I'm not sure if there was any particular reason why DC didn't include Rorschach in their first wave of Before Watchmen comics. He is the most popular character from this batch — especially after the Zack Snyder movie. Maybe DC was banking on Rorschach's popularity to renew interest in this project two months in. Whatever the reason may be, we're finally starting the four-issue miniseries by Brian Azzarello and Lee Bermejo.
This cover by Bermejo is stunningly beautiful. I think almost any other artist would make me roll my eyes at the prospect of a Rorschach within a Rorschach within a Rorschach. But Bermejo's brutally realistic style pulls off this gimmick perfectly. I suppose if you have enough sincerity and skill, you can turn an otherwise silly gimmick into a work of art.
Jim Steranko certainly tried to make his variant a work of art. But ... it just doesn't work for me. The Before Watchmen logo unfortunately obscures the crumbling Doomsday Clock and I think he went too far with the dogs. Rorschach provides so many fun artistic opportunities, and I don't think Steranko took advantage of them.
Jim Lee also didn't take advantage of Rorschach's artistic opportunities. The inkblots on Rorschach's mask are bizarrely thin and straight. They look like little cuts and slashes in a pure white mask. It's almost like Lee has never read Watchmen and doesn't understand Rorschach at all.
One of the stranger choices with this comic was the decision to have Rorschach's journal be typed on a typewriter instead of handwritten. Maybe they thought letterer Rob Leigh wouldn't be able to replicate Dave Gibbons' handwriting? They also clumsily tried to insert a few errors to make it look like a realistic typewritten journal, but Azzarello and company aren't nearly as skilled at this as Alan Moore was. There aren't enough mistakes in the text and they all seem to be the same mistake — misspelling the word "what."
Anyway, this story takes place in 1977, which is an interesting era to explore. Nite Owl, Silk Spectre and Ozymandias have retired, and Dr. Manhattan and the Comedian are working for the United States government. Rorschach is bitterly waging his one-man war against the underbelly of New York. After he recounts a tale of receiving frostbite as a child (due to him avoiding his prostitute mother), Rorschach violently assaults a man masturbating in an adult movie store. The man is apparently a drug dealer and Rorschach breaks his arm to find out where the drugs are.
The dealer says his supplier uses a secret tunnel in the sewers, and Rorschach spends the next five days wading through sewage before he learns too late that he has fallen into an elaborate trap. Rorschach is jumped by a gang and comes face-to-face with their leader, a large man covered in scars, who only introduces himself as "Crime." He belittles Rorschach, then forbids his men from removing his mask, saying, "the mask makes the corpse."
Oddly, this "Crime" fellow chooses to not kill Rorschach, merely settling for beating him up real good and walking away. Rorschach crawls out of the sewers and breaks into a drug store to steal some medicine. In the morning, he visits a diner as Walter Kovacs and tells the waitress he was mugged. Walter is oddly talkative as he reads the newspaper's account of a murderer known as "The Bard," who has killed another woman and carved a cryptic message into her corpse. (This is being investigated by the two underutilized detectives who opened Watchmen #1.)
I'm glad this wasn't merely a rehashing of Rorschach's origin — Moore gave us enough of that in the main series. This is just a nice adventure from that overlooked decade in the Watchmen chronology. I especially like how Rorschach fell so easily into that trap. He's not a good detective and Azzarello knows that. Bermejo's art is perfect for a comic that seeks to turn up the violence to 11. But I find myself worrying that this art might be too perfect. The biggest problem with Rorschach is that he's supposed to be a repulsive character, warning the audience of how dangerous and unhinged vigilante superheroes can become. But too many people just see him as this cool tough guy who doesn't play by the rules and gets results. Zack Snyder unfortunately made Rorschach look as cool as possible. And Bermejo and Azzarello are in danger of doing that, too.
No comments:
Post a Comment