Profile of Rorschach in Alan Moores Watchmen - 2559 Words

Who chooses our heroes? Who watches our heroes? Who watches the Watchmen? Over the course of history, many public figures have been scrutinized for heroic actions that some have deemed controversial. Charles Darwin dismantled theories of Creationism with his discoveries in evolutionary biology. President Harry Truman single-handedly ended World War II by authorizing the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, killing thousands upon thousands of civilians. Gangster John Dillinger stole from banks all across the U.S. Midwest in the midst of the Great Depression and was heralded by some as a modern-day Robin Hood. All of these figures share a common characteristic concerning their heroic lore: the controversy†¦show more content†¦Even after the public saw them as disturbances to the peace of the city and the government had banned them, Rorschach continued to serve justice. Heroes will work tirelessly to improve the greater good even when it comes at a deadly cost to those that stand in their way. To eradicate the world of evil and corruption is heroic, even when it jeopardizes one’s well-being and legacy. It is his moral absolutism that makes Rorschach the purest hero of all the Watchmen. To fully understand Rorschach, it is imperative to analyze the event that turned him into the fighting vigilante that he became. During the early hours of March 13, 1964, Kitty Genovese was returning from her job at a bar when she ran into a killer on the street a mere 100 feet from her apartment. She was repeatedly stabbed as she yelled out to her neighbors for help; but among the thirty-eight witnesses that heard the commotion and watched the scene from their windows, not one called the police. Kitty Genovese died from her injuries and the murder has since been thoroughly studied in social psychology. Her extraordinary case forced the bystander effect into the academic journals and studies of psychologists. How could there be thirty-eight witnesses to this brutal murder and not one of them informed the police? The bystander effect states that, in stressful situations, individuals are less likely to offer aid when there are otherShow MoreRelatedWatchmen, A Comic Book1295 Words    |  6 PagesWatchmen is a revolutionary piece of literature. It is technically a comic book, some prefer to call it a graphic novel. There is a negative connotation that goes along with that. Graphic novels are frequently presumed too childish and fantastic to actually teach any insightful lessons or even make you ponder them at all. Watchmen is a graphic novel that transcends this undue criticism of comic books. It is, â€Å"One of the first instances ... of [a] new kind of comic book ... a first phase of development