Watchmen (2019): Returning Characters / Characters

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Main Character Index

Characters of the 2019 Watchmen series who first appeared in the original comic book.

For their tropes before the present time of the series, see the comic book's character sheet.

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Adrian Veidt / Ozymandias

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"Nothing ever ends. It has only just begun..."

Played by: Jeremy Irons

"The only way to stave off mankind's extinction is with a weapon more powerful than any atomic device. That weapon is fear."

A former costumed hero, turned millionaire businessman, turned mass-murderer that successfully prevented World War III. Currently declared legally dead.

The Ace: Despite being in his seventies, Ozymandias is still shown to be in absurdly good shape. He is depicted as a competent horseman, a master archer, a perfectly capable astronaut and a detective capable of glancing at a girl for a few seconds and deducing she is the clone of a cleaning woman he barely noticed over thirty years ago.
Adaptational Comic Relief: In contrast to the Knight of Cerebus in an already dark story that he represented in the original comic, the Ozymandias in the television series is a frequent source of comedy and his mostly self-contained storyline has a quirky, irreverent appeal even when it dips into Black Comedy. This is partly thanks to Jeremy Irons's infectious Upper-Class Wit performance influencing the direction of the character.
Adaptational Dumbass: Although he still proudly bears the title of Smartest Man in the World over thirty years later, Ozymandias is generally portrayed as more pathetic in this version, tying in with his Adaptational Comic Relief status. While his prolonged imprisonment in space and old age are to blame for his compromised mental state in the present, the show also retroactively introduces many glaring mistakes into Veidt's earlier history such as his lack of security in his office leading to his illegitimate daughter's conception via bottled sperm sample and his baffling decision to reveal his role in the Squidfall disaster to President Redford only a few years after the fact in spite of his great lengths to destroy all leads back to him in the original comic.
Adaptational Jerkass: He is even more arrogant and self-important than he was in the comics. While some of this could be attributed to bitterness in his old age, even flashbacks show him as so narcissistic as to be collecting his own sperm in case the world ever needed someone as smart as he was in the future, and his overall attitude was more smug satisfaction with himself and annoyance at not being appreciated by those who are aware of his actions, while in the comics he more visibly regretted the terrible things he nonetheless felt compelled to do. His treatment of the clones is far more nasty and petty than anything the comic Veidt did as well, and while this happened after a period of thirty years, it still seems out-of-character for a man who was a totally sincere (if not necessarily correct) Well-Intentioned Extremist in the original.
Adaptational Karma: The end of "See How They Fly" finally sees him arrested for what he did to New York City to end the Cold War.
Ambiguously Gay: He doesn't believe Lady Trieu is his daughter and emphatically states he has never been with a woman, comparing himself to Alexander the Great.
Ax-Crazy: It's quite clear that Veidt's sanity had taken a dip for the last thirty years if casually murdering scores of your clone servants would indicate quite well.
Bad Boss: Since his servants are Expendable Clones, Veidt has no problem frequently killing them in horrible ways.
Bait the Dog: In the first episode he seems like a good boss if eccentric, nice to his servants, and wants them to star in a play he wrote. The second episode turns this on its head, impatiently rushing them through the anniversary song, acts as a harsh director to his servants and is willing to have one of his expendable servants burned alive for his play.
Cabin Fever: The reason he's killing his cloned helpers with increasing severity is because he's been imprisoned in a pocket dimension on one of Jupiter's moons for the past for years. By the time he is rescued by Lady Trieu, the total is somewhere around nine.
Celibate Eccentric Genius: He reveals himself to be one, saying he's never been with a woman as sex is a distraction from his work.
Deadpan Snarker: He has this exchange with a particularly dimwitted servant/ clone before the "Watchmaker's Son" performance.
Mr. Phillips: Oh sir — forgive me, but I shall require the watch I gifted you. As a prop.
Veidt: Oh. Has it ever occurred to you, Mr. Phillips, that you are the prop?
Mr. Phillips: Would you like for it to occur to me, sir?
Veidt: There are so many things I would like to occur to you.
Deal with the Devil: A complicated case. He is the Devil in that he bargains with Doctor Manhattan to gain access to the paradise on Europa. But then he realizes he was the victim in the deal, in that "paradise" is boring, making Doctor Manhattan the Devil. Then he decides that it is better to rule in Hell than be a prisoner in Heaven, making him the Devil figure all over again.
Disproportionate Retribution: He incinerates the first Mr. Phillips onstage basically because he was stupid.
Dude, Where's My Respect?: By the end of the season, he's fed up with people still persecuting him for what he believed was a justified massacre to save the world. This time, though, Wade and Laurie weren't having it.
Veidt: Who do you think you are to hold judgement over me, huh? I saved mankind! Again! And you have the audacity to—!
(Wade knocks Veidt out with a wrench)
Wade: That guy talks too much.
