It's safe to say that next week's release of Watchmen - Zack Snyder's long-awaited film adaptation of one of the most-acclaimed graphic novels of all time - will greeted by a reaction that can perhaps best be described as a "geek-gasm." Outpourings of nerdy love for the film have already begun cascading across the internet with fanboy staples like Ain't-it-Cool-News' Harry Knowles and net icon Wil Wheaton already penning virtual love letters to Watchmen, a movie that comic book fans never really thought they'd ever see on the big screen. And who can blame them for their skepticism? Aside from the occasional Superman or Batman film (two franchises that each produced two great movies and two horrible ones before needing to be rebooted), comic book movies have really only come into their own over the past ten years and most have been big-ticket, family-friendly summer movies.

However, Watchmen has the potential to prove to Hollywood that big-budget, R-rated, adult-themed comic book movies can turn a profit, which is both a blessing and a curse. The blessing will be if Watchmen is actually as good as the fanboys want it to be, which would be a huge accomplishment, given the complexity of the source material. The curse will be if it convinces Hollywood that any or every adult graphic novel would make a great summer movie, and they should approach adapting said works with the same zeal they normally reserve for crappy action sequels, throwing money and Brett Ratner at the project to make sure it meets its Memorial Day release date, no matter what.

Let's be honest - if Watchmen is good, it might mean that it's either a). a fluke or b). due to the project's laborious 22-year development cycle, which (hopefully) weeded out the strong from the weak. But, just because Watchmen might have found the perfect director to bring it to the big screen, that doesn't mean that every other graphic novel will be so lucky. Grown-up comic fans might be initially happy to hear that their favorite graphic novel was optioned to become a movie - because, thanks to Iron Man and Dark Knight, every comic book ever has had their film rights snapped up by Hollywood - but, if those fans really looked at how widely the quality of comic book movies varies and how few intelligent comic movies have actually been produced, they should be very, very nervous.

In preparation for Watchmen's projected box-office dominance, here are five similarly complex, beautifully composed, and generally awesome graphic novels that we really, really hope that Hollywood ignores completely. We know this won't happen, but these are five graphic novels that are good enough to make us want to err on the side of caution. Sometimes "no movie" is better than "bad movie," so let's leave these ones alone, Hollywood.

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5. Y the Last Man 

The really tragic thing about this one is that, from all reports, a Y the Last Man movie isn't that far off. Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra's epic tale of the last man (and his pet male monkey) left alive after a plague wipes out every other Y-chromosomed male on the planet has been in active development for years now, with director D.J. Caruso attached to helm the project with his go-to leading man, Shia LaBeouf, attached to play Y's lead, Yorick Brown. (A decision that we were sort of OK with after the better-than-it-should've been Disturbia, though that small sliver of hope was blown to pieces after we sat through the suck-fest that was Eagle Eye.) Y the Last Man is the kind of high concept story that Hollywood loves, but the tale of Yorick Brown is so, so much more than just an I Am Legend riff with women replacing the zombies. It's a story about a boy adrift in a land of women, slowly becoming a man as he travels the globe on a quest for his lost love. There's danger, thrills, and AMAZING plot twists, but there's no ticking clock, no billion-dollar action sequences (though, there is a lot of ass-kicking), and the struggles worth caring about are all internal. Granted, you COULD tack on some stupid plot devices to amp up the action, but why? We're glad about anything that brings more attention to this fantastic comic, but the last thing we want is to watch Shia jam Yorick's slow development into manhood into two hours and the note-perfect ending of the comic series simply wouldn't work in a movie. Move onto Indiana Jones 5, Shia, and leave Yorick alone.

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4. Preacher

There has been recent news regarding a Preacher movie - apparently Revolutionary Road's Sam Mendes is attached to produce and possibly direct - but there's been so many red herrings and false info surrounding a Preacher movie over the years that we're taking the Mendes news with a very, very big grain of salt. (Director Mark Steven Johnson tried to turn Preacher into a HBO series a few years ago, which sounded cool until you realized that Johnson is the guy responsible for the awful Daredevil and Ghost Rider movies.) So, why are we against a Preacher movie, even if an Academy-Award-nominated, married-to-Kate-Winslet director is bringing it to the big screen? Simply put, there are just too many compromises that would have to be made to make a Preacher movie a viable, releasable film. With Preacher, Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon created a searing, volatile exploration of Americana and religion, all revolving around the story of Jesse Custer, a fallen preacher who finds himself imbued with Genesis, a heavenly power strong enough to put the Almighty himself in his place, and who sets off to find God and hold him accountable for his crimes against humanity. Everything about Preacher is extreme, which is fine in terms of violence - the MPAA has never had a problem with violence - but the story's sheer level of cursing, sex, religious commentary, and various wrongness will NEVER get past the studio censors... unless it's watered down to the point where it's barely recognizable. Honestly, if Christians protested movies as innocuous as Kinsey, they're going to firebomb whole multiplexes if a "true" Preacher movie is ever filmed. So, if the choices are having a toothless Preacher movie or no Preacher movie, we'll vote for "no" and just enjoy the story in comic book form as we have for years.

