As humanity braces for World War III and nuclear annihilation, a conspiracy forms to bring us back from the brink. The dangerous scheme will prove we are not alone in the universe, or even here on Earth; a revelation that has the power to not only avert a doomsday scenario but change our world for the better.

The setup and momentous climax of Alan Moore’s seminal 1986 comic book series Watchmen and Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day are remarkably similar. But despite those similarities, Spielberg takes a radically different approach to Moore, turning a concept from a cynical superhero satire into a deeply humanist tale.

[Ed. note: This article contains major spoilers for Watchmen and Disclosure Day]

While they were released 40 years apart, Watchmen and Disclosure Day both begin by focusing on a world in the grip of nuclear terror. The Doomsday Clock is ticking ever closer to midnight in Watchmen as tensions rise between the U.S. and the Soviet Union and the apocalypse feels inevitable. In Disclosure Day, people load up on gasoline and flee major cities as a conflict involving North Korea, Russia, and the U.S. is positioned........

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