Marvel's New Series is George R. R. Martin's Answer to Watchmen

screenrant.com:

While he’s known for writing dark fantasy novels, George R.R. Martin has also applied that approach to superheroes, similar to works like Watchmen. Martin's superhero series is Wild Cards, which has recently been adapted into a comic book series from Marvel Comics.

Beginning life as a role-playing game held between Martin and his sci-fi/fantasy author friends, Wild Cards is long-running series of short story anthologies taking place in a shared superhero universe. With over forty authors contributing to thirty books, the series has been in near continuous publication since 1987. The setting of George R.R. Maritn's Wild Cards depicts a superhero world where an airborne alien virus hits the Earth in 1946. Most people infected with the virus are killed, although the survivors are gifted with superpowers. Those survivors who are left with debilitating physical conditions are called “Jokers,” while the ones who retain their human appearance but gain superhuman powers are dubbed “Aces.” An alternate history of Earth that spans through the end of World War II to modern times, the world of Wild Cards considers what would really happen if a random collection of people where sudden gifted with superpowers; taking a grittier, more adult look at what superheroes would look like in the real world. If that sounds like a certain 1986 comic book series by writer Alan Moore and artist Dave Gibbons, it may not be entirely by accident.

Related: DC's Greatest Comic Book Series Came After George R.R. Martin's Rejection

In a 2013 interview with the Nerdist podcast, Martin discusses the series’ origins, and also how it came to parallel Watchmen. “Wild Cardscame along at exactly the same time as Watchmen,” Martin says, “(Both) were both kind of