I hate prequels. There, I said it. There are a few exceptions but even those leave me wishing certain people had left well enough alone. Yesterday, DC Comics announced that a series of prequel titles based on Watchmen (called Before Watchmen. Wow! That's catchy! NOT!)  will be launched this summer and I couldn’t be more annoyed by the idea. Granted, DC is taking this endeavor very seriously by employing some of the greatest writing and artistic talents in the business (including a personal favorite of mine, J. Michael Straczynski), which does little to alleviate my unease. It seems to me that every area of entertainment is caught in a vacuum of unoriginality. In the film industry, greedy executives are determined to wring every last drop of profit from popular franchises, often to the detriment of the source material.  An example of this is last year’s release of The Thing, a prequel to John Carpenter’s cult classic starring Kurt Russell. (The scumbags even gave it the exact same title!) The new film was atrocious and begs the question, why would anyone have any interest in watching the original after such a disappointment? The argument we hear from the “brain trusts” at the studios is that they are exposing a new generation to great films of the past by offering them a fresh perspective that they can call their own. Bullshit! Great films transcend the boundaries of time and will continue to find an audience without your help. Keep your grubby paws off those successful concepts and create something new and exciting for the younger demographic you care so much about! The same holds true for comic books.

Last fall, DC Comics launched the New 52, a massive undertaking that proved highly successful. Of course, I realize that they took iconic characters and gave them makeovers in varying degrees, but I submit that Watchmen is different. It is arguably the Citizen Kane of comics, as it took the status quo and injected it with fresh ideas and original characters, the likes of which had never been seen before. (And, yes, I know that Alan Moore used characters from Charlton Comics but they were only similar in name and look so drop it.) It proved that comic books could be sophisticated, complicated and brutal in tone and still find an audience. It took “superheroes” and portrayed them as deeply flawed beings with all of the frailty the rest of us share. Watchmen is not just a comic, it’s a landmark, and should be treated as such by not tarnishing its legacy with plans to milk it for more profit. My biggest concern, which without question will come to fruition, is that this new series of books will eventually be turned into movies. Personally, I am not a fan of Zack Snyder’s Watchmen film, although I do think he did an enviable job, for the most part, of staying true to the books. When I first heard that film was in pre-production, I wondered how a story so dense could fit into a two-hour narrative. The answer was…it couldn’t. If they make prequels films, it will just tarnish something that should have been left untouched. I am reminded of the Star Wars prequels, which are an abomination that will never go away. Even though the “real” Star Wars movies are still excellent and entertaining, there is this shadow of Jar Jar Binks that looms over them and always will. If I hear one more kid tell me how much better the prequels are than the originals, I may dress up as a Jedi and go on a seven-state killing spree! But I digress…

In the end, I am pretty sure that the main motivation for this reboot is profits. If that is the case, I believe that a classic piece of literature is being compromised and that is unacceptable. I think Rorschach said it best when he uttered, “Never compromise. Not even in the face of Armageddon.” Leave it to good ol’ Rorschach to put things in perspective…

(Editor's Note: To read the other side of this argument, check out Arcee's thoughts on the Before Watchmen project.)