Characters / Watchmen (2019): Civilians

Main Character Index

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Various civilian characters involved in the story.

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Angela's family

Cal Abar / Jon Osterman / Doctor Manhattan

Cal Abar / Jon Osterman / Doctor Manhattan

Played by: Yahya Abdul-Mateen II

^{click here for SPOILERS}

Angela's husband. The physicist who became accidentally blue-skinned and superpowered, and changed the world. He is still living on Mars over thirty years after the comic book's events. Or so we thought...

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• Adaptational Achilles Heel: One of the things that ultimately did this version of Dr. Manhattan in was a weakness to synthetic lithium, a problem the Manhattan of the comics lacks.
• Adaptational Attractiveness: Dr. Manhattan always had an immaculate Adonis physique since his reconstruction, but in the original comic his nudity was intended to be very understated and almost unnoticeable, somewhat like a Renaissance sculpture. Thanks to his actor being significantly more well-endowed, suffice to say his nudity is a bit more noticeable in the series.
• Adaptational Intelligence: Heavily downplayed; Doctor Manhattan in both the comics and miniseries is a genius with nigh-omniscience, but this version of him is a bit more of a clever manipulator (helping orchestrate a Thanatos Gambit with Will Reeves' aid to cause the downfall of both the Seventh Kavalry/Cyclops and Lady Treiu along with helping pass on his abilities to Angela), with his comics counterpart having been more of an Extreme Doormat.
• Adaptational Nice Guy: While it can be partly chalked up to Character Development, Dr. Manhattan is a full-blown romantic sweetheart in this series, if still a little detached thanks to his non-linear perception of time. In the comic, he was more of a shameless Casanova for the most part who struggled to truly connect with either of his love interests, and infamously ditched Janey as soon as the younger and prettier Laurie caught his eye.
• Adaptational Superpower Change: While Dr. Manhattan still retains his powers from the comics, which included changing his size and how bright he glowed, there was nothing to hint he's capable of outright shapeshifting. Here, he's able to change himself from his blue form to looking like a normal African-American man.
• Adaptational Wimp: Oh so heavily downplayed, but it's still there. This iteration of Doctor Manhattan is able to be killed (albeit with a very convoluted and "one-in-a-million-chance of working" method) and his powers can be neutralized through a cage of synthetic lithium, while the original comic version of Manhattan was shown to have Complete Immortality and be able to No-Sell virtually anything short of tachyon particle interference.
• And I Must Scream: He implies at one point to Angela that, due to his nonlinear view of time, he is always experiencing his body being painfully disintegrated within the intrinsic field generator. With this taken into account, it is more than understandable why he would become a Death Seeker.
• Bald Mystic: When he regains his memories and supernatural abilities and shifts back into Doctor Manhattan, he loses all of the hair he had as Cal. Similar to his comic book counterpart, this overlaps with Bald Head of Toughness since those abilities make him Nigh-Invulnerable to the point of Complete Immortality and a Physical God.
• Big Damn Heroes: He rescues Angela from being pinned down by Kavalry gunmen by turning their heads into mush.
• Blackface: While he did shapeshift, he was still born a white man and is posing as a black one, which led to Veidt chastising him when he comes to meet with him in Karnac.
• Blessed with Suck: Let's be real, his powers are awesome. But because he experiences all time simultaneously, he can never, ever get away from traumatizing or painful events because they are always happening to him. It also means that, for him, the future is fixed as long as it's observable: no surprises, no free will. These are all good reasons for him to seal away his memory and powers and live in a "tunnel of love" for ten years.
• Canon Character All Along: "An Almost Religious Awe" reveals he's really Dr. Manhattan.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: The Millennium Clock shreds him into his elementary particles in a disturbingly slow and painful fashion, to the point where it briefly looks like he's being burned and flayed alive simultaneously.
• Death by Adaptation: "See How They Fly" sees him die as a result of Trieu's plans. Also, one of the fastest shifts, if not the fastest, from type 1 to type 2 as the character died at the end of Doomsday Clock literally days later.
• Death Seeker: One possible interpretation of his (in)actions; while he repeatedly claims not to be able to alter the future because he experiences it as the present, he is never shown (in the series or comics) as even trying to prevent a tragedy that he knows will happen, and his capture and subsequent death were preventable in any number of ways with his foresight. Considering his nonlinear view of time (resulting in him always experiencing traumatic moments in the present), this is more than understandable.
• Dying as Yourself: Played with. He turns into Cal Abar during his final moments. While this isn't his original form, it still shows that he remembers and treasures his time living as Angela's husband and a human.
• Face Death with Dignity: His only plea in the face of imminent death is for Angela to stay near him, as he doesn't want to be alone when he dies.
• The Faceless: Dr. Manhattan's face is kept hidden from the camera in all flashbacks that feature him. By the time he appears in the present, he still chooses to use the face of Cal Abar, meaning that we never get a good look at the face of an adult Jon Osterman.
• For Halloween, I Am Going as Myself: He met Angela during a festival in Vietnam. He used a Doctor Manhattan mask to look like just another festival attendee in a costume.
• A Form You Are Comfortable With: Took the form of Calvin Jelani, a heart attack victim with no next of kin, at Angela's suggestion.
• A God I Am Not: Much like his original characterization. He left Europa because his creations' constant desire to worship him left him unfulfilled, and as Cal he tells Topher that God and the afterlife are not real.
• Hollywood Atheist: He doesn't believe in God or an afterlife and is quick to tell the latter to his own children. Considering he's Doctor Manhattan, he likely has a good reason to. It's mostly subverted though, since he isn't portrayed as bad due to this (other things he does don't put him in a good light, though not that). Later we learn that his father wasn't particularly religious either, so his atheism probably wasn't entirely caused by being Doctor Manhattan.
