Rorshach – Comic Book Review

Rorshach, a graphic novel by author Tom King and Illustrator Jorge Fornes

Tom King is a consistently impressive comic book writer who has become known for bringing lesser Marvel and DC superheroes to life. He succeeded greatly with Marvel’s Vision and DC’s Mister Miracle. I’d love to see him take on The Sentry, I think he could do amazing things with that character.

In this limited run he tackles Rorschach of the Watchmen. However, it’s not actually Rorschach, it’s some guy who wears a knock off brand mask and a woman who goes by The Kid. I did not know this going in, I was under the assumption that we’d be getting deep insight into the character we all already know. I made assumptions based off of previous books, saw the name Tom King, and said yes.

So I was disappointed to see that this was different than my expectations but my faith in the author kept my hopes up. Until about 6 out of 12 issues in when I came to the conclusion that this comic book is really boring and wasn’t going to get much better.

Even the best authors are bound to have their lows, this is King’s. Rorschach is convoluted and slow and stays that way the whole time. Because King is still a good author the confusion does get resolved by the end but it’s not enough to make up for the tedium along the way. Additionally, the ending isn’t very satisfying. It comes to a sort of sum zero conclusion that renders the entire story rather pointless.

I never thought I’d say this about a comic book but Rorschach could have benefitted from some cameos. There are no recognizable characters here which is unheard of in DC. The protagonist is an unnamed detective investigating the death of this bargain brand Rorschach and The Kid. He is trying to uncover what their grand plan really was and why they wanted to kill a presidential candidate.

The book makes mention of an upcoming squid attack which seems to allude to some sort of space squid species that has attacked Earth before and is rumored to attack again. I don’t read a ton of DC outside of the more popular runs so I’ll need someone to inform me if this is canon or just a strange addition for this one book.

King has been a hero to DC with his incredibly well received Batman run as well as best sellers such as Heroes in Crisis. It’s understandable that he has been given a golden ticket to write whatever he desires but maybe he could have used a shorter leash on this one. I’ve heard that he is itching to complete his contract with DC and start writing his own non superhero stories again. Rorschach may be his attempt to get away from the superhero box early.

I can’t say I recommend Rorschach. When it comes right down to it I did not enjoy reading it. And if you’re not enjoying a book, if you’re not receiving some benefit from it, why bother?

2/5 comedian smiles 🙂 🙂

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For a much better Tom King book check out Strange Adventures