"Why is heaven not enough?"
"This is not my home! My home is three hundred ninety million miles away. And my children... all eight billion of them are undoubtedly standing in their cribs, crying out in desperation for me to return... Heaven is not enough because... heaven doesn't need me."—The Game Warden and Adrian Veidt
Adrian Alexander Veidt is a former narcissistic genius superhero and billionaire industrialist who draws inspiration from his hero Alexander the Great and the Egyptian pharaoh Ramesses II, from whom he took his name, Ozymandias. He used his company, Veidt Enterprises, to create a giant squid monster that killed millions of people, which he used to unite the human race through fear of manufactured "alien" threat, thus ending nuclear war. Years of dissatisfaction of not being recognized for saving the world followed, however. He eventually asked his friend Jon Osterman to send him to a paradise he created on the moon Europa, where he thrived for years until its monotony began to drive him insane. After his escape, he saved the world again, this time from his daughter, only to be arrested by Laurie Blake.
Biography[]
Early life[]
Child Prodigy[]
Adrian Alexander Veidt was born in New York City on July 2, 1939. His parents, Friedrich Werner and Ingrid Renata Veidt, were wealthy immigrants from Germany who arrived to the United States three months before the birth of their son. Growing up, he was found to be incredibly intelligent. After his parents and his teachers became suspicious of his grades, he successfully hid his intelligence by deliberately achieving average grades.
Death of Parents[]
Following the death of his parents, Veidt inherited their substantial fortune at age 17, but chose to give the majority of his large inheritance to charity, so that he can demonstrate the possibility of achieving anything starting from nothing.
Global Pilgrimage[]
Veidt decided to embark on a pilgrimage of physical, mental, and spiritual discovery, following the route of Alexander the Great - his childhood idol and namesake - that would take him throughout the Mediterranean, Asia Minor, and former ancient Persia. During hid trek around the world, he developed an interest in ancient civilizations, in particular, Egypt, and found inspiration for heroic achievement in the life of Alexander.
Veidt departed for Northern Turkey to retrace his idol's path to rulership with the desire to match his accomplishments and bring an age of illumination to a benighted world. He traveled along the Black Sea Coast, imagining Alexander's armies taking port after port through bloody warfare. He traveled north towards Gordium, reminded of Alexander's success at solving the unsolvable Gordian Knot by cutting it in two with his sword, a feat said to await the future "king of Asia".
He then headed south to Egypt through Memphis. He gazed in the awe of the ruins that were once ruled by the pharaohs of Ancient Egypt such as Ramesses II. Veidt continued his trek through Babylon, up through Kabul to Samarkand, then down the Indus. He travelled on through China and Tibet. In Tibet he met with a group of monks and from them he learned how to use the full 100% capacity of his brain and was even given a ball of hashish. He then returned to Babylon to the site of Alexander's death. It was there Veidt had realized the failings of Alexander, seeing that he didn't succeed in uniting the world, nor did he build a unity that would survive him.
Disillusioned but determined to finish his odyssey, Veidt followed Alexander's corpse to its resting place at Alexandria. On the final night of his journey before returning to America, Veidt wandered into the desert and consumed the ball of hashish he received from Tibet. Through the effects of the drug, he underwent a transformative psychedelic experience. Through this experience, he came to understand Alexander's legacy and the wisdom of the ancient pharaohs, all of which would inspire him to become a savior of mankind.
Costumed Adventurer Career[]
Becoming Ozymandias[]
In 1958, Veidt adopted Alexander the Great's free-booting style and the Greek name of Ramesses II to become the costumed adventurer known as Ozymandias. During his early crimefighting career, Ozymandias focused particularly on taking down organized crime syndicates led by Moloch the Mystic, and earned a reputation as "the smartest man in the world". By bringing to justice the last of the notorious rogues from the original era of costumed adventurers, Veidt inaugurated a new age of masked vigilantes.