• House Husband: Cal appears to be the person who stays at home with the kids while Angela is out "baking".
• Humanity Is Infectious: Having spent ten years as Cal Abar, living like a human being, seems to have really rubbed off on him, because when he regains all his old powers he retains the face of Cal, though blue. His pupils also return to visibility when speaking to Angela, something the old Manhattan never did.
• Innocently Insensitive:
  • He doesn't seem to recognize or care about the existential dread that he may instill in his young children by telling them that there is no afterlife. This is one of the clearest hints that he is Dr. Manhattan.
  • Likewise, he sees nothing problematic about stealing a dead black man's identity despite being born white, even if Angela ultimately consented to the idea. Veidt indirectly compares it to wearing blackface when he first sees Jon's new form.
• Irony: Doctor Manhattan, who is repeatedly called a god (with reason-he qualifies by many definitions), even being actively worshiped by some people, is an atheist himself. He doesn't appear to encourage worship, either, which is not surprising and at least consistent.
• The Maker: It was Manhattan who created the pocket dimension on Europa, with the original Phillips and Crookshanks serving as his Adam and Eve. Veidt was put on Europa not as punishment, but basically because Manhattan took pity on him.
• Male Frontal Nudity: In keeping with the comic, he appears to Veidt in the buff and spends his final moments in the cage nude.
• Meaningful Name:
  • His given name is "Calvin". As in John Calvin, the theologian who came up with the doctrine of predestination, claiming that God has pre-ordained in advance who is going to be saved or damned. Doctor Manhattan, though he knows his own future, believes he cannot change it and so does not even attempt to.
  • Furthermore, his last name while he was a bachelor was "Jelani" — A masculine name meaning "mighty" in Swahili. How appropriate that it would be used as the pseudonym for a Physical God.
• Mind over Matter: Spends his time building "sand castles" the size of real buildings on Mars.
• Mr. Fanservice: He's a very attractive man and we see him naked multiple times (with a few instances including Male Frontal Nudity). This is even Lampshaded in-universe, as one of the first things Laurie brings up when talking about him with Angela is how hot he is.
• My Life Flashed Before My Eyes: Played with as the Seventh Kavalry's lithium cage causes his omnipresence to go haywire, causing him to repeat several lines from the comic as he's reexperiencing past events. However, it's played more straight moments before he dies as he chooses to reexperience all of his happy moments with Angela before checking out.
• Nice Guy: He's a kind and supportive husband, father and friend.
• Non-Linear Character: As in the comic, Doctor Manhattan experiences the past, present, and future all at once. He experiences creating life on Europa at the same time he first meets Angela in 2009. He experiences his accident in the intrinsic field generator at the same time he argues with Angela decades later. He is able act as an intermediary between Angela and Will ten years apart, which is how Angela inadvertently gives Will the idea to kill Judd.
• One-Man Army: He annihilated the Viet Cong and a group of Seventh Kavalry gunmen with minimal effort.
• Power Glows: Though he is able to control by how much.
• Race Lift: An In-Universe case, as he's really Jon Osterman/Dr. Manhattan, thus was originally born a white man, but he took the form of a black one.
• Restraining Bolt: The "ring" embedded in his head is irradiated with tachyon particles, which disrupts Doctor Manhattan's future-sense. The ring also erases all his memories, so he's effectively a normal guy unless stuck in a life-threatening situation (like when he unconsciously teleported away an attacking Kavalryman to Gila Flats). Angela has to crack poor Cal's head open with a hammer to get it back out.
• Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: He causes a great many things to happen by telling people that they will happen, and permits things to happen that were totally avoidable by being unable or unwilling to prevent things he's foreseen from coming true. Probably the best example is when he gets captured by the Kavalry's tachyon cannon; he slaughters them all with his power, turns to talk to Angela, and a hiding survivor blasts him from behind, all of which he knew in advance would happen, so he was simply going through the motions of being ambushed rather than destroying the cannon first or teleporting away. He was captured because he knew he would be.
• Skewed Priorities: Having been reawakened to his Dr. Manhattan memories, he does several things that don't make too much sense (at least, to humans stuck in linear time). He stops an important discussion to start making waffles in the kitchen, fully aware of the people with guns outside his house intending to blow him up. However, this is later subverted when it turns out that he was setting up the possible means for his wife to inherit his powers.
• Star-Crossed Lovers: Told Angela from the outset that their relationship would end in tragedy after 10 years. While Angela is obviously still broken up by his death, her pre-existing awareness that it would happen allows her to cope with it better than she otherwise probably would have.
• Stop Worshipping Me: The reason he left the original Phillips and Crookshanks behind on Europa was because they wanted to worship him rather than love him. It's one of the reasons he sought out Angela.
• Time Abyss: As established, time is really... funky... around Dr. Manhattan. For him, the future is set in stone and the past is as real as the present. So he comes off like a guy who's lived about a million years even if he's younger than Will Reeves.
• Walking Spoiler: He seems to just be Angela’s supportive husband and father to their adopted children; this is turned on it’s head when it’s revealed that he's really Dr. Manhattan.
• You Can't Fight Fate: Zig-zagged. Manhattan knows the Kavalry's plan to teleport him away with the tachyon cannon will ultimately work and that he will then be destroyed, but he still assists Angela in her effort to save him despite this apparent futility because he loves her and can't afford to see her come to harm. He states that the moment Angela decided to save him despite knowing she couldn't was the moment he knew he was in love with her.
• Your Head Asplode: How he dispatches the Kavalrymen attacking Angela's house.

