right. That makes him stop, andthat’s why he takes that pain and that shame of being homosexual and throws itright back on her. Again, this is painting the times that they live in, thefact that it isn’t necessarily accepted at all. He’s scared of it coming outand people finding him out, so he takes it out on Sally.

Justin:              Yeah.

Alex:                 But yeah, then we get thismemory from Adrian Veidt. This was another interesting thing that I was readingsome notes on this. I didn’t necessarily every pick up on this before, butOzymandias’s costume is the same colors, I believe, as The Comedian’s originalcostume. So, if anything, there’s something there in terms of him picking upfrom where The Comedian left off.

Justin:              Purple and yellow, being thevillain.

Alex:                 Right. It’s almost a reverse. Lookingat this panel right now, we’re looking at the big panel of the first meeting ofthe Crimebusters, and Ozymandias has this purple swoop versus the part thatleft over … The part that is yellow on his neck is the part that was purpleon The Comedian, so in a way, he’s almost the opposite of The Comedian.

Justin:              Right. That’s cool. They’re notfacing each other. This, we get Captain Metropolis who is forming theCrimebusters. He’s still in the golden age dressed like a goof. Then, it’s thisrandom mix of people. Ozymandias, we talked about his costume, but he’s alsodressed like a god as opposed to everyone else that’s sort of in various stagesof superhero dress. The fact that he ends up sort of coming out of here squeakyclean based on his confidence, basically, is interesting I think.

Alex:                 The other thing that’sfascinating about this scene, particularly when you’re going through the book asecond time, which wouldn’t have been ultimately clear the first time through,is this is Adrian Veidt’s memory of this meeting of the Crimebusters whereCaptain Metropolis is proposing this plan. He says, “Look at all thesethings going on in the world.” It’s fascinating that he mentions, I think,it’s promiscuity and other things like that. The Comedian is like, “Thissucks. This is a stupid plan. You’re never going to do this. You just got toburn it all down and figure out what to do next,” and Adrian Veidt islooking at the map. Through the lens of this just being the second issue and usthinking Ozymandias is a hero and the smartest man alive, you would think he’slamenting it. He’s going, “Oh, no, we can save the world. We can figureout another way to do this. This is so sad.” But in actuality, TheComedian is giving Adrian his plan.

Justin:              Yeah. And you see it right in thesecond to last panel of the scene where Ozymandias is looking at the burn pagewith the words, “Somebody has to save the world.” It’s all rightthere.

Alex:                 Yes. That’s something that Ithink is very undervalued about this series in particular is what a goodmystery it is. It’s very well-constructed as a mystery, not just as a superheroseries. Not just in terms of the characters and the commentary on it, but thefact that it is a very good mystery that you really cannot figure out until theend, but all the clues are there the entire time.

Justin:              Yeah, and that’s why on a secondand third read, you really get to see so much more as it’s going. We get thisnext scene with Doctor Manhattan’s memory of his time in Vietnam with The Comedian.It’s just horrifying. The Comedian is being reckless. He shoots this womanafter she cuts his face, revealing that she’s pregnant, and Doc Manhattandoesn’t stop him, even though he definitely could.

Alex:                 Yeah. The other thing, onething that I’ll mention that’s also great about these memories, these storiesthat we get throughout, is we are learning more about Eddie Blake as we go,plot-wise, but really we’re learning about the characters who are rememberingthe stories. The big thing with Doctor Manhattan here is he doesn’t stop EddieBlake from shooting a pregnant woman. He’s also standing in the middle of atable at the time and doesn’t notice it. So, what we find out about DoctorManhattan is, even at this early point in his career, he’s already retreatedfrom humanity. He can’t relate to human beings.

Justin:              Yeah. He doesn’t feel. He’s almostsociopathic in his understanding of the situation. He’s just like a scientistviewing it from afar without any empathy for the situation.

Pete:                Yeah, and that kind of reallyshows in the way he’s standing in the table, and it’s the same stance as … Inboth places, he’s looking over a dead body.

Alex:                 Yeah.

Justin:              Yeah.

Alex:                 And then, we get the Owlshipflashback, right?

Justin:              Yeah.

Alex:                 Now this is where we get to seethe new mask that The Comedian is wearing. It’s a full face mask. Looks like agimp mask, which he likes to torture people, so I think that’s at least part ofthe inspiration that’s going on there. But to set it in time, I believe, thisis when the Vietnam War either kicked off, or they dropped the bomb orsomething like that. It’s one of those moments. It’s not particularly clear inthe book, but we get to see them going to the streets, trying to act likesuperheroes, and I believe this is what ultimately leads to the Keen Act, whichis the act they pass where they shut down vigilantes except forgovernment-sponsored ones, clearly leading into the Ironman-Captain Americacivil war that happens later in the series.

