Who at DC Comics signed off on creating 3 separate sequels to Watchmen? I’m all for different people adding to this world, but they all came it in a pretty short span of each other. Doomsday Clock took a few years to complete, the HBO show started running before Doomsday Clock got its last issue out, and I think this comic started publishing only a year after the show ended. There is a thing called oversaturation you know. Some people might assume that two or all three are connected and might end up disappointed to learn otherwise. But none of this is actually speaking to the quality of this comic, so let’s dive into that.
Rorschach is a 12 issue mini-series that is a standalone sequel to Watchmen published under the DC Black Label, an imprint of DC Comics for more mature stories. It starts off with two people who are about to assassinate a presidential candidate being killed by security. An investigator is hired by the candidate – Governor Turley, the conservative opponent to sitting President Redford – to find out who these people were and why they tried to kill him. Things are made stranger since one of the people is an elderly man wearing a Rorschach mask but the other is a twenty year old woman. And the journey through their lives complicates the investigation every step of the way.
We should talk a little bit of the writer of this comic, Tom King. He has made several well known stories in career. A few have been highly praised. But a few are highly despised among critics and and comic fans, so there was concern and backlash when it was announced he was the one writing the story. We don’t have time to go over his writing style, but I will identify one trait that shows up across his work. Tom King likes to write dialogue in a sort of poetic style. Even if sometimes that results in his characters not talking like real people or just has them keep going on and on about something completely unrelated to the situation at hand. Some of his books do it better than others. Luckily, that does seem pretty restrained in this book. Since most of the people in the story are government workers and even investigators, they talk like they should. It does feel like these people are more grounded and realistic.
Throughout the story there is focus on a couple of different conspiracy theories. One is that Doctor Manhattan, knowing that the squids – like the one that “attacked” New York – and devised a plan where the bodies of the heroes are destroyed but their souls will reappear in other bodies. That connects to the dead attackers, the young woman who was raised by her extremist father has convinced several people they were Rorschach reincarnated so to speak. And for a while, I thought this story would end up speaking on the topic of isolation and connection. Which would have been a relevant thing to discuss especially in the midst of a real world pandemic. How ideas can be powerful and bring people together, no matter how dangerous their influence might be. But that you should always identify the people behind the idea and see their true motivations. I thought that was where this story was going.
However, that went away when a different conspiracy turned out to be true. That the attack on Governor Turley’s life was orchestrated. But unlike it being manipulated by President Redford like he is trying to prove, it was of his own doing. Setting events up in a way where the only connections would go back to Redford and help him win the election. However, the investigator we have been following through the story has constantly been at odds about what he thinks & feels, trying to figure out what he should do once he discovers this information. This ultimately leads him to kill Turley himself, essentially identifying himself as a new Rorschach, but not in the way the the dead criminals would define him as. But rather a new vigilante that follows Rorschach’s ideals.
So this story ends up being one that talks about the cyclical nature of violence and politics in society. And the investigator’s story is sort of a living Rorschach test where his viewpoint is constantly changing until he sees what he wants to see. Depicting his rise – or fall, depending on how you look at it – into vigilantism. And this story is completely serviceable for the Watchmen mythos. But I’ll admit that I think it lacks a special quality, something that prevents it from having as full an impact as it should. You can say what you want about Doomsday Clock and the HBO show. But both of those stories had reveals or surprises that really touched on the overall message of their respective stories. Those revelations helped leave as large an impact as possible. I don’t think I’m going to remember this comic the same way I look back on the show or Doomsday Clock. But that doesn’t mean I think this is bad. If you are looking for something that is more of a detective story, this is that story. And you’ll like it for sure. This just didn’t engage me in the way that I hoped.
