Watchmen’s Rorschach to Return in New DC Series

Writer Tom King recently announced his plans to launch a new, twelve-issue series that may or may not revive the infamous Watchmen character, Rorschach. I don’t use the word “infamous” lightly, he’s both a much-loved and in many ways repulsive character. His own creator, Alan Moore, expressed intense discomfort for people who identified with and related to the masked … villain? Antihero?

To this day, it’s still a little unclear which term applies, but Tom King and HBO’s Watchmen series have come down fairly unequivocally about one thing: Rorschach isn’t, and wasn’t a heroic figure. Indeed, there’s a lot about Rorschach’s original journal entries — which he shared with the press toward the end of the original limited series, and most specifically with The New Frontiersman, a fictional extreme right-wing outlet — that provoke that intense discomfort, and resonate sharply with pointedly right-wing politics.

They often veer into ramblings that read intensely misogynistic and are riddled with fear of sex, hostility toward sex workers, and a simmering of gay panic. To say nothing of the fact that several of his turns of phrase and patterns of belief are now being echoed in, for instance, “Red Pill” philosophy espoused by (largely) men of the contemporary alt-right.

It very much held water, therefore, when HBO’s Watchmen leaned into the idea of Rorschach’s image and writing being co-opted by white supremacists. Supremacists who bear a very close resemblance to alt-right groups we recognize from contemporary life. This was nonetheless a controversial decision that prompted showrunner Damon Lindelof to stress that the intent behind the show was not to portray Walter Kovacs, the original Rorschach, as a racist himself.

Your mileage may vary on how true that rings. Even so, the commentary on skimming, borrowing, and skewing particular strains of political and social commentary to favor a white supremacist agenda is clear. It is indeed something that resonates with the reality of lived experience outside of fiction.

What, then, does this tell us about the impending DC revival of Rorschach’s character? What do we know so far? Arguably, not a great deal. We know that the series will be launching on October 13th of this year under the DC Black Label descriptor; meaning it will be appropriate for audiences age 17 and older. We know that it will be a joint effort between Batman writer Tom King, artist Jorge Fornés, colorist Dave Stewart, and letterer Clayton Cowles. We know that the story takes place 35 years after the end of the original Watchmen limited series. It will also take place after Walter Kovacs’ death at the hands of Doctor Manhattan.

This, of course, raises the question of how (or, perhaps more accurately, if) the series will revitalize Rorschach. Last we saw him, he was looking rather… well, disintegrated. Now, in a universe full of superheroes — along with comics being a medium fairly famous for reviving dead characters — it’s hardly out of the realm of possibility that we could be welcoming back Walter Kovacs himself. However, the synopsis provided in the press release is just vague enough to leave me with at least one alternate theory:

“It’s been 35 years since Ozymandias was exposed for dropping a giant telepathic squid on New York City, killing thousands and ending the public’s trust in heroes once and for all. The Minutemen are gone; only their memory lives on. Especially the infamy of Rorschach, who has become a cultural icon since Dr. Manhattan turned him to dust. Rorschach may have spoken truth, but he wasn’t a hero.

“Like the HBO Watchmen show and very much like the original ‘86 Watchmen, this is a very political work.” said King. “It’s an angry work. We’re so angry all the time now. We have to do something with that anger. It’s called Rorschach not because of the character Rorschach, but because what you see in these characters tells you more about yourself than about them.”

So what does it mean when Rorschach reappears as part of a pair of assassins trying to kill the first candidate to oppose President Robert Redford in decades? Follow one determined detective as he walks backward in time, uncovering the identities and motives of the would-be killers, taking him deep into a dark conspiracy of alien invasions, disgraced do-gooders, mystical visions, and yes, comic books.

Writer Tom King joins forces with artist Jorge Fornés to explore the mythic qualities of one of the most compelling characters from the bestselling graphic novel of all time, Watchmen.”

You may have reached some conclusions on your own. For those who are still thinking it over, I won’t spill my particular beans just yet. For now, I await the series with a cautious, eggshell-thin hopefulness. This may be a complicated time to put Rorschach at the center of a new narrative, and I’m not entirely convinced that a white man is the right person to helm writing the story, given the context at work. That said, I’ve been wrong before, and I would happily be so again.

Until then, stay safe, wear a mask — preferably not an inkblot one, but who knows — steer clear of those corners of Reddit, and you will probably hear from me about this again come October 13th.