The world of Watchmen is full of mysteries, but perhaps the biggest involves Will Reeves, the old, yet still fairly menacing, wheelchair-bound man responsible for the death of Judd. HBO's Watchmen series begins with a flashback to the 1921 Tulsa massacre and a young Will Reeves who, thanks to the efforts of his parents, manages to narrowly escape the hostilities. Back in the present day, Regina King's Sister Night is being observed by an ominous old man in a wheelchair. This individual then phones Angela claiming to know her secret identity, and leads her to a tree where her boss has been hanged.
Identifying as Will Reeves, the old man purports to have hung Judd himself, despite being over 100 years old and physically disabled, and Angela holds him for questioning. Upon returning to her prisoner later that night, Angela finds Will has been freely moving around, but elected not to escape. Reeves hints at a grand conspiracy afoot in the United States and is revealed to be Angela's grandfather. After directing the vigilante to the skeletons (or more accurately, racist uniforms) in Judd's closet, however, Will is rescued by an aircraft swinging a giant magnet that picks up Angela's car with Will still inside and whisks him free.
Evidently, Will Reeves is a character of great importance to the Watchmen story, but could he also be the true identity of the old superhero known as Hooded Justice? Featured in the original Watchmen comic series, Hooded Justice is the original masked crime-fighter and a member of the Minutemen group that preceded the Watchmen. Justice's real identity was never discovered and his fate never confirmed. The hero made his debut appearance in "Martial Feats of Comanche Horsemanship," starring in the dramatized "American Hero Story" segment, although the figure was merely an unknown actor rather than the genuine article.
During Watchmen's opening scene, a young Will is watching a silent movie in which the heroic Bass Reeves saves a small town from the corrupt authorities, establishing the character's preoccupation with justice and vigilantism from an early age. In Watchmen's timeline of events, Hooded Justice is active during the 1950s, at which time Will would've been in his physical prime and the sudden disappearance of the famous vigilante fits neatly with Angela's grandfather being absent from her upbringing.
Hooded Justice and Will Reeves also share several thematic qualities. Both the Hooded Justice name and the outfit he wears could be a reference to the traumatic Ku Klux Klan attack that defined Will's upbringing, with the "hood" motif being a darkly ironic reminder of Will's reason for being a vigilante and the type of evil he's sworn to fight against, similar to how Bruce Wayne utilizes his own fear of bats against others. The similarities between Justice's attire and that of the Klan could almost be described as a symbolic inversion; a dark hood to counter the KKK's pure white. Furthermore, Will makes a deliberate point of dramatically hanging Judd. While there's undoubtedly an element of showmanship to this for Angela's benefit, the chosen method of execution also echoes the Hooded Justice character.
Will Reeves may potentially possesses some kind of abnormal ability. Unless he has a team of nurses hidden around the city ready to assist at a moment's notice, Will has somehow managed to hang a fully grown man from a tree and escape a pair of handcuffs without so much as breaking a sweat. This characteristic is consistent with what Watchmen reveals about Hooded Justice; that he's a physically formidable opponent of enormous strength who often beats criminals with animalistic, uncompromising severity. Clearly, Will is not in his prime, but given the other fantastical occurrences in the Watchmen world, it's possible he has some secret method of rejuvenating his former strength for a limited time.
If Will Reeves is revealed to be Hooded Justice, this would account for the inclusion of the American Hero Story in this week's episode and explain Hooded Justice's presence in the series. Hooded Justice is one of the few original Watchmen characters whose full story hasn't been completely revealed, meaning a completely new and improved origin can be written without interfering with his established story.
Watchmen continues with "She Was Killed By Space Junk" November 3rd on HBO.