Ex-Big Bad: Masterminded the events of the comic, however in the present time he is not directly involved in the events in Tulsa.
Even Evil Has Loved Ones: "Evil" might be too strong a word, but he still committed mass and petty murder in this continuity. Nonetheless, he's shown to be genuinely fond of his servants... though this becomes subverted with the reveal that Veidt's servants are Expendable Clones that he casually kills on a regular basis.
Even Evil Has Standards: Veidt seems to consider that Trieu taking Doctor Manhattan's powers and making herself omnipotent is simply going too far.
Evil Genius: He's as dangerously intelligent now as he was in his prime, able to get himself out of his prison using just his wits and even outsmart Lady Trieu, and is even more unstable and villainous.
Evil Is Hammy: As Veidt's mental health and morality have declined, his hamminess has increased exponentially and Jeremy Irons eagerly acts accordingly, especially in Veidt's message to Redford.
Evil Old Folks: He's now in his eighties and even more evil and unstable than in his prime and just as dangerous.
Fatal Flaw: Fitting his narcissism, his ego ends up being his as he ends up making the mistakes he consciously avoided the first time out of sheer hubris. Veidt got away with his scheme with even Rorschach's diary being discredited as the ramblings of a paranoid loon. He could've easily sat back and enjoyed the fruits of his labor. But he got increasingly incensed at not getting credit for his work and ended up revealing the details to world leaders, most notably President Redford, and they all promptly cut ties with him, leading him to eventually leave Earth entirely.
Gilded Cage: On the surface, his home is a paradise. It's in a beautiful location, he has every luxury he could want, he can pursue experiments to his heart's content and he has servants to attend to his every need. But he's still isolated from all human contact, on the other side of the universe, and is desperate to escape.
Go Mad from the Isolation: Decades away from any human contact have not done his mental health any favors, kicking his already present narcissism and instability into overdrive and making him go from a charming supervillain to a borderline frothing loon.
Greater-Scope Villain: Since the whole "dropping a squid on New York City" thing that happened back in 1985 more or less created the world that the characters are living in now, and he's indirectly responsible for Cyclops remaking itself into the Seventh Kavalry. But it goes even deeper than that, as he engineered Robert Redford's election and has controlled the world through fear.
Heel Realization: Downplayed. In the finale, when confronted by his daughter Lady Trieu and her plan, Veidt accepts that his motivations in 1985 were ultimately narcissistic. Veidt being Veidt, though, he still feels that the ends justified his means and is completely surprised when Laurie and Wade arrest him for mass murder.
Idiot Ball: After taking extensive measures to cut down every loose end, in order to ensure that nobody knows the truth about his role in the squid attacks, Adrian Veidt took the time to personally record a blackmail video message to Robert Redford that explains how he was behind 11/02 all along. Adrian sent it in hopes that he could use President Redford as a political pawn to create his utopia. But of course, this quickly leads to the Seventh Kavalry eventually finding out about the truth decades later which in turn gives Agent Blake and Looking Glass enough evidence to ensure Adrian can be convicted in the court of law.
Irony: Adrian Veidt, a self-proclaimed narcissist, is unceremoniously defeated by a looking glass.
It's All About Me: By 2009, Veidt became bitter that he wasn't given the credit he felt was due for the "utopia" he created and that world leaders had stopped taking his advice. The whole reason Cal/Doctor Manhattan sent Veidt to live on Europa was because Veidt would be surrounded by beings who would enthusiastically serve him. But even that wasn't enough to satisfy Veidt's egocentric need for validation:
Veidt: This is not my home. My home is 390 million miles away. And my children — all eight billion of them — are undoubtedly standing in their cribs, crying out in desperation for me to return. Heaven is not enough because... Heaven doesn't need me.
Jail Bake: Inadvertently (probably). Due to a bug in his mental programming or whatever, Phillips keeps offering Veidt a horseshoe with his cake. In Episode 8, Veidt notices the horseshoe has been baked into his annual cake and gleefully uses it to start digging himself out of his cell.
Karma Houdini Warranty: When Rorschach's journal was revealed, Veidt managed to get off completely by dismissing it as the writings of a raving lunatic, and he got to live comfortably. However he has disappeared and is considered legally dead. And the third episode reveals that the fancy European castle he lives in is a Gilded Cage. While he originally thought of it as a paradise, he grew to resent it as a prison and his attempts to come up with an escape have failed, to his frustration. Plus he grows increasingly impatient and furious with the cloned servants that serve as his company. After his escape and foiling his daughter’s plans, the end sees his disk to Redford bite him in the ass as Wade and Laurie finally arrest Veidt for his role in the destruction of New York and the deaths it caused.
Large Ham: In contrast to his friendly but reserved comic portrayal, this Veidt is much more theatrical and expressive. Jeremy Irons is clearly having a blast in the role, leaving his teeth marks in almost every scene.
The Man Behind the Man: After engineering the squid attack, Veidt facilitated President Redford's rise to power behind the scenes and, after Redford was elected, blackmailed him into advancing his utopian agenda.