Will Reeves / Hooded Justice

Will Reeves / Hooded Justice

"You think I can lift two hundred pounds?"

^{click here for SPOILERS}

Played by: Louis Gossett Jr., Jovan Adepo (younger)

Dubbed by: Éric Herson-Macarel (European French, younger)

June: ...You are an angry, angry man, William Reeves.

A mysterious, elderly man who survived the Black Wall Street Massacre nearly a century before the events of the series. A former New York City cop and the very first costumed adventurer.

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• The Ace: As Hooded Justice, Will Reeves was this to the Minutemen. Captain Metropolis even tries to recruit him on the basis that HJ's presence alone would legitimize the entire team in the eyes of the public.
• Action Survivor: As a child he narrowly survived the Black Wall Street Massacre, with his parents placing him in a coffin alone when there wasn't room for them all.
• Adaptational Backstory Change: Given that the Hooded Justice was definitely not Rolf Müller in this version, barring being lovers with Captain Metropolis, all of Müller's implied backstory in the comic is non-applicable.
• Adaptational Sexuality: Will is bisexual, whereas Hooded Justice in the comic was implied to be homosexual. HJ's apparent interest in BDSM is also absent.
• Adaptational Heroism:
  • The Hooded Justice of the original comic was described by Hollis Mason as a Nazi sympathizer. Given all the crap he's dealt with, Will clearly isn't. Damon Lindelof would later confirm in an interview that Will only made those statements as a smokescreen to further hide his true ethnicity.
  • Hooded Justice in the comic was also a straight Nominal Hero, into crime-fighting only for the sexual satisfaction it gave him. Here, Will became Hooded Justice as a means of stopping racial violence that he wouldn't be able to as a police officer.
• Adaptational Job Change: Part of Hollis Mason's In-Universe speculation in the comic was that Hooded Justice was a circus strongman. Will was a member of the NYPD like Hollis.
• Adaptational Nationality: Part of the In-Universe speculation about Hooded Justice in the comic is he's from Germany. Will is an American.
• "Angry Black Man" Stereotype: Deconstructed. Will is not just angry at the generalized unfairness of being black in America as this Dead Horse Trope is a caricature for. The show goes into excruciating detail to show exactly whom and what Will's anger is for: the institutionalized racism that allowed the KKK to destroy his hometown, murder his parents, permeate through law enforcement, and almost get him lynched. Along with the consequences of his rage on his family when he decides to deal with it by fighting the Klan as Hooded Justice is also shown. June decides to move back to Tulsa with their son after Will massacres Fred's Klan group in a rage.
  • Also, unlike the trope, Will doesn't see befriending white people as a betrayal to his cause as he ends up having a sexual relationship with Captain Metropolis. Neither does it prevent him from helping innocent white people, such as him saving the citizens from being robbed in a store and beating up Eddie Blake for his Attempted Rape on Sally Jupiter.
• Ascended Fanboy: He adored a silent movie about Deputy US Marshal Bass Reeves as a child, in which Reeves wore a hood and might have contributed to the Hooded Justice costume. He also became a fan of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster's Superman of ''Action Comics #1".
• Batman Grabs a Gun: Hooded Justice was known for mostly taking out guys with his bare hands. But when Will finds out that he's not getting any help from the Minutemen and that he is literally standing next to the heart of the conspiracy, he pulls out his revolver and blows away everyone in the building, quickly and methodically.
• Been There, Shaped History: An inverted example. Will shook hands with Samuel J. Battle, the first black police officer in New York City. During Will's formal acceptance into the NYPD, Lieutenant Battle vaguely warns him to, "Beware the Cyclops." It would later be revealed that "Cyclops" is a reference to a cabal of Klansmen who have been working with members of the NYPD to strategically target black communities in the city. This revelation, combined with the string of racial injustice Will himself has suffered through, inspires the young black man to become Hooded Justice and inadvertently shape the world of Watchmen as we know it in the process.
• Blackface: Inverted during his Hooded Justice days, as he wore makeup to make himself appear white.
• Blatant Lies: He tells Angela he's Dr. Manhattan. Naturally, Angela doesn't buy it for a second, and with minimal prodding, Will acquiesces that he isn't Dr. Manhattan.
• Broken Ace: As he bitterly notes, you "can't heal behind a mask"; being Hooded Justice made him famous, but even being free of the corrupt police only hamstrung him due to Captain Metropolis' belief in Good Victims, Bad Victims and ruined his marriage. He only started to come back together once he retired.
• Canon Character All Along: He turned out to have been Hooded Justice.
• Cerebus Retcon: In-Universe.
  • American Hero Story speculates on the meaning behind Hooded Justice's noose, whether it is just a superficial accessory for his Executioner motif or some kind of obscene bondage kink he wore on his sleeve. The truth? It was the same noose Will's fellow officers in the NYPD used to lynch him. A constant reminder of the racial injustice he's suffered throughout his entire life.
  • It's popularly assumed that Hooded Justice refused to unmask and disappeared either because of showmanship or because he was taking a principled stand against the McCarthy show trials. The truth was that Hooded Justice was concealing his true identity as a black man because his very survival depended on it.
  • He's usually Shrouded in Myth with a Multiple-Choice Past; one of the things Hooded Justice states about him is that he's a Nazi sympathizer and big fan of Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich. Word of God reveals that Will only made those statements as a smokescreen to stay further Beneath Notice, as again, his very survival, and the survival of other black people, depended on it.
  • In the comic, the Comedian, after getting his ass kicked for immediate karma of his Attempted Rape, mocks Hooded Justice that the only reason he became a hero was because of the sexual thrill he gets out of beating the crap out of people. This leads to Hooded Justice giving a Big "WHAT?!" in regards to the possibility that Eddie implies that he's a homosexual. Whether or not Will has a Smiting Evil Feels Good belief in regards to his vigilante work is unclear but his No-Holds-Barred Beatdown on the "people" he pursues is clearly deserving of vengeance and punishment, and hearing Eddie Blake accusing him of being disingenuous would definitely elicit a harsh reaction out of Will.
• Charles Atlas Superpower: While Will did undergo physical training for his career as a cop for the NYPD, as Hooded Justice, Will is shown to be capable of fighting dozens of grown men from White Supremacist groups with nothing but his bare hands (though not without some difficulty), enough to cause them to be either knocked out, gravely injured or outright killed from the blows. In Episode 6, a reporter even questions him about the true nature of his great physical strength being rumored as "supernatural" like the heroes of the comic books, with Will (as Hooded Justice) responding that he's "just a man".
• The Commissioner Gordon: Subverted. Captain Metropolis specifically reached out to Will under the belief that he was Hooded Justice's Friend on the Force. The thing is, Will is Hooded Justice. A fact that causes June to laugh in Nelson's face when he comes into their home acting like he's got her husband all figured out.
• Cool Old Guy: He's more than a hundred years old and he's fighting a conspiracy that had at least the Chief of the Tulsa Police and the previous Governor of Oklahoma as members. He may also either have powers or is just really tough. More than that, it turns out he's the true identity of Hooded Justice, the very first costumed hero.
• Dark Is Not Evil: As Hooded Justice, he wore a creepy costume that resembled both a medieval executioner and a hanging victim (which, as it turns out, he originally was). He turned vigilante after he regained his bearings due to a genuine desire to protect his community in spite of police racism and corruption from Cyclops.
• A Day in the Limelight: "This Extraordinary Being" is a Whole Episode Flashback exploring Will's troubled past and his rise to becoming the world's first costumed superhero.
