Edward Blake, the Comedian, is a "hero": a masked vigilante and later an agent of the United States government, he fights crime and fights his country’s wars. But his method is pure brutality —he beats, tortures, shoots a pregnant woman, puts down riots with sadism—, and his philosophy is a bitter nihilism: the world is a cruel, meaningless joke, and he is the only one lucid enough to laugh. For peacemaking criminology, the Comedian is the "war on crime" made flesh: the man who fights violence with so much violence that he can no longer be told apart from it.
// The theoryFighting violence with violence
Peacemaking criminology criticizes the martial metaphor that governs criminal policy —the "war" on crime, on drugs, on terror— because war reproduces what it fights: to defeat violence, it becomes violent, and in the process it is infected by the very thing it pursued. The Comedian is that dynamic carried to its conclusion. From wielding so much violence "on the good side" —repressing, punishing, killing in the name of order—, he has lost any moral difference from the "bad side." His legal brutality is indistinguishable from the illegal kind; his cynicism is that of the soldier who has seen that the line between defending and attacking was, all along, a joke.
There lies his perverse lucidity: the Comedian understands the theory’s thesis better than anyone, only he celebrates it instead of mourning it. He knows the "war on crime" is violence dressed up as justice, that heroes are thugs with a license, that the whole system is a bloody farce. But instead of looking for a way out, he laughs and joins in. It is the nihilism of the man who has stared into the abyss of the cycle of violence and decided to be its jester.
The hero indistinguishable from the villain
The Comedian illustrates the danger peacemaking criminology sees in every "war" on crime: that the combatant is infected by his enemy. When the response to crime is force without limits, the one who wields it —police officer, vigilante, soldier— ends up using the very methods he pursues: torture to extract information, violence to "deter," the end that justifies any means. The theory warns of this with real data: police brutality, the abuses of the "war on drugs," torture in the "war on terror" are not exceptions, they are the logic of war working as intended. The Comedian is its symbol: when you fight monsters with the methods of monsters, you become one —and he, unlike others, knows it and laughs—.
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// The subjectLucidity as an excuse
The Comedian is intelligent, and he uses his lucidity about the farce of the system as an alibi: if everything is a cruel, meaningless joke, why not take part in it? It is nihilism as a license for cruelty —"nothing matters, so anything goes"—. Peacemaking criminology rejects that leap: recognizing that the "war on crime" is violence in disguise does not authorize joining it, but obliges you to look for something else. The Comedian sees the problem clearly and chooses the worst possible answer: not to leave the cycle, but to embrace it. His tragedy is having the lucidity to diagnose the disease and using it only to justify the contagion.
Edward Blake
// The crackNot a cool antihero, nor cynicism as truth
The Comedian’s crack is his cynical charisma, which tempts you to take him for a lucid antihero whose nihilism is "right." Watchmen plays with that, but it does not absolve him: he shoots a pregnant woman, he is a rapist, a torturer. His sharp diagnosis does not excuse his crimes; seeing the farce gives no right to be a monster within it. And the opposite crack: accepting his conclusion —"it’s all violence, there is no way out"— is surrendering exactly where peacemaking criminology insists there is an alternative. The Comedian confuses describing the cycle with the impossibility of breaking it; the theory holds that describing it is the first step toward leaving, not proof that you cannot.
Against him, the same work sets other vigilantes who seek meaning or try to do good: the contrast shows that the Comedian’s lucidity was not the only possible answer to the horror he saw, only the most comfortable one for him.
Distrusting war as a method
The Comedian matters because he embodies the hidden cost of martial rhetoric in justice. Every time a society declares a "war" on a social problem —crime, drugs—, it authorizes violence without limits and creates its own Comedians: agents who, in the name of good, wield the evil they fight, until the difference is erased. Peacemaking criminology proposes abandoning the metaphor of war for that of healing: not defeating crime by crushing it (which reproduces the violence), but reducing the suffering that generates it. The Comedian is the warning of where the opposite leads: to a world of heroes indistinguishable from their villains, all laughing at the same cruel joke.
"It’s all a joke," says the Comedian, and in a way he diagnoses the farce of the war on crime correctly. His mistake —and his crime— is the conclusion: that if everything is violence, one may be the most violent of all and call it lucidity. Peacemaking criminology draws the opposite conclusion from the same diagnosis: that someone has to stop laughing and start healing.
Three key takeaways
- The Comedian is the "war on crime" made flesh: he fights violence with so much violence that he becomes indistinguishable from it ("legitimate" torture, brutality, murder).
- War infects the combatant: police brutality, the abuses of the "war on drugs and terror" are not exceptions, they are the logic of war. Whoever fights monsters with their methods becomes one.
- He uses his lucidity about the farce as a nihilistic alibi ("nothing matters, anything goes"). His diagnosis does not excuse his crimes; describing the cycle is the first step toward leaving, not proof that you cannot.
Sources · further reading
- Moore, A. & Gibbons, D. (1987). Watchmen. DC Comics.
- Pepinsky, H. E. & Quinney, R. (eds.) (1991). Criminology as Peacemaking. Indiana University Press.
- Nils Christie (2004). A Suitable Amount of Crime. Routledge.
Case-file questionsFrequently asked questions
¿Quién es Edward Blake?
Edward Blake («el Comediante») es un villano de Watchmen, analizado en KRIMINIS con la lente de la criminología. He fights crime with blows of the very violence he fights.
¿Por qué Edward Blake (el Comediante) se convierte en villano?
The Comedian and peacemaking criminology: the "war on crime" made flesh. A vigilante and soldier who has seen so much "legitimate" violence that he concludes it is all a cruel joke —and answers with more brutality—.
¿Qué teoría criminológica explica a Edward Blake?
El caso de Edward Blake se analiza desde la Criminología de la paz. Peacemaking criminology holds that the "war on crime" reproduces the violence it fights. Edward Blake, the Comedian of Watchmen, embodies it: a vigilante and agent of the State whose "legitimate" brutality is indistinguishable from the kind he pursues, and who, from wielding so much violence, concludes that the world is a cruel joke with no moral sense. He is the soldier of the war on crime who became the crime.
