It’s nearly here! Yes, Easter is on the way. But before that… Watchmen.

Zack Snyder’s adaptation of Alan Moore’s “unfilmable” comic series hits cinemas on Friday, so we’re naturally building up to what promises to be one of this year’s biggest film moments.

We thought we’d dig into the history of the comic and look at some themes, ideas and inspirations, plus track down the creators’ thoughts on their work.

There’s also input from a couple of the people who tried to wrangle the source material on to the screen…

Oh, and for you holdouts who have never so much as cracked the comic open… There is naturally a small SPOILER ALERT!

DC Comics balked at Alan Moore’s first pitch for the book, which was intended to utilise characters from the defunct Charlton Comics.

Alan Moore: In my late teens, as I was daydreaming about becoming a comic-book writer, I found myself thinking about a line of '60s superheroes published by Archie Comics: What if one of them was found murdered, and through the investigation, you explored the world they lived in?

I intended to resurrect that idea with the project that became Watchmen. But when we submitted the proposal, DC realized their expensive characters would end up either dead or dysfunctional.

Dave Gibbons: The Charlton characters were superhero archetypes. There was the Superman figure, the Batman figure.... We realized we could create our own archetypes and tell a story about all superheroes. What were their motivations? How would their very existence change the world?