• Deal with the Devil: He betrayed Doctor Manhattan to Lady Trieu in exchange for Trieu destroying Cyclops. Subverted in that Doctor Manhattan put him up to it knowing that it was necessary to defeat Trieu.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: It took 98 years, and he had to endure decades of injustice and heartache and loneliness along the way, but Will eventually secured vengeance against Cyclops on behalf of the victims of the Black Wall Street Massacre, including his parents. He also gains a family he barely knew he had when Angela accepts him into her and her adopted children's lives.
• Expy: He's meant to be a cross between Batman and Superman according to Lindelof. The former is because he has two key events in his life that drive him, the first being horrific childhood trauma that led to the second, choosing to be a vigilante as an adult. The latter is from his Moses in the Bulrushes background and is the earliest known superhero in his universe.
• Genocide Survivor: Survives the Tulsa Massacre, even as the rest of his family is killed.
• Luke, I Am Your Father: He doesn't directly state it but the call Angela receives giving her the results of the test on Will's DNA reveals that he is her grandfather.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane:
  • While in Angela's captivity, Will somehow drinks scalding hot coffee without a problem and later reaches into a boiling pot of water to grab an egg without even flinching. He also claims to be the one who killed and hanged Judd Crawford despite being an old man bound to a wheelchair. Whether or not this actually means he has powers of his own remains to be seen. Though as noted below, he's not actually crippled and it's later revealed he used a strobe light to force Crawford to hang himself.
  • Also happened In-Universe during his initiation into the Minutemen. A reporter asked Hooded Justice about his response to the rumors of his Super-Strength being supernatural like the heroes in the comic books. Hooded Justice responds that he's "just a man".
• Mirror Character: If you read the original comics, you'll notice that he has a lot in common with his former teammate Hollis Mason, the original Nite Owl. Hollis was also an émigré from the Western United States who moved to New York City and became a police officer, only to later become a superhero to deal with criminals he couldn't catch the old-fashioned way while also being an In-Universe Ascended Fanboy of many fictional heroes of the early 20th century, including Superman of Action Comics #1. The difference is that Hollis fights petty criminals, while Will fights truly dangerous white supremacists whom other police refuse to go after. Hollis also voluntarily unmasks and shares his story with the world, while the story of Hooded Justice remains a mystery to most of the world.
• Moses in the Bulrushes: His parents stuff him into a coffin in the back of a truck to get him out of the brunt of the massacre that claimed their lives. This is an homage to Superman who was meant to be an allegory to the Biblical story and his Jewish creators' experience as the children of immigrants who fled antisemitism in Victorian-era Eastern Europe. Later the homage is made explicit when Will hears the Superman story in 1938 when it first came out, recollecting his own past (he also found a baby the same way).
• Obfuscating Disability: A centenarian, Will is now wheelchair-bound. However he shows little difficulty standing up and walking around in front of Lady Trieu.
• One-Man Army: In his prime as Hooded Justice, Will was capable of taking down dozens of criminals at once with nothing more than his bare hands and sheer Unstoppable Rage.
• The Oner: In the sixth episode, Will is featured as the center of two fight scenes that are shot in this style.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: As Hooded Justice, this is Will's modus operandi for the people he brutalized and killed: criminals, racist assholes, organized supremacist groups aiming to oppress, discriminate, and murder minority groups, people who would harm others through Loophole Abuse of the American Legal system of the 20th century and taking advantage of the legalized racism and segregation, and even the two FBI agents who interrogated him and acted very smug of the obvious life-threatening consequences for himself, his friends and family, and every American citizen of color with revealing to the world of his true identity and ethnicity. Oh, and he still gives a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown on the teenage Comedian for his Attempted Rape on the first Silk Spectre.
• Psychic-Assisted Suicide: Will uses a strobe light to force Crawford into doing what he wanted: hanging himself.
• Race Lift: While his identity was never confirmed in the comics, Hooded Justice was speculated to be a white German. This version is a black man who wears whiteface around his eyes. In-Universe, American Hero Story portrays him as white.
• The Reveal: It turns out he was Hooded Justice.
• Retired Badass: The man was the first-ever costumed hero, and is 105 years old.
• Sarcastic Confession: He's fond of making statements that are seemingly either false or metaphorical, but later turn out to be much more literally true than expected. Exact Words come into play quite a bit.
  • When questioned about who he is, he readily admits to being Judd's murderer. Angela disbelieves him since he is seemingly wheelchair-bound; later we learn he is actually Obfuscating Disability, making the confession much more plausible...
  • Will also playfully claims that he used "psychic powers" to kill Judd. This also turns out to be true on a technicality as he used a miniaturized mesmerizing device he confiscated from Cyclops to force Judd into committing suicide.
  • At one moment, he remarks that he has "friends in high places". This turns out to be literal when the car Angela puts him in is lifted from the ground by an aerial vehicle.
  • He claims that the pills he takes "help [him] get [his] memory". Later we learn the pills are "Nostalgia", a product that can be fairly described as memories in pill form, which causes the subject to have vivid flashbacks.
  • Subverted when he suggests he might be Doctor Manhattan, which a moment later he admits is false. There is even an element of truth to that in a sense: Will is Hooded Justice, the first costumed superhero like how Dr. Manhattan was the first (and only) superhero with actual superpowers. Since he met Doctor Manhattan and learned about Angela's existence from him in 2009, it's also possible that he's teasing her a little knowing who her husband really is.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: When Will says that he has friends in high places, he wasn't kidding. Episode 4 reveals that one of these friends is none other than Lady Trieu, the trillionaire CEO who bought out Adrian Veidt's company.
• Shrouded in Myth: Much like the comics, not much is known of Hooded Justice In-Universe for the show — which helped to make "This Extraordinary Being" such a Wham Episode as the show's depiction is a still-living 105-year-old African-American former cop, not a dead white German former circus strongman.
• Spared by the Adaptation: In-Universe in the comic, it was assumed that Hooded Justice was dead, with some speculating the Comedian had killed him as revenge for HJ stopping his Attempted Rape of Sally Jupiter. Here, Will simply retired after being Hooded Justice destroyed his life.
• Trauma Conga Line: Will's entire life. At five years old, he witnesses his parents and neighborhood getting wiped off the map by rioting Klansmen, forcing him and his eventual wife June to flee Tulsa. Then he joins the NYPD, where he is ostracized for his race, quickly runs afoul of a clique of racist cops who belong to a Klan offshoot, and almost gets lynched. This makes Will disillusioned with the law, take up costumed vigilantism as Hooded Justice, and join the Minutemen in the hopes that they can help him stop the Klan... only to realize that the Minutemen don't care about "black unrest", forcing him to foil the Klan's mass hypnosis scheme on his own. Will murdering the Klan causes June to cut him out of her life and move back to Tulsa with their son. Damn.
• Walking Spoiler: Will's true identity is so integral to the Watchmen mythos that it's nigh impossible to talk about him without diving into spoiler territory.
• Would Hurt a Child: Although it happened off-screen, he still brutally beats the then 16-year-old Eddie Blake for his Attempted Rape on Sally Jupiter.
• What the Hell, Hero?: He gets into a heated argument with Captain Metropolis over the phone after Nelson refuses to summon the Minutemen to help Will stop a very real conspiracy to kill black people en masse. He also gives Judd Crawford one of these over his personal ties to The Klan shortly before he makes the Chief hang himself.
• White Like Me: Played for Drama, as Will suiting up as Hooded Justice meant having to conceal his African-American ethnicity through donning whiteface around his eyes and acting as if he was one of the very same white supremacists he was fighting against.

