In his bungalow on the Warner Bros. lot, Zack Snyder keeps a suitcase large enough to hold a rocket launcher. It doesn’t. Popping open the lid reveals a set of finely crafted action figures encased in black foam: Dr. Manhattan. Rorschach. Ozymandias. Nite Owl. Silk Spectre. The Comedian. They’re based on comic-book superheroes that aren’t exactly household names, but if the director of the sword-and-sandals smash 300 has his way, these characters will become icons as explosive as any state-of-the-art weapon. ”In my movie, Superman doesn’t care about humanity, Batman can’t get it up, and the bad guy wants world peace,” Snyder says with a smirk. ”Will Watchmen be the end of superhero movies ? Probably not. But it sure will kick them in the gut.”

Watchmen won’t hit theaters till March 6, 2009, but Snyder and his cast are about to face a trial by fire: On July 25, they’re screening special teaser footage for thousands in San Diego at the annual summit of cult pop, Comic-Con. The movie is no kid-safe funny-book flick. It’s an R-rated, $100 million adaptation of the smartest, most subversive superhero story ever created. Published by DC Comics in 1986 and routinely hailed by even mainstream critics as a literary masterpiece, Watchmen is many things — a jittery expression of Cold War anxiety, a chilling meditation on human nature, an intricate murder mystery. But at its heart this sexy, violent, and politically charged 12-issue saga, written by Alan Moore (click to see our Q&A with him) and drawn by Dave Gibbons, is an epic love letter to colorfully clad superpeople and a wicked satire about them. Set in 1985, but in an alternate reality where Richard Nixon is serving his fifth term as president and costumed crime-fighting has been outlawed, the story begins with the brutal murder of a retired superhero named the Comedian. Another ex-superhero, the inkblot-masked Rorschach, believes that someone is trying to assassinate his former colleagues. Is it a serial killer at work, or is there a global conspiracy involved? A twisty plot unfolds, enveloping an array of bizarre, damaged, and bracingly human fantasy people. ”We wanted to explore simple questions with not-so-simple answers,” Gibbons says. ”What if superheroes really existed? How would they really think? And how would they really affect the world?”