Before Watchmen

A 2012 comic book series by DC Comics, serving as prequel to Watchmen.

The series is divided between seven titles(Rorschach, Minutemen, Dr. Manhattan, Comedian, Silk Spectre, Nite Owl, and Ozymandias), a two-shot about Mordoch and one-shot about Dollar Bill.

Along with stories about the characters of Watchmen before...well,Watchmen,each issue feature a two-page instalment of Curse of the Crimson Corsair, inspired by the Show Within a Show Tales of the Black Freighter of the original Watchmen.

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Before Watchmen provides examples of:

• Achilles Heel: Normally having a lie as your weakness would be a Weaksauce Weakness, but as Veidt says in Dr Manhattan, even the slightest change in his heartbeat could set off Dr. Manhattan about his true intentions about Manhattan's energy.
• The Alcoholic: Byron Lewis's way of dealing with the stress of being a superhero and using a very dangerous gimmick along it. The alcohol eventually breaks him to the point he is sent to a mental institution.
• All of the Other Reindeer: Moloch was discriminated by his freakish appearance in school, and even his parents gave him no more than the minimal care.
• All the Myriad Ways: Dr. Manhattan sees several,several,several possibilities for each possible interaction of the facts in his own series, like different presidents, different results for the assassination of JFK, and different personal events for people near him like Eddie Blake. Including a future where he don't turns into a Physical God.
• A Million Is a Statistic: Discussed. Hollis Roman writes in his book about how a woman called Gretchen taught him how mankind can only endure the horrible truths of the world while they seem distant. First he mentions in the simplest way possible the Holocaust: the nazis killed six million of jews. He comments how that sounds solemn, monstrous but your mind can manage it. Cues a more detailed description of several crimes that Nazi committed in the concentration camps. Hollis concludes questioning how much of this cruel stories a human can hear before falling into despair.
• Antagonistic Offspring: In Minutemen, The "Scout" and "Bluecoat" were, respectively, grandson and son of one of the japanese terrorists whose plan they work(and die) to prevent.
• Ascended Fanboy:
  • Dan, the second Night Owl, idolised the first one, and his bedroom was full of merch of the guy.
  • The "Scout" was a japanese kid that had the idea of him and his father take the mantle of the fictional superheroes so they could call for the help of the Minutemen.
• Badass Gay: Hooded Justice, Captain Metropolis, and the Silhouette. Gretchen has a moment in her flashback.
• Bathos: The memory of a certain man wearing fake breasts returns to Hollis in maybe his worst moment(engaging into a fight with the apparently Evil All Along Hooded Justice, that is overwhelming him). The sheer randomness of that one panel makes it as much effective in mixing comedy and tragedy as the original Moe Vernon's story in Watchmen.
• The Beard: Sally for Hooded Justice, as clearly Silhouette has problems trying to act like Larry want her to act, and Sally had none.
• Beat Them At Their Own Game: In Comedian, seemingly frustrated at the american campaign on Vietnam, Eddie Blake decides to use an unusual tactic that he believes that will give the americans a shot towards definitive victory:be just as ruthless as the enemy.
• Berserk Button: What would drive Dan Dreiberg to use torture? Hurting a woman. Considering he sees the image of his father beating up his mother when Taylor Dean is almost going to kill the Twilight Lady, it's pretty much a Freudian Excuse.
• Big Bad:Some series have one of these:
  • In Nite Owl,Reverend Taylor Dean.
  • In Rorschach,Rawhead.
  • In Silk Specter, The Chairman.
• Big Shadow, Little Creature:Parodied. We already knew Veidt isn't that much higher than Moloch, but his figure and shadow seems humongous when talking to Moloch about the latter been seeking "redemption", to represent how much Veidt, with all his colossal...self, practically reduces Moloch to a microbe compared to him. When the title of the issue appears, we can see Veidt is actually very close to Moloch, and the fact that the sun is in the sunset is what makes his shadow seems bigger.
• Bodyguard Babes: The Shake Sisters serve as this for The Chairman in Silk Spectre.
• Bond One-Liner: In Silk Specter, of all people of all the situations, from a bus driver after he accidentally hits a bleeding killer, splashing the front of the bus with a big pool of blood..and bones:

That's a whole new way to paint the bus!

