Watchmen: The Superhero Epic That Changed Everything

Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' Watchmen dropped in late 1986 and immediately rewired how people thought about superhero comics. This 12-issue series didn't just tell a story—it systematically deconstructed everything the genre stood for, taking supposedly timeless tales of heroism and exposing them as complicated, morally murky narratives. The book fundamentally changed what superhero comics could be and what readers expected from them. Nearly four decades later, it remains criminally underrated in conversations about the medium's greatest achievements.