Confronting the Comedian[]
Researching his mask predecessors, Veidt investigated the 1955 disappearance of Hooded Justice. He learned that a government operative had tried unearthing him back then but reported failure. He tracked the operative to New York Harbor and met with Edward Blake, the government operative in question. Although the Comedian recognized Ozymandias, he attacked him anyway, believing him to be a criminal. During the fight, Veidt took the time to study Blake's skills and limitations. However, he was beaten by Blake with a brutal uppercut. Following the fight, Veidt closed the case on Hooded Justice, believing that Blake had murdered him and reported failure to his government superiors to hide his involvement, though he himself couldn't prove this.
Meeting Doctor Manhattan[]
In 1960, Veidt attended a Red Cross Charity Event. During the event, Veidt noticed the Comedian was in attendance, so he avoided him throughout the night. He would later meet the superpowered being known as Doctor Manhattan who he found fascinating.
Realization[]
Veidt's own cases began to rob him of the idealistic belief that battling crime would truly lessen evil and suffering in the world. This was brought to a head when an abortive attempt to organize a new superhero team by his friend Captain Metropolis was disrupted by the Comedian, who noted in his brutally apt way exactly how petty the doings of the costumed heroes were in a world where the threat of nuclear war hung overhead, and how powerless they were to stop it. Veidt was inspired to do just that.[2][3]
Ozymandias continued his costumed adventuring exploits, though by this point these exploits became hollowed pursuits, many of which brought negative attention from the far-right newspaper, the New Frontiersman. In 1967, Veidt exposed a plot by rogue right wing extremists in the United States military to test biological weapons on the citizens of Nairobi and surrounding areas. Outraged by Veidt's "unpatriotic" actions, New Frontiersman denounces him as a "Puppet of Peking".
Veidt Enterprises[]
"You get to be a superhero by believing in the hero within you and summoning him or her forth by an act of will."
—Adrian Veidt
Identity Reveal[]
In 1975, Veidt retired from vigilantism and revealed his identity to the public. His voluntary retirement engendered considerable goodwill just as public sentiment was turning against others of his kind, a backlash that would ultimately lead to the Keene Act two years later which once again made civilian vigilantism illegal.
Establishing Veidt Enterprises[]
Following his retirement from vigilantism, Veidt capitalized on Doctor Manhattan's superpowers by issuing a patent for the spark hydrant, a powering system for electric vehicles powered by M-class lithium. The success of this technology made Veidt his first millions. He eventually made more money by playing the stock market with great savvy. He used his newfound wealth to establish Veidt Enterprises. Guided by his prescience and ingenuity, Veidt Enterprises manufactured a wide variety of products including fashion, perfume, consumer electronics, toys, and entertainment that never failed to be on top of the moment or just ahead of the next.
Since the public knew Veidt as Ozymandias, Veidt marketed his superhero career through various products including a line of action figures and a self-help book such as The Veidt Method. He also marketed cosmetics for men and women, most notably Nostalgia by Veidt, which would become one the company's most iconic brands. His ad campaigns for the “Nostalgia by Veidt” lifestyle line in the 1980s captured the spirit of the conservative era so memorably, they have their own display at the National Museum of American History.
Master Plan in Motion[]
Realizing the long-term futility of his costumed career, Veidt, inspired by Eddie Blake's words years prior, set his master plan into motion to frighten mankind into seeking salvation, by creating a threat so terrible that nations will have no choice but to set aside their differences to fight it together.
Through his company, he bankrolled his scheme of creating a catastrophic event that would deceive and terrify the world into uniting against a common enemy, in Veidt's case, a horrific alien invasion. To that end, he employed geneticists to clone the stolen brain of a murdered psychic named Robert Deschaines and used it to create such a creature with a group of artists and creative personnel to help create the illusion. He also invents a limited form of teleportation based in part on the studies of (and studies by) Doctor Manhattan. Upon completion, he arranged the murder of all of his accomplices to maintain the illusion.
To prevent Doctor Manhattan from interfering, he hired old associates of the superhero and secretly exposed them to radiation to induce terminal cancer in them, then engineered a rumor that Manhattan was responsible, causing Doctor Manhattan to exile himself and thereby setting off a chain of events that threaten to start a global war.[3]
Assassination of the Comedian[]
When the Comedian inadvertently learned of Veidt's plans, Veidt personally murdered him as well. The death of the Comedian caught the attention of Veidt's former teammate Rorschach, who investigated the crime and mistakenly theorized that there existed a conspiracy to murder masked adventurers.
