The clock is ticking on Watchmen - finally opening in theatres after more than 20 years of "To Be Continued ..."

A comic-book mini-series so ambitious, so culturally complex and so deconstructive of the superhero archetype that Time magazine in 2005 included it on its list of the 100 best English-language novels since 1923, Watchmen daunted such filmmakers as Terry Gilliam, Darren Aronofsky and Paul Greengrass as it wound its way through 20th Century Fox, Universal, Paramount and finally Warner Bros.