as i recall the characters who get "the joke" are the comedian, rorschach, ozymandias, and dr manhatten, each of whom respond to the trauma of getting the joke entirely differently. the comedian embraces it, laughs at it, lets it consume him. basically decides "the world is fucked up, i might as well personally have fun." i don't recall him ever showing any sympathy towards the world. his terrible actions are ultimately justified by that he is the stand-in for captain america: his violence is government backed. the crucial difference between captain america and the comedian is that captain america represents what america could and should be, a future for us to work towards, whereas the comedian represents what america is, a present for us to move away from. i think that aspect is a very clever piece of writing by alan moore as the time when he was creating the watchmen was very politically different from when jack kirby was creating captain america. i've been thinking a lot lately about how incredible jack kirby's explorations of fascism, militarism, and jewish identity are all through his career. i think alan moore did jack kirby justice in taking a lot of captain america's tropes and superimposing them onto a fascist. i think jack kirby did an incredible job of showing us the lunacy of nazis in his super villains (something i didn't give him enough credit for until this year when i saw how these freaks operate when the mask of respectability is removed), but by alan moore's time, the value of an aspirational symbol for what america could be was diminished as america turned more and more fascist, making super imposing captain america's tropes onto a fascist felt uncomfortable and upsetting. but also, having now seen trump voters up close and personal, it's incredibly accurate to the mindset. both jack kirdy and alan moore did an incredible job depicting fascism in the hopes we the people would see their work and grow and change.

unfortunately not enough of us did