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Panel 2: Veidt’s comment that the Comedian’s
“…practiced cynicism cracked…” when confronted with the truth of Veidt’s plans
is emphasized by Dave Gibbons’s visuals, as the Comedian is smashed into a
mirror, cracking it into myriad
shards of glass.
Panel 4: Veidt’s remark that the Comedian’s discovery
of this plan “…drove the wind from his sails…” is accentuated by the image of
the Comedian struggling to catch his breath and regain his composure in this
panel. This remark also hearkens back to
the Black Freighter comic and the
truth the protagonist in that horror discovered.
Panel 6: “At the end, he understood.” This remark is made over an image of the
Comedian just before he is thrown to his death – the blood spatter on his
smiley-face pin bringing the entire narrative full circle.
Panel 7: The
portents commented upon by Veidt in
this panel can be seen as a meta-commentary on all of the symbolism and
foreshadowing that Moore & Gibbons have included within Watchmen. The final portent is the flying elephant
(advertising for the Gunga Diner) seen in the sky in the very center of this
panel and mirrored by Veidt’s edification that humanity was “…rushing to join
the mastodon…in extinction…” even as these secondary characters rush toward
their own personal extinction at this intersection – a smaller extinction (relatively
speaking) that Veidt hopes will herald in the extinction of the hostility and
war-mongering that has plagued humanity for so long.
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