• Bond Villain Stupidity: Rawhead from Rorschach don't even bothers to take Rorschach's mask off because he wants the cops to find the masked corpse and make himself famous.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: In the final issue of Comedian, The CIA creates a brainwashed assassin in order to kill Bobby Kennedy.
• Breaking the Fellowship: The Minutemen scattered themselves through years, but the definite moment that their last members separate from each other completely is after maybe their biggest deed is covered by the government, that destroys what remains of Captain Metropolis' enthusiasm.
• Bring My Brown Pants:
  • Dollar Bill pisses himself during his first real fight along the Minutemen.
  • Hooded Justice manages to do cause this on a criminal.
• Broken Pedestal: Averted, but barely, in Nite Owl. Hollis did something that almost made Dan sees him as one, but reflecting in how much he inspired him as a child to become the crime fighter of the present, Hollis not only regains devotion but says to Hollis he's still a hero for him despite it.
• Call Forward: In Nite Owl, we discover from where Rorschach got his famous "The End Is Nigh" sign. And not is only restricted at him finding the thing, he uses the damn object as Improvised Weapon to take out the Big Bad!.
• Cape Snag: The infamous moment in Dolar Bill that cost our hero's life.
• Casual Danger Dialog: In Nite Owl, Rorschach casually talks with Dan about the case while on fire. In fact, he seems so little bothered by the flames that he combos this trope with Stealth Hi Bye.
• The Chains of Commanding: Veidt invokes this on himself, even quoting Henry IV,as he decides to kill Blake by himself:

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.

• Caught with Your Pants Down: In the first issue of his series, Rorschach kicks down the door on a crook while he is in a booth watching erotic movies.
• Chekhov's Gun: In Minutemen,Hollis remembers a earlier remark by Eddie just in time to kill Hooded Justice:

"What kind of stupid shit fights crime with a noose around his neck?"

