• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

DC Announces Watchmen Sequel/Prequel Thing: Before Watchmen, Coming This Summer

Status
Not open for further replies.

Krev

Unconfirmed Member
You mean the movie that released nearly three years ago and barely broke even? Yeah, real big wave they're riding there.
I've been seeing Watchmen get much more shelf space since then.
It doesn't matter that it wasn't an enormous hit. The comic market is a lot smaller than the movie market.
 
At one time Moore himself pondered doing a Minutemen prequel, so I can sort of see where that comes from, but he gave so much backstory to the characters in the miniseries that I wonder what exactly the creators hope to tell us with this new stuff. Comedian is a nihilistic sadist/rapist who still has a single shred of decency left in him? Been covered. Dr. Manhattan was a normal man who became a god and lost his humanity along the way? Welcome to 1986. Rorschach always had mental problems and went fully insane after seeing just how terrible people could be to each other? Check mark already in the box, hurm. Ozymandias had been plotting and scheming a bittersweet Utopia since the very beginning? See issues 1-12 of Watchmen. Nite Owl truly believed in what he was doing until he realized what he'd been doing had never really amounted to much more than playacting? See fat naked Dan Dreiberg panels. Silk Spectre was a better actual hero than her mother but could never live up to her memory or influence? Did you read the miniseries, or just look at the pictures?

I mean, it's a complete story (albeit with, imo, a really awkward smh endgame) with all the history inside.
 

Ridley327

Member
If it sells that's the only reason they need. I don't believe any comic needs to be made so that's moot IMO.

And there are large gaps in time not covered in the original series and plenty of room for additional storylines.

I guess my point is what's the point to having additional stories if we already know everything we need to know about those characters? How do you flesh out Dr. Manhattan, Rorschach and Ozymandis further than those characters already did in the original?
 

ElNarez

Banned
I think the diffference is that for Moore, I'm sure that the idea of the story came first. After all, it's not like a company was asking him to exploit those characters.

With this, it's clear that they decided that they needed to make new stuff with these characters and only came up with the story afterwards.

Yeah, save for the part where that's exactly what they did because they had just acquired the Charlton Comics characters.
 

hamchan

Member
Yeah this is quite shameful from DC.

I'll still read it anyways and DC knows that, which is why this is an extra bummer.
 

marrec

Banned
I guess my point is what's the point to having additional stories if we already know everything we need to know about those characters? How do you flesh out Dr. Manhattan, Rorschach and Ozymandis further than those characters already did in the original?

Well as long as they tell a coherent story with a satisfying ending then I'll consider it a wash. The original story wasn't so comprehensive that there is no room for an interesting tidbit here and there.
 
I'll read it. I expect a train wreck, but I'll keep an open mind. The sad thing is that these could be the greatest comics ever and people will still shit on it. If it's bad it will collectively forgotten so no problem.
 

Zabka

Member
Burn every copy of everything JMS writes from now until forever and the universe will be a better place.
 

akira28

Member
Alan Moore doesn't give two fucks. He's slightly amused how badly DC/Time-Warner is relying on shit he imagined over two decades ago. Probably figured they were a gang of bitter cocks and decided to leave it at that.
 

thetrin

Hail, peons, for I have come as ambassador from the great and bountiful Blueberry Butt Explosion
I'm not going to lie. I'm totally going to check out the Darwyn Cooke issues...and the Azzarello issues.
 
Don't see much of a problem here. Those are some mighty fine creative teams. If they're good, then what's the complain about? If they're bad, we'll forget about them like that sequel to Gone with the Wind.

Win-win
 

Viewt

Member
You know what else was apparently a sacred cow conceived by a singular mind that was "too good to be touched?"

The Spirit.

And Darwyn rocked that shit to its core.

tumblr_lfrfbunF0a1qziacgo1_500.jpg
 
I don't have a problem with these existing. I think it's entirely appropriate for the DC to be doing this, in fact; it just goes to show how uncreative and how far up their own ass the comics industry is, and how better to do that than with spinoffs of a book that was all about commentary on comics as a medium anyway.

The books themselves (like the videogame beatemup) are irrelevant; the business decision to make spinoffs of the property, though, is high art.
 

hamchan

Member
Oh well, if it turns out good then that's good for us. If it turns out bad we can continue spitting and mocking it. If Alan Moore doesn't care anymore then I don't see why I should, no matter how shameful it is.
 
You know what else was apparently a sacred cow conceived by a singular mind that was "too good to be touched?"

The Spirit.

