Watchmen

A single preview page for Watchmen, created by writer Alan Moore and artist Dave Gibbons, first appeared in the 1985 issue of DC Spotlight, the 50th anniversary special. The title was later published as a 12-issue maxiseries from DC Comics, cover-dated September 1986 to October 1987. It was subsequently collected in 1987 as a DC Comics trade paperback that has had at least 24 printings as of March 2017; another trade paperback was published by Warner Books, a DC sister company, in 1987. In February 1988, DC published a limited-edition, slipcased hardcover volume, produced by Graphitti Design, that contained 48 pages of bonus material, including the original proposal and concept art. In 2005, DC released Absolute Watchmen, an oversized slipcased hardcover edition of the series in DC's Absolute Edition format. Assembled under the supervision of Dave Gibbons, Absolute Watchmen included the Graphitti materials, as well as restored and recolored art by John Higgins. That December DC published a new printing of Watchmen issue #1 at the original 1986 cover price of $1.50 as part of its "Millennium Edition" line. In 2012, DC published Before Watchmen, a series of nine prequel miniseries, with various creative teams producing the characters' early adventures set before the events of the original series. In the 2016 one-shot DC Universe: Rebirth Special, numerous symbols and visual references to Watchmen, such as the blood-splattered smiley face, and the dialogue between Doctor Manhattan and Ozymandias in the last issue of Watchmen, are shown. Further Watchmen imagery was added in the DC Universe: Rebirth Special #1 second printing, which featured an update to Gary Frank's cover, better revealing the outstretched hand of Doctor Manhattan in the top right corner. Doctor Manhattan later appeared in the 2017 four-part DC miniseries The Button serving as a direct sequel to both DC Universe Rebirth and the 2011 storyline "Flashpoint". Manhattan reappears in the 2017–19 twelve-part sequel series Doomsday Clock. == Background and creation ==

In 1983, DC Comics acquired a line of characters from Charlton Comics. During that period, writer Alan Moore contemplated writing a story that featured an unused line of superheroes that he could revamp, as he had done in his Miracleman series in the early 1980s. Moore reasoned that MLJ Comics' Mighty Crusaders might be available for such a project, so he devised a murder mystery plot which would begin with the discovery of the body of the Shield in a harbor. The writer felt it did not matter which set of characters he ultimately used, as long as readers recognized them "so it would have the shock and surprise value when you saw what the reality of these characters was". Moore used this premise and crafted a proposal featuring the Charlton characters titled Who Killed the Peacemaker, and submitted the unsolicited proposal to DC managing editor Dick Giordano. Giordano was receptive to the proposal, but opposed the idea of using the Charlton characters for the story. After the acquisition of Charlton's Action Hero line, DC intended to use their upcoming Crisis on Infinite Earths event to fold them into their mainstream superhero universe. Moore said, "DC realized their expensive characters would end up either dead or dysfunctional." Instead, Giordano persuaded Moore to continue his project but with new characters that simply resembled the Charlton heroes. Moore had initially believed that original characters would not provide emotional resonance for readers but later changed his mind. He said, "Eventually, I realized that if I wrote the substitute characters well enough, so that they seemed familiar in certain ways, certain aspects of them brought back a kind of generic super-hero resonance or familiarity to the reader, then it might work." Gibbons told Giordano he wanted to draw the series Moore proposed and Moore approved. Gibbons brought colorist John Higgins onto the project because he liked his "unusual" style; Higgins lived near the artist, which allowed the two to "discuss [the art] and have some kind of human contact rather than just sending it across the ocean". Moore said his intention was to create "a superhero Moby Dick; something that had that sort of weight, that sort of density". Moore came up with the character names and descriptions but left the specifics of how they looked to Gibbons. Gibbons did not sit down and design the characters deliberately, but rather "did it at odd times [...] spend[ing] maybe two or three weeks just doing sketches." Moore began writing the series very early on, hoping to avoid publication delays such as those faced by the DC limited series Camelot 3000. When writing the script for the first issue Moore said he realized "I only had enough plot for six issues. We were contracted for 12!" His solution was to alternate issues that dealt with the overall plot of the series with origin issues for the characters. Moore wrote very detailed scripts for Gibbons to work from. Gibbons recalled that "[t]he script for