The world of Alan Moore’s Watchmen will officially be colliding with the superhero-filled DC Comics Universe in 2017.

For generations of fans, it’s a prospect that is equally exciting and nerve-wracking given the potential for either rapturous success or stupefying failure. The question is: Will the risk be worth it?

Writer Alan Moore and artist Dave Gibbons’ standalone 1986–1987 DC Comics miniseries, detailing a group of broken heroes dealing with a murder mystery and the ever-present threat of nuclear war, is considered by fans to possess holy book status in the comic book genre. Every word and illustration, spread out across 12 issues, is endlessly pored over by readers, which has helped to develop a fierce resistance toward any hints of meddling with the self-contained story.

Watchmen #1

While Zack Snyder’s unwieldy 2009 film adaptation and the 2012 Before Watchmen series of comics are far from classics, their connection to such a treasured work amplified the level of scrutiny to ridiculous levels.

And it’s not just the fans who are critics. Moore himself is tenaciously set against adaptations of his work, which are often done without his permission due to rights issues.

So when the powers-that-be behind DC Comics (namely Chief Creative Officer Geoff Johns and Co-Publisher Dan DiDio) took a chance to not only revamp their entire comic book line with the “DC Rebirth” initiative in May 2016, but also hint at an upcoming return to the world of Watchmen, fans were equal parts elated and cautious.

While I don’t want to get bogged down in the infinitely inscrutable and often mind-numbing details of comic book crossovers and universe building, a quick summary of the world of DC Comics will help both the uninitiated and the lapsed fan.

In 2011, DC Comics relaunched their entire line of comic books in an initiative called “The New 52,” wiping out decades of continuity in order to start fresh and entice new readers to start collecting without the need to read copious amounts of backstories.

While some old stories were kept as canon in the new timeline, most were wiped out. The result? Some fans felt alienated due to the dissolving of many beloved character relationships, big changes made to the personalities of fan favorites, and a general darkening of the overall tone of DC’s stories.

Five years later, DC announced they would revamp their comics yet again. But this time, the relaunch accomplished in “DC Rebirth” showed that all those decades of beloved stories still happened. Instead of a complete relaunch, a mysterious powerful being had messed with the DC Universe and erased years of history, resulting in The New 52.

The character that changed it all? Numerous references point to it being Dr. Manhattan, the all-powerful naked blue guy from Moore’s Watchmen. And an inevitable collision between the once-untouchable characters of Watchmen and the classic DC heroes of today was now on the table. While this hasn’t been officially confirmed, the signs within several DC Comics and confirmation from DiDio that a new “DC Universe Meets The Watchmen” comic will be coming in 2017 means the collision between the largely untouched classic and the ever-expanding DC Comics superhero line is all but expected.