DC Plans Prequels to Watchmen Series
By DAVE ITZKOFF
No hero’s tale ever really ends, whether it is Odysseus’ journey home
from the Trojan War or Sherlock Holmes’s exploits after his tumble over
the Reichenbach Falls. And now Watchmen,
one of the most influential comic-book works of the last 25 years, is
about to yield additional chapters, a plan that has already drawn the
outrage of its original author.
On Wednesday DC Entertainment is expected to announce that its DC Comics
imprint intends to publish seven comic-book mini-series that will
continue the stories of the adventurers introduced in Watchmen, which
was written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Dave Gibbons.
Serialized from 1986 to 1987 and since collected as a graphic novel,
Watchmen chronicles a group of crime fighters who, amid the real history
of the cold war, find they are as powerless to solve their personal
problems as they are to prevent the seeming inevitability of nuclear
holocaust.
The new mini-series, collectively called Before Watchmen and scheduled
to start in the summer, will not be direct sequels to the original,
which has been widely praised for its sophisticated storytelling and for
its emphatic (if deliberately ambiguous) ending. Instead a new group of
writers and illustrators will expand on the back stories of the
costumed vigilantes like Rorschach and Nite Owl.
DC Comics seemed to understand how this announcement would most likely
be received by Watchmen devotees; in a news release the publisher said
the Before Watchmen installments were “as highly anticipated as they are
controversial.”
Mr. Moore, who has disassociated himself from DC Comics and the industry
at large, called the new venture “completely shameless.”
Speaking by telephone from his home in Northampton, England, Mr. Moore
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.”
For DC Comics, the lure of revisiting Watchmen, even without Mr. Moore’s
involvement, is understandably irresistible. The graphic novel has been
a perpetual best seller, with more than two million copies sold, and
its critical success has brought renewed attention to comics,
particularly in Hollywood, where it has helped to spawned countless
blockbuster superhero movies. (That includes a 2009 adaptation of the graphic novel “Watchmen,” directed by Zack Snyder, that was both praised and panned for its faithfulness to the source material; costing an estimated $130 million, it brought in a disappointing $185 million at the global box office.)
DC has become an increasingly crucial part of Time Warner, whose film
studio, Warner Brothers, is preparing new big-budget Batman and Superman
movies. And the publisher has enjoyed increased sales from a recent
initiative that restarted its superhero comics at issue No. 1.
“It’s our responsibility as publishers to find new ways to keep all of
our characters relevant,” Dan DiDio and Jim Lee, the co-publishers of DC
Entertainment, said in a statement. “After 25 years the Watchmen are
classic characters whose time has come for new stories to be told.”
Brian Azzarello, a comics author who is writing the mini-series for the
Watchmen characters Rorschach and the Comedian, said he expected an
initial wave of resistance because “a lot of comic readers don’t like
new things.”
“I think the gut reaction is going to be, ‘Why?’ ” Mr. Azzarello said in
a telephone interview. “But then when the actual books come out, the
answer will be, ‘Oh, that’s why.’ ”
Some admirers suggested that more nuanced reactions were possible. The
novelist Jonathan Lethem admitted in a telephone interview to “an
instinctive, protective scorn” of any effort to revisit Watchmen.
“That story was absolutely consummate and an enunciation as complete as
any artwork in any realm,” he said. “And it’s just inviting a disgrace,
basically, to try to extend any aspect of it.”
Yet, Mr. Lethem added, the referential nature of the original Watchmen —
which was inspired by earlier superhero characters and drew upon a grab bag of influences,
including the Bible, the sonnets of Shelley and “The Threepenny Opera”
to tell its story — begged for the graphic novel to be reinterpreted.
“In the greater scheme of things,” he said, “there’s an ecological law, almost, that it ought to be.”
Not to Mr. Moore, however. To him Watchmen is not a proud reminder of
the role he has played in legitimizing comics as a serious storytelling
vehicle. Instead it evokes memories of what he says were “draconian
contracts” he signed with DC in the 1980s that give him little control
over the work he created, and his gradual falling-out with the publisher over the film versions of “Watchmen” and another of his graphic novels, “V For Vendetta.”
While he was unaware of DC’s specific plans for Before Watchmen, Mr.
Moore said he has over the years resisted overtures from the publisher
to approve sequel or prequel projects.
Still, Mr. Moore said he was unlikely to stand in the way of Before
Watchmen or to fight the project in court, where he said DC Comics would
meet him with an “infinite battery of lawyers.”
“I don’t want money,” he said. “What I want is for this not to happen.”
Mr. Gibbons does not share those feelings. Though he is not
participating in Before Watchmen, he said in a statement: “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.”
But Mr. Moore was unconvinced, saying that the endeavor only weakened
the argument that comics were an authentic form of literature.
“As far as I know,” he said, “there weren’t that many prequels or sequels to ‘Moby-Dick.’ ” "
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