The Watchmen

The Watchmen and The Tales of the Black Freighter interweave to form a complete narrative, revealing character motivations, thoughts, and likely conclusions. The Watchmen is a work rich with symbolism, social themes, and thought provoking concepts. The Tales of the Black Freighter is a comic within the comic, and tackles similarly profound topics. Adrian Veidt from the Watchmen, known as his superhero name Ozymandias, was an industrialist genius who used his unique talents to build an empire. Veidt was a renowned celebrity known for his intelligence, handsomeness, elegance, business savvy, and his past career as a masked vigilante. The mariner was a pirate attack survivor from The Tales of the Black Freighter who only wanted to save his family. Both men desired to save their home, Earth and Davidstown respectively, and were willing to do whatever was necessary. Though superficially different, the journey of the mariner closely follows the path of Adrian Veidt. Both men experience very similar opposition and struggles, culminating in an all too similar conclusion.
The Tales of the Black Freighter was a popular pirate comic series in the fictional “Watchmen” universe. It was written by Max Shea, whose popularity began with the thirty issue pirate series and continued into his novel writing career. “Marooned,” a two-part storyline, was the most popular story from the series. In the Watchmen, a youth named Bernard read the second half of the first issue and the second issue on a New York street corner. The story detailed a mariner marooned by the pirates of the Black Freighter, who becomes obsessed with returning to his home of Davidstown to warn of the impending pirate attack. After he built a raft made of fallen shipmates, he slowly descended into madness on his journey back. After braving the ocean and its perils, he arrived back to his hometown in a daze, culminating in a disturbing twist of fate. The major events of this story parallel the same struggles and