• Christianity Is Catholic: Averted in Moloch. Moloch mentions he could have tried other faiths but was drawn to Catholicism for various reasons, like the Latin texts and a chance for redemption
• Combat Stilettos: Sally uses them as Minutemen, until her Let's Get Dangerous moment.
• The Comically Serious: Veidt's accidental creation of Bubastis and subsequent scenes with the then little cat are made even more hilarious than it should be thanks to the utterly stoic tone that Veidt uses when talking to his assistant he needs a very large supply of kitty litter for the newborn cat and that he needs to change his shirt because Bubastis pissed on him.
• Crimefighting with Cash: Dan, is he ever.
• Coming of Age Story:Silk Specter serve as one for Laurie, as she clashes with her parental figure, discovers love,sex and first assumes the role she would take up as adult: a costumed hero.
• Curb Stomp Battle: Hollis vs Eddie dressed as Hooded Justice.Hollis ends up with his ribs broken and struggles to walk afterwards.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Silhouette. It is even more enforced because she's more heroic than Sally, that wears a shining and bright outfit.
• Deadpan Snarker: One of the advantages of the prequel is seeing Rorschach stoically joke about Laurie's costume giving Dan a boner.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Though you can blame it on his age and the horrible bullying he suffered, Moloch coldly kills a boy and then put his dead body on his crush's bed solely because he heard she was tricking him into thinking she actually liked him so she could humiliate him later.
• Dissonant Serenity: Reverend Taylor Dean remains very calm while his church burns. Of course, he was the one who set it on fire in first place, and is a religious nut, so it's not that surprising.
• Distant Finale: The final of Rorschach jumps five years ahead, after Bard is acquitted from a prison by a jury of his peers after committing another rape but leaving the victim alive. Of course, Walter Kovacs will have none of it.
• Domestic Abuse: Dan's dad abuses his mother.
• Don't Make Me Destroy You: In the final issue of Minutemen, Hooded Justice threatens Nite Owl and Mothman to leave him alone after they first attack him in the abandoned Minutemen tower, and Justice easily takes out Byron. Hollis refuses. Cues Final Battle.
• Don't Make Me Take My Belt Off: Dan returns to home one day to see his father beating up his mother with a belt.
• Dramatic Irony: In the Silk Specter's ending, when Laurie enters the room for the first reunion of the Crimebusters, while some of the comments are accurate about the other people on other room,she comments that she never would go out with Dan, with whom she enters in a relationship in Watchmen, and that Eddie looks like somebody's "old man", that Eddie is.Hers.
• Driven to Madness: In the Moloch two-shot. Without giving any context, let's just say that a dead body on her bed don't makes wonders for a girl's mental health. Cues 10 years on a mental asylum.
• Driven to Suicide: In Comedian, one of Eddie's soldiers commit suicide after realizing he is much probably powerless to stop Eddie's carnage and cruelty, and that was something he couldn't endure any more.
• Due to the Dead: Dolar Bill's funeral, where the remaining Minutemen attend, in costume, and Metropolis delivers the eulogy. The sequence of events established through different series determines that Sally got dressed up again after quitting to attend his funeral. Byron wonders if Bill's heroics were all for nothing and he will be forgotten in six months, but Nelson laughs it off and shows him a bunch of kids playing with one of them as Dollar Bill and other as thieves, saying that he'll still be remembered.
• Dysfunction Junction: Deconstructed. The Minutemen simply struggle to work as a group because of their dysfunctions, and it don't helps that some are more interested in glory and fame than actual heroism.
• Enfant Terrible: Moloch commits his first murder as a preteen.
• Engineered Heroics: Thanks to a bad source, the Minutemen end up blow up a warehouse full of smuggled fireworks, instead of stopping Italian fascists of bringing weapons to USA. Metropolis covers everything up.
• Epic Fail: Bubastis was somehow created from Veidt's first try in creating an Eldritch Abomination-looking creature using genetic engineering. Mind you, when she is born, it is as a adorable little kitten. More farther from the target would be impossible.
• Even Evil Has Standards: As Eddie reveals in the last issue of Minutemen,Rolf Mueler was kicked out of the Nazi party because he was too sick for them.
• Eye Scream: In Silk Specter, the Chairman shoots Spades through his glasses in his right eye.
• Foreshadowing: In Nite Owl, Hollis did something so horrible in his life that he almosts becomes a Broken Pedestal for Dan and, if his biography is ever published unedited, possibly will really turn him into one to the whole world. What is this is revealed in the final issue of Minutemen.
• Friendly Enemy: In the middle of busting inside one of Moloch's operations, Eddie finds Moloch watching the TV with tears on his eyes.It was the day where JFK was shot. Eddie immediately stops on his tracks and shares his sadness with Moloch, even casually talking with him to ask if he really did commit the crimes that made Eddie be called to deal with him.
• The Generation Gap: As expected from a story set in the 60's,Silk Specter's plot is set off by the conflict between Laurie and Sally, a adult that lived through WWII and a baby-boomer, mother and daughter.
