Watchmen is an interesting concept. It is based on the concept that the Superheroes live in an alternate reality to our own, where they live amongst the humans as normal and no-one bats an eyelid. To the humans the only one of the “watchmen” or superheroes with any obvious visible super powers is Dr Manhattan and he becomes a government agent working alongside another superhero, The Comedian. This is after the superheroes have become unpopular with the humans and a law is passed banning them (plot for Incredible’s anyone?)

Unfortunately for The Comedian (aka Edward Blake) someone murders him. The police have no leads (isn’t that always the way?) and so another superhero (Rorschach) decides to investigate himself. Upon discovering that Blake was The Comedian, he very wrongly believes there is a plot to kill superheroes and warns some of his old friends. After the funeral of Blake, someone goes on television and accuses Dr Manhattan of being the cause of cancer in his friends. Unfortunately for him, the government take this seriously and so he decides he needs to leave Earth and find somewhere else to live. He decides on Mars. After he leaves Earth, everything starts going wrong. Russia invades Afghanistan, someone tries to kill another of the superheroes and Rorschach is framed for a murder of an ex-super villain. He escapes from prison and continues to investigate the allegations against Dr Manhattan with another former superhero. They believe that one of their old friends is actually behind everything as the evidence mounts. Rorschach writes their suspicions and evidence down in his journal and mails it to a newspaper.

Meanwhile back on Mars, Dr Manhattan has looked into his past and is bored. He feels that he needs something in his life again and needs to have his fate decided by someone else. To that end he teleports his ex-lover to Mars. They argue, during the course of which she discovers that Blake was her biological father.

When he is confronted, the former superhero admits he has been plotting but he says that his plan will save humans from themselves and nuclear war by him faking an alien invasion to the planet – and thereby forcing nations to work together. He also admits that he murdered The Comedian, gave cancer to the friends of Dr Manhattan and staged the attempt on his own life so that his plan would not be stopped. Eventually Manhattan and his lover return from Mars to see that the violence has stopped as everyone is working together against the new threat. They decide not to tell everyone that it is fake and leave them to work alongside each other in harmony, united by the common goal.

Rorschach does disagree and tries to stop it all, but is killed by Dr Manhattan to keep the secret from being revealed. At the end, we do see that his journal is about to be read.

You can be any of the Watchmen with our range of outfits, depending on which you choose to be.