So I sat down and read the "Watchmen" for my English class to write a response essay. While I was reading I started thinking about how the characters in this comic were intriguing and well developed. Most of my attention, however, was focused on the character Rorschach. His character seemed to be the personification of the fear that caused superheroes to become illegal. He was dark, twisted, spiteful and had more than his share of screws loose. He seemed to have the set up to be more of a villain than a hero. Maybe that’s why his character was so intriguing, the fact that in any other DC or Marvel universe or story arc that’s what he would be: a villain. Someone who would fight the hero and lose every time, with few exceptions.
Somehow in the "Watchmen" Rorschach became a hero, one of the first main heroes, not sidekick or “partner,” to lose in such an ultimate way. Not killed by the villain, but killed by his friends and dying without a single person to mourn the loss of this hero, not even his friends. Though in the end of the comic it seems that his “friends” mourn his loss, but I see a different perspective, to me it seemed they mourn not the loss of a close friend but a loss of ideals.
Throughout the whole comic, Owl-man would often lecture Rorschach about responsibility and doing the right thing by not being a killer but a hero. Rorsachach always argued against this ideal that you fight the bad guy over and over again when lethal force could take care of the problem.
Rorsachach was the type of hero to take all of it on. He broke the laws, and skulls so Owl-man and the other heroes didn’t have to. They were able to stay clean and out of the preverbal sewers while he lived in them. I looked at other characters in comics and I found that this isn’t a new concept. In the superhero world it isn’t practical for all the heroes to have the same idealistic values and fighting, nothing would get done. There is always one character whether this be comics, movies, books, or cartoons; the antihero superhero. What I mean by this is they all have traits that would traditionally make them villains but instead by some twist of fate end up on the side of the good guys. Batman, Ironman, and now I realize Rorsachah. All of them have methods that separate them from the other heroes and as a result have a hate/love relationship with them. Distrust and Annoyance with their inability to follow the rules set to a certain set of values owned by the hero antagonist is the cause of this tension. For Batman it is Superman, Ironman it is Captain America, and for Rorsachah it is Owl-man. They all allow for their opposite to stay clean, to never have to go against their morals.
Maybe the reason why these antihero heroes are beloved over their counterparts by a select few, is because of their humanity. They aren’t the shining pillars of justice and I know for sure that’s why I like them. They're human, with all the dark, twisted, spiteful, few screw looseness that we all have. The idea of perfection and absolute virtue is idealistic and boring. I for sure don’t want that in my favorite superheroes. Those flaws are what shows us what we have been told all our lives that anyone can be a hero. There isn’t any preset characters, that no matter what our backstory sets us up to be we can always override it and be anything we want.