Naked Nutter: The first indication that Veidt has gone a little bit loopy in the decades following his victory is a scene in which he's found stark naked and writing while a servant massages his leg muscles.
Narcissist: This aspect of his original characterization returns with a vengeance. Veidt's video for President Redford made on the eve of the New York attack and seven years before Redford was sworn in under Veidt’s machinations is dripping with self-satisfaction and egotism. The prosecution lawyer at his trial accurately characterises him describing his desire to escape with "a series of self-aggrandizing monologues emphasizing his own superiority." And part of the reason Doctor Manhattan sent Veidt to Europa was because Veidt complained that people on Earth had stopped taking his advice. He’s ultimately aware of this as he acknowledges that his daughter gets it from him.
Nice to the Waiter: Subverted and Played for Horror: in the first episode, the staff at Veidt's mansion seems pretty damn quirky but full of Undying Loyalty to their master and Veidt seems to treat them like friends. Then in the very next episode, he casually torches his butler to death and demonstrates that not only are they Expendable Clones, that are mass-produced, but he's also slaughtered so many of them that he's running out of room for the cadavers.
Once an Episode: Gets another candle on his cake every episode (except for a couple where we skip the cake entirely), to indicate each Veidt segment takes place a year after the last, over the long period of his imprisonment.
Pet the Dog: He set up a hospital to deal with the survivors of his squid hoax, seemingly the only thing he could do to approach making up for it.
Prison Changes People: Having been imprisoned in a Prison Dimension on Europa, the restrictions on his lifestyle, servile clone assistants, inability to escape and overall impotent rage have resulted in Adrian transforming from a narcissistic but Affably Evil Well-Intentioned Extremist to a Faux Affably Evil psychopath who regularly murders his servants in fits of pique.
Retired Monster: At the start of the series — or rather, six years and change before the present day — he's retired to his estate, unrepentant about what he did in order to save humanity.
The Reveal: In episode 5, we finally see why he’s been killing his servants and shooting them into the atmosphere while testing some kind of environmental protective suit: he’s in a pocket dimension on one of Jupiter’s moons. He uses the suit to move outside the atmosphere and then use the catapulted bodies to write “SAVE ME D—“ on the moon’s surface large enough for a passing satellite to capture. "See How They Fly" reveals that he wrote "SAVE ME DAUGHTER" as a message to his daughter, Lady Trieu.
Sanity Has Advantages: His eroded mental health winds up causing him to make the very mistakes he purposely averted back in 1985, namely monologuing like a mad supervillain when Laurie comes to arrest him and leaving himself open to a wrench to the back of his head.
Sanity Slippage: Being imprisoned on one of Jupiter's moons in a Gilded Cage has turned the previously Affably Evil Veidt into a very unstable sociopath.
Shrouded in Myth: He withdrew completely from public view seven years prior to the start of the show and has just recently been legally declared dead, with numerous theories about how he was killed or that he's still alive. living in the jungle or somewhere similar.
Silver Fox: He was strikingly good looking in his youth and middle age and is still quite handsome and dapper well into his later years.
The Sociopath: In the original comic, he engineered the deaths of millions to trick humanity into averting nuclear Armageddon but genuinely believed it was for the best and hated having to do it, feeling immense guilt over it. Here, he casually murders Mr. Phillips just for annoying him and apparently has plans for his charred corpse and the other servant/clones he's killed.
Spared, but Not Forgiven: He ultimately survives through the whole show, and although he is pivotal in ensuring his daughter's defeat, Laurie makes it clear that he is very much not pardoned for the catastrophic damage he caused over thirty years ago as she arrests him in the finale.
Theme Naming: His horse is named "Bucephalus," after Alexander the Great's horse. Because of course he still hasn't given up on comparing himself to ancient monarchs.
Took a Level in Jerkass: While the Veidt of 1985 was a mass murderer regardless of his disposition, he was still genuinely pleasant to his opponents and seemingly remorseful of his actions. Time, imprisonment on one of Jupiter's moons, and poor company have made him much more irritable and callous, his congeniality little more than an act.
Unexpected Virgin: Veidt, who's at least in his sixties (Jeremy Irons is seventy one) reveals he's has never been with a woman as it's distracting from his work. This may be the source of the rumor he was gay in the comics, since he never married or had relationships with women that we see. On the other hand, his statement doesn't exclude having sex with men, though presumably that would be distracting as well.
When All You Have Is a Hammer…: The only inexhaustible resource Veidt has in his new home is his cloned servants. So he uses their bodies —hundreds of them— to spell out an SOS on the surface of Europa.
Worthy Opponent: Considers his daughter, Lady Trieu, as one.
Your Costume Needs Work: Upon returning to Earth for the first time in years, the first conversation he has with someone besides Lady Trieu has a news vendor telling him he looks a lot like Adrian Veidt before adding that it's not perfect but he could probably do birthday parties and similar events.

