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Yesterday — in a press release that accomplished in seven paragraphs what could have been taken care of with a list of titles and street dates and the words Tell your god to ready for blood — DC Comics announced plans to revisit the Watchmen universe in seven new miniseries that will act as prequels to Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ revered, massively influential work of superhero eschatology. Gibbons, the artist of the original series, gave his blessing in the form of a measured statement wishing all the best to the A-list talent DC’s talked into throwing their bodies on this grenade; writer Moore grumbled something about the company’s continuing dependence on ideas he had 25 years ago and then went off somewhere to burst into flames. Noted reactor-to-things Adolf Hitler, who was not exactly enthusiastic back when chatter about a sequel to Watchmen ramped up in 2010, had yet to weigh in at press time, but comics fans on the Internet were — well, look, nearly everybody saw this coming, so the reaction was less of a der-Fuhrer-pounds-the-table meltdown and more of a deep collective sigh. Expecting a major publisher not to do stuff like this because cool people will think it's gauche is as bad a bet as airport sushi.