Topher Abar

Christopher "Topher" Abar

Played by: Dylan Schombing

Angela's eldest adopted son.

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• Dark and Troubled Past: Topher's biological father was one of the many police officers targeted during the infamous White Night incident. He had no choice but to hide with his younger sisters in a closet while their parents were brutally murdered in the next room by Seventh Kalvary foot soldiers. While his sisters were able to hold onto their innocence, Topher in comparison is not the same kid he once was. A trait Angela herself picks up on and finds commonality in.
• Happily Adopted: They clearly have their issues but Topher does love his adopted mother, with their argument in the first episode being over his violent reaction to a classmate using the racist "Redfordations" term around her.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: His first scene has him tackling a classmate to the ground for aggressively asking his adopted mother whether she used "Redfordations" to subsidize her bakery.
• Unstoppable Rage: Using racist attacks against Angela will cause him to go apeshit on you.

June Abar

June Abar

Played by: Danielle Deadwyler (1940s), Valeri Ross (1980s)

The '40s

The '80s

Angela's grandmother and Will's ex-wife.

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• Character Development: Despite appearing in only two episodes. She left Will because of his work as Hooded Justice, and severed contact with her son after he followed his dad into uniform and fought in Vietnam. When she meets young Angela, she is clearly disappointed to learn that Angela wants to be a cop but doesn't say anything as she doesn't want to lose the only family she has left.
• Cool Old Lady: Unlike Angela's parents, has no problem with her granddaughter admiring Sister Night, even voicing her approval and mutual admiration with "You don't fuck with Sister Night!".
• Dark and Troubled Past: Like her ex-husband Will, she survived the 1921 Tulsa massacre as an infant. She endured racism and had a gradually strained relationship with Will because of his superhero activities with the Minutemen, which led to her leaving him and moving back to Tulsa with their son.
• Expy: Is very much one for Lois Lane, being a female newspaper reporter whose significant other happens to be a superhero.
• Hollywood Heart Attack: Dies of one shortly after retrieving her young granddaughter Angela from the orphanage in Vietnam.
• Mama Bear: Is quick to send the mean orphanage attendant away when she witnesses the harsh way she speaks to young Angela. Not to mention leaving her husband Will when it appears their son Marcus is being unduly influenced by his secret vigilantism activities as Hooded Justice.
• Outliving One's Offspring: Her son Marcus is killed by a suicide bomber along with his wife, not very long before her own death.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Makes it clear that she does not approve of her husband Will's activities as Hooded Justice, as they do not assuage his anger, only feeds it. The last straw is when it appears their son might follow in Will's footsteps.

Judd's family

Jane Crawford

Jane Crawford

Played by: Frances Fisher

Judd's wife, a former campaign staff member for Senator Keene.

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• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Jane seems like a pleasant, accommodating woman but, much like her husband, she's a high-ranking member of the Seventh Kalvary. Once her facade drops, she shows herself to be a merciless sadist who casually offers to murder Laurie.
• Dirty Old Woman: Played for Laughs, with her blatantly eyeing the naked Senator Keene when he's preparing to become the next Doctor Manhattan.
• Evil All Along: Both she and her husband are leaders of the Seventh Kavalry/Cyclops.
• Face Death with Dignity: She's the only member of Cyclops to accept Trieu killing them and not freak out.
• Get It Over With: Currently the page quote. Her Shut Up, Kirk! to Trieu, where she interrupted Trieu reading Will's speech to Cyclops and tells her to just kill them already.
• More Deadly Than the Male: While Judd claimed to be a Well-Intentioned Extremist, Jane is more openly ruthless and megalomaniacal.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: She was a leader of the Seventh Kavalry.
• Shut Up, Kirk!: She tells Trieu to stop reading the speech Will gave her and just kill them already.
• Unholy Matrimony: It seems that she and Judd were two racist peas in a pod.

