Rorschach

In the Dave Gibbons and Alan Moore masterpiece of graphic novels Watchmen, Rorschach is a vigilante in New York City. He wears a mask of a special fabric (a "Dr. Manhattan spin-off") that contains a fluid trapped between layers of latex. The fluid creates black and white patterns on the mask; the two never mix, and are always symmetrical, as in a Rorschach Blot.

He is one of the most, if not the most complex characters in the book; indeed, its structure could be said to have been based around him. He has no superhuman powers, just natural agility and gymnastic ability, along with absolute rage at injustice and abuse.

Hermann Rorschach (1884 - 1922) was a Swiss psychiatrist and neurologist who developed the now-famous ink blot test. By interpreting the patient's perception of a given blot, the doctor gains insight about the patient's mental state. Answering that you see flowers or sunshine is a good thing. Answering that you see a german shepherd with its skull split open is a bad thing.

Walter Kovacs, aka Rorschach. (1940 -1985) A fictional character from the Alan Moore/Dave Gibbons book "The Watchmen", he wears a mask made from the fabric of a dress that Kitty Genovese wore once. It features a metamorphosing pattern of symmetrical blobs, from which he derives his pseudonym. He is the first character in the book who suspects that someone is killing off the superheroes. An avid reader of the New Frontiersman and a deadly-serious conspiracy theorist, Rorshach is easy to dismiss as crazy. His defining characteristics are persistence, lack of mercy, and an absolute refusal to compromise his principles. Whether these make him a fool or a hero is left as an exercise for the reader.