Justin:              100%, yeah. That’s, I think, issuenine.

Alex:                 It’s weird that they broughtthem in at that point, but it worked really well.

Justin:              This is where we fully get a lookat the phrase, “Who watches the Watchmen,” being painted in the wall,which has been sort of alluded-

Alex:                 But still not completely.

Justin:              Not completed.

Alex:                 It’s still blocked.

Justin:              But it’s the first time it’sfeatured.

Alex:                 Right.

Justin:              So, really starting to get … Ithink that’s sort of the completion of the first act almost, or the table isset for the rest of the story. This is sort of just a dark … Everything suckswith these characters. Owl Man is just like, “Don’t do that.”

Alex:                 Nite Owl.

Justin:              Sorry, Nite Owl. I keep sayingthat wrong.

Alex:                 You keep calling him Owl Man.

Justin:              Yeah, I don’t know why.

Alex:                 There is a character called OwlMan.

Justin:              It’s true. Nite Owl, I just neverhave liked his name.

Alex:                 Really?

Justin:              Yeah.

Alex:                 Why not?

Justin:              Because it’s a phrase as opposedto a name.

Alex:                 Yeah. Well, that’s where itcomes from. Hollis Mason talks about that in Under the Hood. He says that hewas looking for name. He wasn’t sure what to do, and he would never go out to adrink with this co-worker of his. Instead he wanted to go workout because hewas trying to figure out how to be a superhero. He was like, “Oh, you’realways such a night owl,” and he was like, “Yeah, Nite Owl. That’sme.”

Justin:              Yeah. Again, stupid. Not a greatorigin story.

Alex:                 The existence of Nite Owlimplies the existence of a day owl.

Justin:              That’s true. Find the day owl. Weget a moment where the new Nite Owl has Comedian’s pin, a clean one, no bloodon it, and throws it onto the grave. I feel like what is this? What is thissupposed to mean? Why is he the one that throws the pin?

Alex:                 Dan?

Justin:              Yeah.

Alex:                 I don’t know. These parallel,the way the button falls down is very similar to the way the button falls downin the first issue. So, it’s some sort of parallel on him dying again, right?Or putting the final nail in the coffin or something like that?

Justin:              Yeah. Maybe setting him up as moreof the hero here or keying him as the main character. Not sure.

Alex:                 Yeah. I mean, there’s also somestuff in here with him approaching Doctor Manhattan when already Dan, whetherDoctor Manhattan knows it or not, has become his romantic rival for Laurie’saffections.

Justin:              Yes. Nobody knows it really here.

Alex:                 Right. But it’s pretty clearwhen you’re reading it that it’s setting them up. There’s that shot of themhaving the handshake where it’s like, “Oh, here we go.”

Justin:              Yeah. Doc Manhattan is justlooking around. “Who’s going to try to fuck my wife,” is what he’sthinking.

Alex:                 Which one of you fuckers …

Justin:              Rorschach leaves silently. Andthen, we get this great, awesomely drawn sequence of Rorschach going afterMoloch, the former villain for Doc Manhattan.

Pete:                This is when the shading andlighting of the panels really takes off. From this point on, it’s really justunbelievably beautiful.

Alex:                 Yeah. The Moloch thing isinteresting because it introduces supervillains who were teased, I was about tosay weirdly enough, but appropriately enough during the rape/assault sequence.That’s the time where you get to see their trophy room. You get to see a lens thatMoloch set up before which paints him as sort of this goofy, ’60s-stylevillain. Sort of very Adam West, Batman-y-style villain, which obviously he’snot here at the end. We also see, it’s called Killer Ape or Gorilla Man orsomething like that. There’s some sort of mask in the trophy room as well,which I think emphasizes the animalistic nature of what Eddie Blake is doing toSally at that moment. But we never really see any supervillain action. To thepoint of the superheroics, we haven’t really had them established other thanthat glimpse. Here, we finally get to see Moloch, and he is a cancer-riddenhusk of himself.

Justin:              Yeah. Sad. You wonder how this mancould have ever threatened Doctor Manhattan who is all-powerful, basically. Hetells this story of The Comedian coming to visit him and basically saying,“The world is fucked,” after he’s realized sort of the plot that weourselves, the reader, find out later.

Alex:                 He talks about the island alittle bit. He talks about some writers and other things, I believe, throughoutthe scene, which teases again. If you’re reading it through the second time,you know that Veidt is setting up this big story and teasing and building thisthing, but it’s very unclear exactly what The Comedian is talking about at thispoint to anybody who hasn’t read Watchmen.

