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. 
- — Adrian Veidt src
Adrian Veidt is a narcissistic retired crimefighter formerly known as Ozymandias, and the smartest man on Earth. He saved the planet from nuclear annihilation by uniting the human race through fear, and was sent to live in a paradise which nearly drove him insane. Years later, he returned to Earth to save it again from his illegitimate daughter.
History
Early Years
Adrian Veidt as Ozymandias
Adrian Veidt was born on July 2, 1939, to wealthy socialites Friedrich Werner Veidt and Ingrid Renata Veidt in New York City[1]. They both died when he was young, and so with his exceptional intelligence and wealth, he built the massive commercial empire of Veidt Enterprises as an adult. Wanting more, he donned a purple and gold suit and became the costumed crimefighter "Ozymandias", using his incredible intelligence and acrobatics to fight criminals. With other crimefighters, he was a founding member of the Crimebusters, alongside Silk Spectre, Nite Owl, the Comedian, Rorschach, and the powerful and godlike Doctor Manhattan. Ozymandias grew to be a very egotistical and prideful man, but kept a very calm and reserved stance much of the time.[2][3][4][5]
Preventing Nuclear Holocaust
Veidt in 1985
Sometime before 1985, Veidt realized that as the Cold War raged on, the human race grew closer each day to nuclear annihilation, and decided to become its savior. He genetically engineered a giant, psychic squid-like creature to be teleported to New York City, killing three million people and uniting the world against the fear of an alien invasion. He also planned to rig the 1992 presidential election to get liberal actor Robert Redford elected president, and continuously rain down baby squids to rain down over the planet at random places and times to maintain world peace.
Veidt enacted his plan on November 2, 1985, teleporting the squid into New York at midnight just before Doctor Manhattan, Silk Spectre, and Nite Owl arrived to try and stop him. They fought, but in the end Manhattan decided the peace brought about by Veidt's attack was too great to compromise, and so Manhattan, Silk Spectre, and Nite Owl decided to keep it secret. They then went their separate ways, with Manhattan leaving Earth, Silk Spectre going to be with Nite Owl, and Veidt attempting to guide the world to a new utopia through his alliance with Redford.
When Redford became president, Veidt revealed the truth of the squid attack to him, and proposed an alliance to guide the world into a utopian state. However, Redford turned him down and Veidt was stuck enacting his squid rains for the next twenty-three years with no one knowing of his great triumph, becoming disillusioned with the idea of helping humanity. He became more arrogant, excitable, and sarcastic over the years, as well as dissatisfied and bored with his way of life.[4][3][6]
Meeting His Daughter
Veidt meets his daughter
In his Antarctica base in 2008, he was greeted by Lady Trieu, who revealed she was his daughter, and that her mother had impregnated herself with his semen in 1985, in order to have a worthy offspring. Trieu proved herself to match his skill and intellect, having sent a satellite to photograph Doctor Manhattan on Jupiter's moon of Eurpoa when it reached it in 2014. She then asked Veidt for money and resources to build a machine to absorb and use Doctor Manhattan's powers for the world's betterment, but Veidt was so furious to discover her existence, he disowned her and threw her out of his base, hoping to have seen the last of her.[6]
Life on Europa
Manhattan teleports Veidt to Europa
In 2009, Veidt was visited by Doctor Manhattan, who was seeking a way to become human to pursue a comfortable relationship with his lover. Veidt gave him a device to wipe his memory, explaining that if he was unaware of his powers, he wouldn't know to use them. In exchange, he asked Manhattan if he'd ever see his utopian world come to be. Manhattan replied by explaining that he had created a stretch of bountiful land with a large manor house in which to live on Europa, filled with a race of endlessly generating clones called Mister Phillips and Ms. Crookshanks, beings who desire only to make others happy. Manhattan offered to send him there, and Veidt, believing he described paradise, agreed, and Manhattan teleported him away, leaving the disc with him.[3]
Dissatisfied on Europa
When he arrived on Europa, Veidt was immediately worshiped as a god by the Phillipses and Crookshankses there, and performed several activities with them as his humble, willing servants. Over time, however, the lack of achievement and his servants' constant unwarranted celebration of him began to drive him mad, and Veidt discovered his own self-worth meant nothing without deserved appreciation. He began plotting a daring escape, but, knowing it would take years, instructed the first Phillips created to become the Game Warden, his masked adversary who would try to stop him from leaving, all as a way to keep himself entertained.[7][8][3]
Travelling into the unknown
From 2011 to 2014, Veidt used his resources to build spacesuits with which to send numerous Phillipses out of the atmospheric shell in order to help create one that wouldn't kill him. Many attempts were made by the Game Warden to stop him, but he continued anyway. Eventually, Veidt began catapulting the corpses of Phillipses and Crookshankses through the bubble to help him in his cause. When Veidt's perfect suit was finally engineered, his servants helped him exit the shell, and out onto Europa's rocky, frozen surface. There, he collected the frozen corpses into various clumps to create giant letters spelling out the words "SAVE ME DAUGHTER", and no sooner did he finish that Lady Trieu's satellite flew overhead and photographed it for her to see, prompting her to send a rocket to save him.[2][4]
