100 Fun Facts About Watchmen

In Watchmen, Laurie Juspeczyk takes over which costumed identity from her mother?

Silk Spectre. Laurie never wanted the job: her mother, the original, pushed her into the 'family business' of crimefighting, and she was glad to quit when masked heroes were outlawed.

Which Bob Dylan song plays over the opening credits of the 2009 Watchmen film?

The Times They Are a-Changin'. The credits montage reworks famous images of the past, from Warhol to the Zapruder film, to show decades of history bent out of shape by costumed heroes.

How many issues did the original Watchmen comic run for?

12. Contracted for twelve, Alan Moore realised he had plot for only six, so he alternated plot issues with origin-story issues about the characters.

Alan Moore first pitched Watchmen to DC as a murder mystery starring which publisher's heroes?

Charlton Comics. Moore's initial idea used the Mighty Crusaders, another shelved set of heroes, and opened with the Shield found dead in a harbour.

Why did DC bar its newly bought heroes from Watchmen?

The plot wrecked them. Moore said DC saw its expensive new heroes ending up 'dead or dysfunctional', so editor Dick Giordano had him rebuild the cast as look-alikes.

Which Mad magazine parody did Watchmen's creators say they wanted to turn '180 degrees'?

Superduperman. Harvey Kurtzman's 1953 spoof played a Superman figure for laughs, and Moore, who calls Kurtzman's Mad the 'best comic ever', wanted the same idea 'dramatic, instead of comedic'.

Before Watchmen, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons made short strips together for the British weekly that is home to which character?

Judge Dredd. His comic, 2000 AD, was a shop window: DC hired several of its artists in the early 1980s, Gibbons among them, and in 1983 signed up Moore, one of its writers, as well.

How did Alan Moore get late Watchmen script pages to Dave Gibbons?

Hired a taxi to drive 50 miles. As deadlines closed in, the pages went out by cab in small batches, and Gibbons's wife and son ruled up his blank pages to help him keep pace.

Late in writing Watchmen, Alan Moore found that its ending resembled an episode of which TV series?

The Outer Limits. The episode was 'The Architects of Fear', and Moore gave it a belated nod: it turns up on a television in the last issue.

Who is the first masked vigilante in Watchmen's alternate history?

Hooded Justice. He appears in 1938, and the comic never confirms who was under the hood and noose, a gap that HBO's sequel series filled with its own answer.

Which US president is still in office in Watchmen's October 1985?

Richard Nixon. He amends the constitution in 1975 so he can keep running, and Watergate never breaks: the Comedian jokes about two murdered reporters named Woodward and Bernstein.

What does Vietnam become after the American victory in Watchmen's history?

The 51st state. Doctor Manhattan is sent in by the president in 1971, and within two months of his arrival the Viet Cong surrender.

In Watchmen, which 1977 law outlawed costumed vigilantes?

The Keene Act. It was rushed through as an emergency bill after a police strike, and spared only the two heroes who worked directly for the government.

Whose murder in his New York apartment sets the plot of Watchmen in motion?

Edward Blake. Thrown from his high-rise window, he turns out to have been the Comedian, which convinces Rorschach that someone is killing off costumed heroes.

In the original Watchmen comic, what is Rorschach's real name?

Walter Kovacs. When police tear off his mask, he proves to be the red-haired doomsayer who has been carrying a sign through the streets since the first chapter.

Rorschach began as Alan Moore's stand-in for which Steve Ditko hero?

The Question. Moore saw that faceless detective as a mainstream version of Ditko's far harsher Mr. A, and carried the black-and-white morality of both to its extreme in Rorschach.

Who played Rorschach in the 2009 Watchmen film?

Jackie Earle Haley. He had come back from more than a decade away from acting to earn an Oscar nomination for Little Children, and its co-star Patrick Wilson joined him in Watchmen.

Who plays an ageing Adrian Veidt in HBO's Watchmen series?

Jeremy Irons. Early episodes show him only as an unnamed lord idling on a country estate, which turns out to be his prison on the distant moon Europa.

Nite Owl was modelled on which existing comic-book hero?

Blue Beetle. The Ted Kord version had taken over from an earlier Beetle, so Moore gave Dan Dreiberg a predecessor as well: Hollis Mason, the original Nite Owl.

The Comedian was modelled on which existing comic-book character?

