The man who would take the name Ozymandias as a costumed superhero is an altruist, but also a pragmatist. He gives his parents colossal fortune to charity due to the repugnance he feels at how they made their money, but also because he has total confidence that hes capable of restoring his finances should he need to. Believing that his intellectual genius gives him a responsibility to his fellow man to improve their lot, he takes on a personal war on crime as a teenager, but broadens the scope of his remit as he realises the scale of crime in the modern world. He successfully predicts the turning of public opinion away from costumed vigilantes, and outs himself before he can be damaged by the fallout. More than that, he predicts that a nuclear world war is inevitable, and determines that he has an obligation to prevent it by uniting the feuding countries of the world. As Alexander the Great did by conquest, so Ozymandias intends to do by subterfuge. He orchestrates a series of events that cause the worlds only true superhuman to be blamed for a series of appalling disasters and the loss of millions of lives, causing the governments of the world to abandon their infighting and join forces to protect themselves from the outside threat. Its certainly a more interesting and logically consistent idea than the plan his comics counterpart has: dumping a giant psychic squid monster in the middle of New York and telling everyone that the aliens are coming. But its the little things as well as the grand schemes, like organising a genuine attempt on his own life to throw people off the scent. When his erstwhile teammates come to stop him, Veidt makes sure to have set the final wheels in motion half an hour before they get there. So convinced is he that those wheels cant be stopped, that his plan is foolproof, that he lets the others go, knowing that theres nothing they can or will do to reveal his actions to the outside world. The irony, of course, is that its fools that may be his undoing. The unhinged, uncompromising Rorschach has left evidence of Veidts involvement with a right wing tabloid newspaper. Not that hed ever let them stop him
Professional writer, punk werewolf and nesting place for starfish. Obsessed with squid, spirals and story. I publish short weird fiction online at desincarne.com, and tweet nonsense under the name Jack The Bodiless. You can follow me all you like, just don't touch my stuff.
