Alan Moore's Watchmen is a 12-chapter graphic novel set in a dystopian version of 1985 New York City. At this time, "the whole world stands on the brink" (I.1.6 Moore) of WWIII/nuclear war, once-legal masked heroes now fight crime as illegal vigilantes, and Richard Nixon has been elected for a 5th term as President of the United States.
Chapter 1: Rorschach, a hero-turned-vigilante gives a monologue describing the disheveled state of the city, and how it fears/needs him. He then goes on to investigate the murder of a man named Edward Blake (later discovered to be The Comedian, who was a government-sponsored masked hero). Rorschach discovers this and theorizes that someone is killing off all the "masks". He goes to warn Dan Dreiberg, aka Nite Owl II, of the possible threat, Dan doesn't believe him and Rorschach leaves. After an unsuccessful interrogation at a bar to get information on the "mask-killer", he goes to Adrian Veidt, another former who fought crime under the name Ozymandias, to warn him of the murderer. He then goes to a military research base to warn Laurie Juspeczyk/"Jupiter" (Silk Spectre II) and the super-human Jon Osterman (Dr. Manhattan) of the possible danger, but is teleported out of the base by Jon because he is annoying him. The chapter ends as Dan and Laurie are at dinner discussing "the old days", when Laurie states how there aren't many things to laugh about, to which Dan replies, "well, what do you expect? The Comedian is dead" (I.26.7 Moore).
Chapter 2: Laurie visits her mother, Sally Juspeczyk/"Jupiter" (the original Silk Spectre), while Jon, Adrian, Dan, and an undercover Rorschach attend Edward Blake's funeral. During this, Sally has a flashback to when she was in a group before the Watchmen, called the Minutemen, and The Comedian tried to rape her. At the funeral, Jon remembers back to when he and The Comedian were working in Vietnam together, and recalls how while they were in a bar, a woman that Blake had impregnated approached The Comedian needing to talk, and when he refused, she sliced his face open with a broken bottle, to which he then proceeded to shoot her, killing her and the unborn child. Dan thinks about his time with The Comedian during a riot caused by a protest, during which The Comedian seems to enjoy repelling the angry mob. Rorschach sees former villain Moloch leaving the cemetery and goes to investigate why. From Moloch, Rorschach learns that The Comedian visited him before his death crying and breaking down, talking about his past war crimes, something horrifying that he witnessed, and something about a "list". Satisfied with this, Rorschach leaves.
Chapter 3: Laurie argues with Jon about him becoming increasingly distant to her. She storms out to go see Dan while Dr. Manhattan prepares for a rare public appearance on a television talk show. When Laurie gets to Dan's, they decide to go out (to go see Hollis Mason, the original Nite Owl). While walking, they encounter a street gang known as the Knot-Tops. Their old crime fighting training kicks in and they make short work of the assailants. At Dr. Manhattan's interview, he is bombarded with accusations of giving cancer to people he's spent time with, including Moloch (III.13.3-15.1), and eventually gets so fed up that he teleports everyone out of the studio, and teleports himself to Arizona where he picks up an old photograph of him and a girlfriend, then finally teleports himself to mars. His departure makes headlines across the media, as Russia invades Afghanistan, a possible precursor to a nuclear war.
Chapter 4: In this Chapter, Jon recalls his origins. As a young nuclear physicist, he stepped into a (fictional) device called an "intrinsic field generator", which pulled him apart on a subatomic level, seemingly killing him. However, over the course of the next few days, he re-forms, somehow having survived the event, and now possesses godlike powers. He’s quickly recruited by the United States military, and re-named “Dr. Manhattan.” They name him the first “real” super hero, which worries the remaining costumed heroes. Although he is the U.S. Government’s ultimate weapon (and the savior of the Vietnam War), he is unable, or unwilling, to prevent certain disasters, such as the assassination of John F. Kennedy. However, Jon’s incredible intelligence allows him to develop new futuristic advancements such as electric cars, safe dirigible airships, and more. He recalls past relationships, such as the one he had with Janey Slater, and more recently, with Laurie "Jupiter", which came about when he left Janey for 16 year-old Laurie in 1966.
