Walter Kovacs

Childhood

Walter Joseph Kovacs was born March 21, 1940 in an unknown city. His parents split when he was very young, and he grew up with his mother, a drug-addicted prostitute. He would constantly walk in on her jobs, believing she was being hurt. She would beat him whenever he did this. When he was ten, he was attacked by two bullies, who called him whoreson, shoved a half eaten fruit into his face, and told him that he would make them appointments with his mother. He lashed out at the boys, shoving one of the bully’s cigarettes into said bully’s eye. He proceeded to tackle the other boy tearing at his cheek with his teeth, and pulling his hair and mouth. He was pulled off of the boy by passing pedestrians. After this incident, he was sent to Lillian Charlton Home for Problem Children (homage to Charlton comics). At the school he excelled in religious education and literature, and was a natural athlete, excelling in boxing and gymnastics. During his time there, he wrote an essay commending Truman on his bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, believing that it was a necessary sacrifice that saved millions of lives. This is ironic, due to the fact that he reacts the exact opposite way at the end of the graphic novel.

It was while he was in high school that he learned of his mother's death, a force-feeding of Drano from her pimp. His one word reply to the event: "Good." He was sixteen.

Becoming a Superhero

The same year as his mother’s murder, he dropped out of school. He took a job as a garment worker. Here his phobia of working with women, or anything relating to women began to take affect. This was caused by his being beat by his mother whenever he saw her doing sexual activities. When working at the factory, a women ordered a dress, made of fabric, developed by Dr. Manhattan that consisted of two liquids, black and white, which were constantly shifting in response to heat and pressure making images like a Rorschach test. The women did not like the dress, but Walter grew to love the fabric. When he was 18, Kitty Genovese (a real life figure) was brutally murdered while people looked on from their tenants.

The Comedian

Later on, in 1965, he would team up with Nite Owl, another superhero who used many technical gadgets. Together the two fought against organized crime, bringing down the Big Figure and the underboss. One year after teaming up with Nite Owl, the team was invited to a meeting by Captain Metropolis. He tried to create a new team called the Crimebusters. It was here that Kovac met The Comedian. Everything fell apart and Kovac left with Nite Owl. At some point, Nite Owl and Kovac went their separate ways.

The Rise of Rorschach

In 1975, a young girl named Blaire Roche, believing that she was connected to the Roche chemical company, a family worth a fortune. The kidnappers were in erring, kidnapping the daughter of a bus driver instead. Rorschach heard of the Kidnapping, and after days of waiting without word from the kidnappers, he began imagining her abused, scared, and scarred for the rest of her life. He remembered his childhood, and decided to offer up his services to the parents, promising them he would return her unharmed.

Rorschach went to the underworld, visiting bars and roughing up the drinkers. He put fourteen of them in the Hospital, but the fifteenth one told him that a man named Gerald Grice had kidnapped the girl, and to check a disused dressmaker somewhere in Brooklyn. Rorschach described it as a “Bad neighborhood. Smelled of dam plaster and stained mattresses.” Rorschach arrived at the shop around dusk, and the building had no lights on in it. In the back of the warehouse were two German Shepherds, both of them fighting over a bone. Rorschach avoided the rear entrance, avoiding the two attack dogs. Rorschach entered the building from the front door, commencing a search for the girl. When looking in a furnace for clues, he discovered a little girl’s underwear. Commencing the search, he discovered a meat cleaver and a recently used cutting board.

Rorschach

At ten forty-five, the man returned to the store, calling to the two German Shepherds, Fred and Barney, trying to get them to bark. He brushed off their silence, and entered the store. As he passed by a window, the dead body of one of the dogs came busting through the window in front of him. He backed away in fright, shouting that he hadn’t done anything. Suddenly, the other dog was thrown through the door window, hitting the man in the back and knocking him down. Rorschach then walked silently through the door, lifting the man up, forcing him against a pipe, and handcuffing him to the pipe. He then put a saw in front of the man before picking up a gas canister and spreading its contents around the room, all the while in silence. He then took out a box of matches, telling the man “Shouldn’t bother trying to saw through handcuffs. Never make it in time,” implying that the man had to saw through his arm to escape. He then lit the match, dropping it into the kerosene. The man did not make it out, and Walter Kovac ceased to exist, and Rorschach was born.

Events in Watchmen

On October 12, 1985, Edward Blake was thrown out of his window. The impact of the fall killed him instantly. Rorschach, at that time carrying a THE END OF THE WORLD IS NIGH sign as Walter Kovac witnessed the clean up of the blood on the street, and overhearing the detectives talk as they walked away from the crime, he decided to begin investigating the crime. He returns that night, and finds The Comedian’s smiley-face badge in the gutter with a bit of blood on it. He begins to get suspicious, and uses a grappling hook Nite Owl had made for him years ago, he scales the building to Blake’s room. He then begins a thorough investigation of his room, looking for a clue of any kind that may in fact be helpful. While searching the back of the closet for anything, he discovers a button. Pressing it, a secret door opens in the back of the closet, and he discovers The Comedian’s costume, weapons, and a picture of his former team. After this realization, he believes that the attack is the work of a mask killer, and sets out to warn the other heroes. He first visits Nite Owl, due to the two being former partners.