the first issue of Watchmen was, I think, 101 pages of typescript—single-spaced—with no gaps between the individual panel descriptions or, indeed, even between the pages." Upon receiving the scripts, the artist had to number each page "in case I drop them on the floor, because it would take me two days to put them back in the right order", and used a highlighter pen to single out lettering and shot descriptions; he remarked, "It takes quite a bit of organizing before you can actually put pen to paper." Despite Moore's detailed scripts, his panel descriptions would often end with the note "If that doesn't work for you, do what works best"; Gibbons nevertheless worked to Moore's instructions. In fact, Gibbons only suggested one single change to the script – a compression of Ozymandias' narration while he was preventing a sneak attack by Rorschach – as he felt that the dialogue was too long to fit with the length of the action; Moore agreed and re-wrote the scene. Gibbons had a great deal of autonomy in developing the visual look of Watchmen and frequently inserted background details that Moore admitted he did not notice until later. As the creators began to hit deadlines, Moore would hire a taxi driver to drive 50 miles and deliver scripts to Gibbons. On later issues the artist even had his wife and son draw panel grids on pages to help save time. Moore acknowledged the Outer Limits episode by referencing it in the series' last issue. == Synopsis ==

Setting Watchmen is set in an alternate reality that closely mirrors the contemporary world of the 1980s. The primary difference is the presence of superheroes. The point of divergence occurs in the year 1938. Their existence in this version of the United States is shown to have dramatically affected and altered the outcomes of real-world events such as the Vietnam War and the presidency of Richard Nixon. In keeping with the realism of the series, although the costumed crimefighters of Watchmen are commonly called "superheroes", only one, named Doctor Manhattan, possesses any superhuman abilities. The war in Vietnam ends with an American victory in 1971 and Nixon is still president as of October 1985 upon the repeal of term limits and the Watergate scandal not coming to pass due to the implied assassination of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. Vietnam becomes the 51st state. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan occurs approximately six years later than in real life. When the story begins, the existence of Doctor Manhattan has given the U.S. a strategic advantage over the Soviet Union, which has dramatically increased Cold War tensions. Eventually, by 1977, superheroes grow unpopular among the police and the public, leading them to be outlawed with the passage of the Keene Act. While many of the heroes retired, Doctor Manhattan and another superhero, known as The Comedian, operate as government-sanctioned agents. Another named Rorschach continues to operate outside the law. Plot On October 12th, 1985, New York City detectives investigate the murder of Edward Blake. With the police having no leads, costumed vigilante Rorschach decides to probe further. Rorschach deduces Blake to have been the true identity of "The Comedian", a costumed hero employed by the U.S. government, after finding his costume and signature smiley-face pin badge. Believing that Blake's murder could be part of a larger plot against costumed adventurers, Rorschach seeks out and warns four of his retired comrades: shy inventor Daniel Dreiberg, formerly the second Nite Owl; the superpowered and emotionally detached Jon Osterman, codenamed "Doctor Manhattan"; Doctor Manhattan's lover Laurie Juspeczyk, the second Silk Spectre; and Adrian Veidt, once the hero "Ozymandias", and now a successful businessman. Dreiberg, Veidt, and Manhattan attend Blake's funeral, where Dreiberg tosses Blake's pin badge in his coffin before he is buried. Manhattan is later accused on national television of being the cause of cancer in friends and former colleagues. When the government takes the accusations seriously, Manhattan exiles himself to Mars. As the United States depends on Manhattan as a strategic military asset, his departure throws humanity into political turmoil, with the Soviets invading Afghanistan to capitalize on the United States' perceived weakness. Rorschach's concerns appear validated when Veidt narrowly survives an assassination attempt. Rorschach himself is framed for murdering a former supervillain named Moloch. While attempting to flee the scene of Moloch's murder, Rorschach is captured by police and unmasked as Walter Kovacs. Neglected in her relationship with the once-human Manhattan, whose godlike powers have left him emotionally detached from ordinary people, and no longer kept on retainer by the government, Juspeczyk stays with Dreiberg. They begin a romance, don their costumes, and resume vigilante work as they grow closer together. With Dreiberg starting to believe some aspects of Rorschach's conspiracy theory, the pair take