Warner Bros. Unleashes Six Watchmen Posters
Posted by dominie in Comics, Films, News on November 11th, 2008
Warner Bros. released six teaser posters for the Zack Snyder’s (300) Watchmen today. The posters introduce the six primary characters in this dystopian unorthodox superhero film based on DC Comics 1986 limited series created by Alan Moore and artist Dave Gibbons.
The posters were scattered across the web via various websites. Click on each image for a closer look and read on for character bios of each superhero.
Character Bios courtesy of Wikipedia.
LATimes.com’s Hero Complex blog featured battle-hardened Edward Blake a.k.a. the Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan). Already deceased when the story begins, his murder is what sets the plot in motion. The character appears throughout the story in flashbacks and aspects of his personality are revealed by other characters. The Comedian was based on the Charlton Comics character Peacemaker, with elements of the Marvel Comics spy character Nick Fury added. Moore and Gibbons saw the Comedian as “a kind of Gordon Liddy character, only a much bigger, tougher guy”. Richard Reynolds described the Comedian as “ruthless, cynical, and nihilistic, and yet capable of deeper insights than the others into the role of the costumed hero”. Along with Dr. Manhattan, he is the only government-sanctioned superhero after the Keene Act banning superheroes is passed. Although he attempted to rape the first Silk Spectre in 1940, he is revealed to be Laurie Juspeczyk’s father in issue eight.
EW.com’s PopWatch blog featured Dr. Manhattan (Bill Crudup). A superpowered being who is contracted by the United States government. Scientist Jon Osterman gained superpowers when he was caught in a particle dissasembler in 1959. Dr. Manhattan was based upon Charlton’s Captain Atom, who in Moore’s original proposal was surrounded by the shadow of nuclear threat. However, the writer found he could do more with Manhattan as a “kind of a quantum super-hero” than he could have with Captain Atom. In opposition to other superheroes that lacked scientific exploration of their origins, Moore sought to delve into nuclear physics and quantum physics in constructing the character of Dr. Manhattan. The writer believed that a character living in a quantum universe would not perceive time with a linear perspective, which would influence the character’s perception of human affairs. Moore also wanted to avoid creating an emotionless character like Spock from Star Trek, so he sought for Dr. Manhattan to retain “human habits” and to grow away from them and humanity in general. Gibbons had created the blue character Rogue Trooper, and explained he reused the blue skin motif for Doctor Manhattan as it resembles skin tonally, but has a different hue. Moore incorporated the color into the story, and Gibbons noted the rest of the comic’s color scheme made Manhattan more unique. Moore recalled that he was unsure if DC would allow the creators to depict the character as fully nude, which partially influenced how they portrayed the character.
Wired featured Adrian Veidt a.k.a Ozymandias (Matthew Goode). Drawing inspiration from Alexander the Great, Veidt was once the superhero Ozymandias, but has since retired to devote his attention to the running of his own enterprises. Ozymandias was directly based on Peter Cannon, Thunderbolt, whom Moore had admired for using his full brain capacity as well as possessing full physical and mental control. Richard Reynolds noted that by taking initiative to “help the world”, Veidt displays a trait normally attributed to villains in superhero stories, and in a sense he is the “villain” of the series. Gibbons noted “One of the worst of his sins [is] kind of looking down on the rest of humanity, scorning the rest of humanity.”
USAToday.com’s Lifeline Live blog featured Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley). A vigilante who wears a white mask that contains constantly shifting ink blots, he continues to fight crime in spite of his outlaw status. Moore said he was trying to “come up with this quintessential Steve Ditko character - someone who’s got a funny name, whose surname begins with a ‘K,’ who’s got an oddly designed mask”. Moore based Rorschach on Ditko’s creation Mr. A; Ditko’s Charlton character The Question also served as a template for creating Rorschach. Comics historian Bradford W. Wright described the character’s world view “a set of black-and-white values that take many shapes but never mix into shades of gray, similar to the ink blot tests of his namesake”. Rorschach sees existence as random and, according to Wright, this viewpoint leaves the character “free to ’scrawl [his] own design’ on a ‘morally blank world’”. Moore said he did not foresee the death of Rorschach until the fourth issue when he realized that Rorschach’s refusal to compromise would need to lead to the character’s death.
AccessHollywood.com featured vigilante Dan Dreiberg the Nite-Owl (Patrick Wilson). A retired vigilante superhero who utilizes owl-themed gadgets. Nite Owl was based on the Ted Kord version of the Blue Beetle, and Moore also incorporated an original version of the Nite Owl into Watchmen, similar to how Ted Kord had a predecessor. While Moore devised character notes for Gibbons to work from, the artist provided a name and costume design he had created when he was twelve. Richard Reynolds noted in Super Heroes: A Modern Mythology that despite the character’s Charlton roots, Nite Owl’s modus operandi has more in common with the DC Comics character Batman. According to Klock, his civilian form “visually suggests an impotent, middle-aged Clark Kent.”
MTV.com’s Splash Page blog featured Laurie Juspeczyk a.k.a Silk Spectre (Malin Akerman). The daughter of the first Silk Spectre, with whom she has a strained relationship. Silk Spectre was not based on a particular Charlton character; rather, Moore felt he needed a female hero in the cast and drew inspiration from heroines such as Black Canary and Phantom Lady.