• Genius Bruiser: Who else but Adrian Veidt? After all, he don't would be the apex of the human race without both a perfect mind and body.
• Good Samaritan: A woman from the Islands Solomon helps Eddie in the war when gets wounded in battle with a japanese sniper.
• Gory Discretion Shot: Whatever Sally did to Liquidator, we only see a limp hand on the side of a tub.
• The Greatest Story Never Told: The Minutemen prevent a nuclear meltdown on Liberty Island with the help of two individuals dressed as comic book heroes, one being a kid...And that story is never revealed because the american government didn't want to be embarrassed for failing to protect his own citizens in favour of a kid, that dies preventing the terrorist attack by exposing himself to radiation.
• Groin Attack: In Silk Specter,Laurie removes her boot from a criminal's throat when he complains he can't breathe, but pins him down by kneeling on his junk. When he complains about it, she retorts that she can kneel harder..
• Hard Work Montage: Of Moloch analysing what seems to be a scientific research while working for Veidt.
• Heel Face Turn: In Rorschach,Rawhead, after taking Rorschach's mask,Rawhead decides to become a vigilante and stop the looting happening on the blackout on New York because he no longer feels he has to be evil because of his appearance..
• Heel Faith Turn: Moloch turns a good leaf after becoming catholic in prison.
• Heel Realization:In Minutemen,the "Scout" and "Bluecoat" were survivors of the american internment camps for japanese that joined a terrorist plot out of hatred and revenge. However, before the plan is put on action, they decide to stop the plan by taking the mantle of fictional superheroes and asking for the help of real costumed superheroes, the Minutemen.
• He Knows Too Much: In Ozymandias,Veidt kills his assistant Marla once she outlives her usefulness to don't risk his plans.
• The Hero Dies: In Dollar's Bill one-shot, as his death was already determined and described in detail in Watchmen.
• Heroic Sacrifice: In Minutemen, the "Scout" dies preventing a nuclear meltdown in the Statue of Liberty planned and executed by a bunch of japanese revanchists at the cost of being himself exposed to radiation. Hollis comments that for the six seconds he was exposed his life was reduced to only more six days.
• Hypocritical Humor: In Silk Specter, a doctor lighting up a cigarette after just talking about the danger of drugs.
• I Let You Win: Ozymandias goes into a fight with the Comedian and lets the latter win so he could know exactly how he fought and operated.
• Impractically Fancy Outfit:
  • Dollar Bill's ridiculous uniform, specially the cape, that he complains it will restrict his movement. And it will, but no in the way he expected.
  • Hooded Justice's noose looks cool, but anyone can grab it and uses in his favor.Like Dollar Bill, the impractical detail of his outfit gets him killed.
• Improvised Weapon: In Nite Owl, Rorschach uses a object very known for readers of Watchmen to kill off the Big Bad. His "The End Is Nigh" sign..
• Incompatible Orientation: Hollis develops a crush for Ursula, but she's lesbian. Funnier when you think his successor was also a Dogged Nice Guy, but actually by a heterosexual girl.Legacy Character indeed.
• I Need a Freaking Drink: Eddie immediately asks for booze after Moloch reveals to him that JFK was shot.
• Infant Immortality: Averted,two times:
  • In the Minutemen series,a little girl that Silhouette tries to rescue from a group of child molesters gets shot, with the bullet passing through Silhouette's body in the girl's heart.
  • Later in the same series, the "Scout"(only a boy) dies preventing a nuclear meltdown on Liberty Island.
• In Medias Res: Issue #4 of Comedian begins like this, with soldiers arriving on a Vietnam village where horrible things seem to have happened...to both sides, and then shooting Eddie Blake before he kills an elder of the village.
• Impractically Fancy Outfit: The original people trying out for the job of mascot of the National Bank said the outfit looked gaudy (or said they look like a f** in it) and refuse the job, and though Bill agrees to wear it, he protests the cape as it would restrict movement. As we know, it would be his end.
• Intelligence Equals Isolation: Adrian Veidt isolates himself from other persons by trying to fully dedicate himself to his own project of self-improvement. It costs him dearly when he loses his girlfriend by not paying attention to her addiction to drugs.
• Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: Nite Owl interrogates a pimp called Carlos, whose hookers are disappearing, in a very...special way.
• Kangaroo Court: Invoked by Eddie, that calls Captain Metropolis "Captain Kangaroo Court" for putting a vote over expelling him from the Minutemen for trying to rape Sally.
• Kids Are Cruel: As seen in Moloch, where Edgar is cruelly discriminated even by his childhood crush.
• Kid Hero: InMinutemen, the "Scout", seeming to be a preteen boy, prevents a nuclear meltdown...at the cost of his own life.
• Knight Templar Parent: Laurie surely gained in the lottery:
  • Her own mother attacks her to see how good of a fighter she is.
  • Eddie attacks her boyfriend and forces him to go to Vietnam and write a "it's all my fault, don't search for me" letter to his daughter because he thinks he put her under risk.