it upon themselves to break him out of prison. After looking back on his own personal history, Manhattan places the fate of his involvement with human affairs in Juspeczyk's hands. He teleports her to Mars to make the case for emotional investment. During the course of the argument, Juspeczyk is forced to come to terms with the fact that Blake, who once attempted to rape her mother (the original Silk Spectre), was actually her biological father, having fathered her in a second, consensual relationship. This discovery, reflecting the complexity of human emotions and relationships, reignites Manhattan's interest in humanity. On Earth, Dreiberg and Rorschach find evidence that Veidt may be behind the conspiracy. Rorschach writes his suspicions about Veidt in his journal, which includes the full details of his investigation, and mails it to New Frontiersman, a local right-wing newspaper. When Rorschach and Dreiberg travel to Antarctica to confront Veidt at his private retreat, Veidt explains that he plans to save humanity from an impending nuclear war by staging a fake alien invasion and killing half the population of New York, forcing the United States and the Soviet Union to unite against a common enemy. He reveals that he murdered Blake after Blake discovered his plan, arranged for Doctor Manhattan's past associates to contract cancer to force him to leave Earth, staged the attempt on his own life to place himself above suspicion, and framed Rorschach for Moloch's murder to prevent him from discovering the truth. Horrified by Veidt's callous logic, Dreiberg and Rorschach vow to stop him, but Veidt reveals that he already enacted his plan before they arrived. When Manhattan and Juspeczyk arrive back on Earth, they are confronted by mass destruction and death in New York, with a gigantic squid-like creature, created by Veidt's laboratories, dead in the middle of the city. Manhattan notices his prescient abilities are limited by tachyons emanating from the Antarctic and the pair teleport there. They discover Veidt's involvement and confront him. Veidt shows everyone news broadcasts confirming that the emergence of a new threat has indeed prompted peaceful co-operation between the superpowers; this leads almost all present to agree that concealing the truth is in the best interests of world peace. Rorschach refuses to compromise and leaves, intent on revealing the truth. As he is making his way back, he is confronted by Manhattan who argues that at this point, the truth can only hurt. Rorschach declares that Manhattan will have to kill him to stop him from exposing Veidt, which Manhattan duly does. Manhattan then wanders through the base and finds Veidt, who asks him if he did the right thing in the end. Manhattan cryptically responds that "nothing ever ends" before leaving Earth. Dreiberg and Juspeczyk go into hiding under new identities and continue their romance. Back in New York, the editor at New Frontiersman asks his assistant to find some filler material from the "crank file", a collection of rejected submissions to the paper, many of which have not yet been reviewed. The series ends with the young man reaching toward the pile of discarded submissions, near the top of which is Rorschach's journal. == Characters ==

With Watchmen, Alan Moore's intention was to create four or five "radically opposing ways" to perceive the world and to give readers of the story the privilege of determining which one was most morally comprehensible. Moore did not believe in the notion of "[cramming] regurgitated morals" down the readers' throats and instead sought to show heroes in an ambivalent light. Moore said, "What we wanted to do was show all of these people, warts and all. Show that even the worst of them had something going for them, and even the best of them had their flaws." ;Daniel Dreiberg / Nite Owl II: A retired superhero who utilizes owl-themed gadgets. Nite Owl was based on the Ted Kord version of the Blue Beetle. Paralleling the way Ted Kord had a predecessor, Moore also incorporated an earlier adventurer who used the name "Nite Owl", the retired crime fighter Hollis Mason, into Watchmen. Richard Reynolds noted in Super Heroes: A Modern Mythology that despite the character's Charlton roots, Nite Owl's modus operandi has more in common with the DC Comics character Batman. According to Klock, his civilian form "visually suggests an impotent, middle-aged Clark Kent." ;Edward Blake / The Comedian: One of two government-sanctioned heroes (along with Doctor Manhattan) who remains active after the Keene Act is passed in 1977 to ban superheroes. His murder, which occurs shortly before the first chapter begins, sets the plot of Watchmen in motion. The character appears throughout the story in flashbacks and aspects of his personality are revealed by other characters. The Comedian was based on the Charlton Comics character Peacemaker, with elements of the Marvel Comics spy character Nick Fury added. Moore and Gibbons saw The Comedian as "a kind of Gordon Liddy character, only a much bigger, tougher guy". However, the writer found he could do more with Manhattan as a "kind of a quantum super-hero" than he could have with Captain Atom. Moore recalled that he was unsure if DC would allow the creators to depict the character as fully nude, which partially influenced how they portrayed the character.: == Art and composition ==