Chapter 5: Rorschach continues his "mask-killer" investigation, and decides to pay another visit to Moloch. Rorschach suggests to Moloch that the aforementioned “list” was related to the press allegations that Dr. Manhattan had given cancer to many of his close friends, since Janey Slater's name was on it too. Realizing that Moloch is not involved in this plan, Rorschach leaves, but before doing so he tells Moloch of a “drop point” where he can leave a message if he remembers anything. Laurie and Dan are at dinner together after Laurie had been evicted from her military housing due to Dr. Manhattan's disappearance, when Dan invites Laurie to live with him. Rorschach (in disguise as Walter Kovacs) is watching the drop point, and sees Dan and Laurie leave the diner. Adrian Veidt walks to a meeting, discussing ideas of morbidity, death and an afterlife with his secretary. After his secretary is shot, Veidt assaults the attacker who eventually bites into a suicide capsule and quickly dies. Rorschach is responding to a note left at the drop point, so he returns to Moloch's apartment, only to find that he'd been murdered. A police bullhorn sounds outside, demanding that Rorschach surrender to the police. Realizing that he'd been set up, he attempts to escape by jumping out of a window but is injured and taken into custody.
Chapter 6: Rorschach, now identified as Walter Kovacs, is out of costume and in prison (although he calls Walter Kovacs his disguise, and Rorschach his true self). Dr. Malcolm Long, a prison psychiatrist, shows an rorschach-style ink blot to Kovacs which, to him, looks like a dog with its head split in half, though Kovacs says it looks like “a pretty butterfly" (VI.1.8). Long comments in his journal that Kovacs' condition is improving, and shows him another inkblot. Kovacs then has a flashback to his childhood, when he walked in on his mother having sex with an unknown male. When this upsets the unknown male, he abruptly leaves. Kovacs' mother then beats her son severely and tells him she should have never had a child, and "shoulda had the abortion" (VI.4.7) When Long asks Kovacs what he just saw in the ink blot, he humors the doctor again and says, “Some nice flowers" (VI.5.2). As Kovacs heads back to his prison cell, other prisoners threaten and mock him. He recalls a time as a child when he violently attacked two bullies for taunting him because his mother was a prostitute. During his next session with Dr. Long, Kovacs recounts the details of how, after realizing how selfish and uncaring humanity was, he crafted a mask to make a face he could “bear to look at in the mirror.” He also accuses the doctor of being no different then the rest of society’s dregs, only wanting to treat him to gain fame. Later in the prison lunch line, Kovacs throws hot oil on another inmate's face to avoid getting shanked. In his next session with Dr. Long, Rorschach reveals how in the early days of working alongside the other Watchmen, the only masked hero who seemed to understand how the world worked, was The Comedian. Later on in the session, Kovacs finally admits that the first ink blot looked, to him, like a dog with its head split in half. He recounts the story of a child kidnapping case in 1975, where he tracked down the kidnapper to his hideout. Upon finding evidence of the girl’s rape and murder, Kovacs handcuffed the pleading perpetrator to a pipe inside his hideout and burned the place down. As he gazed at the flames, he felt cleansed. He then goes on to say that at that moment, "it was Kovacs who closed his eyes" (VI.21.6), and "it was Rorschach who opened them again" (VI. 21.7).
Chapter 7: Dan finds Laurie touring his basement "hideout". He explains his collection of crime fighting gadgets and mementos, sometimes making them seem less important than they are. Laurie, who is captivated by these forgotten objects, tries to cheer Dan up by praising him for his ingenuity. Later, they're watching TV when things start to get sexual between the two of them, although Dan "needs time". Eventually they fall asleep, yet Dan is awakened by a nightmare, walks naked into the basement/hideout to sulk.
Laurie discovers him there and while she is trying to console him, they decide it would be better for the both of them to suit up in their old costumes and take Dan’s oil-airship “Archie” out for spin to help clear Dan’s head. While flying over the city, they spot an apartment fire and after successfully rescuing all tenants, Laurie and Dan's passion and confidence is reborn, and they have an "intimate moment" aboard the airship. Dan then spontaneously makes the decision that they should go bust Rorschach out from prison.
