Rorschach is Walter Kovacs. He is a masked vigilante.He was born March 21, 1940. His mother, a prostitute who resented his interference in her business, abused him viciously. At age 10, he was cruelly abused by two bullies and attacked them, partially blinding one with the bully's own lit cigarette, and became a ward of the state, sent to the Lillian Charlton Home for Problem Children. In high school, he excelled in religious education and literature, as well as in boxing and gymnastics. He also wrote an essay in which he praised President Truman's decision to use nuclear weapons against the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, asserting that the bombs helped save lives by stopping the war.During those high school years, at age 16, Walter was informed of his mother's gruesome murder; her pimp force-fed her a bottle of Drano until she died in agony. His reaction upon hearing this news was one word: Good. At about the same time, he found work as an unskilled garment worker. Working in this capacity, in 1962 he grew fascinated by a new fabric made possible through technologies developed by Doctor Manhattan. Two viscous liquids, one black and one white, between two layers of latex, continually shifted in response to heat and pressure, forming symmetrical patterns like a Rorschach inkblot test while never mixing to produce a grey colour. Kovacs learned of the fabric when a young woman chose not to buy a dress which she had ordered made from it; subsequently Kovacs took the dress home and experimented with the fabric. He learned to cut the fabric and maintain the seal using heated scissors.The 1964 murder of Kitty Genovese (in front of a building full of tenants who didn't bother to help her) provided a trigger for Kovacs' decision to avenge the powerless victims of crime. He decided that Genovese had been the woman who had ordered the dress, cut up the dress, and made it into a mask.In 1975, Kovacs was searching for a kidnapped child and found her captor's vacant hideout. A cursory inspection revealed, to his horror, that the girl had been murdered, butchered, and fed to two German Shepherd dogs. In the face of this atrocity, Kovacs' mind snapped and assumed the mental identity of Rorschach as a separate personality. He killed the dogs with a meat cleaver and waited for the kidnapper. When the man returned, he wordlessly chained him to a pipe, ignoring his claims of innocence, then placed a hacksaw near him and set the house on fire. Finally speaking, he told the terrified man that he would not have time to cut through his restraints before the fire killed him (he would have to sever his own arm to escape). Rorschach calmly watched the structure burn from across the street; the suspected kidnapper did not emerge. In an interview ten years later with psychologist Malcolm Long, Rorschach explicitly mentioned the incident as the point after which he became Rorschach; before that, he was only Kovacs. He no longer refers to his mask ; now he only calls the mask his face .After the 1977 Keene Act outlawed costumed vigilantes, demanding his retirement, he grew even more violent, murdering notorious multiple rapist Harvey Charles Furniss and leaving his corpse in front of a police station. Rorschach remained an active adventurer in open defiance of the law.Rorschach lives in a slum run by a landlady who has had multiple children by multiple fathers; he pointedly comments on his belief that she cheats on welfare. During the day, he walks around New York as a vagrant.During a mid-1980s murder investigation, Rorschach discovered that the victim was The Comedian, an amoral government-sponsored costumed adventurer and former colleague whom he seemed to admire. Suspecting a plot to eliminate superheroes, he pursued the investigation accordingly, interviewing and warning several former members of the hero community. Although no one took his theory seriously, the sudden public denunciations and subsequent self-exile of Doctor Manhattan and the attempted murder of Ozymandias bolstered his confidence that he was on the right track. Before long, however, he was framed for the murder of Moloch, an ailing former adversary, and was captured by the police. During the takedown, Rorschach fought the heavily armed officers with improvised methods using ordinary household materials, with surprising effectiveness, but he was knocked unconsious as he fought to escape.In prison, Rorschach was examined by a clinical psychologist, and subject to numerous death threats and attacks by vengeful prisoners. When taunted by inmates about being trapped inside with them, his only reply was to say that they had it backwards; they were, in fact, trapped with him. He prevented an attempt on his life in the prison cafeteria by calmly and wordlessly grabbing a pot full of boiling cooking grease and hurling it into the assailant's face. Big Figure orchestrated a prisoner riot as a distraction while his flunkies attacked Rorschach. He easily, almost leisurely, dispatched the would-be assassins before he escaped his cell to pursue and drown Big Figure in a prison restroom. During this battle, Nite Owl II and Silk Spectre II were attempting to break him out of prison, and used the chaos of the prison riot to do so. They sought his help in their own investigation into the murders of the former superheroes.Investigating jointly, Nite Owl II and Rorschach learned that the mastermind behind the plot was Ozymandias, the smartest person in the world. Rorschach and Nite Owl II traveled to his home in Antarctica to confront him; however, they were unable to prevent him from accomplishing his ultimate goal. Before the duo arrived, Ozymandias teleported an enormous Lovecraftian alien that he had manufactured into the heart of New York City, killing millions and psychically traumatizing millions more. Exactly as Veidt had predicted, the hoax forced the nations of the world to halt their mounting hostilities towards one another and unite against the perceived alien threat, thereby preventing the inevitable nuclear showdown.Shortly after Ozymandias confesses his plot to Nite Owl II and Rorschach, they are joined by Doctor Manhattan and Silk Spectre II, having just returned from Mars. After a brief struggle, the adventurers realize that by exposing Ozymandias' act they would only manage to return the world to the brink of nuclear catastrophe. The other heroes agree that they must keep the hoax a secret, but Rorschach flatly refuses to comply. Manhattan tells Rorschach that he cannot allow him to reveal the truth to the world, but Rorschach maintains his defiance. Enraged and in tears, Walter Kovacs removes his mask and demands that Manhattan kill him if that is what it takes to protect Ozymandias' utopia. Although reluctant and showing emotions again, Manhattan silently complies with Kovacs' request.However, Rorschach's legacy may have greater consequences; prior to departing for Antarctica, he wrote a lengthy journal detailing his investigation and sent it to a reactionary right-wing newspaper The New Frontiersman.He is a resourceful, ruthless investigator and fighter. He is exceptionally skilled at using otherwise harmless objects as improvised weapons, at various times using hair spray, cooking fat, and a toilet bowl to lethal effect. He possesses great physical strength (in addition to experienced fighting skills). He also has a creative flair for the dramatic to enhance his interrogations. Show less «