Comedian

Edward Blake, a cynical government-sanctioned vigilante, first joined the original Minutemen in the 1940s before later operating as a licensed agent of the U.S. government. His brutal worldview shaped him into one of the most morally complex figures in the Watchmen universe.

Few characters in comics history have made such a searing impression across so relatively few appearances as the Comedian, who first darkened the pages of DC's Watchmen #2 in 1986 — one of the most celebrated debuts of the Copper Age. A morally complex, unforgettable figure, he shares his world with icons like Nite Owl, Silk Spectre, and Ozymandias, and his presence looms large enough to anchor not one but two Before Watchmen prequel series dedicated to exploring the era he inhabited. That a character with just 27 catalog appearances has sustained reader fascination across 34 years — right through to Detective Comics — speaks to how indelibly Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons burned him into the DNA of modern comics storytelling.