It starts with rain. Cold, greasy, New York rain slicking the pavement while a man in a mask scrapes a blood-stained badge out of the gutter. If you pick up Watchmen Chapter 1 today, you aren't just reading a comic book. You are looking at the exact moment the superhero genre grew up, got cynical, and decided to stop pretending that wearing spandex was a sign of mental health.
Most people remember the movie or the HBO show, but the original 1986 debut by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons is a different beast entirely. It’s dense. It’s claustrophobic. Honestly, it’s a bit of a slap in the face to anyone who grew up loving the Justice League. You have this character, the Comedian, who gets thrown out of a high-rise window in the first few pages. He’s a "hero," but he’s also a monster. That’s the hook. That is the tension that makes this single issue a masterclass in visual storytelling.
The Death of Edward Blake and the End of the Dream
When you look at the opening of Watchmen Chapter 1, the first thing that hits you is the 9-panel grid. Dave Gibbons didn't do splash pages. He didn't do those giant, cinematic spreads that modern Marvel comics love. Instead, he traps you. Every page is a wall of nine small boxes, forcing you to look at the grime. You see the blood on the street. You see the "The End is Nigh" sign held by a guy who looks like he hasn't showered in a month.
Detective Fine and Joe Bourquin are investigating the murder of Edward Blake. They don't know he's the Comedian yet. Or maybe they do, and they just don't care. The dialogue is snappy but heavy with dread. Moore writes these guys like they’ve seen too many bodies and drank too much bad coffee. The mystery isn't just "who killed him?" It’s "why does it feel like the whole world is about to die with him?"
The Comedian represented the American Dream gone sour. He was the government’s wetwork guy. He did the dirty jobs in Vietnam. He did the dirty jobs in the states. By killing him off in the first act of Watchmen Chapter 1, Moore tells the reader that the old guard is finished. The protection is gone. If the guy who does the killing for the President can be murdered in his own apartment, nobody is safe. Not you, not the masked vigilantes, and certainly not the millions of people living under the shadow of a nuclear clock.
Rorschach and the Journal of a Madman
Then we get Rorschach.
He is the heartbeat of this chapter, even if that heartbeat is irregular and terrifying. His internal monologue—presented as snippets from his journal—is legendary. "The streets are extended gutters and the gutters are full of blood and when the drains finally scab over, all the vermin will drown." It’s poetic. It’s also completely unhinged.
Rorschach represents the "street-level" perspective of this world. While the elites are worrying about nuclear war, he’s worrying about the moral rot of the city. He breaks into Blake’s apartment. He finds the secret compartment. He finds the costume. This is where the plot of Watchmen Chapter 1 shifts from a standard police procedural into a conspiracy thriller. Rorschach thinks someone is "picking off" masked heroes. He calls it "mask killer." He’s paranoid, but as the saying goes, even paranoids have enemies.
The World-Building You Probably Missed
The genius of Moore and Gibbons is in the background. If you’re just reading the speech bubbles, you’re missing half the story. Look at the posters. Look at the headlines on the newsstands. In this version of 1985, Richard Nixon is still President. The Vietnam War was won because of a god-like being named Dr. Manhattan. Electric cars are everywhere because Manhattan can synthesize the materials.
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But the atmosphere is suffocating.
There’s a specific detail in Watchmen Chapter 1 that always sticks with me. It’s the "Gunga Diner" signs and the "Nostalgia" perfume ads. These aren't just random set dressings. They tell us that the world is obsessed with the past because the future looks like a mushroom cloud. People are buying perfume that smells like "better times" because they think they’re going to be vaporized by Tuesday.
Meeting Dan Dreiberg: The Retired Hero
Rorschach goes to see Dan Dreiberg, the second Nite Owl. This scene is the emotional core of the chapter. Dan is soft now. He’s retired. He’s got a bit of a gut, and he’s nostalgic for the "good old days" when they used to fight colorful villains instead of worrying about geopolitics.
