10 Greatest Comic Book Movie Endings

Watchmen is the cinematic equivalent of Marmite, but in the movie's defence, it boasts one of the greatest opening credits sequences of all time and is one of the most faithful comic book adaptations to date. Right until the end, at least.

Director Zack Snyder brought Alan Moore's seminal graphic novel to the big screen almost page for page, until a last-minute deviation left no room for a giant squid to land on the city.

Source material deviations are generally frowned upon, but this one was entirely justified and it gives the film a superior conclusion to the book.

Snyder stuck with the idea of having Ozymandias killing millions to save billions to give the movie the same degree of moral ambiguity as the comic books, but his plan involved tricking the world into thinking Doctor Manhattan had gone rogue, forcing humanity to unite against him.

This is superior to the giant squid conclusion for a number of reasons. Firstly, the arrival of a massive, tentacled alien straight out of left field would have marked a jarring tonal shift for the otherwise grounded movie, and secondly, Adrian Veidt's plan in the comics is flawed, anyway - surely scientific dissection of that faux alien squid would have revealed its origins.

Snyder's ending also ties in neatly with the idea of Doctor Manhattan as a god, except in this case, the world thinks he's gone full New Testament.

It's a conclusion that worked much better on the big screen than a direct adaptation of the squid scene ever could, and it loses none of the troubling ambiguity of the Watchmen comics.