Assassination of Adrian Veidt[]
In an attempt to throw off suspicion, Veidt used an employee at his subsidiary business, Pyramid Deliveries, to unknowingly hire a contract killer named Roy Victor Chess to assassinate him in order to throw off Rorschach's investigation in his involvement in Eddie Blake's death. While discussing his business schedule with his secretary, Chess enters the building and open fires at Veidt but ends up killing his secretary. Chess attempts to finish the job, but he is disarmed by Veidt. He goes over to him and feeds him a cyanide capsule. To maintain the ruse, Veidt attempted to interrogate him in front the witnesses, but he forces Chess to bite down on the poison capsule, killing the assassin.
Framing Rorschach[]
Although Veidt arranged an assassination attempt on his life, he killed Edgar Jacobi and framed Rorschach on murder charges to get him out of the way. Unknown to him, Nite Owl II and Silk Spectre II grew to believe that Rorschach's investigation had merit and sprung him from prison to investigate the matter.
Preventive Measures[]
To ensure people never forgot the squid attack, Veidt created a device that randomly selected a location on a regular basis to send baby squids to the planet's surface over an area of a few square miles. He also prepared to incapacitate Doctor Manhattan by placing a tachyon ring on his forehead that would cause total amnesia and render him helpless, but instead opted to create his own intrinsic field subtractor, the machine whose accident created the superpowered being years ago. Finally, he prepared to drive the new, improved world into a utopia of his own making.
Message to Robert Redford[]
To ensure the safety and success of his secret, Veidt decided he would rig the 1992 US presidential election to get liberal actor Robert Redford elected president.[4] On November 1, 1985, Veidt recorded himself for Redford, explaining his plan in great detail, and how he would have to help keep Veidt's secret safe.[4]
11/2 Psychic Shockwave[]
False Flag Alien Attack[]
After scheduling the tape to be sent to the White House the night of Redford's inauguration, Veidt teleported his monster into New York City the following day resulting in the deaths of three million people.
Doctor Manhattan and Silk Spectre II arrived to stop him, but they were too late, as Veidt vaporized Manhattan by luring him into the intrinsic field subtractor along with his pet lynx, Bubastis. Manhattan quickly reconstructed his body and materialized outside Karnak as a giant and attempted to defeat Ozymandias.
Preventing Nuclear Holocaust[]
As Veidt predicted, the governments of the world fell for this ruse and agreed to a union to oppose this new alien menace. Seeing as how Veidt's plot had the desired effect of uniting the nations of the world and averting a possible nuclear war, Doctor Manhattan, Nite Owl II and Silk Spectre agree to keep silent about what they know, as it would only plunge the world back to the brink of disaster. Rorschach, however, refused to remain silent and attempted to return to America to expose Veidt's crimes to world. Veidt wasn't fazed by this, seeing Rorschach as an unreliable source of information and would have no way of leaving Antarctica.
Nothing Ever Ends[]
While mediating in his sanctuary, Veidt is visited by Doctor Manhattan and informed him that he is leaving Earth. Before he left, Veidt asked the precognitive Manhattan if his plans for utopia would come to be, and if it was all worth it in the end. Manhattan cryptically responded by saying "nothing ever ends", quoting Veidt's second favorite novel Fogdancing, then departed for Europa leaving Veidt once again in doubt as to whether or not his plan was successful.
Public Persona[]
Political Influence[]
In the years following the 11/2 Psychic Shockwave, Veidt continued to operate Veidt Enterprises and used his resources to avidly support a variety of progressive social causes and was the biggest contributor to the Democratic Party during the late eighties and early nineties. Following through with his plans of making Robert Redford president, Veidt leads the way in financing the “Blue Wave” – a period of liberal governance – since 1992 in which Redford was elected President of the United States, effectively ending 24 years of conservative power. Despite being instrumental in getting Redford into the White House, Veidt was subsequently forced to curtail his efforts to influence government policy with the passage of the Campaign Finance Reform and Donor Disclosure Act of 1993 due to Redford's discovery of his horrendous actions in 1985 on the day after being officially sworn in. This action created a rift between him and the president.