And Darwyn rocked that shit to its core.

tumblr_lfrfbunF0a1qziacgo1_500.jpg

If Cooke was handling the whole thing I would be a lot more excited.
 

Drakeon

Member
JMS writing several? Well I'm sure those will be complete shit if the rest of what he's done for DC is any indication.
 
I want to rage, but those are some pretty strong creative teams working on this. It's a shitty move by DC, but I have faith in folks like Azzarello, JMS and Cooke to tell great stories.

I don't think this needed to happen, but at least the project is in good hands.
 

wenis

Registered for GAF on September 11, 2001.
I'm on board for Cooke, Azzarello and Connor's. The other books can live at the bottom of the dollar bin.
 

Gilgamesh

Member
I like Watchmen as much as the next guy, but I don't see why everyone is getting so up in arms about this. Where's the downside? If they're quality comics, great. If they suck, Watchmen isn't going to be retroactively lessened. No big deal. Chill out. Personally, I'm looking forward to it. Azarello and Cooke are both great.
 
I don't have any particular allegiance to the watchmen franchise so i'm not as annoyed act this as i can imagine some to be, but i really enjoyed the book and the film was alright, i didn't like it initially but have since enjoyed it

i know a little about the difficulties surrounding the license and moore and everything; can't imagine he cares anymore, except for his creation being used against his will, but they might do something interesting

i don't read comic books, prefer reading it in one go, so i'll wait until the complete graphic novel comes out but i'm interested; good characters and a prequel makes sense if there's any sense in this venture at all, although watchmen was a pretty taut and well considered piece of writing/storytelling

had heard rumblings of a prequel comic, and i'm sure numerous 'cross-media' products, films etc, before, but i'm more interested than i thought i would be
 
I don't have much faith in this being very good either way, but I would have had some interest in it if it was a sequel. DC's going the safe route. No surprise there.

You know what else was apparently a sacred cow conceived by a singular mind that was "too good to be touched?"

The Spirit.

And Darwyn rocked that shit to its core.

tumblr_lfrfbunF0a1qziacgo1_500.jpg

The Spirit and Watchmen are pretty different situations. Also, Darwyn Cook's version of the Spirit wasn't even close to the original (it was good though).
 
If Alan Moore was so mad about this happening he should have taken DC's offer to do it himself and All Star Batman and Robin'd it so that nobody would ever want to touch it again.
 
can't wait to see jms's take on manhattan, where he decides to lose his powers for a week and be a normal joe.

notable instances along his experience include meeting a giant fat comic nerd who shouts "DURR I HATE THIS PREQUEL TO MY PIRATE COMIC I'M SO DUMB DURR" at which manhattan coolly and rationally explains logic to him by quoting thoreau
 
If Alan Moore was so mad about this happening he should have taken DC's offer to do it himself and All Star Batman and Robin'd it so that nobody would ever want to touch it again.

The funny thing about this is that Frank Miller isn't doing it on purpose....

Miller has written ONE good thing in his career: Year One. Feel free to flame on. I'm confident in my assertion.

Moore actually has a track record of being a good writer.... 25 years ago. He needs to sit back and move on. It's funny because he acts as if his writing wasn't built on a lot of writers before him... ::cough::leagueofextraordinarygentlemen::cough::
 
The funny thing about this is that Frank Miller isn't doing it on purpose....

Miller has written ONE good thing in his career: Year One. Feel free to flame on. I'm confident in my assertion.

Moore actually has a track record of being a good writer.... 25 years ago. He needs to sit back and move on. It's funny because he acts as if his writing wasn't built on a lot of writers before him... ::cough::leagueofextraordinarygentlemen::cough::

Regardless of what you think about his previous work (how could you not like Daredevil!??!?!?!) he was definitely doing that shit on purpose.
 

Tucah

you speak so well
This is certainly unnecessary but the creative teams aren't terrible and I'll certainly pick at least the first issue of these up in curiosity.
 

border

Member
The outrage here doesn't make much sense to me. First people claimed that these creative teams should have done something original. Of course if they weren't doing Watchmen these writers and artists would be working on Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, and a half-dozen other franchises that have been milked to death for the better part of the century. If they are going to rehash, why not have them rehash a severely underserved property?

Then there's the argument that the characters do not need any more development or fleshing out. But if that's your stance, then why should any superhero comic exist? It's not like Wolverine or Spider-Man or Batman are going to get any more fleshed out by starring in 4-6 different comic books per month. I've got to imagine that all these characters each have at least another 100-120 pages of good stories to tell. Whether or not these books end up good is another thing, but certainly it's not an impossible task to write something fun and cool about them.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom