It’s not just that we know them fairly well already, and what the new books would be filling in is psychology and peripheral adventures rather than character details. It’s that I think it would be much more interesting to tell this backstory through structure rather than through characters, looking at a government that first institutionalized superheroes and then banished them to quiet retirements with the Kane Act. This is one of the reasons the Agent Colson moments and continuity in the Avengers movies and peripheral material have been so much fun. These are supposed to be projects that are reasonably thoughtful about what it would be like to have superheroed people in our midst, and folks like Colson, or regular liaisons to the Watchmen are so useful: they’re a way in to the idea not of having powers, but of reconciling yourself to people having powers around you that you don’t have access to and that you hope won’t be turned against you.

Watchmen told us something about ourselves or who we could have been: the forgiveness of Nixon, the decisive victory rather than the slow dissolution in the Cold War, the continuation of a high crime rate, the hypercorporatization of our country and our culture. Fleshing out the Comedian’s role as a sanctioned superhero, and the decisions that lead to his assassination of President Kennedy or his role in Vietnam, would be more interesting than explaining why Nite Owl is depressed because it’s about us, not about them.

-Horse-racing fans, rejoice. You get another season of Luck.

-The best review I’ve read of Lana Del Ray’s album.

-The Smithsonian adds the Mexican Museum in San Francisco to its network.

-Great prints of classic pop-culture real estate.

-A first glimpse at Skyfall, the next James Bond movie.

-Sarah Palin accent fans, your fix is here:

-For the distinguished meth or television connoisseur in your life, Walter White sneakers.

-The cultural exchange that made the Tintin story The Blue Lotus so good.

-Watchmen 2 is a thing. Everything is terrible.

-Sounds like Valentine Wiggin’s going to have true grit.

-Are we on our way to usage-based billing?

-I do love the Whedonverse, but Joss’s Much Ado About Nothing will have to be something crazy special to beat Kenneth Branagh’s.

-Was Google Reader really that important as a social network?

-Fictional characters Occupy Wall Street.

-In praise of soaps.

-Please, please, let’s not have a Watchmen 2.