RKMBs Forums .::Robegories::. Comic Books Watchmen Prequels announced.

Newsarama article
This has more or less been an ongoing thing for a while now,but DC made it official this morning. CBR has an interview with JMS,who's ding the Dr. Manhattan story with art by Adam Hughes. Honestly,I don't mind that they're doing them.There'll be a new Watchmen book every week for 35 weeks,and the creative teams on the titles are solid writer/artist combos so I don't think DC is going into this lightly. I think the interesting thing about this is how these are all prequels and that I do believe DC will more than likely stay away from a sequel to Watchmen unless this does extremely well.

So...basically the "new" DC consists of silver age fanwank, mimicking 90s era Image books and, now, prequels to a 26 year old series.

Man, who would want to work on that book? To do a new series tacked onto possibly the single most acclaimed masterwork in comics history? To try and worm new continuity onto said masterwork, and break the perfect closure of that stand-alone work?

Any creative team that would attempt it is just begging for ridicule.

I didn't know why it took them this long to make more watchmen. I'm hoping this will end the never ending hype train about the original comic.

I agree with the sentiment, Rex. But, fuck this. They just need to grow the balls necessary to do a sequel.

Watchmen is the greatest selling graphic novel of all time. These prequels will sell just on the watchmen name. Once they are done the sequel will be made.

Yeah, I just think the enough backstory was laid out in the original to make the prequels terribly uninspired in their attempt to crap on Moore's work. This isn't their best effort to ruin his legacy, IMO. Johns did a terrific job of crapping all over Moore's Green Lantern stuff. Tomasi dropped a giant turd on "For the Man Who Has Everything" when he introduced Mother Mercy in GLC. They definitely flipped him off while dropping a turd on his Swamp Thing work in Brightest Day. I guess I just expected more out of them than they were able to deliver this time. I'm still waiting to see them do something with that girl from his Vigilante story becoming an anti-hero, villain, or something. Or, you know, reintroduce the post-Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow Earth-1 Superman. The prequels just seem to lack the temerity of their other derivative crapfests.

Even if they managed to create some decent stories (like the sequels to the Planet of the Apes - the Charlton Heston version, the only one that really counts beside the novel), wise readers would wonder "what is the point in this?" (like the sequels to the Planet of the Apes).

Are you going to let the world go BOOM! after Rorschach's journal is discovered?

Are you going to make some pastiche of Adam West's Batman with Nite Owl II and Silk "Daddy's Girl" Spectre II?

Are you going to show Doc Manhattan making Rorschach clones on some planet he just terraformed?

Or a 50's style sitcom of Captain Metropolis and Hooded Justice as retired, old masked adventurers living together, telling those damn kids to move away from the lawn? (If they do not, they end up in Hooded Justice's "dungeon"... Hey, we could make a cross-over with Scooby-Doo! "Those meddling kids!", indeed.)

When I say I want a sequel, I mean I want a crapfest. I want Laurie to embrace both sides of her legacy and wear a costume borrowing elements from both her parents costumes that ultimately make her look like she is into hardcore bondage.

I want Ozymandias becoming a butcher of humanity as he realizes he needs to keep the attacks coming to hold to hold world peace together.

I want conspiracy wonks talking up Rorshach's journal on webpages linking to The New Frontiersman's old usenet forum.

I want a guest appearance by Evey V or that guy she absconds with at the end of V for Vendetta as V taking up the Rorschach role.

Ultimate. Crapfest.

Eh, we'll see how it sells, but I buy comics for the writer, not the concept, and apart from Azzarello none of those writers interest me.

Azzarello's hit and miss for me. The only one that sounds that interesting to me is the "Minutemen" one, insofar as (a) it's Darwyn Cooke; (b) its about characters who for the most part were minor players in the original series.



You're not thinking "big" enough. If you really want to see DC crap all over Watchmen, wait until what happens if the prequels (and possible sequel) sell really well: there's no way DC won't break down at that point and find a way to do DCU/Watchmen team-ups, most likely in the concept of a weekly crossover "big event" mini-series.

Peter David



Other creators have their say... http://www.newsarama.com/comics/the-q-creators-on-before-watchmen-120201.html

Typhoid Dave Sighting, motherfuckers!

Alan Moore seems to be throwing an internet wide bitch fit over this so I fully approve of these prequels.

They could be good, they could be bad. They are comics.

Except the JMS ones, those will suck.

Here's my opinion on the "should they/shouldn't they" argument.By all means DC,bring on the prequels.I for one want to read them and here's why:I'm excited to read them. Plain and simple fact for me is that comics of late fail to excite that "Gotta read this now!" feeling.The New 52 stuff is good reading for me and most of Marvel's stuff is decent but more often than not,aside from "Fables" & "Green Lantern",nothing is "Must-Read" anymore,which leads to why I look forward to the Watchmen prequels.There's some stellar talent on these books and I highly doubt any of these people will want to go into a project like this without wanting to do the best they can do and with as much respect to the original story as they can and I am genuinely excited to see what they have done.

Why Moore bitches about it is beyond me.He himself has taken characters and expanded on them.League of Extrordinary Gentlemen is the perfect example of this and it was good reading.I would regard Watchmen as Moore's Magnum Opus.It is his crowning achievement in the world of comics.He's written good stuff before it and good stuff after it,but so have a lot of other creators with characters. Walt Simonson's run on Thor is considered the best on the character and Walt will always be associated with it,no matter what else he has done before or since.Frank Miller's Daredevil and Dark Knight Returns,Claremont and Byrne's X-Men,Byrne's Fantastic Four,etc.These are all the benchmark runs that defined these books and characters and it would be like saying that after they were done,noone else could touch them because of how good they were(and yes,some of the runs after these creators were gone were pretty stinky but there's been good stuff too).

