10 Comic Books Where Evil Won

There's not much else that could be said about Watchmen that hasn't been said already, but it is important to clarify one thing in particular before diving into discussion surrounding its ending.

No, Rorschach is not the hero of Watchmen. He's a superhero satire and a psychotic Randian paragon, and he's also far from the martyr some readers have wrongly painted him as in discussions surrounding the comic. So, let's get stuck into it.

Watchmen concludes just as the United States and the Soviet Union teeter on the edge of nuclear conflict. Nite-Owl and Rorschach discover that Ozymandias has devised a secret plan to bring about world peace that will in itself result in the deaths of thousands: dropping a fake alien squid in the middle of New York in order to get the world powers to work together against a fake alien threat.

Ozymandias' actions are evil, no matter how well intentioned, but the heroes stand to lose more from immediately exposing his conspiracy than they do if they just go along, as it could reopen the prospect of open nuclear conflict, and so they all, bar Rorschach, agree to keep it secret. The only alternative in that moment, which Rorschach doesn't realise, would lead to countless more deaths.

That said, no matter his beliefs or intentions, Ozymandias still commits an unquestionably evil act. Evidence presented in the text suggests that his recourse wasn't necessary either, and if we are to take Doomsday Clock and HBO's Watchmen as true sequels, Ozymandias' scheme gets exposed anyway, making him both a mass murderer and the world's dumbest smart person.