Philanthropy[]
Veidt continued to cultivate his public persona as a philanthropist, donating millions of dollars to hospitals dedicated to treating post-D.I.E. PTSD and private laboratories devoted to researching experimental technologies and alternative energies.
Business Failures[]
M-Class Technology[]
While he continued to operate Veidt Enterprises full time, the company underwent a series of business setbacks stemming from accusations of Doctor Manhattan being carcinogenic, which led to his abandonment of Earth on October 19, 1985, and the Dimensional Incursion Event two weeks later. One source of Veidt's personal wealth, a patent for spark hydrants which helped launched his company, became worthless after the auto industry ceased production of electric cars powered by M-class lithium amid concerns that all things Manhattan might be carcinogenic.
Millennium by Veidt[]
In 1986, Veidt launched the “Millennium by Veidt” brand to the public, in an attempt to phase out Nostalgia. Millennium served as a broad set of marketing and philanthropic endeavors in which Veidt positioned himself as a guru in the human potential movement, trying to evolve society into a future technology-based utopia led by transcendent supermen. Because Veidt set up this campaign too soon after the catastrophe and financial ruin that was left behind from 11/2, failure to predict society's wariness of new emerging technology, and the brand's fundamental incompatibility with the looming fear of a supposedly new extraterrestrial existential threat that Veidt unleashed, Millennium was a failure and it severely tarnished his reputation as well as the company's. By the early 1990s, several of the Millennium brand's endeavors were eventually dissolved and discontinued including the Millennium Scouts of America and Millennium Polytechnic Academies.
Regained Lost Value[]
In 1999, Veidt, already a major player in genetically engineered foods, regained all of his company's lost value when he began licensing proprietary technology to other fields, most notably, pet cloning, through a subsidiary named after his famed lynx, Bubastis.
Isolation[]
Final Public Appearance[]
In 2007, Veidt traveled to Kenya where he was awarded the Chief of the Golden Heart, the country's highest civilian honor, on the 40th anniversary of when he exposed an illegal plot to kill the citizens of Nairobi and the surrounding areas using biological weapons. This was Veidt's last known public appearance.
Leaving Veidt Enterprises[]
The setbacks Veidt underwent attributed to him becoming increasingly reclusive and stepped down as CEO of Veidt Enterprises, a decision most people saw as a "calculated decision", and would spend the remainder of his time residing in Karnak isolated from the rest of the world.
Meeting His Daughter[]
By 2008, Veidt had been keeping his squids raining down regularly for twenty-four years, and the general populous still unaware of his involvement. His plans for a great future, however, had been ignored by the world, and he had grown much more arrogant, excitable, and animated over the years, while still keeping a respectful reservation coupled with innate sarcasm. Hiding in his base of operations in Antarctica, he was greeted at its door by Lady Trieu, who explained to him that she was his daughter, and that her mother, Bian My, was one of Veidt's Vietnamese war refugee workers in 1985 who injected herself with his semen to have a worthy offspring. She proved to him her great intellect and skill, enough to rival his own, by showing him that Doctor Manhattan was not on Mars at all, but instead on Jupiter's moon Europa, and that she had sent a satellite that would reach the moon in 2014 and catch Manhattan in the act with its camera. Trieu asked him for the money and resources to build a giant machine with which to steal Doctor Manhattan's powers and use them to improve the world. Angered by the discovery of his illegitimate daughter's existence, however, he disowned her and ordered she never call or come to him again, throwing her out of his base, and telling her that he would never call her "daughter".[4]
Journey to Paradise[]
About a year later, a bored and dissatisfied Veidt was visited by Doctor Manhattan, who desired to become human to pursue a comfortable relationship with his lover, Angela Abar. Veidt conversed with Manhattan, who he comfortably called Jon, for a short while about their history and his distaste for the public's lack of knowledge of his achievement, as well as lack of celebration, and showed him the tachyon ring he had never used all those years ago, the very same he planned to use to wipe Jon's memory. But Veidt requested in return the answer to the question he'd asked all those years ago: would he live to see his utopia come to be? Jon answered "yes, but not here". He explained he had created a paradise on Jupiter's moon Europa decades earlier, a bubble of atmosphere and land, filled with people, endlessly generated clones of beings called Mr. Phillips and Ms. Crookshanks, who care nothing for themselves, their only desire being to make others happy. Veidt believed that this described paradise and allowed Jon to send him there, leaving the device with him.[5]
Arriving on Europa, Veidt believed Manhattan's words completely. He performed various activities with his servants, including putting on a play titled The Watchmaker's Son, a retelling of the origins of Doctor Manhattan, and instructing the first Mister Phillips created, the Game Warden, to wear a mask and act as his adversary. He was happy the first two years of his stay, but over time the lack of achievement and deserved celebration began to drive him mad. Discovering his own self-worth means nothing if he can't be properly celebrated by it, Veidt began plotting a daring escape.
