1986: A Landmark Year in Comics — Watchmen | SIDEBAR FOREVER

After all this time, is there anything else that can be said about the Watchmen comic series by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons? On this week's pod, we sure give it our best shot!

We compare the endless stream of Watchmen adaptations to the ever-expanding sprawl of the Star Wars universe. We debate whether Watchmen singlehandedly created the modern lens through which everyone now views superheroes. And we try to determine if Watchmen only functions as the ultimate deconstruction of superhero mythology, or if it can be read simply as a superhero mystery story.

Closing out the conversation, we ask a big question: has Watchmen become the very cultural phenomenon it warned us about—something endlessly commodified, repackaged, and mythologized?