In an alternate United States in 1985, a man in a Manhattan apartment watches news about escalating Cold War tensions and the response from five-term President Richard Nixon, when an unseen assailant attacks him and hurls him to the street below. A credits montage reviews the rise of costumed crime-fighters from 1939 to 1977, culminating in a public outcry and passage of an anti-vigilante act. Rorschach, a masked detective who operates illegally, discovers that the dead man was Edward Blake, better known as the Comedian, a costumed hero who worked for the government. Suspecting that other vigilantes could be attacked, he warns members of his former team, the Watchmen.[11] Rorschach's former partner Dan Dreiberg (Nite Owl II) believes he is paranoid but relays his concerns to Adrian Veidt (Ozymandias), a crime-fighter turned businessman. Jon Osterman (Doctor Manhattan) a particle physicist with accidental superpowers, is preoccupied with energy research that could prevent nuclear war and ignores Rorschach.