Agent Laurie Blake (Juspeczyk)

Laurie Blake

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"God snaps his fingers, and the hero goes to Hell."

Played by: Jean Smart

Laurie: Do you know how to tell the difference between a masked cop and a vigilante?
Angela: No.
Laurie: Me neither.

Formerly known as Laurie Juspeczyk, a.k.a. Laurie Jupiter, a.k.a. Silk Spectre II. She is a former costumed adventurer turned investigator in the FBI's Anti-Vigilante Task Force.

Actually Pretty Funny: She finds what's possibly Doctor Manhattan's response to her joke — that is, to drop a car in front of her as a way of acknowledging her "falling brick" gag — to be genuinely hilarious.
Awesomeness by Analysis: She quickly figures out that Judd's closet had a secret compartment, in part because one was found in her father's closet, and deduces both that Angela had removed what was inside and that the Seventh Kavalry weren't involved in Judd's murder.
Been There, Shaped History: The Peteypedia reveals she and Dan Dreiberg (Nite Owl II) were arrested after preventing the Oklahoma City Bombing.
Boxed Crook: It’s implied she’s working with the FBI to avoid jail time for her actions as Silk Spectre and Keene implies she might also be trying to work out a release for Nite Owl as well.
Breaking Speech: Attempted one on Sister Night, was genuinely surprised when it didn't work.
Character Development: Laurie has changed very significantly in the years since her comics appearance. She expresses contempt for "masks" in general, telling a cruel joke in her message to Doctor Manhattan showing this in contrast to her once proudly being Silk Spectre. She embraced being Edward Blake’s daughter sometime back, after having initially been very distraught that he turned out to be her birth father, calling him "my dad" and adopting his last name. It's also clear she's taken up a lot of his dark personality and nihilistic worldview, contrasting to how generally optimistic and upbeat she was previously.
Deadpan Snarker: She has developed her already snarky attitude in the thirty years since the events of the comics.
Happy Ending Override: Laurie and Dan spent ten years as outlaw superheroes until they were captured by the Feds. Dan is out of the picture because he is in federal custody, and Laurie stated during her interrogation that the two weren't talking anymore because of "irreconcilable differences".
Hypocrite: Laurie works for the Anti-Vigilante Task Force, and as shown below does not see any difference between the vigilantes and the ones that work as cops. This is hypocritical for two major reasons:
- Laurie was a vigilante herself for a long time, and is only with the FBI as part of a deal to secure her own freedom and possibly Dan Dreiberg's.
- Laurie engages in vigilantism on the force, ignoring orders to leave her when attending the funeral and then opening fire, nearly getting everyone killed as a result. She later does some snooping without alerting her superiors or members of her force, resulting in her capture.
Inspector Javert: She fills this role as a member of the FBI's Anti-Vigilante Task Force, and sees no distinction between illegal costumed vigilantes or legal masked cops.
Irony: Laurie spent much of the original comic despising Edward Blake, a.k.a. the Comedian, because of his attempted rape of her mother, unaware that the two later had a consensual affair and that Blake was her father. Laurie later adopted both her father's name and moniker, and by 2019 has become a government operative like he was. It also appears as if the Comedian's near-sociopathic personality has rubbed off on her somewhat. Like her father, she also learns that world has surprises for even the most die-hard cynic.
