Earlier on Wednesday DC Comics announced that this summer they will be publish the long rumored prequel event to Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ masterpiece Watchmen. The event will encompass seven mini-series with some pretty impressive talent. Here is the list of the creative teams.

“The original series of ‘Watchmen‘ is 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. May these new additions have the success they desire,”

When contacted by the New York Times for comment Watchmen co-creator and writer Alan Moore was less than enthusiastic.

“Completely shameless.” “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.” “As far as I know,” he said, “there weren’t that many prequels or sequels to ‘Moby-Dick.’ ”

We all knew it was coming but it still doesn’t make it any less shocking to hear. After 25 years we are getting more stories from what many consider to be the greatest comic ever written. I have been thinking about this for a while, particularly since Rich Johnston over at Bleeding Cool started posting  preview art this past Christmas Day. Do we need a prequel/sequel to Watchmen? The short answer is no. Gibbons and Moore’s story is pretty close to comic book perfection. In twelve issues they created a complete, rich, and complex world with an amazing history and characters. It is absolutely not necessary to go back to that world. But to that end they created such a rich world that it left room and desire to be explored further. Go to any Comic Con and you will see artists doing commissions or prints of Watchmen characters. I myself have got a fair share of Nite-Owl sketches. So the appetite to see more of these characters is there, that is undeniable. Is this a money grab??? Absolutely. But it appears like DC Comics is putting the best creative teams possible on the job to make this a quality product. This is not a Joe Bagofdonuts on these books. This is Darwyn Cooke, Brian Azzarello, Lee Bermejo, Amanda Conner J.G. Jones, Adam Hughes, Jae Lee, Andy and Joe Kubert and J. Michael Straczynski, . I for one can not wait to see Darwyn Cooke write and draw a six-issue mini-series about a dysfunctional group of golden age masked adventurers in his Minutemen mini-series. And yes I know it would be cool if it was Cooke’s own characters but we need to remember that the Watchmen characters were originally going to be the Charlton Characters and Alan Moore has had more than his share of fun with the literary characters he used in the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Lost Girls. Moore is absolutely entitled to be unhappy about this but did not create Swamp Thing, Superman, the Joker, or Miracle Man.

What I’m hoping to get out of this are great adventures featuring characters that I love. The less they have to do with the events of the original comic the better.  I don’t need to see the case that turned Rorschach into the murdering vigilante, we saw that in Watchmen. All the creators for these projects have to do is be true to the characters, but give us something new, that is exciting and relevant to the times. I’m likening this to what IDW did with the Rocketeer Adventures which in no way invalidated Dave Stevens original Rocketeer.

Comic fans make their own continuity if you read one of the mini-series and you like it then count it as part of your Watchmen tapestry if you don’t, then don’t count it.To all the purists out there still angry and this is happening, that’s okay. DC isn’t going to stop printing Watchmen, they are not going to come into your house and steal your copy off your shelf. This is not George Lucas altering the original cuts of his Star Wars films. All you need to do is not buy it. Reread your copy of the graphic novel. I have always find something new every time I reread it and I’m sure you will to. If anything, good or bad this will make you appreciate the original Watchmen graphic novel all the more.

Matt Todd

matthew@comicimpact.com