History ComicBook / Watchmen

** The issue after the one with the above example makes clear that, genius or not, you ''cannot'' kill a near-omnipotent being who can walk across the surface of the sun, and literally rebuilt himself after being disintegrated. You can turn the public against him by framing him for spreading cancer, or catch him off-guard by developing a way to block his foresight powers, but you're just as much a threat to his life as a termite would be.

* ThereAreNoTherapists: Deconstructed. Psychotherapy was new in the post-UsefulNotes/WorldWarII world but lack of understanding of psychological care causes Mothman's breakdown. Dr. Long (Rorschach's shrink) shows how impossible it is to understand the mind of a "hero."

* AboveGoodAndEvil: The longer he is Dr. Manhattan, the further he drifts from typical human morals, something even [[EvenEvilHasStandards the Comedian worries about]]. However, after his talk with Laurie on Mars, he becomes convinced of the value of human life. This allows Manhattan to agree not to expose Veidt as an OmnicidalManiac and even kill Rorschach, but this also leads him to leave Earth forever.

* BadassBoast: Dr. Manhattan [[AGodIAmNot may not think of himself as a god]], but he sure boasts to Adrian like he is.
-->'''Dr. Manhattan''': I’ve walked across the surface of the sun. I have witnessed events so tiny and so fast they can hardly said to have occurred at all. But you, Adrian, are just a man. The world’s smartest man poses no more threat to me than its smartest termite.
** There's also Rorschach's "None of you understand. I'm not locked up in here with YOU. You're locked up in here with ''ME!''"

** "Gag" and "Joke" are both UnusualEuphemism for superhero's role in society, the Comedian being Laurie's father and Veidt's EvilPlan.

** The Knot Tops who killed Hollis killed his dog Phantom, too.

* WeAllLiveInAmerica: This graphic novel ostensibly takes place in America with American characters, but one character mentions "having a lock fitted." An American would say "having a lock ''installed''."

* StylisticSuck: The document from young Walter Kovac's (Rorschach) boys home has several typos, as such government documents tend to have.

** Rorschach and Ozymandias: Both of them are defined by their unshakeable attachment to their morals, refusing to abandon their ideals no matter how many people they hurt, but they also have very different ideas about serving the greater good. Rorschach lives the life of an urban vigilante so that he can deal out justice to evil wherever he sees it, and he's a textbook moral absolutist, believing that any and all immoral acts must be punished without mercy; Ozymandias lives the life of a scholar, mystic and industrialist so that he can implement his ideas on a global scale, and he's a moral utilitarian, believing that even mass genocide can be justified if it ultimately saves more lives than it ends.

** Captain Metropolis and the Comedian discuss this during the first (and only) meeting of the Crimebusters. Gardner wants to form a professional crime fighting group to shut down all crime but Blake notes that it's ridiculous and pointless in the shadow of the nuclear bomb and so long as none of them have a solution to deal with that, such crime-fighting is meaningless kid's stuff. Ozymandias sees the Comedian's comments as illustrating that a true superhero's capacity has to grow and expand to properly "save the world" and so abandons conventional superheroism outwardly while still committing himself to save the world by becoming a corporate magnate, scientist and WellIntentionedExtremist. Some would say that Veidt has undergone MotiveDecay but Veidt would insist that conventional heroes have to grow up to better tackle problems of the adult world of geopolitics, commerce and mass media. Indeed, when Nite Owl and Rorschach meet Veidt in his lair, he is wearing his old superhero costume rather than the civilian clothing he had been wearing throughout the comic, which suggests that in his mind he sees his actions as superheroic even if it appears the contrary to his ex-colleagues.

* RichIdiotWithNoDayJob: Dan Dreiberg/Nite Owl II, with the twist that as Dan Dreiberg, he doesn't [[ObfuscatingStupidity fake idiocy]] but instead pretends to be a harmless intellectual. After he retires, it's not so much an ''act''...

%%* TheNapoleon: The Big Figure.

* CrazyPrepared: While it doesn't clarify if he did build it solely for that purpose or not, the Annotated Edition points out it would have required some remarkable foresight on Adrian's part to build an Intrinsic Field Separator (a device that basically recreates the accident that created Dr. Manhattan in the first place) for the sole purpose of using it to rid himself of Dr. Manhattan should he be cornered in spite of already handicapping him with the Tachyon Generators. Of course, if that ''was'' the case, Adrian probably didn't factor in that [[OutGambitted Dr. Manhattan could just rebuild himself again afterward, which he immediately does]]--it's not like the accident that gave him his powers managed to kill him in the first place, after all.

* AluminumChristmasTrees: There really is a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galle_(Martian_crater) smiley face crater]] on Mars.

%%* TheReveal: Usually minor ones spaced throughout, but highly concentrated in chapter 11.

* NoPronunciationGuide: Juspeczyk is pronounced "yoo-spe-chik" in Polish; it is not clear how she would pronounce it in America, although Sally's choice of "Jupiter" as a stage name gives a hint. Rorschach provides a half-failed aversion -- it's given as "raw shark," which will work for most English people, and Noo Yawkers where the comic is set, but not to most American accents.

* SuperpowerLottery: Deconstructed. Dr. Manhattan is a nigh-omnipotent, nigh-omniscient being, and the only one who has any superpower whatsoever. Yet he is so unmotivated and detached that he lets himself become a puppet of government, is one of those characters who can be manipulated very easily, and has really hard time using his own powers not just for others', but for his own good.

* MadnessInducedOmnoivore: The ShowWithinAShow "Tales of the Black Freighter" is about a castaway who loses his sanity during his arduous journey back to his hometown. One of the first signs of his madness is when he devours a raw seagull, with the action being depicted on a red tinted panel focused on his choleric face. He later kills and eats a shark, explaining in an inner monologue that the inversion of predator-prey dynamics makes him [[LaughingMad laugh out of hatred]].

%% As per ATT, the Watchmen page is standalone. No references from Doomsday Clock, Before Watchmen, or movie or game adaptations in terms of content and plot and character beats are to be mentioned here or in sub-pages.

-->'''Rorschach:''' Can I leave now?
-->'''Spectre:''' Really? I mean, are you sure? [[SarcasmMode We don't want to get too reckless and go diving headfirst into things!]]
-->'''Rorschach:''' Hurm. Good advice. Sure there are many who'd agree with you.

%%* FreudianExcuse: Rorschach's bad childhood.

* TheUnfettered: The Comedian, Dr. Manhattan, Rorschach, and Ozymandias are all willing t stoop to any low to get what they want or do what they feel needs to be done.

%%* OddFriendship: Dan and Rorschach. TheyFightCrime.

* TheyFightCrime: Deconstructed. Rorschach and Dreiberg's differences in temperament make their partnership almost impossible.

* MischiefForPunishment: Captain Carnage is said to have done this, the kink version. He only pretended to be a supervillain so he'd get off from the superheroes kicking his ass.

* AsianBabyMama: Almost; the Comedian killed her.

* AGodIAmNot: Doctor Manhattan, despite what the Vietnamese and many others think, does not consider himself a god.