Given that this has happened, I guess it’s time to tell this never-to-be-told tale…
A long time ago, I had an idea for a story. The great thing about the idea was that it could fit into any DC comic at any time. Talk about versatile, eh?
Here goes: Whatever DC comic I was lucky enough to be writing, I would start having shadowy figures show up, saying cryptic things. Eventually, I would reveal that those figures were, in fact, the characters from Watchmen. Dr. Manhattan, Silk Spectre, Nite Owl, Ozymandias, Rorschach, the Comedian… All of ’em.
And they would be acting totally like typical superheroes. Right down to insipid expository dialogue. Like, “Good thing Dr. Manhattan decided to resurrect the Comedian and Rorschach! We need the team at full strength!” And “This parallel earth is so different from our own!”
In short, I would pissing off a metric ton of Watchmen fans by repurposing the characters in this way.
Until…
Until it’s revealed that these “Watchmen” are actually just denizens of the DC Universe cosplaying as characters from their favorite graphic novel! 1 So, yeah, it would basically just be me trolling the fans.
Told Paul Levitz this idea once. He laughed.
- Because it has been established that Watchmen exists in the DCU as a graphic novel.