Rose Tattoo

Rose Tattoo is the Spirit of Murder — a supernatural embodiment of killing itself — who was introduced into the Stormwatch universe as a deeply unsettling force connected to Henry Bendix's ruthless operations, existing less as a traditional hero than as a living expression of lethal inevitability.

Warren Ellis introduced Rose Tattoo to the Wildstorm corner of Image Comics in 1996's Stormwatch #37, and she's one of those characters who leaves a mark far out of proportion to her page count. Operating in the intense, Ellis-defined atmosphere of Stormwatch alongside figures like Henry Bendix, Winter, and Fahrenheit, she carries the unmistakable stamp of that late-'90s era when superhero comics were being rebuilt from the ground up with harder edges and stranger ideas. Across a publishing life that stretched from the Copper/Modern Age all the way into 2013, Rose Tattoo remains a cult figure — rare enough to feel like a discovery, and rooted in one of the most creatively charged runs the Wildstorm universe ever produced.