There is good and there is evil, and evil must be punished.
Until I caught the Watchmen “motion comic” on the PS3 the other night — downloadable content from the PlayStation Network — I’d frankly forgotten how the Watchmen, at least in the form of Rorschach, rejected and toyed with the conflicted superhero of the Marvel era. That sort of clarity of purpose was muted as Spidey, the X-Men, and other Marvel heroes fought off self-doubt.
The twist is that Rorschach’s doubt is never about his actions it is more existential, wondering about the purpose of his actions. He basically decides he cannot control the outcome of his actions — an interesting rejection of the superhero meme — and instead focuses on the purity of his intent and his unwillingness to compromise.
I guess one of these days I get around to the Watchmen movie, but I imagine the ideas are probably too complex to get a decent Hollywood treatment.