Knight in Sour Armor: The critical difference between her and her father is that she still believes the world can be saved, she just admits that the flaws are pretty stark and not going away soon. As Veidt finds out the hard way, she's also since come to believe the ends don't justify the means, especially if they're motivated by pride.
Legacy Character: In the '80s, she took up her mother’s Silk Spectre identity. Before she joined the FBI, she has taken her father's alias, albeit with some liberties, as an outlaw costumed crimefighter.
Like Parent, Like Child: After taking up her father the Comedian's moniker for some time, she also becomes a government agent with a misanthropic philosophy and a shoot-first-think-later mindset, just like him. As if to emphasize this, her debut episode uses her telling a Brick Joke as a framing device. Peteypedia also reveals she adopted the alias "The Comedienne" for a while.
May–December Romance: She has a one-night stand with her partner Agent Petey, who is half her age.
The One That Got Away: She appears to feel this way for Doctor Manhattan. She sometimes makes long-distance calls to Mars to leave messages for him, and carries around a humongous blue vibrator in her luggage along with a suggestive Esquire cover showing the two of them. She doesn't appear to have as much affection for Nite Owl by comparison.
Pronouncing My Name for You: In one of the Peteypedia memos, she teaches an agent interrogating her to pronounce her (mother's) surname as "juice-pez-ick".
Rabid Cop: She's willing to shoot a fleeing Mister Shadow In the Back without caring whether he will die. She also blows away a Seventh Kavalryman who sneaked into Judd Crawford's funeral and is threatening everybody with a suicide vest she learns is wired with a heartbeat sensor deadman's switch, thinking it's a bluff — the fact she sneaked a gun into an event that required all attendants to leave their firearms at the entrance speaks for itself. It's a good thing the bomb had a delay.
Retired Badass: As far as her costumed hero days as Silk Spectre are concerned — she and Nite Owl had a good decade of heroic adventures after the tragedy in New York City before the feds caught up to them. She instead works as a government operative, ironically doing some of the same things that she did while wearing a costume.
Secret-Keeper: Laurie has kept her word to the other surviving New Minutemen and stayed quiet about Veidt's role in the 11/2 incident. But after witnessing and surviving another potentially world-ending event in the finale, Laurie realizes that humanity will always endure despite the odds and decides to belatedly arrest Veidt for his crimes.
Seen It All: As both an experienced costumed vigilante and government agent (and government agent who takes down costumed vigilantes) she has more experience than almost anyone else with superhero nonsense. When the leader of the Kavalry is about to explain his plan to her, she rolls her eyes at the silliness of it all. Though the audacity of the actual plan, hijacking Dr. Manhattan's godlike powers, manages to shock her.
Took a Level in Cynic: Laurie is noticeably colder than she was in the 1980s (in the comic), and has seemingly adopted her father's nihilistic worldview. She also shoots a fleeing vigilante in the back without knowing or caring whether he's wearing body armor. And then there's this line:
Laurie: Men who end up hanging from trees with secret compartments in their closets tend to think of themselves as good guys. And those who protect them think they're good guys too. But here's the thing about me, Sister Night: I eat good guys for breakfast.
Too Clever by Half: She likes a good Breaking Speech and she's Genre Savvy enough to crack most of the plot by following breadcrumbs. The resulting arrogance allows people to take her by surprise - Angela outright mocks her big speech while Mrs. Crawford captures her because Laurie expected to have to work a bit harder to confirm her theories.

