The Peacemaker is finally known for something other than Watchmen

polygon.com:

In the grand history of superhero comics, there are plenty of almost-rans. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of stories about characters and books that might have been but never were. Curating an untidy magpie nest of such facts and tidbits is the bread and butter of the comics critic.

For example, there is an alternate reality where Watchmen was about the Peacemaker. And that’s how I would explain Peacemaker to my coworkers in the lead up to The Suicide Squad and the Peacemaker series.

You see, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ initial pitch for Watchmen was to use a set of action heroes DC had acquired from the shuttered Charlton Comics as a murder mystery cast. But, as the story goes, DC (and former Charlton) editor Dick Giordano wanted to bring the characters into the DC Universe instead.

So, Moore and Gibbons used the Charlton characters as loose inspiration for their story that opened with the violent murder of a retired government killer, the Comedian. This also meant that the original name of their pitch no longer applied. And so DC Comics almost, but never actually, made a book called Death of the Peacemaker.

It’s interesting to explore this alternate universe: With the huge success of Death of the Peacemaker, the Charlton characters never make it to the DCU except in the occasional weird event comic. This probably doesn’t mean much for most folks, but it will sorely disappoint everyone who loved the Question in Justice League Unlimited, fans of the superhero duo of Blue Beetle and Booster Gold, and… uh, well, I guess someone out there must like Captain Atom. I guess.

And who knows, without original characters in the mix, maybe Moore would have signed a standard work-for-hire contract for the book and would