Disappearance[]
Veidt was declared missing in 2012 after members of Veidt Enterprises’ board of directors visited Karnak, Antarctica to seek Veidt’s blessing on the sale of his company from Trieu Industries. Investigators reported no sign of foul play at any of Veidt’s homes or properties.
His disappearance spawned an industry of sleuthing and speculation. At the peak of the “Where’s Veidt?” phenomenon, nine of the top 100 books on The San Francisco Times Best Sellers’ List were devoted to investigations into Veidt's disappearance, from tomes of journalistic reportage to cheap bookazines proposing conspiracy theories like assassination by domestic terrorists and abduction by extradimensional beings.
One notable conspiracy theory came from Ronnie Ngo Dinh, then governor of Vietnam. The former governor caused an international incident by claiming that the Vietnamese Liberation Front had assassinated Veidt as an act of terror against the United States. He used the assertion to justify an escalation of actions against VLF militants. The ensuing police actions resulted in hundreds of civilian deaths and condemnation from nations who've expressed support for the “Free Vietnam” movement, including the United Kingdom and China.
In 2018, Roger Ailes, president of Newspaper Corporation of America, parent of New Frontiersman, filed a lawsuit against Veidt Enterprises and Trieu Industries claiming a “systematic campaign of harassment, intimidation, and sabotage” against him and his employees for publishing reports that the Central Intelligence Agency had killed Veidt for secrets he possessed regarding the Dimensional Incursion Event. The lawsuit was dismissed and the federal government subsequently ordered NCA to either publish an apology to Veidt or pay a $100,000 for violating the Content Code Act. They chose to pay the fine.[6]
In 2019 after years of investigation, the Federal Bureau of Investigation in conjunction with local law enforcement officials in New York City and Vietnam made an announcement in Washington, D.C. declaring Adrian Veidt officially dead.
Escape from Europa[]
From 2011 to 2014, Veidt utilized the resources at his disposal to build spacesuits with which to send numerous Mr. Phillips' out of the atmospheric shell, telling them he wanted them to find a way out and report back to him. In truth, he wanted to test their suits with the outing to make the perfect one that wouldn't kill him. Many attempts were made by the Game Warden to make him stop, but he carried on anyway. When Veidt's perfect suit was finally engineered, his various servants assisted in sending him outside the atmospheric shell, and out onto the frozen, rocky surface of Europa.
Once outside the shell, Veidt collected the bodies of the various Mister Phillips' he'd tossed out there over the years together in different clumps. By breaking off some of their limbs and bending some into unnatural positions, Veidt used the bodies to spell out, in giant letters, "SAVE ME DAUGHTER". No sooner did he finish that Trieu's satellite flew overhead and snapped its picture. However, Veidt was only left a short time to celebrate his victory before the Game Warden pulled him back into the atmosphere.
The Trial of Ozymandias[]
After a lengthy year-long trial in which he represented himself (though his only defense was farting loudly on the last day to the courtroom's disgust), Veidt was given the opportunity to stay willingly or stay by force. Veidt chose the latter and was confined to the castle dungeon. The Game Warden brought him a cake, as his servants did every year on the anniversary of his arrival, but unbeknownst to the Warden, the Phillips and Crookshanks clones that prepared the cake had planted a horseshoe inside it. Once the Game Warden left, Veidt pulled out the horseshoe and began scraping away at the castle floor, shaving off bits of it at a time, and, in two years' time, had scraped away a massive hole under his bed that led out of the castle to the field outside.