, a recurring symbol throughout the book Moore and Gibbons designed Watchmen to showcase the unique qualities of the comics medium and to highlight its particular strengths. In a 1986 interview, Moore said, "What I'd like to explore is the areas that comics succeed in where no other media is capable of operating", and emphasized this by stressing the differences between comics and film. Moore said that Watchmen was designed to be read "four or five times", with some links and allusions only becoming apparent to the reader after several readings. Gibbons described the series as "a comic about comics". Gibbons suggested a pirate theme, and Moore agreed in part because he is "a big Bertolt Brecht fan": the Black Freighter alludes to the song "Seeräuberjenny" ("Pirate Jenny") from Brecht's Threepenny Opera. Gibbons created a smiley face badge as an element of The Comedian's costume in order to "lighten" the overall design, later adding a splash of blood to the badge to imply his murder. Gibbons said the creators came to regard the blood-stained smiley face as "a symbol for the whole series", noting its resemblance to the Doomsday Clock ticking up to midnight. Moore drew inspiration from psychological tests of behaviorism, explaining that the tests had presented the face as "a symbol of complete innocence". With the addition of a blood splash over the eye, the face's meaning was altered to become simultaneously radical and simple enough for the first issue's cover to avoid human detail. Although most evocations of the central image were created on purpose, others were coincidental. Moore mentioned in particular that on "the little plugs on the spark hydrants if you turn them upside down, you discover a little smiley face". Other symbols, images, and allusions that appeared throughout the series often emerged unexpectedly. Moore mentioned that "[t]he whole thing with Watchmen has just been loads of these little bits of synchronicity popping up all over the place". Gibbons noted an unintended theme was contrasting the mundane and the romantic, citing the separate sex scenes between Nite Owl and Silk Spectre on his couch and then high in the sky on Nite Owl's airship. In a book of the craters and boulders of Mars, Gibbons discovered a photograph of the Galle crater, which resembles a happy face, which they worked into an issue. Moore said, "We found a lot of these things started to generate themselves as if by magic", in particular citing an occasion where they decided to name a lock company the "Gordian Knot Lock Company". == Themes ==

The initial premise of the series was to examine what superheroes would be like "in a credible, real world". As the story became more complex, Moore said Watchmen became about "power and about the idea of the superman manifest within society." The title of the series refers to the question "Who will watch the watchmen themselves?", famously posed by the Roman satirist Juvenal (as "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?"), although Moore was not aware of the phrase's classical origins until Harlan Ellison informed him. Moore commented in 1987, "In the context of Watchmen, that fits. 'They're watching out for us, who's watching out for them? While Moore wanted to write about "power politics" and the "worrying" times he lived in, he stated the reason that the story was set in an alternate reality was because he was worried that readers would "switch off" if he attacked a leader they admired. Gibbons said that while readers "were left with the idea that it was a grim and gritty kind of thing", he said in his view the series was "a wonderful celebration of superheroes as much as anything else". == Publication and reception ==

, co-creator of Watchmen, severed his ties with DC Comics over contractual issues related to the work. Watchmen was first mentioned publicly in the 1985 Amazing Heroes Preview. When Moore and Gibbons turned in the first issue of their series to DC, Gibbons recalled, "What really clinched it [...] was [writer/artist] Howard Chaykin, who doesn't give praise lightly, and who came up and said, 'Dave what you've done on Watchmen is freaking A. Speaking in 1986, Moore said, "DC backed us all the way [...] and have been really supportive about even the most graphic excesses". adds details to the series' backstory by portraying events that occurred in 1966. Watchmen was published in single-issue form over the course of 1986 and 1987. The limited series was a commercial success, and its sales helped DC Comics briefly overtake its competitor Marvel Comics in the comic book direct market. The series' publishing schedule ran into delays because it was scheduled with three issues completed instead