The origins of various franchises

There are a lot of popular brands in the world of geek culture and these have all become multi media franchises, that include movies, cartoons, comic books, novels, TV shows, toys and video games. I’m talking about franchises like Marvel, DC, Star Wars, Star Trek, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Transformers, G.I.Joe, My Little Pony, Masters of the Universe etc. To someone like myself, who grew up in the 80’s and was already a nerd as a kid, it’s pretty clear where the origins of these various franchises lie, but I’ve noticed in conversations with other, younger people that they don’t have a clue. So this week I’d like to explore the various backgrounds of the geeky stuff that we all know and love.

As far as most superheroes are concerned, I guess it’s pretty obvious that they originate from comic books. Marvel and DC were originally comic book publishers. Eventually popular superhero characters started appearing in cartoons, TV shows and movies and things just got bigger and bigger through the years. Now it has reached the point where most people know the various superheroes from movies and consider themselves Marvel or DC fans, even though they have never read an actual comic book.

Star Wars and Star Trek are probably the two biggest science fiction franchises ever. They have also both expanded into various forms of media, but their origins are quite different. Star Trek started out as a TV show in 1966 and Star Wars started out as a movie in 1977. Of course Star Trek started doing movies as well later on, but the main focus was still TV shows for many years with The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager and Enterprise. And Star Wars completed the trilogy with Empires Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, and eventually we also got the prequel movies. But before that, it was mostly novels and comic books that had to keep the die-hard Star Wars fans happy. And another thing that Star Wars is still very well known for, is it’s hugely successful action figure line by Kenner from the 70’s and 80’s.

I am personally not a fan of Michael Bay’s version of the Transformers, but you can’t denie the fact that these movies are very successful. And of course there are a lot of toys being released, based on these movies. But what a lot of people don’t know, is that Transformers started out as a toy line in America in 1984 and was made up of Japanese toys from Takara’s Diaclone and Microman lines. And the very popular comic books and cartoons that followed were created to help sell toys, not the other way around. And the same goes for other famous 80’s toy lines like G.I.Joe, My Little Pony and He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. Those all started out as toy lines and any stuff that followed was purely created to sell more toys. But if you asked me who my favorite comic book characters were in the 80’s, then G.I.Joe’s Snake-Eyes would definitely have been in my top ten. Larry Hama’s run on Marvel’s G.I.Joe comic is still regarded as a classic and those characters outgrew the status of “just toys”.

And then there’s the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Most people of my generation (late 30’s, early 40’s) know them from their popular cartoon series from the late 80’s and early 90’s and the Playmates action figure line that came with it. But they actually started out in an independent, black and white comic book series in 1984. That comic was inspired by Frank Miller’s Daredevil comics, as you can see when you put Raphael and Elektra next to each other (red bandana, using sai’s as weapons), and comics about teenage superheroes like New Teen Titans and New Mutants. And of course the Foot Clan is based on the Hand. Eventually this comic was picked up by a licensing agent and was turned into a huge franchise, but like Marvel and DC’s superheroes, it also started with comics. 

And of course there are a lot of franchises that are based on popular fantasy novels, that have now reached the mainstream audience through movies and TV shows. I’m talking about stuff like Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter and Game of Thrones. Apart from reading some Tolkien in school when I was a kid, I never read any of these novels, but I do enjoy the movies and show. However, I wouldn’t call myself a fan, especially since I’ve never read the actual novels. But like with comics, it’s proof that people just enjoy watching stuff on a screen more than they enjoy reading. 

The Walking Dead is another great example. I’ve been reading the comic book series since the very beginning and I was very exited when the TV show started and I still watch it. But there are a lot of people out there that don’t even know that it is based on a comic book series. And once they find out that it is, and that you’re one of those nerds that actually reads those books, they start asking you questions about what’s going to happen. Which makes no sense, because the comic’s timeline is very different from the TV series. 

I guess things are just different now, because every franchise has expanded into so many different forms of media. You can be a superhero fan without ever having read a comic, you can be a fantasy fan without ever having read a book and you can be a Transformers fan without owning any toys.