Pre-Watchmen?

There has been quite the brouhaha on the message boards and blogs of our beloved Internet lately, about DC's
idea to come out with Prequels to Watchmen, the hallowed creation of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons.  Mostly, the attention has been negative.  Make that VERY negative.


Alan Moore doesn't seem to like DC very much.  I understand that he thought certain things would happen that didn't happen, and decided to never darken DC's doorstep again.  He has made no effort through the years to change his mind, which is rather a shame from a purely selfish point of view, because I rather like a lot of his stories.  On the other hand, it HAS been 25 years, and DC has apparently decided to mine that Watchmen Gold, and make these books.


I didn't read Watchmen when it first came out, I was busy getting married and birthing babies at that point in my life, and had drifted away from Comics for a number of years.  I didn't read it until quite a number of years later...and although I liked it...very much...it wasn't quite the touchstone in my life that it apparently was for so many people, who consider other artists and writers touching this story to be akin to blasphemy.  I don't really think that it quite that outrageous.

On the other hand, I am quite fond of any number of the artists involved, such as Darwyn Cooke, Amanda Connor, Adam Hughes, Andy Kubert and Lee Bermejo.  The writers aren't too shabby either, with Len Wein and Brian Azzarello.  Also J.M. Strascinski, but you can't have everything.  I've seen some of the preliminary artwork, and it appears to be pretty darned nice. 


Will they be great stories?  Maybe.  I don't know yet, but I'm certainly willing to give them a try.  Yes, Watchmen was a pretty grand story, but it isn't the end all or be all of my existance.  It's not like they made Hal Jordan go crazy and kill everybody or took away John's legs, or made Guy grow guns out of his arms and sprout tattoos or something!  That's just crazy!