of the six editor Len Wein believed were necessary. Further delays were caused when later issues each took more than a month to complete. In 1988, Watchmen received a Hugo Award in the Other Forms category. According to Gibbons, Moore had his award placed upside down in his garden and used it as a bird table. Watchmen received the Locus Award for Best Non-fiction in 1988, a point at which the Locus Awards did not have a category for illustrated works. Dave Langford reviewed Watchmen for White Dwarf #96, and stated that "The modern myth of the Superhero is curiously powerful despite its usual silliness; Watchmen lovingly disassembles the mythology into bloodstained cogs and ratchets, concluding with the famous quotation Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" Ownership disputes Disagreements about the ownership of the story ultimately led Moore to sever ties with DC Comics. Not wanting to work under a work for hire arrangement, Moore and Gibbons had a reversion clause in their contract for Watchmen. Speaking at the 1985 San Diego Comic-Con, Moore said: "The way it works, if I understand it, is that DC owns it for the time they're publishing it, and then it reverts to Dave and me, so we can make all the money from the Slurpee cups." Soon afterward, DC Direct canceled the Watchmen action-figure line, despite the company having displayed prototypes at the 2000 San Diego Comic-Con. ==Prequel projects==

Moore stated in 1985 that if the limited series was well-received, he and Gibbons would possibly create a 12-issue prequel series called Minutemen featuring the 1940s superhero group from the story. Gibbons was more attracted to the idea of a Minutemen series because it would have "[paid] homage to the simplicity and unsophisticated nature of Golden Age comic books—with the added dramatic interest that it would be a story whose conclusion is already known. It would be, perhaps, interesting to see how we got to the conclusion." In 2010, Moore told Wired that DC offered him the rights to Watchmen back if he would agree to prequel and sequel projects. Moore said that "if they said that 10 years ago, when I asked them for that, then yeah it might have worked [...] But these days I don't want Watchmen back. Certainly, I don't want it back under those kinds of terms." DC Comics co-publishers Dan DiDio and Jim Lee responded: "DC Comics would only revisit these iconic characters if the creative vision of any proposed new stories matched the quality set by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons nearly 25 years ago, and our first discussion on any of this would naturally be with the creators themselves." Following months of rumors about a potential Watchmen follow-up project, in February 2012 DC announced it was publishing seven prequel series under the "Before Watchmen" banner. Among the creators involved were writers J. Michael Straczynski, Brian Azzarello, Darwyn Cooke, and Len Wein, and artists Lee Bermejo, J. G. Jones, Adam Hughes, Andy Kubert, Joe Kubert, and Amanda Conner. Though Moore had no involvement with Before Watchmen, Gibbons supplied the project with a statement in the initial press announcement: ==Sequels==

Comic book sequel: Doomsday Clock The sequel to Watchmen, entitled Doomsday Clock, is part of the DC Rebirth line of comics, additionally continuing a narrative established with 2016's one-shot DC Universe: Rebirth Special and 2017's crossover The Button, both of which featured Doctor Manhattan in a minor capacity. The miniseries, taking place seven years after the events of Watchmen in November 1992, follows Ozymandias as he attempts to locate Doctor Manhattan alongside Reginald Long, the successor of Walter Kovacs as Rorschach, following the exposure and subsequent failure of his plan for peace and the subsequent impending nuclear war between the United States and Russia. The series was revealed on May 14, 2017, with a teaser image displaying the Superman logo in the 12 o'clock slot of the clock depicted in Watchmen and the series title in the bold typeface used for Watchmen. The first of a planned twelve issues was released on November 22, 2017. The story includes many DC characters but has a particular focus on Superman and Doctor Manhattan, despite Superman stated as being a fictional character in the original series—the series uses the plot element of the multiverse. Writer Geoff Johns felt like there was an interesting story to be told in Rebirth with Doctor Manhattan. He thought there was an interesting dichotomy between Superman—an alien who embodies and is compassionate for humanity—and Doctor Manhattan—a human who has detached himself from humanity. This led to over six months of debates among the creative team about whether to intersect the Watchmen universe with the DC Universe, through the plot element of alternate realities. He explained that Doomsday Clock was the "most personal and most epic, utterly mind-bending project" that he had worked on in his career. Lindelof, a fan of the limited series, made the show a "remix" of