History ComicBook / Watchmen

* {{Asexuality}}: Rorschach. see ''Characters.{{Watchmen}}'' for details.

* YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness: [[spoiler: Ozymandias poisons his assistants, and congratulates them for helping create a new utopia (as they are either dead or dying), then lets their bodies be hidden by snow cover. He also blows up the artists who helped create the monster.]]

* YouAreTooLate: [[spoiler: "I did it ThirtyFiveMinutesAgo." Formerly the TropeNamer.]]

* TheThreeFacesOfAdam: Rorschach (Hunter), Nite Owl II (Lord), and both the Comedian and Ozymandias are Prophets.

* TotalitarianUtilitarian: [[spoiler: Adrian Veidt.]]

It's FilmNoir. It's RaygunGothic. It's a [[TheGoldenAgeOfComicBooks Golden Age]] superhero story. It's a [[TheSilverAgeOfComicBooks Silver Age]] superhero story. It's a [[TheDarkAgeOfComicBooks Dark Age]] superhero story[[hottip:*:Some say it launched the DarkAge.]]. It's SciFi. It's CyberPunk. It's ThePirateJenny. It's AlternateHistory. It's [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotPolitical Political]]. It's a {{Deconstruction}} of superheroes. It's [[GenreBusting a lot of things.]] It's ''Watchmen,'' and it's one of the most influential pieces of literature ever.

* PirateJenny: "The Black Freighter" is a ShoutOut.

* ShoutOut: Includes explicit mention of an episode of the original ''OuterLimits'' with a similar basic plot.

** The entire "Tales of the Black Freighter" comic-within-a-comic is inspired by ''Theatre/TheThreepennyOpera''.

*** Further mirror motives implied when it's revealed that [[spoiler: the news vendor and the black comic book reader share the same name. Bernard.]]

** The entire "Tales of the Black Freighter" comic-within-a-comic is inspired by ''TheThreepennyOpera''.

There's also a prequel game, ''Watchmen: The End is Nigh'', and [[http://www.bleedingcool.com/2011/12/01/andy-kubert-to-draw-watchmen-2/ a prequel is currently in the works]] (that will not involve Alan Moore).

** Also a possible modernization; talking about Reagan and talking about cowboy actors could be construed to refer to George W. Bush, widely referred to as a cowboy, thus preserving the original jab at Reagan as a jab at the current president.

* TeleportationSickness: Others besides Dr. Manhattan tend to find his teleporting them unpleasant, some rioters even suffering hearrt attacks when he puts them back home.

** The elevator man's announcement "Ground floor coming right up" is juxtaposed with a picture of Edward Blake being thrown out the window.

* XanatosRoulette: Plays straight, lampshades, and then almost immediately subverts this trope.

* AnalogyBackfire: The lock company "[[CuttingTheKnot Gordian Knot]]"; arguably choosing the name Ozymandias.

There's also a prequel game, ''Watchmen: The End is Nigh'', and [[http://www.bleedingcool.com/2010/02/03/get-ready-for-watchmen-2/ a sequel may be in the works]] (that will not involve Alan Moore).

* PeekABoo: Generally averted with Doctor Manhattan's nudity, but not always. There are a couple of pages in chapter three that look like something out of ''AustinPowers''.

** Seems very unlikely. [[spoiler: The journal only implicates Ozymandias in the murder of an ex-superhero and ex-villain, and maybe of some kind of indirect involvement with otherwise unconnected people who got terminal cancer. The squid, and the explosions in the movie, were completely unexpected to Rorschach when he left the journal. All this is a very unreliable source implicating a very respected, reliable, rich guy, in a newspaper that's hardly the New York Times, and even if the allegations about the Comedian and Moloch get taken seriously there's still nothing linking them to the "alien" or explosions.]] There's some risk of discovery, you never know, but it seemed much more like an echo and demonstration of Dr. Manhattan's line "it never ends". Life goes on.
** [[spoiler: Seymour was told that they couldn't use anything attacking Russians, and Rorschach writes a highly anti-Communist phrase before implicating anyone, so it'll probably get thrown away.]]
*** Do remember that ''New Frontiersman'' [[spoiler:loves vigilantes. All it would take is one of the guys there realizing it's '''Rorschach's''' journal for them to mass-publish the entire thing intact.]]

* {{Stripperiffic}}: Both Silk Spectres. Justified in that Sally Jupiter became the first Silk Spectre [[MoneyDearBoy to boost her modeling career]]. And deconstructed, as Laurie hates her costume for precisely this quality [[spoiler:and is implied to eventually decide to dress in something more practical, akin to her father's costume]].