Variant cover for Issue #1 of "Doomsday Clock", the much-anticipated sequel series to the 80's graphic novel series "Watchmen". Although he swore he would never again return to the franchise after severing ties with the company in 1989, series creator Alan Moore returned after '
consulting at Glycon's alter in the very early morning', bartering with DC for a substantively lofty contract and promises that he would be granted full bibliographic ownership of "Watchmen" characters and contents by the next decade. In the meantime, the series was put out under DC's new Black Label, although it met with several delays as Moore came into a handful of disputes with artists (Dave Gibbons, the artist for the original Watchmen series, would not return due to conflicts with scheduling and preexisting contracts).
While many expected the comic to be a rather immediate followup to the events in-universe, the story follows the seemingly unrelated exploits of a police precinct in modern day Oklahoma, where masks and secret identities have become mandatory, and their campaign against the Seventh Calvary, a group of antifederalist white supremacists that have co-opted the radical viewpoints of the late Rorschach. Very quickly, however, a web of conspiracies begin to form, with a handful of original characters coming back into the fray, such as Laurie Blake (formerly Laurie Jupiter/Silk Spectre) as a stoic FBI agent, and Adrian Veidt (formerly Ozymandias) occupying an enigmatic side-story where he appears to be trapped in an otherworldly realm.
Although the series was immensely successful in terms of sale, it received flack from critics and readers alike who lambasted it for its 'overtly woke' content, relative to its use of topics such as southern White Supremacist movements, political correctness, federal overreach, conspiracy theorists and the disconnect between law enforcement, citizens and corporate industry. When asked about the controversy at a creators summit in Dublin, Moore told those upset with the political content to 'stick it up their arse'.