Return to Earth[]
In 2017, Lady Trieu’s rocketship, which she had sent as soon as she realized her father was on Europa, finally arrived on the moon’s surface. An ecstatic Veidt, wearing his old Ozymandias costume, jumped in his hole as soon as the ship landed, and climbed out, horseshoe in hand. The Game Warden fought with him to make him stay, but Veidt impaled him with the horseshoe and killed him just as the rest of his servants came outside. After a brief moment where he sat with and comforted the Warden as he bled out, Veidt strode into the ship as his servants bade him goodbye and godspeed. Once inside the ship, the onboard computer instructed him to step into a cryostasis chamber and to place his hands on his hips and stand defiantly. The chamber froze him with a golden sheen, and when the frozen Veidt returned to Earth, Trieu put him on display as a “gold statue” inside her Millennium Clock, where he remained for several months. Two years later, Veidt was officially declared dead and Trieu officially bought out his company for her own gain.[4]
Saving Earth Once More[]
A few months after buying Veidt Enterprises, Lady Trieu freed her father from his cryogenic sleep and explained to him, as he groggily awakened, her master plan. Since Veidt's rejection of her in 2009, she had strived to prove herself better. And, as her plan neared completion, she yearned to have her parents see her achieve her success, causing her to rescue her father from Europa and clone her dead mother.
Now, ten years after her father's insults and vile attitude, she had built teleportation equipment, a cage that could contain Doctor Manhattan, and a machine that would destroy him by draining his essence, as well as transferring it into another person, namely herself. Utilizing the white supremacist group Cyclops to capture Doctor Manhattan (they believed they were sabotaging Trieu's plans of global salvation for their own), Lady Trieu planned to take the powers of Doctor Manhattan unto herself and remake the world as she saw fit, creating her own sick paradise. As she spoke, Cyclops captured Doctor Manhattan and prepared to transfer his power into their leader, Joe Keene, and as soon as Trieu finished detailing her plan to her father and gave him a change of clothes, she traveled with him to Tulsa’s town square, where he discovered that he was recently thought to be dead by the world, and still no one knew he had saved humanity.
Trieu carried out her plan, teleporting the Cyclops members, a caged Doctor Manhattan, a kidnapped Laurie Blake, and an undercover Wade Tillman, into the town square, just as Keene attempted to transfer Manhattan’s abilities unto himself. Helpless, the members of Cyclops watched as Trieu opened the door of the chamber he stood in and unleashed a wave of red liquid that had once been the organization’s leader all over the ground. As Trieu monologued about her genius plot, Doctor Manhattan touched the liquid, which had traveled under his cage, and sent his power through it, teleporting Veidt, Blake, and Tillman to Karnak, Veidt’s old base in Antarctica, which was still sending out randomized pre-programmed squidfalls, even after several decades. While Laurie and Wade were confused, Veidt instantly knew why Manhattan sent them there, and what they must do to save the world.
Veidt ordered Wade and Laurie to do certain tasks for him, such as answering his questions and lowering the temperature on his squid chamber. Once the squids were frozen and the coordinates of Tulsa, Oklahoma were in place, Veidt let them loose from the sky, explaining that while the squids were usually harmless, freezing them solid before their rain on the Earth produced a result Veidt described as “firing a Gatling gun from the heavens.” Sure enough, the frozen squid destroyed Lady Trieu's machine just after Doctor Manhattan had been obliterated. The squids ripped holes in buildings, wounded and killed many, and caused Trieu's broken machine to crush her flat, but humanity was safe once again, thanks to Adrian Veidt, just as it was before.[4]
Brought to Justice[]
Feeling content and victorious, Veidt prepared Archie, Dan Dreiberg’s Owlship, for Laurie and Wade to return to civilization. Wade and Laurie, however, were not ready to just let him go. Laurie declared Veidt to be under arrest, and Wade, who had been in New Jersey across New York City the night of the squid attack and only recently discovered it to be a hoax, showed Veidt the disc of his video to President Robert Redford, confessing everything. Veidt faced down Laurie and angrily demanded she reconsider, but Wade knocked him out before he could finish. Together, Wade and Laurie dragged Veidt’s unconscious body to the Owlship, and took off for Washington, D.C. to formally place him under arrest.[4]
Abilities[]
- Genius Level Intelligence: Veidt has been deemed the "smartest man in the world" by many, mainly the media, though this title is deserved. Veidt deftly built both a legitimate and criminal empire from nothing and made it large enough to become a global threat through his exploitation of advanced technology and genetics. In one scene, he is shown viewing a wall filled floor to ceiling with television screens, each showing a different image, in order to demonstrate his ability to pay attention to each one simultaneously. From the juxtaposition of these numerous images, he is able to deftly paint a picture of the current political and social climate, from which he can predict future trends and make plans accordingly. Veidt's intelligence is so great, Doctor Manhattan, a being of nigh-omniscience, acknowledged his intelligence.