Chapter 8: When Hollis Mason sees reports of the tenement rescue on the news, he calls his old partner in crime-fighting Sally Jupiter (from the days of the Minutemen) to relay the story. Back at the basement hideout, Dan and Laurie investigate the possibility that Dr. Manhattan’s choice to exile himself was carefully orchestrated as part of a bigger conspiracy. Dan realizes more then ever, breaking Rorschach out of prison is essential and extremely important since he (Rorschach) might have information that could help them uncover what has been going on. On an island (location unknown to the reader), missing comic book writer Max Shea and painter Hira Manish discuss an squid-like alien Manish is sketching that appears under a tarp on the beach in the distance, getting ready to be shipped somewhere. Meanwhile at the prison in which Rorschach is located, a riot has broken out, during which Rorschach has used that time to "take care of" old enemies that broke into his cell. The 3 heroes reunite back at Dan’s apartment, and all of a sudden, Dr. Manhattan appears out of nowhere and asks Laurie to come with him to Mars for an important conversation. The two teleport away, as Dan and Rorschach leave the apartment with the police following suit. The news of Rorschach’s escape angers and frightens a street gang called the Knot-Tops, who decide to go take their frustrations out on Hollis Mason, thinking that he is the Nite-Owl the news reported that helped break Rorschach out of prison. The gang forces their way into Mason’s apartment and beats him to death (VIII.27.3-28.7).
Chapter 9: Jon and Laurie are on Mars. Although it frustrates her that he already knows the outcome of their pending conversation,
Laurie still tries to convince Manhattan to come back and save the human race from nuclear extinction. As they fly over the surface of Mars on a glass structure of Jon's design, debating humanity in general and discussing Laurie's childhood, it becomes clear that he is not planning to save anyone, being that Laurie was his "only link" (IX.8.8) to the world (Earth). Furthermore, he states that the conversation ends with Laurie in tears, and later, in the future, he is standing in streets of corpses, with the rest of his psychic powers rendered useless due to tachyons - particles which always move faster than light, which could only be released by nuclear explosions. This causes Laurie to get very angry, and demands that Manhattan land the structure. After he does so, she, thanks to some comments they made earlier, realizes that Edward Blake, The Comedian - the man who raped her mother - is also her father. This causes her to burst into tears, but Manhattan reassures her that he has changed his mind, and that the "thermodynamic miracle" (IX.27.3) of her existence has proven to him humanity's worth, and they then proceed to depart for Earth.
Chapter 10: On Earth, Dreiberg and Rorschach are investigating their own case. After scouring two bars for information, they arrive at the third bar, where they find a man who knows some information that they might be looking for. After discovering that Adrian Veidt's assassin, Roy Chess, was working for a company that is owned by Veidt himself, they go to his office only to discover a lead to a place called "Karnak". Rorschach, without telling Daniel, mails his journal of his investigation thus far (with the prevailing theory being the one that Veidt is the mastermind behind everything) to the New Frontiersman, a right-wing paper. After Rorschach and Nite Owl land “Archie" in Antarctica, they head to Veidt’s retreat/lair, as Ozymandias witnesses their approach through surveillance cameras.
Chapter 11: Rorschach and Nite Owl fail in their attempt to subdue Veidt, due to his superior skills. Since they are no longer fighting, he explains to them his plan of uniting the world through a catastrophe, after which the only choice would be unity to face a bigger/common threat: alien invasion. In order to do this, he, on a special island, manufactured an alien-looking beast which would be teleported into New York to wipe out half of the city. He personally killed The Comedian as he (Blake) had discovered his plan and recounted some of it to Moloch (Veidt had had Moloch's apartment bugged, so when Blake went to him that last time before his death, he talked about the island/monster he's seen while flying over said island, and in order to prevent this information from spreading, Veidt killed The Comedian). In order to get rid of Dr. Manhattan, he gave all of Osterman’s closest associates terminal cancer, forcing him to go into exile. With the new technology brought about by Osterman’s super-human intelligence, Veidt began to research advancements in the fields of genetics and teleportation on his private island. He goes on to explain that in order to throw Rorschach off his tail, he orchestrated his own assassination attempt by pushing a cyanide capsule into the attackers mouth after subduing him to prevent him from talking as well. The final step of his plan would be to teleport his alien life-form, whose brain was cloned from a powerful psychic, into New York City. Since teleporting technology was limited, anything living that is transported would die of shock and explode. The resultant psychic shockwave..." would wind up "...killing half the city" (XI.26.4). Nite Owl doesn't believe how or when this could possibly have been done, so when he asks Ozymandias that question, the World's Smartest Man (as Veidt was also known as) responded by saying "I did it thirty-five minutes ago" (XI.27.1). There is then a blinding flash of white light in New York City.
