Comic Maven

DC Comics announced with mixed blessings that there would be seven comic book prequels to the Watchmen series (the highest selling graphic novel ever).  Mixed blessings, because, to many a fan’s dismay, neither of the Watchmen’s original creators will be working on the prequels.

Original Watchmen writer Alan Moore (Swamp Thing) and artist Dave Gibbons (2000 AD) will have no input on the Watchmen prequels.  The prequels will be collectively known as Before Watchmen and will continue to revolve around a group of crime-fighting vigilantes known as the Watchmen in an alternate version of 20^th century America. 

Each of the seven prequels will focus on a particular character or group of characters from the original Watchmen series.  These prequels will be the first time since their original counterpart that any of the heroes in the Watchmen will be on panels again. 

The original creators were a mixed bag of emotions.  Gibbons said Watchmen was “the complete story that Alan Moore and I wanted to tell.  However, I appreciate DC’s reasons for this initiative and the wish of the artists and writers involved to pay tribute to our work.”

Moore was… less enthusiastic.  He told the New York Times Before Watchmen was “completely shameless” and said, “I tend to take this latest development as a kind of eager confirmation that they are still apparently dependent on ideas that I had 25 years ago.”

Before Watchmen is scheduled to begin this summer.  One of the writers involved in the project will be J Michael Straczynski (who was nominated for a Bafta as the screewnwriter of Clint Eastwood’s 2009 picture The Changeling).  Questionable choice to put a screenwriter in charge of writing for the comic Before Watchmen, but it’s also a questionable choice to leave out the original creators.  But I doubt they would have returned.  They have clearly finished the story they wished to tell, and now, after twenty-five years, a new generation of creators will attempt to expand the classic tale.