Geoff Johns To Write Watchmen-Centric DC Rebirth Follow-Up

01/01/2017 11:00 am EST

Beloved comic book writer Geoff Johns, currently serving as president and chief creative officer of DC Entertainment, has seemingly confirmed that he will write the rumored, Watchmen-related DC event.

Johns stepped away from writing comics following the best-selling DC Universe: Rebirth #1 last year in order to make more time for the increased responsibilities he has overseeing DC's movie slate.

More DC Rebirth: What Is Mr. Oz Doing -- And Is He Really Watchmen's Ozymandias? | Batman Writer Tom King Teases Watchmen Connection in Upcoming Issues | Joshua Williamson On Incorporating Watchmen, And The Many Speedsters of The Flash | 5 DC Comics Heroes Who Could Beat Dr. Manhattan

It now seems Johns's return to comics writing will be a follow-up to Rebirth, which teased ties to Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons's classic Watchmen in its final pages.

There's a whole lot of circumstantial evidence to suggest Mr. Oz, who will play a major role in an upcoming Superman storyline, is in fact Ozymandias from Watchmen. Similarly, it seems as though Ozymandias -- and somebody else, who has blue energy like Doctor Manhattan -- kidnapped Tim Drake, the former Robin, and faked his death.

Johns didn't indicate when he will return to comics exactly, and there has been no indication of exactly when the Watchmen story might start...but many of the writers associated with DC's Rebirth line of titles had talked about a two-year plan in place before DC Universe: Rebirth, which would peg May 2018 as a loose starting point.

Given how important Mr. Oz has been to Superman -- both pre- and post-Rebirth -- it doesn't seem entirely outside of the realm of possibility that Action Comics #1,000 could play in. Action Comics is publishing twice-monthly now, and #976 is expected along in March, which would peg the landmark #1,000 at March 2018.

No artist was named or even hinted at in Johns's tweet, although his most frequent collaborators are Ivan Reis, Doug Mahnke, and Gary Frank. Any of them could work for a project of this scale, although Frank's style has the most in common with Watchmen's Gibbons.

Stay tuned for more information on this as it becomes available.

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