Adrian Veidt's Castle

Mr. Phillips & Ms. Crookshanks

Mr. Phillips and Ms. Crookshanks

Played by: Tom Mison and Sara Vickers

Adrian Veidt's servants. They were created by Doctor Manhattan, who based them on a couple he caught in a Primal Scene in his childhood.

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• Adam and Eve Plot: Dr. Manhattan created them with this in mind. However, they turned out to be solely interested in serving other beings rather than progressing their fledgling race.
• Bizarre Alien Biology: Although they resemble humans, they spontaneously spawn out of lake water and rapidly age into adults when irradiated inside some sort of giant microwave. They also appear to be significantly more fragile than normal humans.
• The Chew Toy: Their lot in life seems to be to die at Veidt's hands in various gruesome ways.
• The Ditz: Neither of them are particularly bright.
• The Dog Bites Back: Although they are adorably civil and childish about it, they collectively turn against Veidt after he sacrificed at least a hundred of them to create a giant S.O.S. symbol out of their frozen remains and they form a Kangaroo Court to declare his guilt.
• Enforced Method Acting: In-Universe. When Ms. Crookshanks promises she'll shed real tears at a performance, she does so by watching Mr. Phillips burn to death.
• Gone Horribly Right: Doctor Manhattan created the Phillipses and Crookshankses with the intention of them being a superior form of humanity, one that "cares for one another over themselves". This resulted in them being a Servant Race of ditzy sycophants who can't think for themselves and desperately desire for a master to lead them.
• Happiness in Slavery: They love having Veidt around to tell them what to do, and the only rule they created is that he can't try to leave their "estate".
• Legacy Character: Multiple versions of them exist, with one dying for one reason or another and another quickly taking their place.
• Made of Plasticine: Not much effort seems to be needed to kill them. Most notably, Veidt was able to kill the Game Warden by stabbing him in the chest with just a horseshoe.
• Nice Guy: They are all specifically designed to be a race of polite, docile humanoids, with Manhattan even noting that they were designed to prioritize caring for other people over themselves.
• Rapid Aging: They gestate in a lake near the manor house and Veidt throws the fetuses he deems suitable into what looks like a giant microwave in order to rapidly age them into adults.
• Servant Race: A whole race of compassionate, loyal and disturbingly expendable butlers and maids. Basically, they are exactly what Adrian Veidt wanted for humanity in his original Utopian vision. One gets the idea that Manhattan might've created them to in part serve as a Stealth Insult to Veidt's utopian and utilitarian ideals.
• Sycophantic Servant: No matter how much terrible abuse Veidt puts them through, they have nothing but unconditional love and devotion in their hearts for him and their original creator, Dr. Manhattan. However, Veidt's abuse eventually reaches such a breaking point that even they can no longer stand for it.
• Three Laws-Compliant: They follow the First Law for the most part, as aside from knocking him unconscious with a punch, they've never deliberately hurt Veidt. They follow the Second Law to a disturbing degree, even when it results in them suffering a particularly nasty end. And they completely avert the Third Law, as they show no real concern for their own lives until Veidt seems to finally cross the line.
• Uncertain Doom: It's currently unknown what will become of them after Veidt's escape now that they have no master to serve or seek guidance from.

The Game Warden

The Game Warden

Played by: Tom Mison

A mysterious figure who is an obstacle in Veidt's plans.

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• Domino Mask: Wears a Zorro-like mask, probably to distinguish himself from the rest of the Phillips clones.
• Friendly Enemy: Despite being responsible for Veidt's captivity they're amazingly civil with each other. He sends a letter politely but sternly warning Adrian against his plans with him replying in kind. The Game Warden mentions he enjoyed the tomatoes Veidt sent him.
• Meaningful Name: The entirety of his "feud" with Adrian Veidt is a sham: Veidt set it up so that having an adversary to battle would distract him from the soul-crushing monotony of his exile on Europa. Basically, it's all a game.
• Sitcom Archnemesis: Set up as one to Veidt by the time that we actually see him.
  • "See How I Fly" reveals this is invoked, since Veidt created him for the specific purpose of having an adversary.
• Super Prototype: According to him, he is the very first Artificial Human created by Doctor Manhattan. He possesses much more volition than the passive Phillips and Crookshanks types, which is probably why there's only one of him. Ultimately subverted in the final episode, though: Veidt had told him to act as a foil to him, so in the end he was still following orders.
• Worthy Opponent: As it turns out, this is all he wanted to be for Veidt, to please him just like all the other servants on Europa. It's played with after Veidt stabs him, however, as Veidt tells him that he wasn't really a worthy opponent but put on a good show.

Trieu Industries

Lady Trieu

Lady Trieu

"Legacy isn't in land. It's in blood."

Played by: Hong Chau

A Vietnamese-born trillionaire and head of Trieu Industries, the company which bought out Veidt Enterprises.

