When I was reading Watchmen, Comedian (Edward Blake) always reminded me of Joker(as in Batman's villain Joker). Comedian is pretty much a Joker gone right - Think of Darknight's Joker (Heath Ledger, if you are not familiar with the comics version) and think imagine him playing a hero and doing good things but with the same sarcasm and most importantly the same view of the world, yeah thats what Comedian is!
Just like Darknight's Joker, Watchmen's Comedian understands the reality of the world, he knows to what level the human society has degraded, he realizes that people can do unimaginable things to save their own skin and he feels that the world is pretty much going down the drain (nuclear war resulting from USA - USSR cold war) for what it's worth (or not). And he then plays the hero with
that understanding! That means that he is overly sarcastic, takes it all as a game, lacks a sense of responsibility (and direction) and doesn't really follow any ethical and moral rules! I guess the closest real life representation would be the typical gluttonous Roman general - materialistic, rotting, given to his desires, lacking an sense of responsibility, observing the world with absolute disrespect and.....oh wait I don't really hate either Comedian or Roman generals hehe, thats just a view of comedian's psychology.I think in the Watchmen itself the closest character to that of Comedian would be Rorschach. This is because Rorschach also has a very similar view of the world - rotting, diseased, selfish. But the main difference is that Rorschach does have that sense
of responsibility that Comedian so sorely lacks. Basically they both know that the world is totally screwed, but Rorschach is able to limit his view to what he must do, playing superhero acts as a temporary vent for his psychological outbursts, guilt, anger and more, he feels compelled because of the state of the world to do what he does. Comedian though on the other hand hasn't internalized it all, the way Rorschach has done, he cheats his emotions by just taking a funny outlook towards it all; in other words, he simply laughs at it all and gets on with his life (while Rorschach is pained by it and vents it by fighting crime). Comedian obviously needs a bigger example to go through the phase that Rorschach went in the time of the little girl's kidnapping case and Comedian gets that example when he learns about Ozymandias' murderous plan to save the world. Perhaps that would have acted as a transition point for Comedian had he stayed alive long enough to come back to the real world (that is, out of alcohol induced forget-it-all phase). We will never know.....
If you don't happen to know who or what Rorschach is, this is your luck day - Click here for a brief overview of Rorschach in Watchmen
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