Absolute Watchmen
A while back I mused in the Absolute Universe subreddit about how you'd even make an Absolute Universe take on Watchmen.
...Then it dawns on me on the way home from work, suppose Doctor Manhattan never properly manifested and he was viewed as, if nothing else, just some cryptid or urban legend.
What results is a world where there's masked adventurers, but no walking god to turn the cold war into something that nearly results in WWIII.
What's left after that, is perhaps a bigger population of masked vigilantes and a bigger batch of problems just waiting to self-destruct.
A few thoughts on specific takes on characters.
- Rorschach actually managed to rescue Blaire Roche before she was killed, though sometime after this NYPD officers figured out his secret identity but instead of running him in, persuaded him to become an 'off the books' asset of the department, giving him a wide berth while occasionally 'nudging' him in the direction of cases they want dealt with. While significantly mentally healthier, Rorschach's mental health has been fraying as a result of moral dissonance, as the NYPD's toxic culture is rubbing off on him...he is however, not quite as close-minded as he was before, due to avoiding the trauma of the Blaire Roche case's failiure.
- Without Doctor Manhattan to hook up with following the Crimebusters failing to come together, Laurie's career as the Silk Spectre lead to her attracting attention from federal agents who wanted her to become an asset of their's for publicity reasons...and also to infiltrate leftist groups. At her mother's insistence Laurie ended up taking the job...and as a result of witnessing the results of COINTELPRO had her own Blaire Roche moment when her job ended up leading to the death of a young social activist, Laurie proceeded to slaughter several FBI agents before going on the run, assuming the new identity of the Street Spectre, using the skills her mother taught her to wage war against Nixon's government. While publicly declared a supervillain, Laurie has developed a counter-cultural reputation and even has a gang of followers (including a pair of former street performers), she's been receiving under-the-table funding by Adrian Veidt...and by the present, is feeling more and more like she's been turned into his private attack dog.
- Daniel Drieberg initially retired, Adrian Veidt however persuaded him to take an engineering job with his company, in time this lead to him taking on a more active role as Adrian Veidt's personal troubleshooter, allowing him an avenue to resume his hero work in a 'licensed' capacity...he is however, getting increasingly suspicious of Veidt's contracts, which may prove his undoing. While he had a partnership with Rorschach, it near completely disintegrated in 1977 during their hunt for the Son of Sam.
- Adrian Veidt still plans on killing a lot of people to bring about world peace, though with the cold war considerably warmer, it's more clearly motivated by his own hubris and pettiness, he still retired before the Keene act and most of the technological advancements in this world are a result of both his and Drieberg's genius, in addition to his massive company. He may still be planning on faking an alien attack, but is also planning to produce a 'savior' in the form of a miraculous being he's been hiding for years, in addition he's been using Laurie as an agent to work where he can't have Nite Owl II working publicly.
- Edward Morgan Blake helped win the Vietnam War, thanks not to Doctor Manhattan but through his own ruthless competence and a dozen other masked adventurers similarly recruited by the Nixon government, he never saw the island where Veidt made his creature...he's also currently the government's 'poster child' for licensed masked adventurers, and thee deadliest enforcer on Richard Nixon's payroll. He has however been growing increasingly depressed, borderline suicidal even...it doesn't help that his own daughter is among his most frequent opponents, despite receiving no end of shit from his superiors for 'going easy' on Street Spectre, his refusal to actually kill her is NOT sentiment she returns...he might be planning on arranging for her to take him out, but is on the fence about it.
- Jon Osterman's intrinsic field accident and backstory is pretty much the same...however, other experiments at the same facility kept interfering with his development as he tried to manifest into physical form, eventually resulting in his being discovered by Adrian Veidt and captured when he tried to 'investigate the stories of the ghost', stuck in a disembodied limbo, he's currently little more than Adrian's guinea pig at the moment.
As for the main events, I think the inciting murder to the story wouldn't be the Comedian's...it'd be Dan Dreiberg after he learned about the captive superman Adrian was holding, when he tried to tell his old partner Rorschach Veidt murdered Dreiberg in his Owlcave.
Rorschach might still leap to the 'mask killer' conclusion, but that might be something Veidt suggests to Laurie, intending to keep her off of his trail by siccing her on the Comedian and Rorschach, leading to conflict between everyone involved.
Anyways, it might be kinda dumb and fanficcy, maybe not...just something I wanted to share.