Manhattan isn't a bad guy, he just cannot relate anymore... for him it's like contemplating the emotions of a rock, which, in a lot of ways, makes more sense to him. Rorschach and Ozymandias are far, far, far worse.
Manhattan is a bad guy, everyone in that entire story was a bad guy. Being unable to relate does not excuse actions and in bad guy good guy terminology usually intentions don't matter either, they just make you a different subcategory of bad guy.
So.. ultimately if you've squashed a bug you're a bad guy forever? You don't know what the bug was aiming for you, you can't, it's thoughts are obtuse at best as far and you're concerned. Doesn't make you bad. How was Silk Spectre 2 a bad guy (woman, whatever)? Even the Comedian is shades of grey, as masochistic as he was. What about Hooded Justice? Even Morloch, who WAS a bad guy, turned out to be... well... not a bad guy. Did all of them do bad things? Oh, yeah... but none of what ANY of those characters did compares to what Ozy and Shach did. What they did made them bad guys forever. One took choice out of the matter, the other killed everyone he thought was the scum of the Earth and wound up killing innocent people throughout his entire path and then proclaimed he'd never change and forced Manhattan to atomize him. At least Manhattan had the respect to leave his blood splattered in remembrance... which I guess, is like someone squashing an ant an honorable way, at worst.
There is also the question if Manhattan knew what was going to happen, would he have stopped it? He probably would, even though it would make him seem even godlier... but he'd probably wind up leaving anyway. After Ozymandias put his plan into motion, in a way, all of Manhattan's actions are a result of Ozymandias having the audacity to manipulate Manhattan's emotion on behalf of humanity.
Aite yo, I'm back... from outer space... (limits... if we go with end-credits)... whatever, the groove. I stand by my position. Pretty much everyone got fucked over, but those two assholes never once asked for a semblance of forgiveness. They were both incapable of it, and thus, in the end, "bad guys".
I'd like to add Hollis Mason to the list of good guys. I forgot they don't show his demise the same way in the ultimate cut.
Can we get whoever the fuck is cutting Snyder movies in half to stop though? I mean.. the dude nails, damn near down to the pen used in each scene of this masterpiece, only for half of it to be cut.
Can you imagine if WB had gotten the rights to LOTR? It would only be two movies, they'd cut out everything about Gollum and it would just be the first "movie" ending at Helm's Deep and then the second just a gigantic cluster of CGI crap thrown at the screen as hard as they could like "EAT THAT FUCKERS!" And the world would be lesser for it.
Even putting a Watchmen series on HBO is fucked up. There was a reason nobody, especially comic writers, never wanted to touch it.
I'd like to add Hollis Mason to the list of good guys. I forgot they don't show his demise the same way in the ultimate cut.
Can we get whoever the fuck is cutting Snyder movies in half to stop though? I mean.. the dude nails, damn near down to the pen used in each scene of this masterpiece, only for half of it to be cut.
Even putting a Watchmen series on HBO is fucked up. There was a reason nobody, especially comic writers, never wanted to touch it.