Veidt was a "Take" on Peter Cannon: the Thunderbolt BTW.

http://www.toonopedia.com/t-bolt.htm

What confused me was that as smart as Ozymandias made himself out to be,
THAT was the only solution he could come up with. Even if his conclusions
were undeniable, there must have been other ways than the murderous plan
he orchestrated. It's a fine line between brilliance and madness.

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The problem is that he was being written by someone who ISN'T the smartest man in the world. :p

Wrong.

Ozymandias was right. There would have been a Nuclear War where millions would die and he successfully prevented it.

Whether he was right or not to do it is one of the many tought-provoking things that make Watchmen the finest superhero story ever.

Well that's your way of looking at it. But in the end he killed millions of people because he thought he was right. He killed millions of innocent people without a mandiate from the people or the authority of anything. He is a vigalante, a terrorist and a mad man. And the fact that Moore paints it so people would question this outcome really only proves what is wrong with Watchmen. When the worst possible thing might be considered an ok choice...Housotn we have a problem

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The extermination of the Jews by the Nazis was, I believe, done with the authority of the government.  So I wouldn't use government approval as a moral code.  On a smaller scale, think of any war.  Soldiers are sent to battle KNOWING that some will be killed.  But sometimes, you have to look at the bigger picture.  You say "the worst possible thing".  Well in Veidt's mind there was something worse - full scale nuclear war where nearly EVERYONE dies.  I'm not saying Veidt was right to do what he did, but I agree with David that it's worth pondering.

David Kingsley Kingsley wrote: Maybe nuclear war wasn't imminent and Veidt was deliberately painted as wrong because of this. I had noticed those elements but had not put them together as well as you have; That's really convincing. I still think that it's supposed to be deliberately ambiguous, but I'm going to reread it soon under that focus. Thank you.

It's not really spelled out either way, so the reader is forced to decide.  Also, the prescence of Dr. Manhattan was a strong deterrent against any nuclear action by another country.  I know that there was a text piece in the back of one of the books arguing that Manhattan alone did not sufficiently deter a desparation strike because it was unclear that Manhattan could stop all of the warheads.  However, in a flashback, we see that Manhattan transports each person in a crowd to their proper home with a thought.  That seems a much harder task than transporting a large number of nuclear warheads to the sun.

I think the character issue of Ozymandias (#11) needs to be read incredibly carefully, because the whole thing is told through Veidt's point of view, whereas the other character issues are told through multiple viewpoints.  I believe there is ample evidence in there to question Veidt's claim to superhuman intelligence as well.

For example, Veidt mentions that his parents were intellectually unremarkable, but the art in the book implies they came to the US poor, and died quite rich.  The conclusion that the world would blow itself up in a nuclear war by the 80's was not Veidt's conclusion, but The Comedians from the Minutemen meeting in the 60's.  We don't really know if Veidt did any further thinking on it or not.

Also, Veidt's desire for revenge over the beating the Comedian gave him threatens to unravel his whole plan.  Were it not for the brutal beating (even the cops thought that the murderer had it in for Blake) and gruesome death, Rorschach would probably not have got started on his investigation.  It's senseless actions like these that threaten the entire plan that lead me to think that Veidt was not as smart as he liked to claim.

I should probably go find my copy of Watchmen and re-read it, too.  Thanks for the nudge, David.

I should probably go find my copy of Watchmen and re-read it, too.

I think this is just further evidence of Watchmen's brilliance. It's complexity really rewards multiple readings. The fact that a 20+ year old book has generated this much debate is impressive, too.

you can not make a superhero story if it does not have heroes in it!

And Stan gets my point.

Watchmen isn't a superhero story, It is a story with superhereos in it. And not very good ones at that. The bad guy wins and the good guys sit there doing nothing. If ANYONE else had written a story where someone teleports a genetically created creature into New York with the SOLE purpose to kill most of the population...if the end of the story it came out that there were talks between the US and the UUSR and they were inches away from a cease fire and were ready to bury the hatchet I would be ok. To show that the world has more than enough non super heroes that are making sure the world doesn't end tomorrow and it doesn't need some idiot who thinks he is the world's smartest man coming along and murderering most of New York to fix anything. IF at the end it would have shown that the actions he took weren't needed, I would be ok with the book. The fact Moore thinks it is ok to make a superhero story where the good guy kills most of a major city...is wrong to me. Completely wrong.

