Watch the trailer for the first two chapters of Alan Moore’s groundbreaking graphic novel Watchmen. which has already inspired a live action motion picture directed by Zack Snyder, and an HBO Series. This version of it is likely to be closer than any adaptation we’ve seen to date.

Watchmen is a comic book limited series by the British creative team of writer Alan Moore, artist Dave Gibbons and colorist John Higgins. It was published monthly by DC Comics in 1986 and 1987 before being collected in a single-volume edition in 1987. Watchmen originated from a story proposal Moore submitted to DC featuring superhero characters that the company had acquired from Charlton Comics. As Moore’s proposed story would have left many of the characters unusable for future stories, managing editor Dick Giordano convinced Moore to create original characters instead.

Moore used the story as a means of reflecting contemporary anxieties, of deconstructing and satirizing the superhero concept and of making political commentary. Watchmen depicts an alternate history in which superheroes emerged in the 1940s and 1960s and their presence changed history so that the United States won the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal was never exposed. In 1985 the country is edging toward World War III with the Soviet Union, freelance costumed vigilantes have been outlawed and most former superheroes are in retirement or working for the government. The story focuses on the protagonists’ personal development and moral struggles as an investigation into the murder of a government-sponsored superhero pulls them out of retirement.

The dark themes explored in Watchmen could be a reflection of Alan Moore’s general distaste for the marketing of superhero stories for adults. He maintains that superhero movies were always for children, not adults, and condemns the modern culture surrounding the fandom. He is careful to keep his name off of adaptations of his work as much as possible, preferring to work only in comicbooks. In fact, Moore has not produced a comic in over five years, instead focusing on prose fiction, citing mainstream culture as a significant factor.