At Midnight All The Agents

It's October 12th, 1985. America has won the Vietnam War, Nixon is still the president, recently winning his fifth term as president, the cold war has reached a fever pitch and the doomsday clock stands at five minutes to midnight. Youth gangs roam the streets like Alex and his droogs, committing random acts of violence and destruction while masked vigilantes have recently been outlawed thanks to government legislation called the Keene Act which passed in 1977. Masked vigilantes have transitioned to normal lives except the ones sponsored by the government...and Rorschach, who refused to comply with the legislation. He roams the streets, incognito, delivering his own brand of justice.

On this fateful night, an individual named Edward Blake has been killed in New York. Detectives at the crime scene decide to keep the investigation hush hush, lest Rorschach interferes. Unbeknownst to them, Rorschach has already begun conducting his own investigation into the matter. His findings lead to him to two conclusions:

1. Edward Blake was The Comedian - a government-approved masked vigilante.

2. This murder may be just the tip of the iceberg of a much larger conspiracy to eliminate masked vigilantes from the picture. But who? And to what end?

Hello and welcome to The Punchline. I'm your host Vikrant and today we will take a walk with Rorschach through the seedy underbelly of New York City circa 1985, meet some interesting people, bust a few fingers, break into a military facility and try to find out what exactly is brewing in the Big Apple this fine evening as we analyze our first chapter of Watchmen: At Midnight all the agents...

Music: Sphynx