Chapter 12: Millions die as a huge, grotesque, alien-like creature appears in the middle of Times Square. Dr. Manhattan and Laurie arrive to see the carnage, and the streets filled with corpses. Realizing the mastermind behind this plot, they teleport to Karnak. When they arrive, Dr. Manhattan's psychic powers are blocked due to tachyon interference, so he has to walk around to try to find Adrian. Only he is lured into a trap (that of which being an intrinsic field generator). Adrian activates it, and Dr. Manhattan is, again, disintegrated. Laurie shouts at him and shoots him in the chest. But instead of actually shooting him in the chest, it is revealed that Ozymandias had actually caught the bullet fired at him, and was still alive. As he is getting up, the large hand of Dr. Manhattan crashes through a window and knocks Veldt to the ground, stating, "Reassembling myself was the first trick I learned. It didn't kill Jon Osterman... did you really think it would kill me?" (XII.18.2). Before Jon can retaliate against Veidt, they are shown various world news broadcasts stating that because of the recent disaster in New York, the world was suspending all hostilities. Veidt celebrates his victory, and although the things Veidt had to do were horrible, Dr. Manhattan, Dan, and Laurie decide to keep quiet. Meanwhile, Rorschach, following his rule to never compromise even in the face of armageddon, is heading back to "Archie" so that he can go tell the people of the world what Adrian Veidt had done. Jon begs him to reconsider, just this once, but Rorschach decides that he's rather die than compromise, so he makes Dr. Manhattan vaporize him. Dr. Manhattan goes back inside to Dan and Laurie, now asleep after making love, and leaves them with a contented smile. He goes and finds Adrian Veidt, and after a brief discussion, Dr. Manhattan tells Ozymandias of his plans to leave Earth for another galaxy to go create new life, as his final words are, "Nothing ever ends" (XII.27.5). With the crisis over, Laurie and Dan, who have changed their identities to "Mr. & Mrs. Hollis", visit Laurie’s mother. Laurie tells her mom that she knows that Edward Blake, The Comedian, was her biological father, and that she has come to terms with that being the case and bears no grudges whatsoever. The editor of the New Frontiersman is angry about a lack of material to use in the day's paper. He halfheartedly agrees with one of his employee's suggestion to find some material in the crank file. Alan Moore's Watchmen ends as we see his hand hovering over Rorschach's journal, poised to take it.
Chapter 1: Rorschach, a hero-turned-vigilante gives a monologue describing the disheveled state of the city, and how it fears/needs him. He then goes on to investigate the murder of a man named Edward Blake (later discovered to be The Comedian, who was a government-sponsored masked hero). Rorschach discovers this and theorizes that someone is killing off all the "masks". He goes to warn Dan Dreiberg, aka Nite Owl II, of the possible threat, Dan doesn't believe him and Rorschach leaves. After an unsuccessful interrogation at a bar to get information on the "mask-killer", he goes to Adrian Veidt, another former who fought crime under the name Ozymandias, to warn him of the murderer. He then goes to a military research base to warn Laurie Juspeczyk/"Jupiter" (Silk Spectre II) and the super-human Jon Osterman (Dr. Manhattan) of the possible danger, but is teleported out of the base by Jon because he is annoying him. The chapter ends as Dan and Laurie are at dinner discussing "the old days", when Laurie states how there aren't many things to laugh about, to which Dan replies, "well, what do you expect? The Comedian is dead" (I.26.7 Moore).
Chapter 2: Laurie visits her mother, Sally Juspeczyk/"Jupiter" (the original Silk Spectre), while Jon, Adrian, Dan, and an undercover Rorschach attend Edward Blake's funeral. During this, Sally has a flashback to when she was in a group before the Watchmen, called the Minutemen, and The Comedian tried to rape her. At the funeral, Jon remembers back to when he and The Comedian were working in Vietnam together, and recalls how while they were in a bar, a woman that Blake had impregnated approached The Comedian needing to talk, and when he refused, she sliced his face open with a broken bottle, to which he then proceeded to shoot her, killing her and the unborn child. Dan thinks about his time with The Comedian during a riot caused by a protest, during which The Comedian seems to enjoy repelling the angry mob. Rorschach sees former villain Moloch leaving the cemetery and goes to investigate why. From Moloch, Rorschach learns that The Comedian visited him before his death crying and breaking down, talking about his past war crimes, something horrifying that he witnessed, and something about a "list". Satisfied with this, Rorschach leaves.
