The story I heard about the origins of Watchmen was that when
Alan Moore came back with the plot outline for introducing the
Charlton heroes into the DC universe the response was basically:
"Great story Alan, wonderful.
...
Only we were planning to use them again afterwards."
So he went off to create a separate set of characters that didn't need to be left intact at the end of the story.
Watchmen is basically the story of
superheroes and what
society might have been like if they had actually existed.
Nuclear power is
ubiquitous. Society is sick and nuclear annihilation is a distinct possiblity. Against this background someone is killing heroes starting with the Comedian, and the
outlawed (and not completely
sane) Rorschach tries to unravel the mystery.
A lot of work went into the art and design of the comic book. With lots of detail and in jokes.
- The cover of each issue was the first panel.
- The page layouts were on a strict 3 by 3 panel arrangement with large panels being these panels combined. This was broken just three times (all in the first two issues).
- Each issue finished with a quotation from which the issue's title was taken or upon which it was based (including Bob Dylan, Einstein, and William Blake)
- All but the last issue had a text item at the back which expanded upon or gave further insight into that issue's themes
- One issue (#5) was symmetrical in both its panel arrangements and contents
- A running visual theme of the comic was the smiley badge which was used as the symbol of the Comedian. This included a crater on Mars which looks like a smiley badge - and actually exists.
- No-one is interested in superhero comics (as they can just watch the news) so pirate comics are the big thing.
- They created lots of new brands such as Gunga Diner restaurants and Mmeltdown sweets.
- Watergate never happened and Nixon is still president (two reporters were found dead in a Washington carpark).