Peacemaker. The original was a diplomat so devoted to peace that he would fight for it; Moore and Gibbons turned him into a cynical, patriotic government enforcer with a dash of Nick Fury.

In Watchmen, physicist Jon Osterman gains his powers after being locked inside what?

An Intrinsic Field Subtractor. The machine tears him apart, and over the following months he rebuilds himself in stages: first a nervous system, then a circulatory system, then a skeleton.

Nite Owl's airship Archie is named after Archimedes, the pet owl of which wizard?

Merlin. Dan Dreiberg keeps the owl-shaped ship in his basement long after retiring, and Laurie nearly burns the place down when she hits its flamethrower button while looking for a lighter.

In Watchmen, who is Laurie Juspeczyk's mother?

Sally Jupiter. She kept from Laurie that her real father was the Comedian, the teammate who had once assaulted Sally and with whom she later had a consensual affair.

Where does Doctor Manhattan exile himself after being accused of giving his friends cancer?

Mars. With America's living deterrent gone, the Soviets go on the march within days and the world slides toward nuclear war.

Where is Adrian Veidt's private retreat, the setting for Watchmen's climax?

Antarctica. From his fortress there Veidt floods the region with tachyons, particles that cloud Doctor Manhattan's view of the future, so that even he cannot see the plan coming.

In the Watchmen comic, what does Adrian Veidt unleash on New York to unite the superpowers?

A fake alien squid-like creature. Built in secret by artists and scientists and teleported into the city, it dies on arrival in a psychic shockwave that kills New Yorkers in vast numbers.

Who stars as masked detective Angela Abar in HBO's Watchmen?

Regina King. Her detective fights crime in a nun's habit as Sister Night, because the show's police hide their identities from a white-supremacist militia; the role won her an Emmy.

In Watchmen, to which newspaper does Rorschach mail his journal?

New Frontiersman. The right-wing paper files it in its 'crank file', and the last panel shows an assistant reaching into that pile for something to fill a page.

What does Doctor Manhattan reply when Veidt asks whether he did the right thing in the end?

Nothing ever ends. With that he leaves Earth, saying he may create some life of his own elsewhere, and Veidt never gets the reassurance he wanted.

What page layout does Dave Gibbons use throughout Watchmen?

A nine-panel grid. Gibbons liked its 'authority' and it let Moore control the pacing, though colourist John Higgins remembered it differently: 'Nine panels per page? Agony!'

Watchmen's fifth chapter, 'Fearful Symmetry', takes its title from which poem?

The Tyger. Gibbons drew the issue to match its title: the first page mirrors the last, the second mirrors the second-to-last, and so on in to a symmetrical centre spread.

What is the name of the pirate comic read within Watchmen?

Tales of the Black Freighter. Moore and Gibbons reasoned that people who lived alongside real costumed heroes would not want superhero comics, so pirate titles fill the newsstands instead.

The ship in Watchmen's pirate comic is borrowed from 'Pirate Jenny', a song by which playwright?

Bertolt Brecht. Moore, a self-declared big fan, took the ship from The Threepenny Opera, where a put-upon hotel maid dreams of pirates sailing in to flatten the town.

What stains the smiley face on Watchmen's last page, echoing the blood on its first?

Hamburger sauce. It spatters the smiley on a newspaper assistant's T-shirt just as he reaches toward the pile that holds Rorschach's journal.

Which Roman satirist coined the line 'Who watches the watchmen'?

Juvenal. In his Satires the worry is domestic: a husband told to lock up his wife asks who will guard the guards, and only later was the line turned on those in power.

In 1988 Watchmen won which science-fiction award, in a category called 'Other Forms'?

Hugo Award. With no prize for comics, it won under that catch-all heading against prose rivals such as the Wild Cards anthology; a graphic-story category arrived only in 2009.

Watchmen was the only graphic novel on which magazine's 2005 list of 100 greatest novels?

Time. Its critics chose English-language novels published since 1923, the year the magazine began, which put Watchmen on one list with To Kill a Mockingbird and The Sound and the Fury.

Alan Moore's rights dispute with DC covers Watchmen and which other work?

V for Vendetta. Both contracts returned the rights once the books went out of print, and Moore says DC never meant to stop reprinting either; DC's account is that he objected to a ratings label.