Chapter 3: Laurie argues with Jon about him becoming increasingly distant to her. She storms out to go see Dan while Dr. Manhattan prepares for a rare public appearance on a television talk show. When Laurie gets to Dan's, they decide to go out (to go see Hollis Mason, the original Nite Owl). While walking, they encounter a street gang known as the Knot-Tops. Their old crime fighting training kicks in and they make short work of the assailants. At Dr. Manhattan's interview, he is bombarded with accusations of giving cancer to people he's spent time with, including Moloch (III.13.3-15.1), and eventually gets so fed up that he teleports everyone out of the studio, and teleports himself to Arizona where he picks up an old photograph of him and a girlfriend, then finally teleports himself to mars. His departure makes headlines across the media, as Russia invades Afghanistan, a possible precursor to a nuclear war.
Chapter 4: In this Chapter, Jon recalls his origins. As a young nuclear physicist, he stepped into a (fictional) device called an "intrinsic field generator", which pulled him apart on a subatomic level, seemingly killing him. However, over the course of the next few days, he re-forms, somehow having survived the event, and now possesses godlike powers. He’s quickly recruited by the United States military, and re-named “Dr. Manhattan.” They name him the first “real” super hero, which worries the remaining costumed heroes. Although he is the U.S. Government’s ultimate weapon (and the savior of the Vietnam War), he is unable, or unwilling, to prevent certain disasters, such as the assassination of John F. Kennedy. However, Jon’s incredible intelligence allows him to develop new futuristic advancements such as electric cars, safe dirigible airships, and more. He recalls past relationships, such as the one he had with Janey Slater, and more recently, with Laurie "Jupiter", which came about when he left Janey for 16 year-old Laurie in 1966.
Chapter 5: Rorschach continues his "mask-killer" investigation, and decides to pay another visit to Moloch. Rorschach suggests to Moloch that the aforementioned “list” was related to the press allegations that Dr. Manhattan had given cancer to many of his close friends, since Janey Slater's name was on it too. Realizing that Moloch is not involved in this plan, Rorschach leaves, but before doing so he tells Moloch of a “drop point” where he can leave a message if he remembers anything. Laurie and Dan are at dinner together after Laurie had been evicted from her military housing due to Dr. Manhattan's disappearance, when Dan invites Laurie to live with him. Rorschach (in disguise as Walter Kovacs) is watching the drop point, and sees Dan and Laurie leave the diner. Adrian Veidt walks to a meeting, discussing ideas of morbidity, death and an afterlife with his secretary. After his secretary is shot, Veidt assaults the attacker who eventually bites into a suicide capsule and quickly dies. Rorschach is responding to a note left at the drop point, so he returns to Moloch's apartment, only to find that he'd been murdered. A police bullhorn sounds outside, demanding that Rorschach surrender to the police. Realizing that he'd been set up, he attempts to escape by jumping out of a window but is injured and taken into custody.
Chapter 6: Rorschach, now identified as Walter Kovacs, is out of costume and in prison (although he calls Walter Kovacs his disguise, and Rorschach his true self). Dr. Malcolm Long, a prison psychiatrist, shows an rorschach-style ink blot to Kovacs which, to him, looks like a dog with its head split in half, though Kovacs says it looks like “a pretty butterfly" (VI.1.8). Long comments in his journal that Kovacs' condition is improving, and shows him another inkblot. Kovacs then has a flashback to his childhood, when he walked in on his mother having sex with an unknown male. When this upsets the unknown male, he abruptly leaves. Kovacs' mother then beats her son severely and tells him she should have never had a child, and "shoulda had the abortion" (VI.4.7) When Long asks Kovacs what he just saw in the ink blot, he humors the doctor again and says, “Some nice flowers" (VI.5.2). As Kovacs heads back to his prison cell, other prisoners threaten and mock him. He recalls a time as a child when he violently attacked two bullies for taunting him because his mother was a prostitute. During his next session with Dr. Long, Kovacs recounts the details of how, after realizing how selfish and uncaring humanity was, he crafted a mask to make a face he could “bear to look at in the mirror.” He also accuses the doctor of being no different then the rest of society’s dregs, only wanting to treat him to gain fame. Later in the prison lunch line, Kovacs throws hot oil on another inmate's face to avoid getting shanked. In his next session with Dr. Long, Rorschach reveals how in the early days of working alongside the other Watchmen, the only masked hero who seemed to understand how the world worked, was The Comedian. Later on in the session, Kovacs finally admits that the first ink blot looked, to him, like a dog with its head split in half. He recounts the story of a child kidnapping case in 1975, where he tracked down the kidnapper to his hideout. Upon finding evidence of the girl’s rape and murder, Kovacs handcuffed the pleading perpetrator to a pipe inside his hideout and burned the place down. As he gazed at the flames, he felt cleansed. He then goes on to say that at that moment, "it was Kovacs who closed his eyes" (VI.21.6), and "it was Rorschach who opened them again" (VI. 21.7).
