Anything Goes, Nothing Happens

A review of Rorschach #1–5

When I first wrote about this comic, it was the just the first issue summarized in a snippy haiku. Now I’m four more issues in, and I’m here to say that my assessment of the book has moved from a dismissive joke to a rant on a series’ wasted potential.

I saw no potential at first in writer Tom King and artist Jorge Fornés’ latest assist in helping to keep Alan Moore’s characters in DC Comics’ hands. Not until issue #2, where the story’s protagonist, a detective investigating the assassination attempt of a presidential candidate by someone dressed up as Rorschach, visits the home of the identified assailant, who is basically a stand-in for Steve Ditko.

Ditko is not only recently deceased, but he was the cartoonist behind the inspiration of Watchmen’s most infamous antihero. To turn a fictionalized version of the cartoonist into some kind of Lee Harvey Oswald type of character seems unthinkable…but ballsy. I was hooked for a minute.

Then the detective reads the secret project King’s alt-version of Ditko worked on, featuring what’s supposed to be a Question/Mr. A type character. Not a bad attempt by Fornés to capture Ditko’s energy.