Scans_Daily

Excellent points, but I still think the Comedian has a tendency to avoid blame if and when he can, partly because he enjoys the life his actions give him and partly because he doesn't know any better. See also the scene where he's confronted by Laurie over raping her mother, and he responds 'only the once', or something along those lines; Granted, it ties into the revelation that comes later for Laurie, about him being her father and the fact that her mother actually hooked up with him after that pretty vicious assault, but that kind of answer doesn't exactly strike me as good.

I do think the later scene with the woman in Vietnam is tied to his raping Sally earlier in the story - in that instance, Hooded Justice stops him, and in Vietnam, Manhattan does not, so I don't know.. On one level I'm not sure if the Comedian expected some manner of intervention before he went to far, and simply didn't receive it. I don't think it excuses him entirely, if at all.

But.. Yeah. I think the tragedy of Jon in the main story was his increasing apathy toward things; The big argument with Jon isn't 'why can't you save everyone', but 'why AREN'T you saving everyone' - or at least, that seems to be what the Comedian levels Jon with in Vietnam. That does get solved in due course by Moore, of course, but I don't think JMS is particularly the best person to be handling the character.