Chapter 7: Dan finds Laurie touring his basement "hideout". He explains his collection of crime fighting gadgets and mementos, sometimes making them seem less important than they are. Laurie, who is captivated by these forgotten objects, tries to cheer Dan up by praising him for his ingenuity. Later, they're watching TV when things start to get sexual between the two of them, although Dan "needs time". Eventually they fall asleep, yet Dan is awakened by a nightmare, walks naked into the basement/hideout to sulk.
Laurie discovers him there and while she is trying to console him, they decide it would be better for the both of them to suit up in their old costumes and take Dan’s oil-airship “Archie” out for spin to help clear Dan’s head. While flying over the city, they spot an apartment fire and after successfully rescuing all tenants, Laurie and Dan's passion and confidence is reborn, and they have an "intimate moment" aboard the airship. Dan then spontaneously makes the decision that they should go bust Rorschach out from prison.
Chapter 8: When Hollis Mason sees reports of the tenement rescue on the news, he calls his old partner in crime-fighting Sally Jupiter (from the days of the Minutemen) to relay the story. Back at the basement hideout, Dan and Laurie investigate the possibility that Dr. Manhattan’s choice to exile himself was carefully orchestrated as part of a bigger conspiracy. Dan realizes more then ever, breaking Rorschach out of prison is essential and extremely important since he (Rorschach) might have information that could help them uncover what has been going on. On an island (location unknown to the reader), missing comic book writer Max Shea and painter Hira Manish discuss an squid-like alien Manish is sketching that appears under a tarp on the beach in the distance, getting ready to be shipped somewhere. Meanwhile at the prison in which Rorschach is located, a riot has broken out, during which Rorschach has used that time to "take care of" old enemies that broke into his cell. The 3 heroes reunite back at Dan’s apartment, and all of a sudden, Dr. Manhattan appears out of nowhere and asks Laurie to come with him to Mars for an important conversation. The two teleport away, as Dan and Rorschach leave the apartment with the police following suit. The news of Rorschach’s escape angers and frightens a street gang called the Knot-Tops, who decide to go take their frustrations out on Hollis Mason, thinking that he is the Nite-Owl the news reported that helped break Rorschach out of prison. The gang forces their way into Mason’s apartment and beats him to death (VIII.27.3-28.7).
Chapter 9: Jon and Laurie are on Mars. Although it frustrates her that he already knows the outcome of their pending conversation,
Laurie still tries to convince Manhattan to come back and save the human race from nuclear extinction. As they fly over the surface of Mars on a glass structure of Jon's design, debating humanity in general and discussing Laurie's childhood, it becomes clear that he is not planning to save anyone, being that Laurie was his "only link" (IX.8.8) to the world (Earth). Furthermore, he states that the conversation ends with Laurie in tears, and later, in the future, he is standing in streets of corpses, with the rest of his psychic powers rendered useless due to tachyons - particles which always move faster than light, which could only be released by nuclear explosions. This causes Laurie to get very angry, and demands that Manhattan land the structure. After he does so, she, thanks to some comments they made earlier, realizes that Edward Blake, The Comedian - the man who raped her mother - is also her father. This causes her to burst into tears, but Manhattan reassures her that he has changed his mind, and that the "thermodynamic miracle" (IX.27.3) of her existence has proven to him humanity's worth, and they then proceed to depart for Earth.
