Somewhere in England, a certain comic book store was open and accepting the traffic of customers as usual.
It just so happens that Devious's crisis solution, Alan Moore, was visiting this certain store for a change of pace.
These past few months had been quite the mess for him. He was just doing his comic-making and comic publishing jumps like most comic artist usually does.
However, he was suddenly pushed into the forefront of a business corporate tactic with the hopes of DC Comics gaining an advantage over the new but powerful Creed Comics.
Apparently, someone among the DC decision-making group thought it was a good idea to pit two artists together and blow it up to overblown proportions.
A lot of the controller's decisions were pretty drastic and pointless in his opinion but when he thinks back on it, he was also somewhat on board with most decisions being made during that time.
Either way, he was already in it for the ride and was ready to see it through. He was already satisfied with working on the Swamp Thing series and was just excited to work on new things involving DC's existing major characters.
The John Constantine character that they've been cooking up can just be set aside as the Alexander Creed opportunity allowed him to move his comic storytelling hierarchy ahead of time and at many favorable conditions.
Although going against the Creed creator at this point was quite a task, he was Alan Moore and he was just frankly looking forward to the stories that would be made from their clash... albeit it was just a forced and nefarious scheme for DC.
JoJo's Bizarre Adventures did spring up but it wasn't exactly up to mark in Moore's opinion. He gave kudos for the story to be of British catering... however a British story to fend off a British writer like him seems to be lacking.
From that point, the messy forced clash propaganda did settle a bit and all was supposed to be good. Moore wasn't even in a rush to hand in his contending story as he waited for JoJo to ferment some more and hopefully grow into the "Moore style" battle that it was supposed to be.
How could have he and DC ever imagined that Alexander Creed had another story in-store and was specifically catered to the "Moore style" that they were clamoring about? It was clear from this that the match proposers hadn't correlated anything to the opposing party.
As such, Alan Moore was stuck in a dilemma of having to catch up. He thought he was patient and all that but Alexander Creed and his team were just too productive as always to be able to produce new titles in a single month along with all the other pre-existing ones.
In any case, Moore's patience... or in this case, his ability was being tested. After all, he read Watchmen #1 and could only applaud how much of a masterpiece it could be.
RoboCop was to Moore's liking among the popular Creed titles as it touched on many philosophical depths that appeal to him, however, Watchmen was truly something else that went further beyond that.
Moore's abhorrence of Reaganite politics and policies, the arms race, the Cold War, the way society mythologizes authoritative figures.
Just the fifth-term Nixon, Dr. Manhattan Vietnam War-Win, Comedian-Watergate cover-up, the Cold Wars' nuclear threat, and all the heroic subversion being thrown in by Alexander Creed's Watchmen appealed to Moore in so many levels.
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Moore felt that if Alexander Creed hadn't existed, then he could have written the Watchmen story at some point in his life. That was how he felt so connected to the story and how he felt the pressure as well.
Anyways, there was no denying that he considered Watchmen as a masterpiece but such great praise also meant trouble in making a story against it.
Watchmen was just so amazing and connected to Moore that he felt anything else he comes up with would not be able to surmount it.
"Then, there's that DC editor guy hounding for me to finish my story already." Moore shook his head at all the unfavorable conditions he is set against. Rushed deadlines, his self-doubt, and a rival creator's project he greatly admires.
"Anyways, that's why I'm here at this comic book store." Moore shook his doubts and hopefully surmised that a random store visit should help stabilize his creative mentality.
He looked quite conspicuous in the store with his beard but he still tried his best to blend in and get some inspiration from the debating store goers.
"Isn't this Comedian blood-drip tainting the yellow smiling badge quite cool?" A nerd clamored. "Some literary nerds I've mingled around with said that the theme of Watchmen should revolve around this panel and his corrupt sins would implicate his fellow heroes even in death."
"Fellow, that's the cover art, so everyone pretty much knows that it's the theme." Another nerd added. "What much interesting is the Rorschach costume and his determined drive? Isn't he quite grittily awesome with his finger-breaking and murder-mystery solving?"
"How trivial to only look at the basics?" An eavesdropping nerd scoffed. "You should look much deeper like the implication of having heroes such as the decline of superhero comics, rise of pirates, Dr. Manhattan's influence on war, culture, and even politics. Think about it, Reagan wouldn't be the American president today if the Watchmen really did exist."
It came to no surprise that these British nerds know what's what. Their European trade was quite accepting of comic books and Creed Comics are as popular here as it is in its American home court.
----
The debate ensued and it was frankly nothing new from how Moore interpreted things on the first issue. Still, it was interesting to see how people react to the new Creed title or Creed titles in that matter.
Eventually, Moore roamed the store some more and eventually settled around the clerk area. It wasn't that he wanted to ask something, it was just the store clerk recognized him. Moore was quite reputable in his home court after all.
"Hey, Mr. Moore. I'm looking forward to your comeback against Watchmen." The store clerk greeted. "I thought you already had it in the bag with the weird JoJo stuff. Who would've thought that Alexander Creed still has an amazing Watchmen in store for you?"
"Yeah. Even DC comics was quite flustered with that trick." Moore obliged with some small talks. "Thanks for the support though. I need it at these troubled times."
He was kind of expecting more words of encouragement but the clerk was busy dealing with a certain client who just arrived.
"Hey young Mr. Snyder, did you reach what you came here for?" The clerk asked.
"Yeah, scouted the Heatherly School of Fine Art while I'm at this excursion." Young Snyder said. "Thanks for letting me get to know the ropes of things around here."
"Anything for a fellow comic fan who pays for comic books." The clerk said in humor. "I remember you brought our first Watchmen issue, so you must be quite the Alexander Creed fan?
"Yeah, I am." Snyder's eyes gleamed from the question. "If I do become a director like I always hoped, I'll ask Mr. Creed if he would accept my skills in making his awesome comic books like the new Watchmen into movies.
"Hoho!" The clerk chided. "Perhaps the only way that that would happen is when the Dragonballs exist and you collected all of it."
"Haha! Stop trying to make it seem impossible." Snyder blushed. "A young man can still dream."
Before the clerk and Snyder could continue, the eavesdropping Moore scorned from the side. "Tsk..! Comic books are best meant to stay as comic books. Making it into a movie is blasphemy!"
"Hey man!" Young Snyder was triggered by that remark. "You may look sagely with all that beard you have but don't insult movies. Adapted film may be trash at this time but it won't stay that way if I am put in charge."
Moore scoffed again and stayed with his non-film adapting stance. "Another American youth blinded by Hollywood!"
The clerk, who was caught in between the Snyder and Moore duo, could only grimace. He was just supposed to be introducing a Creed fan to the Moore rival, why did it have to evolve into a debate about film adaptations?
The poor clerk had unknowingly triggered an adaptable and un-adaptable debate which should have happened in the past-future when a certain Snyder director made a Watchmen film and triggered an illustrious Moore.
Fate or not. It was an interesting meet-up.