the comic, narratively a sequel while introducing a new set of characters and story that he felt made the work unique enough without being a full reboot of the comic series. Among its main cast are Regina King, Don Johnson, Tim Blake Nelson, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, and Jeremy Irons. The television show takes place in 2019, 34 years after the end of the limited series, and is primarily set in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Due to liberal policies set by President Robert Redford to provide reparations to those affected by racial violence, white supremacist groups (following the writings of Rorschach) attack the police who enforce these policies, leading to laws requiring police to hide their identity and wear masks. This has allowed new masked crime fighters to assist the police against the supremacists. Doctor Manhattan, Adrian Veidt / Ozymandias, and Laurie Blake / Silk Spectre are central characters to the show's plot. ==Adaptations==

Film adaptation There have been numerous attempts to make a film version of Watchmen since 1986, when producers Lawrence Gordon and Joel Silver acquired film rights to the series for 20th Century Fox. Fox asked Alan Moore to write a screenplay based on his story, Fox put the project into turnaround in 1991, and the project was moved to Warner Bros. Pictures, where Terry Gilliam was attached to direct and Charles McKeown to rewrite it. They used the character Rorschach's diary as a voice-over and restored scenes from the comic book that Hamm had removed. After Warner Bros. dropped the project, Gordon invited Gilliam back to helm the film independently. The director again declined, believing that the comic book would be better directed as a five-hour miniseries. In October 2001, Gordon partnered with Lloyd Levin and Universal Studios, hiring David Hayter to write and direct. Hayter and the producers left Universal due to creative differences, and Gordon and Levin expressed interest in setting up Watchmen at Revolution Studios. The project did not hold together at Revolution Studios and subsequently fell apart. In July 2004, it was announced Paramount Pictures would produce Watchmen, and they attached Darren Aronofsky to direct Hayter's script. Producers Gordon and Levin remained attached, collaborating with Aronofsky's producing partner, Eric Watson. Aronofsky left to focus on The Fountain and was replaced by Paul Greengrass. Ultimately, Paramount placed Watchmen in turnaround. In October 2005, Gordon and Levin met with Warner Bros. to develop the film there again. Impressed with Zack Snyder's work on 300, Warner Bros. approached him to direct an adaptation of Watchmen. Screenwriter Alex Tse drew from his favorite elements of Hayter's script, but also returned it to the original Cold War setting of the Watchmen comic. Similar to his approach to 300, Snyder used the comic book panel-grid as a storyboard and opted to shoot the entire film using live-action sets instead of green screens. He extended the fight scenes, and added a subplot about energy resources to make the film more topical. Although he intended to stay faithful to the look of the characters in the comic, Snyder intended Nite Owl to look scarier, While 20th Century Fox filed a lawsuit to block the film's release, the studios eventually settled, with Warner agreeing to give Fox 8.5 percent of the film's worldwide gross, including from sequels and spin-offs in return. It was originally included in the screenplay for the Watchmen film, but was cut due to budget restrictions, as the segment would have added $20 million to the budget, because Snyder wanted to film it in a stylized manner reminiscent of 300. Jared Harris voices his deceased friend Ridley, whom the Captain hallucinates is talking to him. Snyder had Butler and Harris record their parts together. Snyder considered including the animated film in the final cut, but the film was already approaching a three-hour running time. The film itself was released on DVD four months after Tales of the Black Freighter, The director's cut and the extended version of Watchmen both include Tales of the Black Freighter on their DVD releases. Dave Gibbons became an adviser on Snyder's film, but Moore has refused to have his name attached to any film adaptations of his work. Moore has stated he has no interest in seeing Snyder's adaptation; he told Entertainment Weekly in 2008 that "[t]here are things that we did with Watchmen that could only work in a comic, and were indeed designed to show off things that other media can't". While Moore believes that David Hayter's screenplay was "as close as I could imagine anyone getting to Watchmen", he asserted he did not intend to see the film if it were made. Motion comic In 2008, Warner Bros. Entertainment released Watchmen Motion Comics, a series of narrated animations of the original comic book. The first chapter was released for purchase in the summer of 2008 on digital video stores, such as iTunes Store. A DVD compiling the full motion comic series was released in March 2009. Animated film Warner Bros. announced in April 2017 that they would develop an R-rated animated film based on the comic book. A teaser trailer was released on June 13, 2024, and revealed it to be a two-part film. Watchmen Chapter I received a digital release on August 13, 2024, and Blu-ray and 4K Ultra HD release on August 27, 2024, Watchmen Chapter II released on November 26, 2024. Arrowverse The HBO Watchmen series was referenced in the Arrowverse's Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover. Music In 2025, Sevan Kirder's Thalassor released a concept album based on Watchmen, named The End is Nigh. ==Legacy==

