Comedian (comics)
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The Comedian (Edward Blake) is a superhero featured in the acclaimed 1986 DC Comics series Watchmen.
The Comedian is a cigar-chomping, gun-toting vigilante-turned-paramilitary agent. He has touted some right wing, ultra-patriotic views but, during some of the series' most intense moments, has shown himself to be a nihilist with little regard for morality or human life. He is also the father of Laurie Juspeczyk, the second Silk Spectre.
He was created by Watchmen writer Alan Moore and illustrator Dave Gibbons, although, like all characters in the series, he was based on a Charlton Comics character, in this case Peacemaker, created by writer Joe Gill and artist Pat Boyette. Moore also based him on G. Gordon Liddy. [1]
His alter-ego of Edward Blake is a play on the name of movie director Blake Edwards, best known for the Pink Panther comedies.
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[edit] Involvement in Watchmen
The story of Watchmen starts with the aftermath of a murder in 1985: a man named Edward Blake was beaten mercilessly and thrown through the window of his apartment, falling several stories to his death. A "costumed adventurer" named Rorschach begins independently investigating the murder. While searching Blake's apartment, Rorschach discovers a hidden closet containing a costume and other items that indicate that the murdered man was The Comedian. The main plot of Watchmen initially involves Rorschach's suspicion of a plot to kill costumed heroes; his continuing investigation into Blake's murder leads to a much larger, more horrifying secret. The Comedian never appears alive in Watchmen (the first issue begins the morning after his death), but is seen several times in memories of other characters shown as flashbacks.
[edit] History
The Comedian was born in 1924 as Edward Morgan Blake. When he first became a costumed adventurer in 1939, he dressed in a clownlike costume with a simple domino mask. An effective and brutal vigilante, Blake managed to expunge most organized crime from the New York harbor. He became a member of The Minutemen, a prominent group of heroes. After a meeting, however, he sexually assaulted fellow Minuteman Silk Spectre; she was spared only when another Minuteman, Hooded Justice interrupted the assault and beat Blake, breaking his nose. The Comedian was expelled from the group and continued to work on his own, although his self-restraint continued to slip. He would later have another encounter with Silk Spectre, and the second time around, he impregnated her with her daughter and successor, Laurie.
In the 1940s, Blake updated his Comedian uniform, after being stabbed by a small-time hood. He adopted a leather outfit that served as light body armor, adorned with short star-and-stripe-themed sleeves and a small happy face button. He retained the small domino mask and began carrying a pistol. He fought in World War II, becoming a war hero in the Pacific theater. It is also implied, but not directly stated, that he murdered Hooded Justice in revenge for the beating he suffered. By the late 1960s, Blake had begun working as a covert government operative. Alongside Doctor Manhattan, The Comedian played a major role in the United States' war with Vietnam. Shortly after Manhattan's godlike powers forced the north Vietnamese into full surrender, Blake was confronted by a woman he had made pregnant. He told her bluntly that he planned to leave the country immediately without her, and in a rage she slashed his face with a broken bottle. Blake shot and killed her. His injury led to a disfiguring scar that ran from his right eye down to the corner of his mouth; after this incident, he wore an enclosing leather gimp-style mask when dressed as The Comedian.
The costumed adventurers faced a massive backlash and rioting in the 1970s; in response, Congress passed the Keene Act, requiring all heroes to register with the government if they wished to remain active. The majority of them "retired" in anonymity; a few, like Ozymandias, publicly revealed their identities and capitalized on the sudden fame, while others, such as Rorschach, continued their activities in open defiance of the law. Doctor Manhattan and The Comedian were two of the few who registered with, and were employed by, the government.
[edit] Government-sponsored activity
It is strongly implied that Blake killed Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein before they could reveal the details of the Watergate scandal. In the series' alternate reality, Richard Nixon enjoyed unprecedented popularity and was able to serve four terms as President after a constitutional amendment. Blake was in Dallas, Texas, nominally as Nixon's bodyguard, on the day that John F. Kennedy was shot; it is also implied, although vaguely, that Blake either was the actual assassin or knew of the assassin's plot beforehand. The Iran hostage crisis in 1980 was resolved when Blake freed the captives after an assault.
