Brad Krawchuk wrote: Why? I'm asking honestly here. In the context of the story, the most exciting, dramatic, and epic thing they ever did was the story told in the book!

Because I don't need to see epic from them. When you really like the characters in a story, sometimes you just want to see more of them, like revisiting old friends.

As to the smallness of their escapades relative to a traditional superhero comic, it all comes down to the writing. There are epic scenes in Watchmen that are great - Jon raising the clockwork structure on Mars - and there are small scenes that are great - the news vendor talking to the kid, the psychiatrist having difficulties with his wife, etc.

Also, while Moore downplayed the heroes as a fad, he also talk about Ozymandias shutting down a major heroin and opium smuggling ring, Comedian "cleaning up the waterfronts", and even Rorschach and Nite-Owl bringing the gangs under control (presambly just New York's gangs, but still...) It's downplayed, of course - Moore clearly indicates masked adventurers are ineffective in the big scheme of things, but given that they're also just normal people taking on foes with physical prowess, these are rather remarkable events. So is the second Nite Owl building his teched-out ship. And apparently Comedian was alarmingly effective for a normal guy, such that Nite Owl talks about him "knocking over Marxist republics in South America."

QUOTE: They didn't fight supervillains though! It's not like Rorschach and Nite-Owl took on the Sinister Six, or even just Sandman or Rhino or Joker or Penguin or Two-Face. They had no such Rogues Gallery!

Not supervillains per se, but just going by the names dropped, the masked bad guys included Big Figure, Moloch, Captain Axis, Underboss, Twilight Lady, King Mob, and the Screaming Skull. I'm probably forgetting a few. So, yes, the had a rogues gallery, even if it was on a small scale.

I freely admit any new Watchmen material would likely fall on its face, but the movie's come and gone and the comic's still standing. I figure any new Watchmen projects will simply be forgotten in a few years, no harm done either...unless they happen to be good and win fans over. In which case it was a worthy experiment!

I know Danny sought them out because he had read one of their comics and they shamelessly exploited the situation.

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And there it is. So, so, so, so, so very BORING when this game is played. "I know you did THIS, but it supports my position better if I pretend you did THAT."

Boring, boring, boring.

Bearing in mind the huge commercial success of Watchmen over the last twentyfour years, I think DC have been very restrained in not putting any sort of follow-up or prequel out so far!

Let's see if it happens, eh?  My guess for writer would be Grant Morrison.