From the very beginning, the pages of Alan Moore’s Watchmen are saturated with apocalyptic imagery. Rorschach wanders through a world where the end seems imminent. The streets are littered with trash and lined with strip clubs and bars; there are roving bands of punks and hooligans and a criminal lurking in every alleyway; the world seems to edge closer to anarchy and devolution every day. It is interesting to realize how the connection between so called “moral depravity’ and the end of the world is hardwired in our brains. While I could recognize that what Rorschach saw as signs of moral dissolution were often the results of changing moral and political order, it also wasn’t difficult to understand the rationalization for his vigilante justice. Continue reading →