Watchmen 2 Projects In The Works
Rich Johnston and Bleeding Cool always seem to get the secretive news first. Whether it’s a new project by a certain creator or the goings on behind the scenes at a major publisher, you can count on Rich Johnston to get the word out. This time, the rumors about Watchmen 2 are starting to flow and it won’t be long before it turns into a flood that inundates the comic book news sites and forums.
Back in 2010, Bleeding Cool had a piece about the Watchmen 2 project coming back to the table after Paul Levitz stepped down as both President and Publisher and that Alan Moore had been approached about Watchmen. He turned it down and the project slowly faded away.
Before the 2011 New York Comic Con, Darwyn Cooke’s name was rumored to be at the top of the list of artists, that also included Dave Gibbons, John Higgins, JMS, JG Jones, Andy Kubert, and more, who would be working on several Watchmen projects at DC. According to Johnston, the secretive name of that total project was “Panic Room.”
MTV Geek then found a quote from Darwyn Cooke published earlier in the year:
“I have something coming up with DC, but I’m sworn to secrecy…there is a very big project on the horizon with DC, which we’re probably going to announce in October, as far as I understand. And that should be exciting, and infuriating, and all kinds of things to people. It should be quite a shock when they hear what we’re doing.”
Then from Bleeding Cool comes the following from Andy Kubert:
“Mr.Kubert said that after his Action Comics job he was hoping to finish a Batman mini-series about Damian. This was a mini that he was writing and drawing and was originally planned before Flashpoint and the New 52. After that he said he has another project but it’s “Super Secret” and that he couldn’t give any details. The last time I spoke to Andy Kubert was at the Big Apple Con in 2009. When we spoke he said he was going to be doing a “Super Secret” project that he couldn’t talk about, turned out it was “Flashpoint”. So if Andy Kubert has a big job coming up and DC is saying that they’re doing an event for the next two years, then what is Kubert doing?”
Now we learn that many at the senior levels at DC have not even heard of these projects. Johnston was getting calls like this from DC ‘editorial types’:
“How did you know? How did you know? I didn’t know. How did you know?”
So, not only are these projects VERY secretive, they are known to only a select few people directly involved with them – and seemingly no one else.
It looks as though Watchmen rumors will continue to flow freely over the next few months. Now all we have to do is distinguish between the facts and the “wish lists.”
– The Comic Book Critic