The doomsday clock ticks ever closer to midnight.


HBO has unveiled a brand new trailer for Watchmen, creator Damon Lindelof's drama based on the Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons graphic novel of the same name, debuting in October. The trailer bowed during Comic-Con, where HBO has set up a Watchmen experiential activation; there is no formal panel presence for the series.


See the trailer below:




Watchmen marks Lindelof's return to television following the end of his critically praised (if under-viewed) HBO drama The Leftovers, not to mention a return to more genre-focused television fare, following his defining work on ABC's Lost. As for Watchmen, it owes roots to DC Comics' 1986 comic book, a decades-spanning saga about masked crime-fighters operating amidst Cold War tensions. Already the basis of a 2009 film directed by Zack Snyder, Moore and Gibbons' comic now serves as the engine behind Lindelof's upcoming television series — but unlike the film, Lindelof's take on the source material is not designed as a beat-for-beat adaptation. As HBO defines it, Watchmen is "set in an alternate history where 'superheroes' are treated as outlaws," and promises to embrace "the nostalgia of the original groundbreaking graphic novel of the same name while attempting to break new ground of its own."


Starring Regina King, Jeremy Irons and Don Johnson, Watchmen looks to feature several characters from the original graphic novel, or at least continuations of their legacies. Among those entities: super-genius Adrian "Ozymandias" Veidt, who "saved the world" by destroying New York City with an alien invasion that was actually just a telepathic octopus (long story); super-brutal Rorschach, a hard-boiled and relentless masked crimefighter whose death at the end of the comic has inspired a new conspiracy-minded generation; and Dr. Manhattan, the only true super-powered individual in the Watchmen universe, at least as far as the comics are concerned. The historic hero makes a return in the final moments of the trailer, though casting for the character remains unrevealed.