Hooded Justice / Will Reeves

Jon Osterman / Doctor Manhattan

Played by: Jake McDorman

Former Marine who formed and led the 1940s costumed-hero group the Minutemen, taking inspiration from Hooded Justice.

Adaptational Jerkass: He's more superficial and publicity hungry than his comics counterpart who, for all his flaws, genuinely believed in heroism and saw it as his duty to lead positive social change.
Adaptational Nice Guy: His comics counterpart was infamous for his racist and reactionary conservative views which basically destroyed his superhero career in the 60's and led him to spend the rest of his life in anonymity before his death. Here, while he holds racist views, he does eventually realize the error of his ways and makes a sincere effort to change for the better in his final years.
The Atoner: In the years since the disbanding of the Minutemen, Nelson began to realize how he drove Will away with his own racist attitudes and indifference towards the black community. His aborted effort to start the Crimebusters with a focus on the inner city was in part his attempt to make amends. Before his death, as "penance", Nelson modified his will to leave his entire estate to Will and bequeathed all proceeds from any auction of his Minutemen paraphernalia to the Southern Poverty Law Center. He even went so far as to order that his remains be cremated, with no funeral or grave marker, feeling it was what he deserved.
Awesomeness by Analysis: Nelson managed to deduce that Will was tied somehow to Hooded Justice by comparing his patrol route with the sites of Justice's exploits. Subverted in that his own racism initially kept him from considering the possibility that Will was Hooded Justice.
Fetish: Tries to get Hooded Justice to have sex with him with their masks on. This is something of a Call-Back to the original comic, where both Hollis Mason and Sally Jupiter admit to suspecting some of the Minutemen to have been turned on by the masks and spandex.
Former Bigot: He became one, or at least tried to, after his relationship with Will ended.
Glory Hound: Its implied the reason that he and the other members formed the Minutemen, and even became heroes in the first place, was to hog the spotlight rather than fight crime. Which is one of the reasons Will as Hooded Justice became jaded regarding justice.
Good Victims, Bad Victims: Nelson invokes this when he dismisses Will's discovery of a white supremacist plot to hypnotize the residents of Harlem into killing each other, saying that Harlem is a violent neighborhood anyway and that "black unrest" is not the Minutemen's problem.
Jerkass Realization: In his later years, Nelson's views on race changed and he regretted the way he treated Will, deciding to leave him his estate and giving a heartfelt apology in his will.
Military Superhero: He was in the Marine Corps before he became Captain Metropolis.
Mr. Fanservice: He gets extended scenes with almost nothing on to show off his impressive physique.
Never Found the Body: His head was never found after he was decapitated in a car accident.
Politically Incorrect Hero: Yes, he was a closeted homosexual, and yes, he had an affair with a black man, but he was also a white man living in the 1940s. No matter how tolerant Gardner claimed to be, he was still as racist as the next guy. The end result was a total indifference to what the Klan was planning and not seeing "black unrest" as the Minutemen's problem.
Posthumous Character: Long dead by the time of both the comic and the series, he is only seen through Will's fragmented memories of him that Angela witnesses after taking a Nostaglia overdose.
Semper Fi: He was in the Marine Corps which is where he learned his combat and tactical skills.
Straight Gay: He had an affair with Hooded Justice, a.k.a. Will Reeves.

Characters / Watchmen (2019): Returning Characters