Jon wasn’t being emo. His progressive alienation from humanity was very real, not just the result of listening to too many AFI records.
When your perception has widened to include everything in the universe both above and below humanity’s notice, humanity itself becomes an ever-shrinking concern to you. This was discussed in the book, particularly in Veidt’s interview with Whatsisface from the liberally-minded news magazine. Put yourself in Jon’s shoes: how would your life change if human conflict was no different to you than black ants vs. red ants?
And especially take into consideration that Jon was never very assertive, either before or after his accident. He always tended to let life wash over him and let other people dictate his decisions to him. Everything he did was based on what others wanted out of him, so all of his Earthly concerns stemmed from the wants and needs of the people in his life. When those people slowly stopped mattering to him, what does that do to his Earthly concerns?
The thing with him leaving at the end to create life in another galaxy is a little bit of sci-fi fun that Alan Moore is having with us. It carries with it many implications, including the one that our own existence might have happened because of a being like Jon, who views humans as a curious scientist would view germs in a petri dish (which is basically what Jon is anyway).
I agree with you. I think there are strong implications that Veidt’s efforts were all for naught, and that he was naive to believe that A. one man, even the smartest man with all the resources, could possibly end all wars, and B. his plan was so airtight that he could have eliminated all of the loose ends.
The clincher, to me, was when Veidt began to tell Jon about his dream, then cut himself off. He was pretty obviously describing the ending of Tales of the Black Freighter, and while Veidt’s own position at the end of the story was morally ambiguous, the mariner’s position was not. The mariner had murdered his own family through the misguided belief that he was saving them from an imminent threat, and thus ensured himself a place on a ship of doomed souls. If Veidt subconsciously believed himself to be the mariner, then he himself must have know that the peace between the U.S. and the Soviets would fail–rendering his plan nothing more than a pointless and horrible mass-murder.
What would be his ultimate undoing is anybody’s guess. Rorschach’s journal is still in the crank file at the New Frontiersman, Jon makes the entirely valid claim that “nothing ever ends” (war being one of the most enduring characteristics of human civilization), and while Dan and Laurie have vowed to remain silent, there’s no guarantee that they will. It’s just a matter of which of these uncontrolled factors comes into play first.
This is why I believe that Tales of the Black Freighter is absolutely essential to the story, and one of the many reasons why the film will be an incomplete and inferior experience.
The suggestion isn’t that the Comedian killed him for being gay, but that he killed him for what he perceived as a personal insult back at the Minutemen meeting. Given Blake’s cynical view of human morality, he probably felt that Hooded Justice’s treatment of him was unjustified, even after what he did to Sally Jupiter.
The other member who was homosexual was the Silhouette, who is discussed only fleetingly in the book. It is implied that, after her name went public in a scandal over her sexual orientation, one of her old enemies was able to track her down and kill her for revenge.
