Before Watchmen: Rorscharch
Writer: Brian Azzarello. Artist: Lee Bermejo Now here's the first real shocker. Rorschach, a character that couldn't be in any considered Watchmen sequels could only come back to our comic book page as via a prequel. We all imagined it would be awesome, Rorschach in his prime in pre-Watchmen events. It couldn't fail, right? Thankfully it doesn't fail as such but here it is, midway through the list. Not at the top, not second, not even third but fifth on my list of Before Watchmen titles. Hurm. Despite the beautiful artwork from Lee Bermejo, that perfectly captured the seedy side of 80s New York city and its neon lit streets. Rorschach ended up being a title that aimed for bigger things but ended up fizzling out. Telling the tale of a Rorschach up against a particularly nasty New York gang, the story also has sub plots involving a serial killer, a potential love interest for Rorschach and a whole lot of beat downs. There's also a cameo from a certain Travis Bickle-esq 'Taxi Driver' in here too, which I'm still unsure of if it works or not. Basically, this is a well written series, full of all the stuff we love Rorschach for (he does one particular thing with a broken bottle that was a Rorschach classic) but despite the violence, the diary entries and the beautiful artwork this one just ended rather drably On the plus side, it felt like a title that could rinse out more mini series' going forward, largely because this four parter really only focused on one event in Rorschach's career, so there's plenty more room for exploration of that. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed this mini series but it felt like a bit of a non-event when it wrapped up and other than more than its fair share of 'Wow' moments and good looks I didn't feel there was much to get excited about.It also didn't help that Rorschach was getting better page time elsewhere... more on that soon.