Will the prequels be as good as the source book? Maybe,maybe not. I'm a firm believer in reading first,judge it later so I can't comment on it and I haven't read any scripts on-line that give me any real insight.Those that choose to stay away from the books out of lack of interest or fan protest are certainly entitled to do so and creators who think it's a bad idea and vehemently oppose it can do that as well.There's nothing wrong with differeing opinion.Dave Gibbons has said that Watchmen was his and Moore's complete story and to me that nails it right there....it was their story that DC let them tell,now DC wants others to tell other stories with the characters and Gibbons has no problem with it.Moore has his reasoning as to why he doesn't think it needs done and that's fine with me.

Most that dislike the idea are saying "Why not do new stuff instead of going back to this?" Well I can tell ya,thre's new stuff being done by good creators and guess what......it doesn't sell. Fan acclaim?....sure. Crtical Success?....yep. Cancelled?.....you betcha!!. DC wants to sell comics and make money and that's what they're doing and what they intend to do with the Watchmen prequels no more,no less on their part.At least,they tried to make sure that the creators attached to the titles are some of the best in the biz and ya know what? I'm excited and that's a good thing.

Bite me, wench!

Yeah, thought I'd say hi. Hi.

That Peter David observation is pretty valid. Although, I had always thought that Moore didn't give a shit if anyone buttfucked his creative output because he had the view that any reinterpretation, including by film, wasn't anything to do with him.

Oh, I agree with Al, too. There is not a lot happening in mainstream comics. I'm finding myself buying more and more collected works, often in ridiculously expensive formats.

Yeah, while the prequels themselves don't really interest me (and I'm still betting on DC attempting a mainstream integration of the characters if the books sell), watching the guy who made his career adapting other people's characters throw a hissy fit over someone adapting his adaptations sort of makes the whole thing worthwhile.

What I like is watching all the whiny nerds bitch about Alan Moore's bitching. Knowing that they will die and never be remembered, while his name will last throughout the ages. This minor inconvenience of his is all they have to grasp hold in some vain, jealous effort at pulling him down to their irrelevant level. It's kind of tragic, but definitely illuminating...

And future generations will worship you for protesting on a message board. Get over yourself. Your wife already did.

If I'm thinking correctly, then they have already laid the groundwork for such a crossover. Isn't their a Watchmen earth in the 52-niverse? Though, I think they also admitted that it wasn't THE Watchmen universe.

I just think the prequels are a bad way to kick all of this off. As I said, all the backstory you'd ever need is in those original twelve issues. JMS said they were going to be true to the source material. If that is the case and all the backstory is already there then I don't see how these could add anything to the already existing story or depth to any of the characters. Save, maybe, Cooke's Minutemen. IMO, all of it will just read as flat derivatives. I give them credit for having the balls to milk this cash cow. It just strikes me as overly conservative in how they are milking this cash cow.

Prequels remaining true to the source material = boring

The third generation heroes: Nite Spectre, Lobotomy, and Laugh Track vs Ozymandias's army of time traveling Alie-N-azis from a parallel world = fun

Hey Iggy. Johns didn't retcon Moore's Swamp Thing run.

All he did was bring back Holland (who now feels horrified but somewhat responsible for this monster/Swamp Thing that has all of his memories as Moore established during his run)

Is that from the New 52 stuff? I thought the poke in the eye was pretty obvious in Brightest Day. There was the corrupted Swamp Thing entity that took on Nekron's identity like he did Holland's. Then, there was a return to the man-turned-monster idea of the resurrected Alec Holland actually becoming Swamp Thing to destroy the, in a sense, Moore version of the character. Brightest Day was stupid though so I could be trying to remember it as something...anything other than what it actually was.

Actually, after Nekron got out of Swamp Thing, Swampy disappeared (which was supposed to be followed up in the Search for Swamp Thing miniseries where Holland was supposed to go looking for him that got axed in favor of him getting his own series among the new 52)

Oh. Forgot to inform you about the new series.

Long story short, after Holland's resurrection he decides to quit being a scientist, but before he could throw all of his work away, Swamp Thing shows up to explain to Holland the importance of the Parliament of Trees and other stuff.

The Batman/Rorschach crossover seems obvious. They have a fight scene with a stalemate, and firmly shake hands and respect each other's ways, agreeing to disagree, at the end of the story. There is a sequel, and a lunchbox.


The lunchbox is necessary to catch my vomit.


If I hear any of these stories are ok, I might have a look. We'll see.

Which reminds me: what was the name of that title Pro you were recommending to me last year?

The Bible, by Charlton Heston

Irredeemable?

The Boys also picked up a lot of steam this month. It seems they're getting ready for the big finish at #75

Could be.

I can easily envision the idea that there's a "Watchmen" universe that is essentially the prequel universe, not unlike the "alternate timeline" version of "Star Trek" from the Abrams movie.

That universe will be the one that teams up with the DCU.

And we will probably find out that the "prequels" are actually just tales from the alternate universe, where the events of the Moore novel may or may not happen someday (kind of like how DC couldn't decide for a while in the 80s-90s whether DKR was Elseworlds or not).

I haven't read the latest one but it's been great lately. It got boring for a long while there.

So did Irredeemable. But the latest ish also kicked ass.

Begrudgingly, we should admit that this is probably the most action the comic book forum has had in quite awhile. And, we have Before Watchmen to thank for it.

Thank you Before Watchmen!

And this is what DC wants(aside from the money these books are sure to generate)....people talking comics.