- Master Tactician: An excellent schemer and manipulator, with an ambition matching his intelligence, Veidt managed to successfully execute a plan to help Earth towards utopia by ending international hostilities between the United States and the Soviet Union and maintained secrecy about it for several years. He is shown to be a ruthless master strategist, swiftly eliminating anybody who dares to get in the way of his plans, while maintaining a facade of a billionaire philanthropist.
- Master Scientist: Veidt is a master scientist, well versed in genetic engineering and quantum physics. His mastery of genetic engineering is so great, he was able to create his pet, Bubastis, along with cloning the psychic brain of Robert Deschaines, mutating it into a giant alien-looking squid creature.
- Master Engineer: Veidt is well versed in mechanical engineering as demonstrated through his creation of a variety of inventions such as energy hydrants, created designs that utilized Doctor Manhattan's energy, and his creation of Karnak in Antarctica. He was also able to successfully repair Nite Owl's damaged Owlship.
- Multilingualism: Veidt is fluent in English, Turkish, German, Russian, Vietnamese and various other unspecified languages.
- Peak Physical Condition: Veidt is depicted at the pinnacle of human physical ability, to the point of being able to mentally calculate physical reaction times, anticipate the pull of a trigger, and reflexively catch a bullet. While not technically superhuman, Veidt's extremely muscular and athletic physique (and resulting nigh-superhuman physical prowess) makes him immensely physically powerful by normal human standards.
- Peak Human Strength: Veidt has and can, by properly utilizing physical forces, momentum, and leverage (as well as his knowledge of anatomical weaknesses and undergoing frequent extremely intense strength-and-endurance-based exercises), easily generate low-level superhuman strength. Veidt has been able to effortlessly lift men as large as the Comedian above his head with both hands before throwing them through the air, smashed through stone and solid wood with one hit, send people flying through the air several feet with his attacks. Being attacked by him is almost like being struck by a vehicle, to the point where it may be fatal. This causes his attacks to be heavily weakening and debilitating to anyone he fought, including the Comedian, Nite Owl, and Rorschach, all of whom are also portrayed with similar strength and physical prowess.
- Peak Human Durability: Veidt is also exceptionally durable by human standards due to his intense training during his travels and the years before becoming Ozymandias having made his skin, bones, and muscles far denser than an average human. Veidt is barely fazed when repeatedly punched, showing no pain or discomfort, as if he did not even feel the attacks. He also showed no pain when he had a bullet lodged into his hand when he caught it as it was being shot at him.
- Peak Human Speed and Agility: Ozymandias is incredibly fast and agile and has demonstrated an almost superhuman nimbleness and agility enough to effortlessly catch a butcher knife at point-blank range, dodge gunfire by running and with acrobatics, and move his hand into the path of a bullet at point-blank range, lodging it in his palm.
- Peak Human Reflexes: Veidt has incredibly fast reflexes as demonstrated when he reflexively caught a bullet with his bare hand (though he himself was surprised that worked). He demonstrated this ability again in his old age when the Game Warden of Europa shot him at point blank range.
- Master Acrobat: A world-class athlete, Veidt does acrobatic performances in aid of charity events, performing excellently despite being in his mid-forties.
