Watchmen sequels on the way?

Hollywood may have given us lightsabers, hoverboards, killer robots from the future and Lord Nicolas Cage, but I am currently a mere gag reflex away from spewing vengeful loathing all over its starched shirt and tie-pin.

Bleeding Cool has it on good authority that DC comics are gearing up to create Watchmen sequels, and maybe even prequels too. Y'see, creators Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons don't actually own the characters so there's nothing they can do to stop it... Hear that? That was the sound of a million geek sphincters suddenly clenching.

Apparently, this travesty hasn't happened sooner because the former president of DC Comics, Paul Levitz, furiously protected the original Watchmen graphic novel and its characters from any sickening exploitation. Now that Levitz has moved on to become Overall Consultant for DC Entertainment (the company in charge of DC Movies and other spin-offs), Dan DiDio is in town and he has spotted the Watchmen from across the room while preparing his chloroform and KY.

While we can assume that Levitz will flatly refuse to then turn any future Watchmen stories into movies, we now know it's not just up to him - just like with DC Comics, it's up to him and all of his subsequent replacements, one of whom is bound to be a douchebag. Not to mention that all of the stars of the feature adaptation are already contractually obliged to appear in any future sequel.

Interestingly, the original contract for both Moore and Gibbons gives them the option of first refusal for writing a sequel, but seeing as crazy ol' genius Moore started barking at company execs a long time ago, we can safely assume he will, instead, just retreat further into hermitdom, leaving the job to some witless upstart.

So there we have it - it's only a matter of time before the last pure idea in comics is completely desecrated. Zack Snyder's adaptation may have been surprisingly good, but its cinema/DVD/Blu-ray popularity is clearly what has prompted this mooted revival and, for that, Hollywood, I bite my thumb at you.