Which team of costumed adventurers, formed in 1939, came before Watchmen's main heroes?

The Minutemen. Captain Metropolis tried to found a successor group in 1966, the Crimebusters, but it fell apart after a single meeting.

Who wrote Doomsday Clock, the 2017-19 sequel that folded Watchmen into the DC Universe?

Geoff Johns. DC had laid the ground in its 2016 Rebirth relaunch, hiding Watchmen imagery in the opening special, before the sequel brought Doctor Manhattan face to face with Superman.

Who wrote Rorschach, the 2020-21 standalone comic sequel to Watchmen?

Tom King. In his story, set 35 years on, the man who dies in a Rorschach mask during an assassination attempt turns out to be an elderly, radicalised comic-book artist.

Which director made the 2009 Watchmen film?

Zack Snyder. Warner Bros. gave him the job on the strength of 300, after Terry Gilliam had decided the comic could not be squeezed into a film and later directors had come and gone.

Which studio bought Watchmen's film rights in 1986 and later sued to block the 2009 movie?

20th Century Fox. It claimed it still held part of the rights, and after a year of legal wrangling Warner Bros. settled by handing over up to 8.5 percent of the film's gross.

Ozymandias's armour in the 2009 Watchmen film parodies the costumes of which earlier superhero movie?

Batman & Robin. The armour sends up that film's sculpted muscle suits, and Gibbons, who was not consulted, approved: the comic had played on superhero comics, so the film plays on superhero films.

Which star of 300 voiced the sea captain in the animated spin-off of Watchmen's pirate comic?

Gerard Butler. He had long been linked with a part in the live-action film that never materialised, so his 300 director brought him in to voice the cartoon's doomed mariner instead.

Who developed the 2019 HBO Watchmen series?

Damon Lindelof. The Lost co-creator called it a 'remix': not a retelling but a sequel set decades later with mostly new characters, and it won the Emmy for outstanding limited series.

In which city is HBO's Watchmen series mainly set?

Tulsa, Oklahoma. The series opens with a dramatization of the city's 1921 race massacre and traces its heroine's family back to that night.

Which Hollywood actor is US president in the 2019 of HBO's Watchmen?

Robert Redford. It pays off a joke from the comic's closing pages, where a headline asks 'RR to run in 88?' and the initials turn out to mean the actor, not Reagan.

What was the title of the episodic video game released alongside the 2009 Watchmen film?

Watchmen: The End Is Nigh. The title is the slogan on the placard Rorschach carries through the streets out of costume; the game is a prequel brawler starring him and Nite Owl.

What kind of animal is Bubastis, Adrian Veidt's genetically engineered pet?

A lynx. Veidt dotes on her, yet in the final chapter he uses her as bait, disintegrating his own pet in a failed attempt to destroy Doctor Manhattan.

Dave Gibbons's hand lettering in Watchmen helped inspire which much-mocked Microsoft typeface?

Comic Sans was drawn by Vincent Connare for Microsoft Bob with only a mouse, copying the lettering style of the books he kept in his office.

In HBO's Watchmen, which white supremacist group in Rorschach masks attacks police in their homes?

Seventh Kavalry members take their inspiration from Rorschach's journal, and their Christmas Eve raid is the reason the police now work in disguise.

In HBO's Watchmen, detective Angela Abar pulls on a balaclava to work under which costumed alias?

Sister Night finishes the outfit with a nun's habit, a costume allowed because officers in the series must hide their identities on the job.

Which Leonard Cohen song plays over the love scene aboard the airship in the 2009 Watchmen film?

Hallelujah was first tried in a cover by Allison Crowe, which the director judged too romantic for a scene he wanted to play as ironic.

In Watchmen, which shy, retired inventor used owl-themed gadgets as the second Nite Owl?

Daniel Dreiberg took the name from an earlier crimefighter, and one critic says his civilian look suggests a middle-aged Clark Kent.

Which actor played the Comedian in the 2009 Watchmen film, after nearly turning the part down?

Jeffrey Dean Morgan stopped reading the comic when his character died three pages in, until his agent told him to keep going.

In Watchmen, Adrian Veidt retraced the journeys of which ancient conqueror, his childhood idol?

Alexander the Great was Veidt's model when he set out on a vision quest along the same route, before he came home and built a business empire.

Two members of which rock band wrote the score for HBO's Watchmen?

