Major spoilers follow. You may well have gathered that I don't tend to do spoiler-free reviews, but there are some extra big ones in this entry.
Watchmen reaches the halfway point with a chapter focussed solely on Rorschach, much like the Dr Manhattan-focussed Chapter IV. Leaving all the other characters and stories aside for the moment, Moore focusses in on a series of interviews between Rorschach -- whose identity has been revealed to be Walter Kovacs; no one of importance, but we've seen him almost since page one as the guy wandering round with an apocalyptic placard -- and a prison psychoanalyst, who's attempting to find out what led Kovacs to become a vicious vigilante. Rorschach is a character who is, initially at least, easy to sympathy with. He had an horrendous childhood, later driven to extremes trying to protect the innocent. His efforts to murder childkillers, rapists, and other scum seem like the sort of thing we all might wish we could actually do, but he perhaps has a tendency to take it too far...
As well as showing how Kovacs came to be Rorschach -- including the origins of his incredibly shifting mask -- Moore follows the psychoanalyst as his obsession with the case leads to sleepless nights, perhaps the end of his marriage, and a general deterioration in his psychological state. It's an effective way of showing the effect of these truths of humanity on an ordinary, seemingly well-adjusted human being. As I've surely said before, this is really why Watchmen is so great and so acclaimed -- ostensibly it's about superheroes, but really it's about people, why they're driven to do things, and how they cope with the consequences. And all the while, in the background, (nuclear?) war is brewing...
Halfway through, Watchmen continues to be a stunning achievement. There are many mysteries left to be solved, undoubtedly including some that, like the identity of the placard-man, I don't even know need solving.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment