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Makster's avatar

Thank you for taking my submission into a discussion topic! The character that inspired this topic was Alan Moore's Rorschach from Watchmen

Admittedly I was also fooled on first blush with this character. He is the reader's POV, you see the world of Watchmen through his eyes, a brutally efficient investigator and crime fighter. And yet, he is also a horrible person. He smells really bad, ugly, other characters don't really want to associated with him - I think his only friend is more of a colleague Nite Owl II, and ultimately his short-comings lead to his death.

This popularity has disturbed author Alan Moore so much so that he thinks Watchmen is a failure as a criticism of comics and the superhero genre

Thomas's avatar

Ha, Rorschach was the first character I thought of, too. If I recall correctly he was supposed to be a parody of Batman, mocking his psychotic quest for vengeance. The thing is, everyone loves Batman as well. I wouldn't like these guys in the real world, but their dark sides make for really compelling heroes

Makster's avatar

Yeah I think he is like the de-facto character of an author being really weirded out by his popularity. It's again surprising that Levi Ackerman from AoT is modelled after him and again is mad popular

I'd say the other character I could probably point towards is Rick Sanchez though I don't think Dan Harmon has publicly denounced him

Paul's avatar

Im not sure if this counts but Iron Man was created with all the toxic characters you would hate in a person.

Alcoholic, womaniser, arrogant, he was designed to be hated....but everyone loved him.

“I thought it would be fun to take the kind of character that nobody would like, none of our readers would like, and shove him down their throats and make them like him... And he became very popular." - Stan Lee RIP

I think people loved Iron man because of his flaws. Superman has cryptonite and Tony Stark has his humanity, its much more relatable and human.

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