Almost every successful comic character has been written by more than one person.
That’s it. End of story.
Watchmen was a fantastic story arc that was self-contained LIKE A STORY SHOULD BE. A story has a start, middle, and end. X-Men #1 had that. Amazing Fantasy #15 had that. Why should Watchmen be placed so reverently into an untouchable category?
Many fans have wanted more Watchmen. Toy Deals came and went. The movie, love it or hate it, was in limbo for years. But revisionist history and a vocal Alan Moore proclaim that no one want this, that it’s somehow wrong. The dog who barks loudest gets the dog catcher… or something like that.
In discussions at my local comic shop last night, we agreed that the ending of Watchmen was best left unsettled, wondering if Rorschach’s journal would see the light of day. That’s not a spoiler; if you’ve never seen or read Watchmen, you can go ahead and overfocus on the journal, but you won’t understand until you watch the actual EVENTS of the movie i.e. what is put into the journal. So poop on you, cynics.
The Watchmen story (the 12 issues/collected book/movie) are a slice of the character’s lives over the course of unfolding events. We see many flashbacks across the decades prior to the story, and I understand that the readers/viewers were given just enough back story as relevant to the current story. I get that. But what is the harm in creating new stories?
To say that “fans” DON’T want new stories is just wrong. Hey guess what, I’ve been a fan since the 80s and I want more. Fun fact: not everything is catered to everybody. From my view, Alan Moore and the rest of the fans have been “wrong” for not giving me more stories until now. We often forget in the internet era that many, many, many, pieces of media existing prior to the “me me me generation” and that these discussions are not new. Or insightful, myself included.
With many media, the continuation will by default mean someone else is on board. Sure the Harry Potter novels are all one author, but you had different directors and even a recasting due to the DEATH. By Watchmen purist comic book logic, the movies should have ended. Or most of the Marvel Universe should be dead and filed away after Kirby died and Ditko and Lee stopped working on the titles. Think about that.
At the end of the day, here’s the deal: these stories are being published. You can read all about the previews on the DC Universe Blog (the hyperlink is to the blog, too many links to relink for you) and at the end of the day, you can choose to buy and read them or not. If you don’t read it, your story is still your experience.
But don’t deny me the opportunity. If you don’t like chocolate cake, I’m not going to tell the bakery they’re wrong for putting it on the counter.
Time traveling jackalope 