The contrast is wild.
Rorschach is a walking shadow.
Dan is a guy in a cardigan drinking tea.
When Rorschach tells him Blake is dead, Dan is shaken. They reminisce, but it’s awkward. It’s like two high school teammates meeting up twenty years later, only one of them is still wearing his varsity jacket and the other one is a wanted criminal. This interaction sets up the theme of obsolescence. What do heroes do when they aren't allowed to be heroes anymore? The Keene Act of 1977 outlawed costumes. Most of them quit. Some, like the Comedian and Manhattan, went to work for the government. Rorschach just went underground.
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The Visual Language of the Smiley Face
You can't talk about Watchmen Chapter 1 without talking about that button. The yellow smiley face with the splash of red.
In 1986, the smiley face was a symbol of vapid, corporate "have a nice day" optimism. Putting blood on it was a massive middle finger to the status quo. It’s the visual metaphor for the entire series: the bright, colorful world of superheroes being stained by the reality of human violence.
Gibbons uses a technique called "the graphic match." We see the blood on the button, and then we see the blood on the sidewalk. We see the shape of a drain, and then we see the shape of the button. It creates a subconscious link between everything. The murder of one man is linked to the state of the city, which is linked to the fate of the world. It’s brilliant. It’s why this comic is studied in universities.
Why the Ending of Chapter 1 Changes Everything
The chapter doesn't end with a cliffhanger action sequence. There are no explosions. Instead, we get "Under the Hood."
These are prose excerpts at the back of the issue. They’re written from the perspective of Hollis Mason, the original Nite Owl. This was a radical move. Moore takes you out of the comic and makes you read a "real" memoir. It grounds the fantasy. You learn about the 1940s heroes, the Minutemen, and how they were basically just weirdos in homemade outfits.
By the time you finish the first issue, you realize this isn't a story about powers. It’s a story about people who are fundamentally broken.
Actionable Insights for Reading (or Re-reading) Watchmen
If you’re going back to Watchmen Chapter 1, do yourself a favor and slow down. Don't rush to get to the "cool parts." The cool parts are on every single page.
- Follow the Colors: John Higgins, the colorist, used a limited palette of secondary colors (purples, oranges, greens). Notice how these colors create a sickly, unnatural feeling compared to the primary reds and blues of traditional Superman comics.
- Read the Background: Every newspaper headline matters. They track the escalation of the Cold War and the public's hatred of "masks."
- Watch the Clock: The "Doomsday Clock" motif starts here. Pay attention to how often clocks or circular shapes appear. It’s a literal countdown.
- Compare the Prose: Read the "Under the Hood" section carefully. It provides the historical context that explains why the public turned on the heroes in the first place.
The Impact of the First Issue
Honestly, the superhero landscape would look totally different without this specific 28-page intro. Before this, "dark and gritty" was just a gimmick. Moore made it a philosophy. He asked: "If these people were real, would we actually like them?" The answer in Watchmen Chapter 1 is a resounding no.
The Comedian was a rapist and a nihilist. Rorschach is a right-wing extremist with zero social skills. Ozymandias (who we meet briefly in photos) is an elitist with a god complex. These aren't role models. They are warnings.
The first chapter succeeds because it treats the reader like an adult. It assumes you can handle a story where the hero is dead on page two and the guy investigating it is a lunatic. It’s a dense, difficult, and beautiful piece of literature that happens to have word bubbles.
To get the most out of your experience with the series, treat it like a puzzle. The first chapter gives you all the pieces; you just have to be willing to look at the blood in the gutter to find them. Keep a close eye on the transition between the past and the present throughout the panels, as the "match cuts" Moore and Gibbons use are designed to show that the sins of the 1940s are directly causing the apocalypse of 1985. Check the dates on Rorschach's journal entries against the events in the background news reports to see just how tightly the timeline is constructed. This isn't just a comic; it's a clockwork mechanism.
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