The ILC Favourite Characters Of All Time

(126 points)

http://www.blogzine.com.br/rorschach.jpg

Hero-of-sorts from Watchmen, based on the old Charlton comic The Question (though I'm unsure whether Watchmen was during one of the characters lower-profile eras). For all that Owlman was the analogue of Batman, it's Rorschach that the subsequent decades of writers seem to have taken as a template.

And Rorschach with his self-conscious "life as art" attitude is actually a pretty Nietzschean superhero, so that quote fits in more than one way, although it's a pretty lame Nietzsche quote as Nietzsche quotes go. (I guess it's the popular favorite because it feeds off the legend of his madness?)(Chris F)

Actually, Pal Joey/Taxi Driver era Peter Boyle coulda made a great Rorschach. He's too old now. (HUK-L)

I always thought the "free to carve my own morality into the world" issue was kinda problematic regarding Rorschach's personality. If he was free to choose his morals, why would he still cling to the sort of conservative ideas he had previously? I don't think real extreme rightists ever go through such a moral epiphany.

This is perhaps exemplified in his confrontation with his landlady once she has turned him in. He is there, Rorschach forced to be Kovacs, and recognises one of her children as him in his youth. Despite his sense of honour in what he does, he recognises the days of heroes are over and cannot run the risk of the child potentially turning into another version of him - so protects the child from the absolute knowledge of his mother's life and gives him another chance.

Rorschach really is the most interesting character in the whole comic; everyone else sort of serves the function they've given in the story, but he's goes through an arch of personal change. Okay, there's also Dr. Manhattan "humans are worthy" realization, but I never found that (or the whole character) as convincing as Moore may have intended.

I think the whole conclusion of Watchmen is a lot more morally ambiguous than certain people are making out - Moore never really asserts an authorial opinion on Veidt's plan. Obviously our gut reaction is that it's an atrocity, but if it does, debateably to be sure, 'save the world', then can it be a wholly bad thing? I think Moore's intention is more to show notions of good and evil to be far more fluid and nebulous than they are generally portrayed in this type of fiction than to provide a simple reversal of expectations.

Oh, I think he does, though in a clever way. The ending of Watchmen is well-known for it's openness - "I leave it entirely to your hands"; does Seymour pick up Rorschach diary or not? - and it's clear this is Moore's way of saying, "I leave it to readers to decide whether or not Veidt did right or wrong"... But he also sneaks in his own opinion inside the pirate story, which parallels the main story all the way through, and in which the protagonists ends up doing most hideous things only because he thinks he's protecting his loved ones, so in the end he is condemned for his sins and has to enter the black pirate ship. The fact that Veidt is his alter ego is made clear when Veidt says, "sometimes I dream of swimming towards a black ship...".

This is the only time I can remember ever being tempted to use the acronym QFT.

Wait, so we're both right, except you're righter. Yellowcard for you.

18. Scrooge McDuck (Uncle Scrooge)

(134 points)

ihttp://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/archives/mcduck.gif

There was a sober, stoic quality to Carl Barks'
stories and artwork that reached its ultimate
expression in the brisk, no-nonsense character of
Scrooge. Initially a cartoonish miser in the mold of
his Dickens namesake, Scrooge eventually evolved into
a remarkably original character – a modern version of
that classic American archetype, the self-made man. He
made his fortune, he says, by "being tougher than the
toughies, and smarter than the smarties – and I made
it SQUARE!" (Justyn)

His Scrooge can be greedy as hell, but ultimately Scrooge always chooses his fellow beings before money - witness the tear-jerking story where he's willing to give up everything he owns to save his beloved sled dog from drowning. (Tuomas)

Best moment: Rolling around in his money bin. (d a simpson)

http://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/archives/mcduck.gif

This is actually a part of the plot in one of Barks' stories - the Beagle Boys have robbed Scrooge's money, and he asks for one last swim. Seeing Scrooge bathe in the money, the Beagle Boys want to do that as well, and jump into the pile of coins, only to hit their heads and lose their consciousness. Then they're arrested, and Scrooge reveals that only he can actually swim in money, after years of practice.

(136 points)

http://flakmag.com/books/images/bizarro.jpg

A silverage foe of Superman which shares with Braniac the distinction of unobtrusively slipping into mainstream vocabulary.

"Me hate Bizarro. Bizarro am most useless example of uncreativity of Silver Age. Bizarro am joke that am alway get serious. Best Moment: "Bizarro Creates a Monster!", Adventure Comics #292, Jan 62. By Jerry Siegel and John Forte." (Huk-L)

I'm sure everyone's been Bizarro once or twice as a kid. The idea "what if we did everything exactly the other way around than how we usually do it?" and the increasingly convoluted logic that springs from this are staples of childhood imagination. But the sheer genius audacity of applying this concept to fiction – how could you not love that? Comic books do "WTF" better than most any other medium – what in literature might seem slappeable, and on film mannered, could so often be saved by inserting it into the colourful, intrinsically bizarre medium of comics. And no one does WTF better than Bizarro (Daniel RF)

Alan Moore killed off Bizarro immediately pre-Crisis, and Htrae was removed from continuity during the Crisis. Since then, however, there have been two Bizarros in DC Continuity - the one created by LexCorp and the one created by the Joker using Mr Mxyzptlk's powers. Since the first LexCorp Bizarro appeared in 1986 (i.e. the same year as the Crisis) there's an argument that can be made that he nearly appreciably left continuity.

Of course, he's most recently been associated with Bizarro Comics and Bizarro world. Collections of non-hero superhero stories by indie authors - I would have thought they would have been exactly your sort of thing?

Not much later, Superman's secret identity was exposed and all the members of his rogues gallery attempt to kill him and everyone associated with him. Superman later discovers that Mr. Mxyzptlk is the villain orchestrating the attacks, and was most likely also the one responsible for Bizarro's strange behavior.

and a page that looks like this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Bizarrodeath.PNG

FWIW, I barely remember it either and it never appears as part of Moore DC collections.