A brand new trailer for the upcoming HBO Watchmen series just dropped at San Diego Comic Con,
and it’s filled with a whole lot of exciting stuff for fans of Alan Moore and Dive Gibbon’s
comic masterpiece.
Set to be released this October, up until now, we haven’t been informed of too many
details surrounding the show.
While this trailer leaves us asking even more questions, it has answered some of them, and
dropped in a whole lot of little references and easter eggs that fans of the comics will
especially enjoy.
If you’re unfamiliar with Watchmen, or watched the Synder film but haven’t read the comic,
this video is for you; we break down all of the easter eggs and references that will be
important to the series plot (or at least what we know of it now).
So let’s get to it!
The Alien Monster Let’s start off our list with an easter
egg that appears in the latter half of the trailer that largely informs the story world
of this Watchmen adaptation.
In a brief shot, we see a woman dressed in a judge’s garb pointing.
Next to her is a picture attached to a black background.
The picture is of an alien creature, one who looks very similar to the alien creature that
appeared at the end of the Watchmen series.
Ozymandias, one of the members of the Crimebusters team, a hero revealed to be the big bad at
the end of the series, concocted a plan to achieve world peace, end the energy crisis
and prevent a nuclear war between nations.
He created monsters that ravaged various cities across the globe, bringing nations together
over a common extraterrestrial enemy.
Why is this important?
This proves that this series will live outside of the Watchmen film directed by Zach Synder,
where instead of alien creatures, Ozymandias manipulates the situation so that it appears
that Doctor Manhattan was the culprit, and he was the one who attacked all of these countries.
Hooded Justice The trailer first begins with a character
bursting through the glass of a shop to take on a robber holding up a grocery store in
the 50s.
This character is Hooded Justice.
He was a member of the Minute Men, the predecessors of the team that came before the one the protagonists
of Watchmen were a part of (called the Crimebusters).
Hooded Justice was a controversial character; he never revealed his true identity, was rumoured
to have been a Nazi who escaped after world war 2 and came to the US, and was gay, secretly
in love with his teammate Captain Metropolis.
He was also assumed to be a German strong man, but it was never confirmed.
He was also incredibly protective of the women on the team.
He was known for his brutal treatment of criminals, and would disappear in 1955.
Ozymandias investigated into his disappearance, and believed that the Comedian may have found
him and murdered him.
There is also a panel in Watchmen in which Dan and Laurie meet in a restaurant, and it’s
assumed that two men who appear in the restaurant could very well have been Hooded Justice and
Captain Metropolis thanks to their resemblance.
We then see after the title card that on a taxi, there’s been a comedy show made about
the minutemen, called American Hero story, hence why Hooded Justice doesn’t have a
German accent in the show that appears on that tv screen.
He also appears on a giant bus ad later on in the trailer.
Beans While we don’t know much about this replace
Walter Kovac’s Rorschach character – an individual who wears a silver head mask and
presumably will act as a foil to the merciless vigilante whom was killed by Doctor Manhattan
over threatening to expose the truth behind Ozymandias’ plan – we do know that, just
like Kovacs, he likes eating beans out of a can.
This is something that Rorschach did in Watchmen, most famously when he took beans out of the
second Nite Owl’s kitchen, Dan Dreiberg, and Dan found his vigilante pal eating them
uncooked with a spoon when he returned home.
Ozymandias is Dead As we mentioned earlier, Ozymandias aka Adrian
Veidt was revealed to be the real villain at the end of Watchmen, although, that was
only to Rorschach, Nite Owl, Silk Spectre and Doctor Manhattan.
The rest of the world never found out, but the story ended on the possibility that one
day, the general public might learn of the truth, all thanks to Kovac having mailed his
journal to a newspaper prior to his death.
To everyone else, Veidt is a successful businessman and icon.
And according to this newspaper headline, he’s dead.
Jeremy Irons is set to play Veidt, and appears in the trailer later on, including in one
shot with what we can assume is a birthday cake, so we’re taking a shot in the dark
here and speculating a fan theory; the story for the show might shadow the original Watchmen,
beginning the story with Veidt’s mysterious death, and a new group of vigilantes, likely
Regina King’s character, stepping up to uncover the truth.
It’s also worth noting that the headline reads ‘veidt officially declared dead’,
and doesn’t state what happened, or what year it is.
But we also can see a headline that reads Vandalism Forces statue of liberty closure.
We Will Whisper No There’s a scene in a police station in which
we see a bunch of masked officers, who are part of the Tulsa Police, watching a video
of Rorschach look-a-likes, who are part of a new rebellious group bent on following the
ideologies of the original Walter Kovacs.
It’s safe to assume that Kovac’s journal did make it out to the public, not only to
inspire this kind of insurgence, but to the point where they take his words as gospel.
The line we will whisper no is a direct quote of Rorschach’s from the very beginning of
Watchmen, from his first journal entry that we read in the comic.
It’s worth noting that the police are actually law enforcement, watching the return of this
gang they assumed were gone.
It’s revealed in voice over that the cops hide their faces because of a coordinated
attack that occurred in the past against police officers from this gang; Regina King’s character
and her family are victims of this attack.
The Flag Midway through the trailer, we see a shot
of someone riding by on a horse, and attached to a scythe, the traditional weapon of the
grim reaper, is a very important flag.
The one from the tales of the black freighter, the comic story that is intercut between the
original Watchmen comics, a microcosms of the Adrian Veidt’s story, which parallels
much of what’s happening in Watchmen’s world as the story progresses.
Doctor Manhattan The original Watchmen series ended with Doctor
Manhattan deciding to go off and create life of his own.
During the story, after Veidt has framed him as the reason why several individuals who
used to be close to him got cancer (as a means of getting him out of the way for his plan
to succeed), Manhattan goes to Mars, and apparently, that’s where he went again.
Regina King’s character states he’s on Mars, and we see footage of him on a news
channel on the planet, with a subheading scrolling beneath stating that water was found on mars.
We also see the character in the trailer’s button, walking in a suit, with his blue hand
picking up a mask discarded on the street, made in his image.
Alright there we have it friends!
Are you excited for Watchmen?
What did you spot in the trailer?
Give us a shout in those comments below and let us know!