A critical and commercial success, Watchmen is highly regarded in the comics industry and is frequently considered by several critics and reviewers as comics' greatest series and graphic novel. In addition to being one of the first major works to help popularize the graphic novel publishing format alongside The Dark Knight Returns, Watchmen has also become one of the best-selling graphic novels ever published. Watchmen was the only graphic novel to appear on Times 2005 "All-Time 100 Greatest Novels" list, where Time critic Lev Grossman described the story as "a heart-pounding, heartbreaking read and a watershed in the evolution of a young medium." It later appeared on Times 2009 "Top 10 Graphic Novels" list, where Grossman further praised Watchmen, proclaiming "It's way beyond cliché at this point to call Watchmen the greatest superhero comic ever written-slash-drawn. But it's true." In 2008, Entertainment Weekly placed Watchmen at number 13 on its list of the best 50 novels printed in the last 25 years, describing it as "The greatest superhero story ever told and proof that comics are capable of smart, emotionally resonant narratives worthy of the label 'literature'." The Comics Journal, however, ranked Watchmen at number 91 on its list of the Top 100 English-language comics of the 20th century. In Art of the Comic Book: An Aesthetic History, Robert Harvey wrote that, with Watchmen, Moore and Gibbons "had demonstrated as never before the capacity of the [comic book] medium to tell a sophisticated story that could be engineered only in comics". In his review of the Absolute Edition of the collection, Dave Itzkoff of The New York Times wrote that the dark legacy of Watchmen, "one that Moore almost certainly never intended, whose DNA is encoded in the increasingly black inks and bleak storylines that have become the essential elements of the contemporary superhero comic book," is "a domain he has largely ceded to writers and artists who share his fascination with brutality but not his interest in its consequences, his eagerness to tear down old boundaries but not his drive to find new ones." Alan Moore himself said his intentions with works like Marvelman and Watchmen were to liberate comics and open them up to new and fresh ideas, thus creating more diversity in the comics world by showing the industry what could be done with already existing concepts. Instead it had the opposite effect, confining the superhero comic to a "depressive ghetto of grimness and psychosis". In 2009, Lydia Millet of The Wall Street Journal contested that Watchmen was worthy of such acclaim, and wrote that while the series' "vividly drawn panels, moody colors and lush imagery make its popularity well-deserved, if disproportionate", that "it's simply bizarre to assert that, as an illustrated literary narrative, it rivals in artistic merit, say, masterpieces like Chris Ware's 'Acme Novelty Library' or almost any part of the witty and brilliant work of Edward Gorey". Watchmen was one of the two comic books, alongside Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, that inspired designer Vincent Connare when he created the Comic Sans font. In 2009, Brain Scan Studios released the parody Watchmensch, a comic in which writer Rich Johnston chronicled "the debate surrounding Watchmen, the original contracts, the current legal suits over the Fox contract". Also in 2009, to coincide with the release of the Watchmen movie, IDW Publishing produced a parody one-shot comic titled Whatmen?! Grant Morrison wrote a scene in Pax Americana (2014) where a child shoots his father in the head with his own gun, killing him. This was meant to symbolize Morrison's opinion about how the limited series had a negative impact on the superhero genre: "it's Watchmen's shot to the head of the American superhero." In September 2016, Hasslein Books published Watching Time: The Unauthorized Watchmen Chronology, by author Rich Handley. The book provides a detailed history of the Watchmen franchise. In December 2017, DC Entertainment published Watchmen: Annotated, a fully annotated black-and-white edition of the graphic novel, edited, with an introduction and notes by Leslie S. Klinger (who previously annotated Neil Gaiman's The Sandman for DC). The edition contains extensive materials from Alan Moore's original scripts and was written with the full collaboration of Dave Gibbons. ==See also==