Watchmen: Chapter VI - page 26

PAGE 26

Panels 1-3:  These three panels really hit home the “Phoenix” symbolism, as we watch the dressmaker’s go up in flames while Rorschach talks over the scene, commenting on how he felt “cleansed,” as if born anew in that instant.

Panel 4:  Kovacs’s description of life here:  “… has no pattern … save what we choose to impose,” is also an apt description of the Rorschach blot test, accentuated by the extreme close-up of the significant “butterfly” Rorschach blot in this panel.

It is worth noting that, within the personal timeline of Rorschach, it is this point in his career where he goes from being a “proactive” hero who tries to help people and forestall crime, to becoming a “reactive” anti-hero who metes out punishment on the guilty with little regard for much else.  When he snapped, his agenda was flipped on its head, so to speak.