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3. Top 10

The main reason we never want to see a Top 10 movie is that Alan Moore's head is going to explode if people keep turning his comics into movies against his will. We know that some fans are annoyed at Moore for not embracing the Watchmen movie, which, at least, seems to be trying to stay reverential to its source material. (Moore gave some scathing commentary about the film to Wired. Click here to check it out.) However, fans need to keep in mind that Moore has been burned again and again by Hollywood, so his skepticism is understandable. His experience with the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen movie was a nightmare, the Hughes Brothers cast Heather Graham as an English hooker in From Hell, and, even though he politely asked the Wachowskis to keep his name off V for Vendetta, the very next day the producers announced that Moore was supporting the project in a press conference. So, you can't really blame Moore for being once bitten (or four or thrice bitten), twice shy. And, while there haven't been any concrete plans that we're heard of to turn his awesome Top 10 series into a movie, with the recent popularity of superhero movies, it's only a matter of time. Top 10 is Hill Street Blues or NYPD Blue set in a world populated entirely by superheroes. The story revolves around Robyn "Toybox" Slinger, the new rookie at Precinct 10 of the police force for Neopolis, a massive cityscape in which every citizen has some kind of super-power. It's a fantastic plot device that allows Moore to explore the humanity of his characters without having to have them defined entirely by their special abilities (when everyone has powers, it's not quite so glamorous). The plots are amazingly intricate, similar to HBO's The Wire, and the idea of trying to condense one down into two hours (AND introduce the concept as well) makes us cringe. Yeah, yeah, Watchmen might be great, but now that his most famous work is adapted, let's try to leave Alan Moore alone, OK?

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2. Walking Dead

Since we're currently going through a minor zombie renaissance lately - the undead are everywhere these days in books, movies, comic books, etc. - it's safe to assume that any comic book featuring zombies is already on Hollywood's radar. And, when it's a comic book as critically acclaimed as Robert Kirkman's Walking Dead, we'd wager that Kirkman has been beating off offers from studio execs swarming his house like the walking... well, you know. The concept of Walking Dead is fantastic. EVERYONE and their mother is familiar with the traditional zombie story: world gets consumed by zombie plague, survivors battle for their lives, and either a). die or b). find a small sliver of hope. Walking Dead takes that tried-and-true narrative and asks the obvious next question - what happens next? What happens to the people who survive the plague and find themselves away from the immediate danger of being eaten? Where do they go? What do they do? What's going to be the psychological impact on the survivors, particularly knowing that the best they can ever hope for is finding a safe corner of the world to hide in? It's a very cool concept, blending everything we know and love about zombie tales with some blessedly new ideas, but it just can't work in terms of a movie. Why? Well, while graphic novels like Preacher and Y the Last Man have very definite end points, there's never any end in sight for Walking Dead and that's kind of the point. There's never going to be a zombie cure or one final moment of victory. It's a story about survival and enduring the aftermath, which would just be next to impossible to effectively capture on film. They'd have to tack on some BS ending or "fade out" moment to the narrative, and the whole point of Walking Dead is enduring the unendurable and living without resolutions. The world needs more good zombie movies, but let's leave Walking Dead on the printed page where it belongs.

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1. Sandman

ANY graphic novel fan should've seen this coming. Neil Gaiman's Sandman series is perhaps one of a handful of titles that could actually challenge Alan Moore's Watchmen for the "greatest comic book EVER" trophy. It is a virtuoso example of how effective graphic storytelling can be and, more importantly, it's totally and completely UNFILMABLE. Honestly, Hollywood, don't even try it. You'll just embarrass yourself. But, since Sandman is one of the most critically and commercially popular comic books EVER, it's almost a foregone conclusion that someone is eventually going to hijack the film rights from DC Comics and make the very, very bad decision to bring Sandman to the silver screen. Even Neil Gaiman has admitted that a "Sandman movie is an inevitability, sooner or later." But let's all hope it never happens because Sandman is simply too special, too oddball, too perfect in its original form to turn into a coherent movie. The eponymous hero of the Sandman series - also called Morpheus, the Lord of the Dreaming, and the Prince of Stories - is a member of a family of seven supernatural beings, known collectively as the Endless, each one representing different states of mind: Death, Delirium, Desire, Destruction, Despair, Destiny, and Dream. The Sandman himself, called Dream, is a scrawny, sallow man with deep sunken eyes and a shock of black hair, and Gaiman follows Dream, after escaping from years of magical imprisonment, as he rediscovers the world and finds himself caught in constant conflict with his family and his inability to change. Sandman is almost impossible to explain, but too good to miss. You simply have to read it for yourself and, when you do, you'll realize how no filmmaker could ever bring the Dreaming to your local multiplex without losing everything that has made Sandman one of the coolest comics ever published. Don't take our claim that Sandman is unfilmable as a personal challenge, studio execs. Just take the advice and move onto the next superhero property in your coffers.

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What do you think? Did we miss some obvious choices? Would it kill you to see a movie version of Ex Machina, Plastic Forks, The Cowboy Wally Show, or 30 Days of Night? (Oh wait, that last one was already turned into a crappy movie. Sorry.)

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