- Master Martial Artist: Veidt is a superb fighter, martial artist, and almost superhuman unarmed combatant, able to subdue Rorschach and Nite Owl with little effort. His only defeat came early in his career at the hands of the Comedian, something he never got over. With the sole exceptions of Doctor Manhattan and the Comedian, Ozymandias was easily the most dangerous of the crime fighters of the 20th century due to his fighting skills alone. His fighting abilities are such that even Rorschach was wary of facing him in combat.
- Master Businessman: Veidt is a remarkably gifted businessman and financial analyst. Veidt deftly built both a legitimate and criminal billion-dollar empire from nothing and it became large enough to become a global threat through his exploitation of advanced technology and genetics. He came to find his own shell companies, like Pyramid Deliveries and Dimensional Developments for his illegal activity.
Physical appearance[]
Adrian has short blond hair that is always neatly kept, bright blue eyes, fair skin, and a muscular yet lean body. In his civilian life, Adrian normally wears nice business suits, sporting the colors purple and yellow. Alex Ross described his standing as almost divine, and his smile as something between Jackie Coogan and JFK.
His Ozymandias costume is a golden bodysuit, slightly covered in purple robes. He has purple shoes, a gold headband, a gold belt, and a long purple cape that connects to his robes. He used to wear a purple mask, but after his retirement, he decided to go without because everyone knew his true identity.
Personality[]
Adrian Veidt had an extremely colorful personality which gave him the large reputation of being caring, conscientious and a pacifist, who was a vegetarian and never resulted in killing during his cases, although he had to change his stance by killing innocent people so as to not leave any traces of his plan. He was one of the most respectful and consistently left leaning of the superheroes and as a mogul, he was known as a benevolent philanthropist. Critics included the right-wing New Frontiersman, while the Comedian called him "an intellectual dilettante that dabs in national affairs that shouldn't concern him".
He studied science, art, religion, and philosophies. Futurology is one of the most interesting subjects for him. He likes avant-garde music like Cage, Stockhausen, Penderecki, Andrew Lang, Pierre Henry, Terry Riley. He also likes electronic music, like Jamaican dub.
Despite his caring, pacifistic and conscientious demeanor, Veidt actually kept his true colors hidden from anyone else, and it came out to light when he confronted with his former friends at his house.
Veidt's true nature was revealed to be that of an extremely arrogant, egotistical and cold individual which appeared to be the ultimate personification of destruction following the reason that his plan is known to be destructive, and that is Veidt's best-known feature which is that his destructive personality knows no limits, and even if he is aware to the dangerous consequences of his plan, he doesn't show even a little bit of compassion, mercy or even thought about the innocent lives which his plan is taking part of, which means that he is truly sinister and psychotic individual. However, it is important to remember that Veidt is not a sadist because that even if he doesn't show any compassion or mercy towards the innocent people that he wipes out in the path, he is not enjoying their deaths or their pain, but he indeed enjoys seeing that his plan succeeds, and this is what he likes, success.
In addition, he indeed showed to be an extremely megalomaniacal individual sharing crazy god complex, seeing himself as a real god, maybe the god of wisdom, and this is his greatest weakness; his amazing intelligence, following the reason that if other individuals which are superheroes like he was, for example, Batman, reveal his intelligence levels to be extraordinary and that he is counting on his intelligence all the time, enemies can utilize it for good in order to defeat him. His second weakness is his overconfidence and arrogance, which he is showing it the most, and this thing can be a really sharp tool for enemies in order to defeat him.
Behind the Scenes[]
- Adrian Veidt/Ozymandias in Watchmen is the second live-action incarnation of the character, following a previous incarnation portrayed by Matthew Goode.
Trivia[]
- He is a modified version of the character Thunderbolt from Charlton Comics. Both are trained to mental and bodily perfection in the East.
- His name recalls the famous poem by Percy Bryce Shelley, which takes as its theme the fleeting nature of empire.
Gallery[]
References[]
- ↑ Cite error: Invalid
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- ↑ Chapter II: Absent Friends
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Chapter XI: Look On My Works, Ye Mighty
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 See How They Fly
- ↑ A God Walks into Abar
- ↑ Veidt Declared Dead -pdf.