Smiley-Face Badge Symbol Analysis

The Comedian’s smiley-face badge symbolizes Watchmen’s critique of traditional comic book heroes. In the first scene of the novel, when Edward Blake is assaulted and thrown through his own window, a drop of his blood smears across a yellow smiley-face badge on his robe. The happy yellow badge represents the popular notion of a comic book hero as someone who is undeniably righteous and who fights an opponent that is undeniably evil. Blake’s blood smearing across the badge represents how Watchmen intentionally tarnishes the image of a perfect hero, depicting its own heroes as dynamic, deeply flawed characters and questioning whether they are really heroes at all. The image of the blood-smeared badge features prominently throughout the first two chapters, and even forms the novel’s cover image. Daniel Dreiberg ultimately tosses the badge into Blake’s grave, still bloody, signifying the end of the pure, faultless comic book hero.