Justin:              Yeah. And he sets up Janie Slaterwho is Doctor Manhattan’s first wife, I believe, which we learn about later onin the series. It’s just such a haunting scene because you are seeing itthrough the eyes of this ruined villain, and it just sets up all this tensionthat we have no idea, this conspiracy that really put The Comedian to hisdeath. It really feeds in to Rorschach’s panic and his actual believing. He’s aconspiracy theorist, and this is proving to be true.

Alex:                 Well, to the point, I may havethe time period a little bit wrong, but if The Comedian is a reflection ofAmerica in a very similar way to Captain America is over in Marvel Comics, thisis the point, the late ’70s, early ’80s or so when America started to realize,“Oh, wait. We’ve fucked everything up.”

Justin:              Yeah. American disillusionment.

Alex:                 Exactly. It certainly cameearlier than that, but whether it’s hitting The Comedian late or not, that’swhat’s going on there. He’s realizing there’s all of these things going onbehind the scenes that he’s not the big man about. He’s not the guy in charge.He’s not the most important thing in the story. Everything else is happeningaround him. I think ultimately that’s why he dies, right?

Justin:              Yeah.

Alex:                 Because he has reached the endof his usefulness. His time is literally over.

Justin:              Yeah. He’s done too many horriblethings to continue on.

Alex:                 Yeah, he should have diedearlier.

Justin:              He’s being replaced by this newworld order that we come to find out later is Ozymandias’s sort of stake.

Alex:                 Yeah. Who among us has not beenreplaced by a squid?

Justin:              Yeah, indeed. I also think thedeath of The Comedian is sort of where the fiction starts. I think The Comedianis meant to represent what America actually did, and this is sort of the flightof fancy out of it where we realize the consequences or a take on what couldhappen to bring the world back together. We get the famous Pagliacci joke atthe end which is great.

Alex:                 Great joke. Actually veryfunny.

Justin:              Super funny.

Alex:                 After The Comedian not beingfunny for an issue, funny joke at the end, huh?

Justin:              Hilarious. And the last image wesee here is Rorschach grabbing a flower off of Eddie’s grave and taking it withhim.

Pete:                Which is cool because we seeearlier in this issue, everybody is putting things into the grave, right?They’re putting the body down, they’re throwing the pins in. Rorschach comesand takes something.

Justin:              That’s great, yeah. Becauseeveryone is putting away their memories. They’re like, “This guy who didbad things, I don’t want to think about this anymore.” He’s like,“I’m going to take this clue with me on into the rest of themystery.”

Alex:                 Yeah, and to what we weretalking about with the first issue as well though, that’s Rorschach kind ofgoing off in the wrong direction, right? He is holding on to this Comedianmystery that is part of it, but he doesn’t know what it is quite yet.

Pete:                And again, the shading and thepaneling. From panel to panel, completely different time periods flow sonicely. But also, there was a panel where it was the same part of thenewspaper, and then the next panel is just a bigger part. So cool.

Justin:              Very cool.

Alex:                 Now, one thing that I did wantto point out actually because I was looking at both of your guys’ copies. Youhave a paperback print copy, Pete, and you’re looking at it on your computer.The coloring is different on both of them.

Justin:              Yeah.

Alex:                 So, in Pete’s I think it’s alittle bit closer because the roses, I believe, are the same red as the bloodon The Comedian in the first issue. So, when Rorschach is walking through theblood at the beginning, at the end of the second issue, he’s pulling it backout again. So, I don’t know. It’s interesting. I assume there’s an absoluteedition out there somewhere with the correct colors, but it certainly affectsthe experience quite a bit. Guys, thank you so much for listening to WatchmenWatch. We will be back with the third issue pretty soon.

Justin:              Very soon.

Alex:                 Check out all the ways tosubscribe at comicbookclublive.com. You can support this podcast and more.Patreon.com/comicbookclub. Also mention, you can follow us a bunch of places,@watchmenwatch1 on Twitter. Also on Facebook and Instagram, Watchmen WatchPodcast, you can check them out there. We got some shirts. We got shirts, guys.

Justin:              Get those shirts on.

Alex:                 Comicbookclub.threadless.com,check it out there. And remember, we taped this podcast 35 minutes ago.

Justin:              Alan just texted me, and he saidhe’ll definitely be here for the next episode.

Alex:                 Oh, that’s great.

Pete:                Great.

Justin:              Again, my bad. Stonehenge.

Alex:                 I hope he had fun camping.

Justin:              Yeah, he loves camping, and heloves mysterious stones.

The post Watchmen Watch: Issue #2, “Absent Friends” appeared first on Comic Book Club.

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