One of Watchmen‘s infamous protagonists is getting their own spinoff series, and naturally, it is fan-favorite Walter Joseph Kovacs, best known by the moniker Rorschach.
The announcement came from DC Comics today, and this will be a 12-issue maxiseries written by Tom King (Mister Miracle) and featuring art by Jorge Fornés (Batman) that will take place over three decades past the events of the original Watchmen series. However, unlike the HBO version, this one deals more directly with the fact that Rorshach sent his journal to the press:
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.
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.
“Like the HBO Watchmen show and very much like the original ’86 Watchmen, this is a very political work”, King says in a press release. “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.”
This is yet another spinoff that the series had gotten with Before Watchmen and Doomsday Clock.
Despite the fact that I think Rorschach is a character that is often misused and mistakenly lionized by some fans of the comic, I really, really enjoy the idea of expanding up the world that Moore created. I don’t think everyone is up for the task, but if they are planning to focus on the after-effects of Rorshach’s actions, that is compelling, and considering the political climate we are in right now, where journalism is seen as suspect, this is a conspiracy theory story that people will eat up.
Rorschach #1 will be published on October 13, 2020, and will be rated for audiences 17+.
(via ComicBook.com, image: DC Comics)
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