HBO’s Watchmen and Generic Revision in a Genre of Adaptation

Abstract

As the screen superhero genre enters the revisionist phase of its evolution, its status as a genre overwhelmingly dependent on the adaptation of preexisting material provides a challenge to established models of generic revision. The faithful adaptation of a revisionist comic does not in itself constitute a revisionist film or series. HBO’s miniseries adaptation of Watchmen serves as an example of how, through a series of adaptational strategies, an adapted genre text can retain a reverence to its source material while also serving a revisionist function in its new medium.