In 2024 DC Comics reintroduced Guardians, this time as a two-part animated film. First debuting in 1986, Watchmen is the superhero murder mystery comic. created by writer Alan Moore (who infamously has no interest in any Watchmen adaptations) and artist Dave Gibbons. It's also the superhero comic that's generally accepted to be enjoyed by literary critics—so much so that it spawned a new term for the comic medium: "graphic novel."

The term goes back a little further, such as Marvel's graphic novel line (started in 1982). These longer (and more expensive) than usual comic issues told a standalone story. They also tended to be darker than contemporary Marvel comics. Take it Inspiration for "X2" "X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills" (by Chris Claremont and Brent Anderson) where the X-Men battled televangelist and religious fanaticism, and The Death of Captain Marvel (by Jim Starlin), where the cosmic hero succumbed to cancer.

After all 12 issues of Guardians were reprinted in their entirety in hardcover and case, "graphic novel" emerged as a respectable or prestigious term for "comic". You'll never hear Art Spiegelman's "Maus" or Marjane Satrapi's "Persepolis" called simply comics.

You know who disagrees with this labeling? Alan Moore, who is particularly eager to pass off collected editions of Marvel/DC releases as "graphic novels." Interviewed on the red carpet for the debut of his film Show Pieces in 2014 at Fright Fest, Moore explained:

"What the comedy boom of the '80s did was give a lot of people the license to not have to grow up. "Certainly not novels just interested in the adventures of Green Lantern, even though they were 35 or 40 years old, that 'Watchmen' gave them a way to say, 'Oh, I'm not emotionally confused, this is a graphic novel for adults!' No, it's not... I'd feel happier if 'graphic novel' meant something more than it does at the moment, which is 'big expensive comic book', and that's pretty much all it means.'

"Graphic novel" is a misnomer for Watchmen, and not just because of Moore's objections.

Here's another symptom of graphic novel respectability: The recent anime adaptation of Yunji Ito's horror manga Uzumaki refers to its source material as a "graphic novel." But the "novel" part implies a singular reading experience, which Uzumaki was not; was serialized over 19 months in 1998–1999, with the chapters largely designed to be episodic.

The same goes for Guardians. It is published in 12 "floppy" issues and each issue is designed to tell an almost complete story on its own. Take Watchmen no. 5, "Dreadful Symmetry," so called because halfway through the issue, the pages begin to mirror the previous ones. Many other famous "graphic novels" by Moore, such as the dystopian thriller V For Vendetta (drawn by David Lloyd) and the Jack the Ripper drama From Hell (drawn by Eddie Campbell) were also originally serialized. While I appreciate the conservationism of collected editions (many comics were disposable children's stories printed on cheap paper and never meant to last), that still doesn't make them novels.

Moore's distaste for superheroes is sometimes equated with him hating comics in general, but that's simply not true. He gave a glowing blub on 2018 war comic Sarah by Garth Ennis and Steve Epting. calling the book "a well-aimed shot to the heart." He also praised Brian K.'s sci-fi epic Saga. Vaughn and Fiona Staples and the works of writers Kieron Gillen and Cy Spurrier. Take it from the man himself (via The Guardian): "I will always love and adore the comics medium, but the comics industry and all things related to it have become intolerable."

He and Gibbons helped prove the validity of comic book art to a wider audience with Watchmen, but it wasn't by introducing the term "graphic novels" or superhero grime. Watchmen does things, formally, that no other medium does except comics. Download the cuts from the constant board to panels, matching the same characters at different points.

DC Comics

This ties in with Doctor Manhattan perceiving all of time as happening simultaneously; in the pages of Watchmen, that is. The Tales of the Black Freighter pirate comic book inserts in space are also part of Moore's argument that comics are more than superheroes. If Superman hadn't stripped off, as he didn't in the Guardians alternate history, something else would have filled the genre void in monthly adventure comics. Comics are more than men in tights - and they don't need a new name to prove it.