Rorschach (comics)

Template:Superherobox Rorschach is a fictional superhero who is a central character in the classic comic book series, Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons and published by DC Comics. The character was derived from The Question, created by Steve Ditko.

Character history

His real name is Walter Joseph Kovacs, born March 21, 1940. His mother, a prostitute who resented his interference in her business, abused him viciously. At age 11, he was cruelly abused by two bullies and attacked them, partially blinding one with a lit cigarette, and became a ward of the state, sent to the Lillian Charlton Home for Problem Children. In high school, he excelled in religious education and literature, as well as in boxing and gymnastics, and also wrote an essay in which he praised President Truman's decision to use nuclear weapons against the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, asserting that the bombs helped save lives by stopping the war.

During those high school years, Walter was informed of his mother's gruesome murder; her pimp force-fed her a bottle of Drāno until she died in agony. Walter's only reaction consisted of the single word: "Good."

Reaching maturity, he found work as a garment worker and was later fascinated by a new fabric, created by Doctor Manhattan, containing a dark interior liquid that continually changed into symmetrical patterns like a Rorschach test. Kovacs learned of the fabric when a young woman brought it in to be cleaned where he worked. The woman, Kitty Genovese, in real life and in Watchmen, was brutally murdered in front of a building full of tenants who didn't bother to help her. Kovacs modified her dress, making it into a mask and becoming Rorschach to avenge the powerless victims of crime.

Eventually, he teamed up with another superhero, Nite Owl (II), whose technical skills and resources complemented his skills as an investigator.

In the 1970s, Rorschach was hunting for a kidnapped child, and found her captor's hideout. To his horror, he realized that the girl had been murdered and fed to two German Shepherd dogs. In the face of this atrocity, Kovac's mind snapped and assumed the mental identity of Rorschach as a separate personality. He killed the dogs and later murdered the kidnapper, tying him up in his empty house and burning him alive.

Rorschach terrorized criminals on his own; during the day he carried a sign warning of the impending apocalypse. After the Keene Act demanded his retirement, he grew even more violent, murdering notorious multiple rapist Harvey Charles Furniss and leaving his corpse in front of a police station; a note pinned to his chest read, "Never!"

Events of Watchmen

In a mid-1980s murder investigation, he discovered that the victim was the Comedian, a miscreant superhero and former colleague. Suspecting a plot to eliminate superheroes, he pursued the case based on that theory and interviewed the various informal members of the hero community. Although they did not take his theory seriously, the sudden public denunciations and subsequent self-exile of Dr. Manhattan and the attempted murder of Adrian Veidt, aka Ozymandias, bolstered his confidence that he was on the right track. Eventually, he was framed for the murder of an old retired supervillain, and arrested.

In prison, Rorschach was subject to numerous death threats and attacks by vengeful prisoners, until he was freed by Nite Owl and Silk Spectre, who sought his help in their own investigation.

Eventually, they learned that the mastermind behind the plot was Adrian Veidt, and Rorschach and Nite Owl traveled to his home in Antarctica to confront him; however, they were unable to prevent him from faking the disastrous appearance in New York City of a giant Lovecraftian monster, killing millions and - as planned - uniting the world and thereby avoiding nuclear war.

Faced with the fact that exposing this crime could lead to worse world devastation, the other superheroes agreed to keep silent about it. Rorschach, on the other hand, refused on principle to cooperate ("No. Not even in the face of Armageddon. Never compromise.") and was destroyed by Dr. Manhattan at his own goading.

However, his legacy may have greater consequences. This is because prior to going to Antarctica, he wrote a complete journal about his investigation and sent it to a reactionary fringe newspaper. Whether or not the journal's contents would be printed and taken seriously by the public was left as an open question at the very last page of the Watchmen comics series.