Nine Inch Nails duo Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross were fans who contacted HBO about the job days before the showrunner suggested them.

In Watchmen, what snags in a bank's revolving door, leaving the 1940s hero Dollar Bill to be shot?

His cape was part of a costume built for publicity: Dollar Bill was a bank-sponsored hero, shot at point-blank range during a robbery at the bank that employed him.

Which director left a planned Watchmen film in the early 1990s, deciding the comic was unfilmable?

Terry Gilliam could raise only a quarter of the budget, and later said the story would work better as a five-hour miniseries.

Which actor gained 25 pounds to play the retired Nite Owl in the 2009 Watchmen film?

Patrick Wilson was cast after the director saw him in Little Children, a film he shared with the actor who plays Rorschach.

The Watchmen alias Ozymandias is also the title of an 1818 sonnet by which Romantic poet?

Percy Shelley wrote the poem about the fleeting nature of empire, and an excerpt from it stands as the epigraph of one Watchmen chapter.

In Watchmen, which country does the Soviet Union invade once Doctor Manhattan has left Earth?

Afghanistan is invaded about six years later than in real history, because the Soviets had waited for America to lose its superpowered deterrent.

Before HBO's Watchmen, its creator co-created and ran which hit television drama?

Lost's co-creator had been asked to write a Watchmen series at least twice before and said no, feeling it was too soon after the 2009 film.

In HBO's Watchmen, which masked police detective has a day job as a focus-group analyst?

Looking Glass questions suspects in his Pod, a small chamber where he flashes images on wall screens and reads their reactions.

Which retired Watchmen hero, the first Nite Owl, wears a costume Dave Gibbons designed as a boy?

Hollis Mason retired in 1962, and the couple who later hide under false names take Hollis as their surname in tribute to him.

Dave Gibbons filled the streets of Watchmen's alternate 1985 America with which kind of vehicle?

Electric cars share the streets with spark hydrants in place of fire hydrants, details meant to let American readers see their own culture as an outsider would.

Which 1986 Frank Miller miniseries was marketed alongside Watchmen as a 'graphic novel'?

The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen drew so much publicity in collected form that bookshops and public libraries began giving such books their own shelves.

Which actress plays the older Laurie, now hunting vigilantes for the government, in HBO's Watchmen?

Jean Smart got the part after another star was offered it and said no, and she later thanked that actress for declining.

In Watchmen, Rorschach is framed for murdering which retired supervillain, already dying of cancer?

Moloch spent decades as a crime lord fighting costumed heroes, went to jail in the 1970s and then gave up crime for good.

In HBO's Watchmen, Adrian Veidt lives as lord of a country manor that turns out to be on which moon?

Europa holds a closed ecosystem that Doctor Manhattan built for him, where Veidt is waited on by clones of two servants.

The fortress Adrian Veidt builds in Watchmen is named after which Egyptian temple complex?

Karnak gets an origin in the 2012 prequel comics, where Veidt builds it after an unnerving first encounter with Doctor Manhattan.

Watchmen's Ozymandias takes his alias from the Greek name for which Egyptian pharaoh?

Ramesses II replaced Veidt's first idol at the end of his travels in Egypt, when he decided the earlier conqueror was only a pale imitation.

What is the title of the first Nite Owl's autobiography, excerpted in the back pages of Watchmen?

Under the Hood was written after its author retired from crime-fighting to open an auto business, which gives the title a second meaning.

In Watchmen, Rorschach makes his mask from a dress after reading about which real 1964 murder victim?

Kitty Genovese was reported to have died while witnesses did nothing, and that indifference drove him to become a vigilante.

The 2009 film calls its heroes the Watchmen, but what is their 1960s team named in the comic?

The Crimebusters never got going: Captain Metropolis tried to recruit the second generation of heroes in the 1960s and failed.

Alan Moore gave the Comedian in Watchmen elements of which Marvel Comics spy character?

Nick Fury supplied the spy side of the Comedian, whose grim costume Dave Gibbons deliberately lightened with a smiley badge.

Which fellow comics writer supplied Alan Moore with research answers and quotations for Watchmen?

Neil Gaiman went on to write The Sandman, whose annotator Leslie Klinger later produced an annotated edition of Watchmen too.

Alan Moore said he wanted Watchmen to be a superhero version of which weighty American novel?