• Large Ham: Veidt talks very enthusiastically while proposing to Moloch a "salvation", in a tone very different in Moloch from the Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness of his own series. He seems more like a neo-pentecostal shepard than a genius businessman.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Metropolis turned the Minutemen into national sensations and achieved the glory he so much sought by covering up the fact they didn't stop fascists smuggling weapons, but smugglers of fireworks. In the end, the Minutemen's greatest glory is also covered up, this time by the government, but this time Metropolis don't achieves any respect, and this breaks him and marks the end of the Minutemen.
• Let's Get Dangerous: You probably didn't think highly of Sally Jupiter before this series as a crime combatant, right?She ends up killing, and apparently brutally, Liquidator, as revenge for Silhouette.
• Let Them Die Happy: Hollis comforts "Scout" as he dies saying he has become a famous hero...but the truth is that the government of USA covers everything up to avoid the embarrassment for them that would be the news that a kid saved Liberty Island from a nuclear meltdown along a bunch of costumed superheroes.
• Life Imitates Art: Veidt got the idea for his rather infamous plan to save the humanity on Watchmen from a sci-fi TV series. Mind you, after reading sci-fi books after sci-fi book, and watch several television and films, as he says that being the smartest don't makes him the most creative. Incredibly, despite being the world's smartest man, he spends an inconsiderable amount of time hyper-analysing the episode searching to understand why the plan failed on fiction. It would be easier to discuss that with the writer(s), and surely a billionaire like Veidt could afford to search for him(they).
• Light Feminine and Dark Feminine: Sally and Ursula, emphasized by both their clothes and and hair color, and defined by their personality and backstories. Ironically, Ursula is far more heroic.
• Make It Look Like an Accident: In Ozymandias,Adrian Veidt's assistant Marla is seemingly killed by a bus so Veidt can't even take the risk of her somehow ruining his plans.
• Meaningful Name: Moloch named himself that after a god associated with the sacrifice of children.Because his magician's professional career began after he murdered a boy and ran away from home.
• Mook Horror Show: A criminal piss himself only by seeing Hooded Justice, and you almost feel pity for the guy when Hooded Justice throws him by the window.
• Mundane Utility: Downplayed. Moloch uses his abilities as magician to initiate his career as thief.
• My God, What Have I Done?:
  • Reverend Taylor Dean almost says it word-by-word after committing the first of many,many, many murders.
  • What finally gets Hollis to give in to the several demands for him to edit "Under The Hood" was Eddie revealing who Hooded Justice was innocent. His expression after that is one of disbelief and despair
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: The woman who helps Eddie in the war after he is wounded gets herself severely burned and her son dead by an american attack after Eddie tells his commandant general about the surviving japanese sniper on that area. Mind you, Eddie tries to save her, but when he arrives the place is already too late. And then she is killed by said general. As Eddie says, all her kindness was for nothing.
• Nominal Hero: Sally became an hero for the publicity.
• Not Quite Flight: Mothman's wings only allow him to glide, and at least one time failed him.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: Some boys from Liverpool appear in the Silk Spectre series. With british words and accent to not make you doubt that's not them.
• Parental Substitute: Hollis serves as this to Laurie.
• Posthumous Narration: The Dollar Bill one-shot is narrated by Bill from beyond the grave. He even narrates his own death.
• Precision F-Strike: The Minutemen series is poor in slurs, so when Eddie, despite being, well, Eddie, insults a general using the F-word, it comes off as this.
• Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: Hollis edits several parts of "Under The Hood" after Eddie reveals a cruel truth that crushes his spirit, but leaves on it Eddie's tentative of raping Sally, apparently under this reason.
• Really Seventeen Years Old: Eddie's rationale is that if he's old enough to fight crime, he is old enough to drink a beer.Let's no further discuss this.
• Right-Hand Attack Dog: Rawhead has a pet tiger, demonstrating that Veidt he isn't the only one in this universe that thought dogs were too small.
• Serial Killer: In Nite Owl,Reverend Taylor Dean began by killing one prostitute that tried to blackmail him but, after seeing her neighbours try to dissociate from her and her ahn,"activities", after Taylor burns the building to cover up his steps, he decides to well, kill any whore, of any sex, that he could find in his spare time. By the time Rorschach discovers it, there's enough bodies in the basement of the church Taylor uses to hide the bodies to form a extensive pile.
• Sinister Minister: In Nite Owl, Reverend Taylor Dean is the reverend of the church that Walter Kovacs, the Rorschach, frequents.One day, he sends Walter to bring some boxes of the sub-basement that apparently the reverend never lets one enter.It's full of corpses.
• Slave to PR:
  • InMinutemen, Sally refuses to help with depressing cases, because she wants the team's name (and her own) to be associated with happy, triumphant things in the minds of the public. Silhouette, already wearing black colours and not being exactly Mrs. Sympathy, don't care.
