Watchmen

Adrian muses about his ability to absorb lessons on collective psychology by viewing a host of images at once. He is hoping to uncover “the blueprint for an era of new sensations and possibilities. An era of the conceivable made concrete…and of the casually miraculous” (349). Approaching Adrian’s base, Rorschach and Nite Owl contemplate his motives, as he seems to be plotting both mass destruction and a brighter future. Adrian assembles his assistants for a celebratory drink in his vivarium and tells them about his precocious childhood, the death of his parents when he was only 17, and his profound admiration for Alexander the Great. It is true that under his reign “people died…perhaps unnecessarily” (356), but he nearly achieved the dream of a united world, and Adrian pledged at a young age to follow his example. Following the path of Alexander’s army, he resolved on a path of conquest, “not of men, but of the evils that beset them” (359). When he has finished speaking, his assistants have all died of poisoning, and the vivarium is consumed in snow.

Nite Owl and Rorschach make it into the fortress. They approach Adrian as he is eating, and he quickly disarms both of them. As Rorschach struggles in vain to fight him, Adrian explains how he came to realize the absurdity of costumed crimefighting and realized that the danger of nuclear war was a far more fundamental concern. His ultimate plan to avert war began with infecting Dr. Manhattan’s associates with cancer so that they would take the blame. With Manhattan out of the picture, Adrian would unite the world by “trick[ing] it; frighten[ing] it towards salvation with history’s greatest practical joke” (372), revealing that he killed Eddie Blake after Blake discovered his plans. Adrian’s plan is to simulate the appearance of an extraterrestrial threat—the creation of the writers and artists who “disappeared”—which would appear in New York City and unleash a psychic shockwave, killing millions. Disbelieving, Nite Owl asks when Adrian plans to unleash this monster, to which he responds that he already did. Just before midnight, New York City is enveloped in a blinding white flash.

The final section is an interview with Adrian Veidt after he revealed his identity in 1975. He jokes about calling Nixon’s advisors “humanoids” based on a malapropism by Gerald Ford, who said “nobody’s human” instead of “nobody’s perfect” in response to a minor accident. The reporter is initially put off by Adrian’s autocratic ways, but then finds that he is actually doing a great service for his workers and for the world at large, in addition to being witty and charming. Adrian discusses being a self-made man and that with the right thinking and habits, “it is possible to accomplish almost anything” (379). He talks about leaving crimefighting behind when he wondered “whether all the grandstanding and fighting individual evils does much good for the world as a whole” (379). He also discusses his fear that some people want the world to end because they are tired of having to take care of it and fends off the reporter’s attempts to explore tensions with his fellow costumed adventurers. He closes by stating “I don’t mind being the smartest man in the world. I just wish it wasn’t this one” (380).