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Since its initial release, Watchmen has been a hot button topic for fans — not just because of the comic itself, but because of publisher DC Comics’ treatment of its writer, Alan Moore, and subsequent adaptations and sequels that many believe go against not only the spirit of the work, but the original contract behind the 1980s superhero classic. Watchmen was not the only iconic comic book written by Moore and published by DC in the ‘80s, however, and with the news that DC Studios is preparing a new TV adaptation of V for Vendetta, some are wondering if history is about to repeat itself.

Unlike Watchmen, which was created by Moore and artist Dave Gibbons as a DC Comics project — indeed, it’s based in part on DC properties that existed prior to the series, including Blue Beetle and Peacemaker — V for Vendetta started as a creator-owned work by Moore and David Lloyd years before any involvement by the American publisher. Created for UK anthology Warrior in 1982, the storyline was left unfinished when Warrior was cancelled in 1985; Moore and Lloyd then sold the series to DC in 1988 ahead of the publication of a revised, complete version of the story. Terms of the deal were not public, but it should be noted that the 30th anniversary edition of the title, released in 2018, states that both copyright and trademark for the title is owned by DC. 

News broke earlier this week that DC Studios is developing a V for Vendetta television series, with Pete Jackson— the British writer behind indie dramas Somewhere Boy and The Death of Bunny Munro, not the New Zealand director of Lord of the Rings — attached as writer. No details about the project were released. If the series is intended as a direct adaptation of the comic book, it’ll be the second time that’s been attempted following the 2006 movie written and co-produced by the Wachowskis. That said, there’s always the possibility it’ll be something else altogether…

Again, we turn to DC’s treatment of Watchmen. Intended as a self-contained work, DC has not only adapted Watchmen into a movie, but also released prequels and sequels to the work in both comic book format (the 2012 Before Watchmen series, the 2019 Rorschach series) and as a television series (2019’s Watchmen series on HBO). It’s also, controversially, worked Watchmen into the larger DC Universe mythology via 2017’s Doomsday Clock comic book, which brought characters from the Watchmen story into the core DCU; even after the completion of that series, Watchmen elements have appeared in the DCU in 2020’s Dark Knights: Death Metal, 2023’s The New Golden Age, and 2025’s New History of the DC Universe.

Could V for Vendetta be headed for a similar fate? It’s not impossible, especially if DC Studios is looking at a potential television series to span multiple seasons. (Even The Handmaid’s Tale strayed further from its source material the longer the television series continued.) What is less likely is that any series attempt would be made to work it into larger DC Universe lore, given that V For Vendetta is specifically set in the late 1990s — making a period piece from today’s point of view. That’s not to say there might not be efforts; producers for another DC television project, the Epix series Pennyworth which ran from 2019 through 2021, repeatedly used V for Vendetta as a touchstone for a potential endpoint of the world in the show, although they purposefully stopped short of claiming it was a prequel to V for Vendetta itself, instead stating that it was “conceptually” the kind of world they could envision as a potential future endpoint.

For now, all that can be said for sure is that DC Studios is looking at V For Vendetta again… and that everything else is up for grabs.

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