Reading through Chapter Nine, I found myself particularly interested in the developments of the Comedian as a character. Since it is his death that starts the book and his image (the smiling pin) that graces the cover, we know right off the bat that he’s obviously of paramount importance to the story, though he is dead in the comic’s active plotline–a fact that is mostly negated by the prevalence of flashbacks throughout the book anyway. Chapter Nine, however, reveals a side of him you haven’t gotten to see before this point.

Early in Watchmen we encounter Edward Blake as a symbol of a lot of the things that are frightening about superheroes: a power-hungry, forced-based individual with little qualms doing things that make him seem far more like a super villain than a hero. Now, though, we get a chance to see another side of him. He’s capable of what appears to be at least rudimentary fondness towards his daughter, and even perhaps the woman he tried to rape earlier in the story. His repeating of the “you’re beautiful… like your mother” line gives the sense that he holds Sally in some regard still, though their actual interactions are always rough in the books. Sally herself defends him some to her husband, saying that he was capable of gentleness towards her.

Edward Blake is not a sympathetic character. His insistence that he tried to rape a woman “only once” cements this again in the moment you might be tempted to waver a little and forget his horrific crimes. He is, however, a complicated one and an interesting one, striking a chord of reality that is a bit disconcerting. There are levels to him that his chapter makes you explore that make him less comfortable to hate him, and that just goes along with the genuine theme in Watchmen of nothing being entirely black and white… as much as Rorschach may see otherwise.