Rorschach, in Fine Form
Rorschach, the Watchmen’s vicious, misanthropic, iconic antihero, was inspired by Ayn Rand? According to Brian Doherty he was:
Rorschach’s sense of justice may make him hate most of humanity—he brags to himself at the beginning that if mankind begged him to save them, he’d justly say “no.” But by the end he sacrifices himself in the name of avenging the deaths of millions who he doesn’t know. He does it for another reason as well, one of particular holiness to the Objectivist: the truth, the facts of reality.
To be the kind of man whose highest value is to “have lived life free from compromise,” as Rorschach says, makes that man “unreasonable” in the colloquial sense—that is, you aren’t going to be able to talk them in or out of much. You are going to find them abrasive, aggravating, and in circumstances like those the characters in Watchmen find themselves in, mad, bad, and dangerous to know.
But always, Rorschach judges as an individual mind, and judges individual minds. Rorschach is no handsome Rand hero as she imagined them; but he’s still probably the most vivid and well-thought-out Objectivist hero that Rand didn’t create.
Read the whole thing. And go check out the film tonight, too!
Post Script: Buy and read this book, too, if you get a chance; lots of other people are!
The Watchmen, soon to be released on film, is an acclaimed graphic novel written by Alan Moore. He also wrote V for Vendetta, which was turned into a decent film starring Hugo Weaving and Natalie Portman in 2006 (Moore apparently 
The Watchmen was released in a 12-issue limited series beginning in 1986, and eventually compiled into a graphic novel format. The intensity of the story, depth of characters, mature themes and iconography made it one of the most popular series from this period, which was arguably the high tide of the comic genre. Moore’s gifted storytelling and compelling characters no doubt contributed to the enduring success of the comic medium, and themes explored in books like Watchmen and the Killing Joke have been mined repeatedly by screenwriters, novelists, and other artists ever since.
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