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• Ambiguously Evil: While she's obviously hiding something big throughout her screentime, it's hard to tell whether that thing is for humanity's benefit or not. It eventually comes to pass that her motivations are in humanity's best interest... but are also being used to justify her raging god complex.
• Animal Motifs: Elephants. The ivory hourglass she carries around shows elephant carvings, as does the tea set in her vivarium. The Trieu Industries logo, if you look closely, is an elephant's trunk, tusks, and ears formed to shape a stylized T. In addition, she keeps a live elephant on campus as a source for Nostalgia overdose treatment. This is doubly meaningful: Trieu's namesake is famous for riding an elephant in battle and trampling her enemies with it, and elephants are renowned for their longevity and memory: a fitting motif for a headstrong neuroscientist who studies memory.
• Attention Whore: She engineered a clone of Bian, her mother, and retrieved her aging estranged father from Europa (Adrian Veidt) specifically so she could indulge the satisfaction of having both of her parents bear witness to her ascension to godhood. When Manhattan sabotages this by teleporting Veidt away, she takes the time to whine at him like a spoiled brat.
• Big Bad: She has been manipulating the Seventh Kavalry, and plans to take the power of Dr. Manhattan for herself so she can save the world. Veidt believes that will inevitably lead to her becoming a monster.
• Book Ends: Her mother, the elder Bian, brought her into the world telling Ozymandias to go fuck himself, which is also the last thing we hear Trieu say before she dies. Fittingly, Bian, who otherwise spoke exclusively in Vietnamese throughout her screentime, said it in English while Trieu, who primarily spoke in English, said it in Vietnamese.
• Cassandra Truth: When Sister Night asks her why she came to Oklahoma, Lady Trieu casually replies that it's the first step of her secret plan to save humanity. She wasn't lying. Trieu really is working with Will to save humanity from Joe Keene and the Seventh Kalvary, who want to kill Doctor Manhattan and steal his powers. That said, she intended to do the same, playing Keene and the Kalvary like a fiddle.
• The Chessmaster: She has been manipulating the Seventh Kavalry the whole time, allowing them to do the dirty work of building the materials necessary to capture Doctor Manhattan and steal his powers.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: The Mad Scientist leader of Trieu Industries (which she personally started) and the Big Bad of the whole season.
• Crazy-Prepared: The "Millennium Clock" that she's building in Oklahoma is designed to survive anything short of a direct nuclear blast. It's in Oklahoma specifically because it's far from fault lines or other frequent natural disasters or end-of-the-world scenarios (and is far enough away from major city centers like New York or Los Angeles to be a target for some sort of strategic attack).
• Daddy's Little Villain: Much like her father, Adrian Veidt, she is a manipulative antagonist.
• Deadpan Snarker: She can hold her own against both Sister Night and Agent Blake.
• Defiant to the End: Her Profane Last Words are snarling in Vietnamese that Veidt is a "motherfucker" just as the destroyed Millennium Clock crushes her to death.
• Didn't See That Coming: Her Millennium Clock, while subjected to impressive Ragnarök Proofing otherwise (to the point where she claims the only thing it couldn't survive would be a point-blank nuclear strike), was evidently not designed to withstand frozen squids falling from the heavens with the force of a Gatling gun.
• Establishing Character Moment: We are first introduced to Lady Trieu when she arrives at the doorstep of a loving couple in the middle of night with the intention to buy their house and the forty acres it sits on. But when the couple attempts to reject her limited time offer on the grounds that the farm has been in their family for generations? Trieu immediately rips that defense apart with a Breaking Speech that strikes at their insecurities over their failure to conceive and counters with the revelation that she's not offering money for their land but is instead offering a second chance to continue their legacy via a child artificially created from their DNA. Trieu also has her people bring the baby, whom she has already created, into the house as proof, with the mention that she deposited 5 million dollars into a personal account to help cover their relocation costs and child-related expenses just to help seal the deal.
  Lady Trieu: When they harvested your eggs Mrs. Clark, you were told they were non-viable. Y'know what I say to that? I say BULLSHIT!
  • Less than a minute after the couple sign the papers, something falls down from the sky and crashes onto their lands, to which Trieu remarks "That is mine", indicating she orchestrated the whole thing down to the minute just to claim whatever the object is.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Lady Trieu is surprised to see Angela in Greenwood at the climax and says that she didn't want Angela to witness her husband being destroyed. She's also not fond of the Seventh Kavalry beyond using them as pawns in her scheme. Once she has everything she needs from them, she doesn't waste time vaporizing their leadership.
  • During her negotiation with the Clarks, she says that if they don't sign, she'll have the baby she made them killed. She quickly reveals she was just kidding and will simply put him up for adoption.
• Evil Genius: She's every bit as smart as her father and has an even greater lack of scruples.
• Evil Is Petty: After Ozymandias is thawed out after his return from Europa, Trieu takes every opportunity to rub his prior dismissal of her in his face.
• Faux Affably Evil: She is always exceptionally polite and can be very charismatic and silver tongued when she wants to be, even after her true colors have been revealed.
• Freudian Excuse: It's implied that she's as loony as she is thanks to her mother viciously pushing her to excel in every category as part of her long-sought revenge against the United States for turning her home country of Vietnam into a glorified colony.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: She goes from being the daughter of a Vietnamese cleaning lady to one of the wealthiest people in the world and a villain on par with Ozymandias.
• Generation Xerox: Trieu's personality, personal history and role in the story all closely parallel her father Adrian Veidt in the original comic. They both even adopt the names of legendary historical figures.
• Godhood Seeker: The Kavalry's plan to destroy Doctor Manhattan and steal his power was really her plan to destroy Doctor Manhattan and steal his power. They didn't realize the truth of the matter until it was too late.
• Hoist by His Own Petard:
  • Trieu's own moment of cruelty in pouring out Keene's liquefied body in front of his friends is what gives Manhattan the power to send Ozymandias to the place where he needs to be to kill her. Had she not felt the need to be both cruel and showy, she would have won.
  • In a more concrete manner, she ends up crushed and killed by the machine she intended to use to take Doctor Manhattan's powers.
• Hypocrite: She explains to Angela at length why it is a very, very bad idea to take someone else's Nostalgia. She is also doing that to give Bian the memories of her mother.
• In the Blood: She inherited Veidt's intelligence, narcissism, love of ancient warrior-monarchs, and Well-Intentioned Extremist tendencies.
• Ivy League for Everyone: Exaggerated — not only did she graduate from MIT at fifteen, she bought it four years later.
• Kick the Dog: One that overlaps with Pet the Dog; She manipulates the Clarks with their biological son as a bargaining chip so as to get ownership of their property as quickly as possible. While it was certainly kind of her to grant them a child which they've always wanted, it's also incredibly cruel in how callously she treats the infant and threatens to leave the child up for adoption in case the Clarks don't accept him within the brief time limit she's given them.
  • Everything involving Bian, with her treating the modern clone of her own mother (who sees Lady Trieu as a surrogate mother) as a glorified science experiment and her intentionally forcing the young woman to experience immensely traumatic memories primarily to satisfy her massive ego.
• A Lighter Shade of Grey: While the true Big Bad in the Big Bad Ensemble against the Seventh Kavalry, her goals have better intentions than the Kavalry's. She may have a massive god complex and ego comparable to them, but she at least isn't a racist murderer.
• The Man Behind the Man: Trieu has a secret alliance with Will Reeves and has been using her power and influence to support his efforts towards combating the Seventh Kavalry.
• Meaningful Rename: Peteypedia reveals that her mother allowed her to pick her own name at age five. She chose her hero, the mythical warrior Lady Trieu.
• Meet the New Boss: She has bought Veidt's company in totality and like him, appears to have an affinity for genetic engineering, making bio-domes in the middle of nowhere (Oklahoma instead of Antarctica), preparing for a possible incoming apocalypse, and is smugly superficially charming.
• Named After Someone Famous: She is named after a 3rd-century Vietnamese warrior who was able to hold off a Chinese invasion. She is famously quoted as saying, "I'd like to ride storms, kill sharks in the open sea, drive out the aggressors, reconquer the country, undo the ties of serfdom, and never bend my back to be the concubine of whatever man."
• Narcissist: Is such a gigantic one that even Veidt sees it (and that's really saying something) which is why he joins forces with Laurie and Wade to foil her plan:
  Veidt: ...[Trieu] is clearly a raging narcissist whose ambition knows no limits. It's hubris, literal hubris. Anyone who seeks to attain the power of a god must be prevented at all costs from attaining it. But believe me, that girl will not rest until she has us all prostrate before her, kissing her tiny blue feet.
• Not So Stoic: After being smug and extremely self-assured for most of her appearances, she childishly lashes out at Doctor Manhattan for teleporting away her father Ozymandias before he can witness her becoming a Physical God and stands there in a huff as Manhattan is sapped of his powers.
• Profane Last Words: The last word she utters is calling Veidt a "Motherfucker" in Vietnamese.
• Rags to Riches: She comes from a fairly modest background as the daughter of a cleaning lady and rose to become one of the wealthiest people in the world.
• Replacement Goldfish: Her "daughter" is revealed to be a clone of her mother, and Trieu is using the Nostalgia technology to implant her mother's memories into her mind.
• Rich Bitch: She's a trillionaire and definitely not on the side of the angels.
• Rich Recluse's Realm: Insanely wealthy, she has built an entire habitat that mimics the environment of Vietnam — on the outskirts of Tulsa.
• Teen Genius: Graduated from MIT at fifteen and became wealthy enough to buy it at nineteen.
• Troll: After giving the Clarks their child as an offering to buy their land, she claims that she'll destroy the baby if they refuse, to their shock. Moments later, she says that she was just kidding, before explaining that she will put the newborn up for adoption and that he'll never know where he came from. The ploy works and she gets what she wants.
• Villain with Good Publicity: To the rest of the world, she's a genius and wealthy philanthropist whose cutting edge scientific work has changed the world for the better. She clearly learned a few lessons from dear old dad.
• Walking Spoiler: She's both the daughter of Adrian Veidt via artificial insemination and the real Big Bad of the miniseries.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: She plans to use Doctor Manhattan’s power to force world peace and make the world a better place. Of course, it would also be one that would worship her as its eternal God-Empress...
• The Wonka: Lady Trieu is the eccentric yet genius CEO of a trillion dollar MegaCorp that has made multiple breakthroughs in the field of nanotechnology and genetic engineering. She also cloned her own mother and has been drip feeding her Nostalgia so she'll live to witness her achievements. Trieu also set up fake Dr. Manhattan toll booths around the globe so she can eavesdrop on the prayers meant for a God that chooses to ignore them. Sister Night is understandably disturbed by all this.