Nite Owl

Then, on October 13th, when trying to find out about Blake’s murder, he visits Happy Harry’s, a bar in the underworld. When there, he tells them that he is investigating the murder of his “friend,” someone makes a comment about how he had to have changed his deodorant to have any friends. Hearing the man’s comment, Rorschach walks over to the man, grabs his hand, and breaks his pinky finger. He then asks the bar who killed Edward Blake. They tell him that they don’t know, and Rorschach breaks the man’s index finer before leaving. He then proceeded to warn Adrian Veidt, formerly known as Ozymandias. Veidt makes a comment about Blake being almost a Nazi. Rorschach responds to this comment with, "He stood up for his country, Veidt. He never let anybody retire him. Never cashed in on his reputation.never set up a company selling posters and diet books and toy soldiers based on himself. Never became a prostitute. If that makes him a Nazi, you might as well call me a Nazi, too." After leaving Veidt to contemplate his mask-killer theory, he makes his own contemplation about Veidt's sexuality. He makes a note to investigate this further. Later that night, he visits the Rockefeller Military Research Center, and sneaks in to find a giant Dr. Manhattan and a normal sized Laurie Juspeczyk, the former Silk Spectre. When he informed them that The Comedian was dead, he learns that, because Manhattan is the only other mask employed by the government, he was informed on the day after the murder. Dr. Manhattan is completely unconcerned with the death, and Laurie expresses her hate for The Comedian, due to his attempted rape on her mother years before. Rorschach brushed this off as a moral lapse. this infuriates Laurie, who gets Jon to teleport a protesting Rorschach out of the building. Due to the goodness of Dr. Manhattan's heart, he teleported him out of the base. Rorschach walks off thinking of the evil of the world and Armageddon. He is shown outside of Blake's funeral as Kovac holding his sign. Rorschach shows up at Jacobi's house, aka Edgar William Jacobi, aka Edgar William Vaughn. Rorschach asks him why he attended the funeral today and Jacobi mentioned The Comedian visiting  him. Rorschach asked him how he knew Blake was The Comedian and Moloch tells him. He tells Rorschach about the night The Comedian visited him. Drunk and crying while he sat on Jacobi's bedside, he tells him his regrets, he thoughts, he tells him about a list he found with Jacobi's name on it along with Janey Slaughter, Dr. Manhattans former girlfriend and how he'd kill Jacobi if he thought he was in on it. Jacobi tell Rorschach this is all he knows. Rorschach goes to Edward Blakes headstone, covered with Red Roses. Rorschach think about Blake. About his understanding of society and the purpose of the heroes in it and how he treats it.  How he was the only one to get the Joke, and so he was lonely. Rorschach picks a Rose from the headstone places it on his collar. Later Rorschach returns to Jacobi's place and tells him that he thinks that the list he mentioned before might of been a cancer list which someone gave to the media so they can force Jon (Dr. Manhattan) into exile, proving his theory that someones trying to eliminate masked heroes. He lets Jacobi off easy and tells him that if anything refreshed his memory to leave a note in a specific location. Rorschach  tries to piece his facts together on the walk home. He figured that Jacobi knows nothing and the Russians behind Blake's death doesn't fit. Rorschach wakes up and goes to the dinner were he sees Daniel and Laurie leave. They don't recognize him without his "face" on. He contemplates about the possibility of Juspeczyk setting Jon up so she can make room for Daniel. He thinks of how she hated The Comedian. He reminds himself to investigate further. He sees Jacobi drop the letter. Someone tried to kill Veidt (Ozymandias). This further proves Rorschach mask killer theory. Message from Jacobi says to that he has urgent information. He went to get his face. In the alley were his cloths were he heard a woman scream. Its possible that Rorschach killed the man. We are lead to believe so. Rorschach enters Jacobi's house at the time Jacobi told him to be in the note he left. He finds Jacobi dead. Shot in the head. Rorschach was set up. The police arrive. They warn Rorschach  to come out. Rorschach looks for weapons  He finds a can with flammable spray. He set one of the policemen on fire when they enter and runs up the stairs, setting them on fire also. The policemen put the fire out and goes up. Rorschach pokes at ones eyes and shoots another with his grappling hook. He then jumps out the window only to be beaten, unmasked and arrested by the police.Kovacs is shown, being quizzed on the Rorschach blot test. The Doctor(Malcolm Long) show him a picture and asks him what he sees. Kovacs sees a dead Dog with his head split open. He replies "A Pretty Butterfly". Dr. Long shows him another picture, asking him what he sees. This one makes Kovacs think ok of a time when he was young and he sees his mother having sex with a man. When the man sees Kovacs in the doorway he goes in angered.

In Prison

Powers

Rorschach is a normal human being of average height and weight. Though he possessed no super abilities, Rorschach was a gifted athlete and investigator. He possesses high, potentially genius level intelligence. He carries no special weapons on his person, instead using items in his immediate environment when confronted, such as making a makshift flamethrower from hairspray and a match and using his grappling hook to shoot a police officer trying to capture him.

Psyche

due to the raising of his mother, Rorscach grew up with a severe hate of those who injure someone for no reason. This raising has twisted Rorschach's mentality, and he has become a superhero more to 'punish the wicked than to save the innocent'. He shows no emotional involvement in his actions and regards himself as a moral absolutist, overwhelmingly committed to his views. He lives in extreme poverty and has no friends, and though he shows no pain in it, it is proven that he does come to be lonely, only hiding all of his insecurities under a mask, just as he has done to his face.

Rorschach Mask Designs

Rorschach's mask is a very important part of his character. It is what he calls his face, as well as a symbol of his views on evil, either black, or white. Though the patterns appearing on the mask appear to be at random, there are a few instances where his mask's design is a symbol.