Moby-Dick was his benchmark for weight and density, and he designed the series to reward four or five readings.

Which actor plays police chief Judd Crawford, whose murder drives the mystery in HBO's Watchmen?

Don Johnson's chief is one of only two officers who stayed on the force after the Christmas Eve attack on police homes.

Which actress played Laurie, the second-generation crimefighter, in the 2009 Watchmen film?

Malin Åkerman worked out and trained to fight for the part, which earlier versions of the project had linked to stars such as Natalie Portman.

Which actor played Ozymandias in the 2009 Watchmen film, giving him a German accent in private?

Matthew Goode reasoned that Veidt was ashamed of his parents' Nazi past, so the character switches to an American accent in public.

Which actress wore ageing prosthetics to play Laurie's mother across four decades in the 2009 Watchmen film?

Carla Gugino was 37 during the shoot, and described her character's superhero outfit as Bettie Page meets Alberto Vargas.

Which band covered 'Desolation Row' for the closing credits of the 2009 Watchmen film?

My Chemical Romance, whose members are fans of the comic, had the music video for the cover shot by the film's own director.

In the 2009 Watchmen film, which jailed crime boss stages a prison riot as cover for killing Rorschach?

Big Figure is an old adversary of Rorschach and Nite Owl, and the plan backfires: Rorschach kills him and his accomplices, then walks out.

The 2009 Watchmen film's opening montage places the Comedian on the scene of which real 1963 event?

The Kennedy assassination is only hinted at in the original comic, and a 2012 prequel series goes the other way and says he did not do it.

In which Canadian city was a New York back lot built to shoot the 2009 Watchmen film?

Vancouver housed real sets because the director chose not to shoot the whole film against green screens, as he had on his previous picture.

Whose screenplay did Alan Moore call as close as he could imagine anyone getting to Watchmen?

David Hayter earned that rare praise, yet Moore still said he had no intention of seeing the film if it were made.

Which colorist with an unusual style did Dave Gibbons bring onto Watchmen?

John Higgins lived near the artist, so the two could talk through the pages in person instead of sending them across the ocean.

Which Watchmen editor quit the book after arguing with Alan Moore over its ending?

Len Wein wanted something more original than a twist already seen on television, and walked away when Moore refused to give in.

In HBO's Watchmen, which industrialist bought out Adrian Veidt's company after news of his death?

Lady Trieu takes her name from a Vietnamese historical legend, and is later revealed to be Veidt's own daughter.

Which real person appears as himself in HBO's Watchmen, serving as Secretary of the Treasury?

Henry Louis Gates Jr. sits in a cabinet led by an actor-turned-president, an idea the series took from the closing pages of the original comic.

What is the name of the show-within-a-show about masked heroes that characters watch in HBO's Watchmen?

American Hero Story was written as a cheesy contrast to the real series, and modelled on producer Ryan Murphy's anthology dramas.

Whose 2014 Atlantic essay 'The Case for Reparations' inspired the opening of HBO's Watchmen?

Ta-Nehisi Coates's article introduced the showrunner to a 1921 massacre he had never heard of, which he then took care to depict accurately.

Adrian Veidt's country-manor scenes in HBO's Watchmen were filmed at Penrhyn Castle in which country?

Wales hosted the manor scenes as a separate production, shot before most of the remaining scripts had even been finished.

Which actor plays the elderly Will Reeves, grandfather of detective Angela Abar, in HBO's Watchmen?

Louis Gossett Jr. shares the role with Jovan Adepo, who plays the same man as a young New York policeman in flashbacks.

Under their DC contract, Watchmen's rights were due to return to its creators after which event?

Going out of print would have triggered the clause, but DC never let that happen, and Moore came to call the deal a swindle.

Which American novelist's use of repeated symbols did Alan Moore name as a main influence on Watchmen?

William Burroughs impressed Moore with his only comic strip, The Unspeakable Mr. Hart, which ran in a British underground magazine.

Which science-fiction author told Alan Moore the classical origin of the phrase behind Watchmen's title?

Harlan Ellison set him straight, and Moore decided the old line suited a story about who keeps watch over the people guarding everyone else.

By the events of HBO's Watchmen, former crimefighter Laurie has joined which government agency?

The FBI put her on its Anti-Vigilante Task Force, while her old partner stayed in prison rather than accept the same offer.