Twenty-three years and one major industry lawsuit later, the oft-delayed and much-anticipated “Watchmen” film will premiere in theaters today.

On the heels of recent blockbusters such as “The Dark Knight” and “Iron Man,” the film’s gang of costumed vigilantes may look like heirs to the superhero movie throne.

Not so fast, Batman. Since a film version was long considered unviable because of the novel’s anti-superhero tones and political complexity, many hardcore local fans wonder what may have been sacrificed to bring the graphic novel to the silver screen.

Darker than any superhero comic of its day, “Watchmen” is the only one to win the Hugo Award for literary excellence. Published in 1986, Alan Moore’s ruthless look at what the world would really be like with superheroes has been widely regarded as the most celebrated English-language graphic novel.

“In English, it’s one of the first comics to take the medium seriously as an art form,” said Christopher Pizzino, a University lecturer who teaches a graphic novel course in the English department. “It is probably the work that has done the most to change the public’s image of comics. Fans can point to ‘Watchmen’ and say, ‘this is literature.’”

The graphic novel takes place in a world where superheroes’ involvement in the Vietnam War has prolonged Nixon’s term and accelerated Cold War tensions.

“‘Watchmen’ moves toward complication. The central idea in Watchmen is that superheroes don’t fix the world, they disrupt it,” Pizzino said. “The heroes of ‘Watchmen’ are psychotic, lonely, depressed, suicidal, and they are symptom [of society] and not a cure.”

And it is precisely that dark subject matter and depth that has endeared many to the novel and rendered it so difficult to market toward mass audiences.

“It’s very narrative-focused, and when you have such a complex storyline that doesn’t rely on action scenes to keep the plot moving, it’s easy to see why ‘Watchmen’ wouldn’t be anything like your typical action comic movie,” said Wesley Fenlon, a third-year magazines major.

And there is the tricky matter of translating Moore’s meaningful paneling.

“Moore wanted ‘Watchmen’ to do things only comics can do. Many of the visual effects in the comic are impossible in film because in film, you can only see one frame at a time,” Pizzino said. “I think part of the problem might be that Snyder is trying to be too faithful, to show the scene in the exact same way. I suspect the film won’t live up to the novel because it will be relying too strongly on the comic to gets its message across.”

Too faithful or not enough, the jury is still out on director Zack Snyder despite his experience helming 2007′s visually powerful “300,” which was based on a graphic novel by Frank Miller.

“I’m not sure if his penchant for making action films like ’300′ just shows he’s really good at working with source material or really good at making action movies,” Fenlon said. “It’s a hard story to convert to film, so I’m not that confident that he, or anyone, could do it.”