Chapter 10: On Earth, Dreiberg and Rorschach are investigating their own case. After scouring two bars for information, they arrive at the third bar, where they find a man who knows some information that they might be looking for. After discovering that Adrian Veidt's assassin, Roy Chess, was working for a company that is owned by Veidt himself, they go to his office only to discover a lead to a place called "Karnak". Rorschach, without telling Daniel, mails his journal of his investigation thus far (with the prevailing theory being the one that Veidt is the mastermind behind everything) to the New Frontiersman, a right-wing paper. After Rorschach and Nite Owl land “Archie" in Antarctica, they head to Veidt’s retreat/lair, as Ozymandias witnesses their approach through surveillance cameras.
Chapter 11: Rorschach and Nite Owl fail in their attempt to subdue Veidt, due to his superior skills. Since they are no longer fighting, he explains to them his plan of uniting the world through a catastrophe, after which the only choice would be unity to face a bigger/common threat: alien invasion. In order to do this, he, on a special island, manufactured an alien-looking beast which would be teleported into New York to wipe out half of the city. He personally killed The Comedian as he (Blake) had discovered his plan and recounted some of it to Moloch (Veidt had had Moloch's apartment bugged, so when Blake went to him that last time before his death, he talked about the island/monster he's seen while flying over said island, and in order to prevent this information from spreading, Veidt killed The Comedian). In order to get rid of Dr. Manhattan, he gave all of Osterman’s closest associates terminal cancer, forcing him to go into exile. With the new technology brought about by Osterman’s super-human intelligence, Veidt began to research advancements in the fields of genetics and teleportation on his private island. He goes on to explain that in order to throw Rorschach off his tail, he orchestrated his own assassination attempt by pushing a cyanide capsule into the attackers mouth after subduing him to prevent him from talking as well. The final step of his plan would be to teleport his alien life-form, whose brain was cloned from a powerful psychic, into New York City. Since teleporting technology was limited, anything living that is transported would die of shock and explode. The resultant psychic shockwave..." would wind up "...killing half the city" (XI.26.4). Nite Owl doesn't believe how or when this could possibly have been done, so when he asks Ozymandias that question, the World's Smartest Man (as Veidt was also known as) responded by saying "I did it thirty-five minutes ago" (XI.27.1). There is then a blinding flash of white light in New York City.
Chapter 12: Millions die as a huge, grotesque, alien-like creature appears in the middle of Times Square. Dr. Manhattan and Laurie arrive to see the carnage, and the streets filled with corpses. Realizing the mastermind behind this plot, they teleport to Karnak. When they arrive, Dr. Manhattan's psychic powers are blocked due to tachyon interference, so he has to walk around to try to find Adrian. Only he is lured into a trap (that of which being an intrinsic field generator). Adrian activates it, and Dr. Manhattan is, again, disintegrated. Laurie shouts at him and shoots him in the chest. But instead of actually shooting him in the chest, it is revealed that Ozymandias had actually caught the bullet fired at him, and was still alive. As he is getting up, the large hand of Dr. Manhattan crashes through a window and knocks Veldt to the ground, stating, "Reassembling myself was the first trick I learned. It didn't kill Jon Osterman... did you really think it would kill me?" (XII.18.2). Before Jon can retaliate against Veidt, they are shown various world news broadcasts stating that because of the recent disaster in New York, the world was suspending all hostilities. Veidt celebrates his victory, and although the things Veidt had to do were horrible, Dr. Manhattan, Dan, and Laurie decide to keep quiet. Meanwhile, Rorschach, following his rule to never compromise even in the face of armageddon, is heading back to "Archie" so that he can go tell the people of the world what Adrian Veidt had done. Jon begs him to reconsider, just this once, but Rorschach decides that he's rather die than compromise, so he makes Dr. Manhattan vaporize him. Dr. Manhattan goes back inside to Dan and Laurie, now asleep after making love, and leaves them with a contented smile. He goes and finds Adrian Veidt, and after a brief discussion, Dr. Manhattan tells Ozymandias of his plans to leave Earth for another galaxy to go create new life, as his final words are, "Nothing ever ends" (XII.27.5). With the crisis over, Laurie and Dan, who have changed their identities to "Mr. & Mrs. Hollis", visit Laurie’s mother. Laurie tells her mom that she knows that Edward Blake, The Comedian, was her biological father, and that she has come to terms with that being the case and bears no grudges whatsoever. The editor of the New Frontiersman is angry about a lack of material to use in the day's paper. He halfheartedly agrees with one of his employee's suggestion to find some material in the crank file. Alan Moore's Watchmen ends as we see his hand hovering over Rorschach's journal, poised to take it.