The Comedian, 1966

Serving in every major U.S. conflict from World War II to Vietnam, the Comedian was a super-soldier involved in covert operations, including assassinations and the establishment of puppet regimes in South America. In Vietnam he worked with Dr. Manhattan and contributed to an American victory in southeast Asia.

The Comedian expected the worst of humanity and acted on that worldview with his own brand of self-interest and cynical humor. He thrived on chaos and had no trouble killing anyone whom he was ordered to kill or who got in his way. He once severely beat Ozymandias and off-handedly credited himself with involvement in the Kennedy assassination and the killings of Woodward and Bernstein when they threatened to expose the Watergate scandal. He was most likely responsible for Hooded Justice's "disappearance." In the early 1980s, he single-handedly freed the U.S. hostages in Iran.

Although amoral by nature, the Comedian was thunderstruck by Ozymandias' bloody plan to save the world, his knowledge of which led to his death at the hands of Ozymandias.

The Comedian was self-made and obstinate. He lived by his own rules and had no patience for idealistic schemes. His tough-minded, cynical personality, however, gave him unique insight into others. He first pointed out Dr. Manhattan's otherworldiness and its consequences; he also remarked on Rorschach's grim change of character and complete submersion into his vigilante alter ego. Indeed, the Comedian's deep personal insights are catalyst to all the costume heroes that their purpose and meaning were obsolete and even silly in an era of geo-politics, the Cold War, and the real threat of nuclear destruction.

Edward Blake, 1973