Similarly to the Black Panther, the Watchmen, being a group that originated within the comic book medium, is a superhero team whose canon story i within comic books. Those who create Watchmen comics are all contributing to the canon story of the characters and this is deemed the original work of the Watchmen. The movie is an adaptation, as much of the same characters are used and the world and story is similar as well but the film takes several creative liberties that do not serve as particularly canon for the comic book characters as the comic book creators have not established it as such. However, the TV series operates a lot more like fan fiction, as the show doesn’t really utilize much of the actual characters and stories of Watchmen and instead uses the Watchmen concept as a backdrop for original stories and original characters that aren’t apart of the Watchmen canon and would need to be present in order to make it an adaptation.