Bian (2019)

Bian

Played by: Jolie Hoang Rappaport

A young girl who acts as Lady Trieu's adjutant and spokeswoman.

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• Innocently Insensitive: She seems to be genuinely unaware of how uncouth it is to casually ask Angela if she can interview her about experiencing her own grandfather's traumatic memories via Nostalgia overdose as part of her research paper concerning Generational Trauma.
• Number Two: For Lady Trieu.
• Smart People Wear Glasses: Sports a massive pair of glasses and is very bright for her age.
• Stepford Smiler: She's a lot less mentally stable than her cheeriness may first imply.
• Transferable Memory: Trieu regularly pumps her with her own mother's traumatic memories via IV drip, because Bian is her mother.
• Troubling Unchildlike Behaviour: Does all sorts of genius-level stuff like conducting psychology tests despite her young age. Probably because she's been pumped full of Original Bian's memories.

Bian (1985)

Bian

Played by: Elyse Dinh

Lady Trieu's mother.

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• Beneath Suspicion: Being Ozymandias's cleaning lady while he was busy planning to drop a squid on New York allowed her to surreptitiously impregnate herself with his sperm. She was also able to sneak away while he murdered the rest of his squid staff.
• Dark and Troubled Past: It's hinted she despises what happened during the Watchmen version of The Vietnam War and it played a role in what she became, given her plan to have Veidt's baby and get even. One of the memories Trieu gave Bian's clone concerned being in a burning Vietnamese village and forced to go on a death march.
• Education Mama: A gossip column posted on Peteypedia reveals that Bian pushed Trieu hard to become "the world's smartest woman, brighter than a sky full of stars, a redemptive blessing to the world planet". Her methods included isolation, tough love, "enhanced transcendental meditation", and according to Trieu's former tutor in psychic combat, a "Duel to the Death on multiple planes of existence, corporeal and mental".
• Greater-Scope Villain: She pushed her daughter so as to get revenge for the United States' colonization of Vietnam.
• Precision F-Strike: "Fuck you, Ozymandias."
• Small Role, Big Impact: Bian's actions in 1985 and her offscreen upbringing of Trieu are what caused the latter to become a narcissistic monster who kills Doctor Manhattan.
• Stalker with a Test Tube: Towards Adrian, specifically stealing his sperm so she can have a child that surpasses him.

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