6 Reasons Watchmen Should Stay Out Of The DC Universe

6. It Can’t Be Done Without Ruining The Original

The Minutemen and Crimebusters cannot exist in the same universe as the Justice Society and Justice League. Watchmen requires a crapsack world to function; there can’t be magic wands and spaceships. Some people will say that new material does not diminish one’s appreciation of what’s come before and any unsavory developments should simply be ignored - they said this when Before Watchmen came out - but it will be hard to feel the gravity of Ozymandias’ actions if you can also read about him fighting the Suicide Squad.

Watchmen was written when the Cold War had a lot of people on the edge of their seats. Nuclear destruction felt like a very real possibility. Ozymandias’ desperation to stop the conflict by any means necessary seems horribly misguided since the Cold War ended on its own just three years after the series came out. Removing Watchmen from this context works against it. This is part of the reason why the movie failed to really ignite audiences. Cold War paranoia is such a distant memory that it robs the story of weight.

If the Watchmen are to cross over in some type of Justice League vs. Crimebusters situation (which seems likely) that ultimately climaxes with them teaming up to stop Dr. Manhattan and set right what once went wrong, the Watchmen people will have to travel to the current DCU where the Soviet Union collapsed thirty years ago. Since Watchmen ends with most of the characters either dead or in a position to no longer use their costumed identities, they will have to be transported from a time that takes place before the events of the story.

It might be interesting to see the pre-Keane Act Crimebusters, theoretically all heroes in their prime, interact with the Justice League, but then you run into the All-New X-Men problem of time displaced individuals who must eventually return to the point in time from which they left and all the related complications.