  • In Nite Owl, Rorschach advises against Nite Owl to be involved in a case involving prostitutes because it could hurt his kid-friendly image. Dan don't cares.
• Sophisticated As Hell: In Minutemen. Probably because Eddie was too young, he says to a general in WWII that is disrespectful to him because he's more of a propaganda element than a proper soldier:"With all due respect sir, go fuck yourself".
• Start of Darkness: The Moloch's two-shot shows how he became a criminal. It's surprisingly sudden: he goes from small thief(but even then, it was just a little bit of money from his own parents, that seems to only care for him to a minimal, what could make it justified) to to straight-up murderer, without steps between it.
• Stealth Hi Bye: In Nite Owl, Rorschach manages to applies this to Dan after just escaping from a room full of corpses that was set on fire.
• Subliminal Seduction: Used by the villains of Silk Specter using drugs so the young can buy the products they desire to sell.
• Teen Genius: Dan manages to track Hollis back to his hideout using one of his inventions.
• Terrible Interviewees Montage: When the Minutemen decide to recruit new members.From Frogman, a guy dressed as a frog because his mother said he's a real good jumper, to the Slut, that's well, ahn, a libertine miss. It ends with the first Nite Owl, Hollis Roman, nervously presenting himself, but by this point he's already known by the Minutemen and is immediately accepted.
• Then Let Me Be Evil: Rawhead,`after defeating Rorschach and wearing his mask, realizing the intoxicating power of hiding your true identity, comments that he became an criminal after coming back from Vietnam because he chose to live in accord with his appearance.
• The Unfettered: In Comedian,the vietcongs, obviously. Then Eddie deliberately becomes this because he feels that the United States have no chance of winning unless they fight the same way as them. That of course, includes all the brutality and violence that the communist army imposed to civilians.
• The Un-Reveal: InMinutemen, we really never discover who Hooded Justice was.
• There Was a Door: In the sixth issue of Comedian, Rorschach and Nite-Owl bust through a window of what seems to be a Bad Guy Bar and Comedian, that was already there and had take care of the criminals, complains loudly that the door was open.
• Token Evil Teammate: Eddie for the Minutemen. His Establishing Character Moment involves him asking for "retribution" after brutally beating a bunch of thugs in a bar, then beating up the bartender anyway and robbing him.
• Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: It don't looks so weird since Veidt was always an uneven member of mankind even when adult, but his child self is completely unchildlike,acting towards his goals with the same determination and objectivity of when adult. All he lacks is the capacity to predict the full consequences of his actions. He ends up almost expelled from the school after wounding a bully severely using martial arts techniques.
• Vomit Indiscretion Shot: In Comedian, in a panel we can see a american soldier's that sees some...horrible things, like burned corpses, vomit.
• Walking the Earth: Veidt takes an journey from Greece to India, trying to seek inspiration in the deeds of Alexander The Great. He then goes even further, to China and Tibet and then comes back to Turkey.
• Warts and All: How Hollis initially planned "Under The Hood" to be. It don't quite ends up like this, thanks to some shocking revelations at the final issue of Minutemen.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: In Silk Specter, the fate of Laurie's first boyfriend is left unknown.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Sally quits the Minutemen after Silhouette is voted out of the group and later killed.
• What You Are in the Dark: In the final issue of Rorschach, an almost literal application of this trope happens when a blackout hits New York. People loot and kill without fear of retaliation, and Rawhead suffers a Heel Face Turn after realizing that he let his own evil-like appearance looks determine the path he would took on his life. Rorschach begins to hate the population of New York after that, explaining his "The City is afraid of me, I've seen its true face" speech on Watchmen.
• Where It All Began: The final big fight in Minutemen happens on the tower that the Minutemen used to use as base.
• Who Shot JFK?: Seen from two different view points in different series:
  • Despite what has been implied in the original,Comedian #1 goes into the direction that Eddie did not shoot Kennedy. Later, he meets his contact, Gordy, and remarks on how they could be mistaken for one another, and Eddie is clearly suspicious that he shot JFK under the orders of J.Edgar Hoover.
  • Once JFK is killed, Adrian investigates all the footage he can find of the murder in order to see if things really went the way the official story says. Eventually, he discovers that despite his tremendous intelligence, it's just not possible for him to get a clear answer about who's the true culprit.
• You Have Failed Me: In Rorschach, Rawhead kills one of his subordinates because he shows fear after Rorschach sends a message through said subordinate to inform Rawhead he's still alive.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness:
  • In Ozymandias,Veidt kills his assistant Marla after a good part of his plan is already under way, to not even risk her somehow ruining them.
  • In Silk Specter,The Chairman has all the local enforcers, promoters, and cookers terminated when he packs up shop.