Rorschach

Rorschach
Information
Issues	12
Date Published	October 13, 2020 – September 14, 2021
Creators
Author	Tom King
Illustrator	Jorge Fornés
Colorist	Dave Stewart
Editor	James S. Rich

Rorschach is a twelve-issue limited series by Tom King and Jorge Fornés, published by DC Black Label. It began publication on October 13, 2020, and stars a detective investigating the violent legacy of Rorschach, thirty-five years after his death at the hands of Doctor Manhattan. The series shares continuity and serves as a sequel to Watchmen.

Background

35 years since Ozymandias was exposed for dropping a giant telepathic squid on New York City, killing millions and ending the public's trust in heroes once and for all. The Minutemen are gone; only their memory lives on. Especially the infamy of Rorschach, who has become a cultural icon since Doctor Manhattan turned him to dust.

So what does it mean when Rorschach reappears as part of a pair of assassins trying to kill the first candidate to truly oppose President Robert Redford in decades? Follow one determined detective as he walks backward in time, uncovering the identities and motives of the would-be killers, taking him deep into a dark conspiracy of alien invasions, disgraced do-gooders, mystical visions, and yes, comic books.

Trivia

• In the first issue, the events in Oklahoma being referenced are presumably those involving the Seventh Kavalry, as seen in the HBO series Watchmen. The Seventh Kavalry were a modern-day uprising of individuals in Tulsa, taking cues from the Cyclops while co-opting replicas of the mask and writings of Rorschach. They also sought to steal the powers of Doctor Manhattan to further their goals, but ultimately failed to do so. While on the surface this appears to be a simple reference, it does seem to confirm that some of the events of the sequel television series are in fact canon to the DC Black timeline of Tom King's series.
• The Halloween costume shop features masks of past costumed adventurers including Rorschach, Doctor Manhattan, Nite Owl II, and Nite Owl. It also features a party wig that resembles that of Silk Spectre II.
• The Hollywood Walk of Fame features an embedded star of Adrian Veidt aka Ozymandias.
• Much like the HBO series, Robert Redford has been President of the United States for several terms. However, in this series, it appears that Redford is running for another term against a Republican candidate named Turley.
• There is a billboard advertisement titled "Come Back to New York City" promoting tourism for New York City. This is likely a reference to the HBO series episode "Little Fear of Lightning" in which the character Wade Tillman analyses the reactions of a focus group watching a commercial for NYC's campaign to get people to come back to the city.
• Although this series is set in 2020, people are still having to rely on landlines and pagers for communication. According to supplemental material from the HBO series, it is revealed that modern technology is lacking in the present day because of a mass recall of all tech synthesized by either Doctor Manhattan or Adrian Veidt, with people blaming said technology for both causing the "inter-dimensional rift" that led to the squid attack, and being carcinogenic.
• The pirate genre is still very popular even in 2020. Much like superhero comic book adaptations in the real world, there are adaptations of pirate based media in cinema.
• Not much is currently known about Turley except for the fact that he is running a right-wing populist style campaign based on his slogan "America for the Americans", nearly similar to how Donald Trump ran his campaign in 2016.
• There is an old billboard advertisement for Nostalgia, a defunct fragrance for men manufactured by Veidt Enterprises. In front of it, is a recent but still old advertisement for Heinz Baked Beans, the same brand of beans that Rorschach ate at Dan Dreiberg's apartment in the first issue of Watchmen.
• The first issue features cameo appearances by Otto Binder, the co-creator of Captain Marvel, and Frank Miller, the creator of The Dark Knight Returns, Batman: Year One, Sin City, and 300.