...Okay...I can see where you're coming from, but you never actually see press agents telling the newspapers what to print. You're filling in these gaps on your own. It's a fictional story with all the constraints of one, James. Moore has people who aren't Veidt call him the smartest man in the world. You, the reader, see him making money off of being smart and doing smart things (such as knowing exactly what will happen and when it will happen). You don't see him taking IQ tests, but I would argue that the other character's estimations and his actions are deliberately done so that we can see that he is the smartest man in the world. Nothing that is shown contradicts that he's the smartest person in the world, rather, everything, such as him outthinking Dr. Manhattan who is omniscent, seems included so as to confirm it.

If Dr Manhattan had come up with this solution it would sit better with me than with the guy who makes a lot of money. If the guy who can see the future had said this needed to be done then at least there is something more to be said. but it is just a business man, who thinks he is smart who comes up with a plan. How does NOT make him Lex Luthor ?

I would, however, like to hear, since you say there are other methods, what would have stopped the impending nuclear armageddon

Use his money and fame to gain office ? If he cannot gain office because of martial law or whatever Nixon has imposed use his fame and money to turn the American people against it and Nixon and topple his reign. Try to create a growing disastifaction within the USSR by making US goods cheap and flooding the Russian market making them want and desire an econmy based market more ? Use his money and resources to make some kind of missle based deflection system so that NO ONE can launch a nuclear strike ? I am not the world's smartest person but those seem so much better than killing most of New York

Rorshach is intended as a "take" on Ditko's Mr. A and Question characters. He is supposed to show how such characters are unheroic and instead obssessed, insane, bloodthirtsy, cruel and vindictive rather than truly just or decent.

Rorshach along with the rest of the Watchmen cast illustrates that there ARE no heroes. Instead there are only psychos, bastards, ambitious sociopaths with "benevolent outlooks," atomic monsters, and hopelessly muddled heads all dressing up in silly costumes and masquerading as such.

Rorschach is not intended to show "such" characters are unheroic and psychotic. You really missed the sub-text on Rorschach. Rorschach sees the world very clearly, as the culmination of a lifetime of observing conspiracy in every shadow, and being dead-set no matter what, no matter how much brutality is called for, no matter the argument. What is WRONG is WRONG, what is RIGHT is RIGHT. Rorschach's basic belief in justice is uncompromising. He takes Moloch to task for not having a permit for the revolver Moloch has in his possession; it is Rorschach observing the letter of the Law.

Rorschach's naivety, his "heroism" is shattered by the watchdog scene: it is his realization that the two-fisted detective hero, himself, had entered the insane universe of actual reality, OUR world. A world of chaos, destruction, inanity, stupidity, immorality. Rorschach is also in his 50s in this story, a man cut off from society, paranoid, rarely communicating with anyone he can respect. His hermit/forest dweller persona gradually deteriorates under the weight of horror stemming from that child's murder, and the murder of Kitty Genovese as well. This is not indicative of any other hero in the story, or in the Big Two, or the Question or Mr. A. This is Rorschach's particular story. He's not symbolic of anything except his own determination to hang on to a shred of integrity, as he sees it.

WATCHMEN doesn't cast these heroes as what you described just for the sake of it. They become what they are because of a reaction to their loss of innocence. If anything, Moore is simply summing up what most thinking human beings feel about existence and human integrity, and in the end his outlook remains strangely positive, when broken down into the mathematical probabilities of humans existing AT ALL, due to the cosmic biochemical factors and their proper alignment to produce humankind.

So, the shriek against WATCHMEN comes off as Alan Moore bias and hatred, not an accurate view at all of his work in this particular story.