[edit] Death
While on a plane during a mission in 1985, Blake noticed suspicious activity on an uncharted island. He investigated and discovered that Adrian Veidt, also known as Ozymandias, owned the island; he also learned details of Veidt's plan to end the Cold War and unite humanity through a horrific hoax. Unable to bear the burden of knowledge alone, Blake broke into the apartment of Edgar Jacobi, who had fought Blake years earlier as Moloch, and rambled drunkenly about the island. Veidt had bugged Moloch's house earlier and after learning of Blake's newfound knowledge, subsequently killed both Blake and Jacobi to keep his plan secret.
[edit] Powers and abilities
Edward Blake was a skilled hand-to-hand combatant in excellent physical condition. His simple, street-wise fighting style was very effective. In the "Under the Hood" excerpts it is revealed that the Comedian bested Ozymandias in their first encounter - a slight that Veidt never got over. Never depicted as an "expert" marksman per se, Blake was proficient with a .45 pistol and pump-action shotgun. His participation in World War II and Vietnam suggest that was skilled in military tactics. His government-sanctioned activities suggest that he was very talented in or received training in covert operations and unconventional warfare. It is implied that he was a "Black-Ops/CIA" type agent during the 1960s and 1970s. Blake was fairly slight when he was introduced as a member of the Minutemen, but his physical stature increased over the years. At the time of his death Blake had a very built physique. The fact that Blake could still swim long distances well into retirement suggests that he was still in good shape. Although Veidt was able to overpower and kill Blake in an ambush where Blake was thrown out a window, Blake was apparently drunk at the time, while Veidt's physical abilities appear to have dramatically increased over the time since their last fight. Veidt's use of physical force, instead of a weapon, can be seen as revenge for Blake defeating Veidt many years before.
[edit] Analysis
The Comedian was essentially a nihilist. He appears to lack any moral values or clear ethical code, as is evident in his actions in Vietnam. Dr. Manhattan says of him; "I have never met anyone so deliberately amoral." He constantly says life is simply a joke, and he's just playing along because he is the only person that realizes what the joke is. Rorschach muses during the course of the story that The Comedian was actually hyperbolically satirising the numerous immoralities of society with his apparently sociopathic behavior.
Despite his seeming amorality, the Comedian did react with stunned disbelief and horror when, shortly before his death, he stumbled across a plan for mass murder. This suggests that even he has his limits, and there are some things even the Comedian doesn't find funny. This does not, however, absolve or redeem the Comedian for his own misdeeds (such as his raping Sally Jupiter, the original Silk Spectre, and murdering the woman he'd made pregnant); his murder at the hands of Adrian Veidt, who saw himself as saving humanity from itself, in a strange way, shows justice being served.
[edit] The "Smile"
Throughout the work, the Comedian is typically seen wearing or in close proximity to the "smiley-face" button which is closely associated with him. However, the smile is constantly appearing when Blake is not present, possibly at important junctures in the story. Some examples of the button's appearance are as follows.
- The story begins with an extreme close-up of the stained button. The same button physically appears in Dreiburg's house, as well as atop a prominant restaurant and at the Comedian's funeral.
- While Dr. Manhattan is reminiscing of Blake's activities in Vietnam, the smile makes its first chronological appearance. When Blake is slashed by the broken bottle brandished by the mother of his unborn, illegitimate child, blood falls upon the button and simulates the pattern.
- When the murder of two children by their war-obsessed father is investigated by the recurring "detective" characters, the religious poster on the back of the door is spattered with blood. The colours and shapes reference the Comedian's button.
- After rescuing innocent victims from a tenement fire, the Owlship occupied by Nite Owl and the second Silk Spectre is shown flying against the yellow moon, with smoke rising up on one side. The ship's portholes are the eyes, while the smoke is the blood spatter.
- When Hollis Mason is killed, the blood smeared across his face in his Minutemen photo is similar to the stain on the button.
- When Dr. Manhattan's "flying clockwork" is destroyed on Mars, the pattern of debris on the large crater is reminiscent of the smile.
- While not an appearance per se, there is a clear patch on the side of Veidt's Vivarium, shown on the cover of one issue. This clear patch is a perfect replica of the shape of the button's blood spatter.
- After Veidt teleports his creature into New York, the stained socket on a half-destroyed spark hydrant in front of the Institute for Extraspatial Studies references the smile.
- While Adrian Veidt explains his role in the death of Blake, his face shortly before killing the man is shown splattered with blood on one side. Since his face appears yellow at the time, this is a clear reference.
- At the end, the New Frontiersman employee known as Seymour, who habitually wears a green T-shirt with a yellow smiley face, drips ketchup on his stomach from a burger he is eating. This mimicks the smile almost perfectly.
