Rorschach
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Rorschach whose real identity is Walter Joseph Kovacs is one of the protagonists of the seminal 1986 graphic novel Watchmen, created by writer Alan Moore alongside artist Dave Gibbons and published by DC Comics.
He is a ruthless vigilante who professes a black-and-white code of moral absolutism, seeking to enforce justice at any and all costs. Being the only member from the Crimebusters group to remain active on his own terms and initiative, Rorschach is a criminal outlaw who patrols the streets of New York city alone, as opposed to other former superheroes now covertly employed by the U.S. government or who have abandoned their masked identities altogether. His namesake takes after his mask, which displays a constantly morphing symmetrical pattern reminiscent of the Rorschach inkblot tests. The story introduces him as he sets out to investigate the violent murder of Edward Blake AKA The Comedian.
While Watchmen has an ensemble cast, many consider Rorschach to be its true protagonist, as he drives most of the plot forward and serves as the series' primary narrator. The character has been met with critical acclaim for his writing and is regarded as one of the most compelling within DC Comics' publication history. Following his original appearance, he has been featured in numerous other media such as Zack Snyder's 2009 film adaptation, or tie-ins like the prequel Before Watchmen, although most of these are best disregarded due to dubious quality and not being the work of Moore and Gibbons to begin with.
Tournament History[edit]
In spite of his notoriety both as a medium and board icon, Rorschach would be completely absent from most of Mr. /co/lympus' early history. Save for a very close call in 2021, the character wouldn't come near reaching the top 128 for a long time until Mr. /co/lympus 2024, where he finally entered the main bracket as an alright seed (#73). This would actually mark the second time overall a Watchmen character qualified for a 4chan tournament since Dr. Manhattan's appearance in the first Mr. /co/ tournament held in 2018.
Rorschach quickly rose as a prominent figure during the early rounds, becoming a thread favorite both for his varied art output and involvement in the detective roleplay arc centered around recent happenings concerning a certain clown. However, any hopes to see Rorschach go further would be swiftly squashed when he lost the very first round in an upset to recurring comic strip qualifier Garfield by a single vote difference. This, along with an official live voting graph that showed how Rorschach in fact had a decent lead for most of the match's running time, resulted in vivid reactions as well as a bit of shitflinging, including at least one claim from someone alledgedly having ballot-stuffed the match. Nevertheless, most fans ultimately took the result with humor and correlated it with the character's own tragic nature and tendency to get fucked over.
Still, Rorschach would retain some minor thread presence for the remainder of the tournament, like appearing while in his doomsaying civilian get-up to reflect the at times hectic state of the threads, or just about the occasional mention recounting the tournament's most notable moments. Rorschach would also be one of the eight characters included in Cumanon's mini "Shitpost Tournament", which would have him blowout the denoted shitpost pick Guy Gagné and as such continuing with the on-going thread lambasting against the infamous race car driver. He would then go up against fellow DC detective James Gordon, which curiously was one of the potential main bracket matches that had already been speculated on by some anons, but due to Cumanon resigning as a host the mini tournament would be propmtly cancelled and its results forever lost, gone and reduced to atoms.
Despite his short-lived run, many supporters of the character still found Rorschach's participation this year to be worth commemorating for managing to qualify at all and garnering a good amount of attention around his campaign. It remains to be seen how much better the disturbed vigilante will fare once Mr. /co/lympus 2025 arrives.
Results[edit]
| Mr. /co/lympus | |||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 - seed 72 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Round | Opponent | Series | Votes | Pct. For | |||||||||||||||
| Round 1 | (56)  Garfield
|
Garfield | 209 - 210 | 49.9% | |||||||||||||||