The trial of Ozymandias
When Veidt returned to the atmospheric shell, the Game Warden placed him under arrest and put him on trial for a year, where he was tried for his crimes against the people of Europa. He was given the choice to stay willingly or by force, and knowing that Trieu's rescue would take another two years, chose to stay by force. He was then smashed in the face with tomatoes repeatedly before being confined to the manor's dungeon, where he finally realized just how narcissistic and self-loving he was through an encounter with the Game Warden. Fortunately, at the beginning of his stay in the dungeon, a Phillips and a Crookshanks snuck him a horseshoe, and he used it to scrape at the dungeon floor continuously for two years, until he'd dug a tunnel under his bed that led to the field outside the manor walls.[4][9][3][6]
Frozen in gold
In 2017, Trieu's rocket finally arrived on Europa, prepared to pick Veidt up. Veidt made his way through the tunnel and confronted the Game Warden one last time, stabbing him with the sharpened horseshoe and striding away to the ship as the Warden bled to death. Once inside, the onboard computer directed him to a cryostasis chamber, where he was frozen in a golden substance. When he returned to Trieu's home base of Tulsa, Oklahoma in 2019, Trieu put him on display as a "statue of Adrian Veidt" inside her completed Millennium Clock, the machine to sap Doctor Manhattan's power, still bitter at him over their last encounter. He remained there for several months as he was officially declared dead, and Trieu bought out his company.[6][10][1]
Saving Earth Once More
Reunited with Lady Trieu
In September of 2019, Trieu awakened Veidt and explained to him that she had completed her machine, called the Millennium Clock, and had manipulated the white supremacist group Cyclops into capturing Doctor Manhattan for her. She planned to absorb Doctor Manhattan's abilities and remake the world into her own paradise, and she had only brought her father home to Earth to show him he was wrong about her all those years ago. Once Veidt regained his strength, Trieu brought him and various pieces of machinery to Tulsa's town square. Just as Cyclops prepared to transfer Manhattan's powers into their leader, Trieu teleported Cyclops, the caged Manhattan, and a kidnapped Laurie Blake, the former Silk Spectre, to the square, liquefying Keene and startling the rest.
Saving humanity again
As Trieu monologued about her genius plot to Cyclops, Doctor Manhattan touched the liquefied Keene, which had traveled under his cage, and sent his power through it, teleporting Veidt, Laurie, and an undercover cop named Wade Tillman to Veidt's old Antarctica base, still sending out pre-programmed squidfalls after so many years. Knowing instantly why Manhattan sent them there, Veidt began ordering Wade to lower the temperature on his baby squid production chamber, freezing them while he set the computer's coordinates to Tulsa. He realized he'd have to stop his daughter from achieving ultimate power, having realized how destructive he had been as an ambitious narcissist. Just as Doctor Manhattan was obliterated, Veidt sent the squids to Tulsa, with the high speed and heavy density of them destroying the Millennium Clock and killing Trieu, saving Earth once again.
Dragged away to justice
Content and victorious, Veidt prepared to leave Laurie and Wade with Nite Owl's ship, Archie, which had been buried in the ice years before. However, Laurie, now an F.B.I. agent, placed Veidt under arrest for the squid attack in 1985, finally having decided it could no longer be secret. Veidt faced down Laurie, angrily demanding she reconsider, but Wade knocked him unconscious before he could finish. Together, Wade and Laurie dragged Veidt into Archie, and they took off to bring him to justice at last.[6]
Powers and Abilities
Abilities
- Genius Level Intellect
- Hand-to-Hand Combat (Advanced)
- Business Management
- Leadership
- Deception
- Charisma
Weaknesses
Paraphernalia
Equipment
- Ozymandias Costume
- Horseshoe
Notes
- This version of the character is exclusive to the continuity of the television series Watchmen and is an adaptation of Ozymandias. The original character was created by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons and first appeared in Watchmen #1.
- Adrian Veidt was portrayed by Jeremy Irons.
Trivia
- Adrian Veidt was publicly a Democrat, having been the party's biggest donor in the late eighties and early nineties.[1]
- When confronted by Lady Trieu, Veidt declared that he had never given himself to a woman, and that he is like Alexander the Great.[6]
- This is a reference to Veidt's implied homosexuality in the original Watchmen comic.
- This is a reference to Veidt's implied homosexuality in the original Watchmen comic.
Recommended Reading
Related
- 10 Appearances of Adrian Veidt (Watchmen TV Series)
- 37 Images featuring Adrian Veidt (Watchmen TV Series)
- 3 Quotations by or about Adrian Veidt (Watchmen TV Series)
- Character Gallery: Adrian Veidt (Watchmen TV Series)
External Links
Footnotes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 https://www.hbo.com/content/dam/hbodata/series/watchmen/peteypedia/01/veidt-declared-dead.pdf
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Watchmen: "She Was Killed by Space Junk"
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 Watchmen: "A God Walks into Abar"
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 Watchmen: "Little Fear of Lightning"
- ↑ Rorschach #4
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 Watchmen: "See How They Fly"
- ↑ Watchmen: "It's Summer and We're Running Out of Ice"
- ↑ Watchmen: "Martial Feats of Comanche Horsemanship"
- ↑ Watchmen: "An Almost Religious Awe"
- ↑ Watchmen: "If You Don't Like My Story, Write Your Own"