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A large part of Moore's bibliography, including some of his most praised titles, is based around him putting a warts and all twist on the creations of other folks, a pattern of storytelling he began following long before he worked on Lost Girls. Watchmen incorporated characters who originally were to have belonged to the defunct Charlton Comics. DC, which had obtained the rights for those characters, requested that Moore not use those specific heroes as the company had its own plans for them. Moore's final incarnation of the Watchmen were altered, renamed and merely based on the Charlton crime fighters, with certain differences. I doubt Moore was concerned about whether or not the work for hire creators or their estates were restituted by the Charlton - DC transaction. He also revived the DC comics Swamp Thing series, a moody superior fright comic from the 70's that was resurrected in the 80's. Moore's distinct writing and perverse, limitless imagination recharged the new series, helping it achieve critical acclaim, good sales and controversy. His work for hire stint on Swamp Thing made him famous. I wonder if Moore went out of his way to ensure that original creators from the previous decade were restituted while he toyed with the results of their work for hire labor? The primary, secondary and background characters in Moore's on going League of Extraordinary Gentlemen universe were originally the creations of dozens of other authors. I suspect Moore didn't pay off the estates of those scribes after assembling that League. In fact, some claim that one of the villains who escalated the action in the first mini-series was "Sax Rohmer's" yellow peril creation, Doctor Fu Manchu. However the character could not be named in the comic because of copyright issues that Moore and co. never resolved and had to be known, in the actual story, as the Doctor or the Lord of Limehouse. Prior to Watchment, Moore worked for several comic book companies, including 2000 AD, where work for hire may have been the standard. His Marvelman / Miracle Man, for British comics, was based on a vintage character who may have been a rip off the US hero, Captain Marvel (who himself owed a big red cheese of a dept to the even more vintage Superman). With several years of paid experience working for different comic book companies prior to Watchmen, Moore should have been unsurprised by DC. I'm sympathetic to the plight of work for hire talent and have plenty of admiration for Moore's formidable storytelling but he can be accused of practicing what he is preaching against. Jeff re - Who Watches the Watchmen’s Watchers? Alan Moore is angry about DC Comics’ Watchmen prequels. He’s right. By Noah Berlatsky| Before Watchmen.DC Comics. Even by the wretched standards of the entertainment industry, superhero comics are known for their dreadful labor practices. Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, the creators of Superman, famously sold the rights to the character to DC Comics for $130, and spent the latter part of their lives, and virtually all their money, fighting unsuccessfully to regain control of him. Similarly, Jack Kirby, the artist who co-created almost the entire roster of Marvel characters, was systematically stiffed by the company whose fortunes he made. Though most of the heroes in the Avengers film were Kirby creations, for example, his estate won’t receive a dime of the film’s $1 billion (and counting) in box office earnings. In keeping with this depressing tradition, DC will, next week, begin releasing new comics based on Watchmen, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbon's seminal 1986-87 series. Before Watchmen will include not one, not two, but seven new limited series, written and drawn by some of DC's most popular creators, including Brian Azzarello, Darwyn Cooke, Amanda Conner, and Joe Kubert. Watchmen demonstrated to a mainstream audience that comics could be art, and became one of the most popular and critically acclaimed comics of the last 25 years.