Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ Watchmen is revered throughout the comic book industry and beyond, thanks to its character study of figures like Rorschach. Moore famously holds disdain for people who identify with Watchmen, but there is a far more heinous villain the author respects.
Much to Alan Moore’s consternation, Rorschach garnered a reputation as the writer’s best piece of writing. Written as a morally absolute, violent vigilante, the antihero is a character designed to represent a realistic take on Batman. With a design based on Steve Ditko’s Objectivist detective, the Question, Walter Kovacs became Rorschach through a life of pain and trauma.
While Moore dislikes how his broken figure caught on, he remains proud of the work he did for one of literature’s most famous villains, and respects his honesty. In the 2007 BBC Four documentary, Comics Britannia, Moore criticizes Rorschach as a “vigilante psychopath,” but admits to having a soft spot for The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen‘s Mr. Hyde.
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Moore Sees Mr Hyde As Almost Honorable
After departing mainstream comics, Alan Moore created new titles for America’s Best Comics. There, the veteran writer and artist Kevin O’Neill created The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, centering on a team of public domain literary characters from the Victorian Era. The team comprised Allan Quartermain, Captain Nemo, Mina Harker, the Invisible Man, Tom Sawyer and Mr. Hyde. It was Robert Louis Stevenson’s monstrous villain, Mr. Hyde, in whom Moore found interest. The unbridled inner demon of Doctor Jekyll, the author came to respect the villain’s honesty about his nature.
Mr. Hyde is seen as a metaphor for the inner evil of which all men are capable, the dark half of Doctor Jekyll who comes to the surface when he drinks his formula. Freed from the scientist’s inhibitions, Hyde makes no secret about what he wants, and is unapologetic in his violent actions. As Moore himself said in Comics Britannica, “I started to find him kind of admirable in that he actually understands the situation. He knows that he’s a monster. That’s just what he is. He’s not lying about anything… in some ways, he’s got a much clearer grasp of the situation… than Jekyll has.“
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Rorschach’s Creator Doesn’t See Him As A Hero
When he created Rorschach, Alan Moore intended for the vigilante to represent what he imagined Batman would be in real life. As the creator put it, the Caped Crusader would be “a nutcase.” There was no love of the character, just an examination of the archetype. For M.r Hyde, however, Moore grew to love the character’s self-aware nature, and the freedom of writing a monster who knows what he is. For someone who enjoys peeling back the layers of the human psyche to examine what’s underneath, Alan Moore‘s attachment to Hyde over Rorschach makes complete sense.
Watchmen
- Number of Pages:
- 416 pages
- Genre:
- Science Fiction
- Publisher:
- DC Comics
