A lot of recent movie adaptations have revolved around popular comics. You know, take a beloved idea/theme and dilute it for the big screen debut. Well, to be fair, a few of them do justice to the original concept – and byt that I mean you, Mr Bat Ears. Anyway, I decided to turn it the other way around; I wanted to find out how many movies resulted in the creation of a comic book/series. Check out my list below.

Buffy

Being a Joss Whedon fan, the first comic on my list is of course the slayer to beat all slayers. Alright, so she doesn't quite win you over the way Toga Yagari does … but at least the Buffyverse was original and funny. Let's not forget, it was one of the few shows which did a good job portraying strong assertive women. As you can imagine, fans were gutted when the show was canceled. It was not the end of Buffy though; the story continued in comic book form and its fanbase has continued to grow over the years.

 

Angel

This is another Whedon classic that got axed. Who can forget the vampire with a soul who helped the helpless ith his group of quirky fighters. As with most Whedon works, it was the side characters that made the show worth watching – Lorne, Spike, Wesley, Gunn, just to mention a few familiar faces from the show. When the show got the chop from the big cheese, Whedon created quite a cliff-hanger for the last episode. That didn't bring the show back but it did result in a comic series. Thus, Angel, in this form, has been appeasing fans ever since The Fall.

Sliders

I fear this is turning into a list of canceled shows that became comics list. But it certainly says something about the quality of the shows, doesn't it? If there is a strong community around the comics, it means that the show was not losing viewer numbers in the first place. Actually, unlike the previous two, Sliders was a show that did lose out in ratings before being taken off air. Unfortunately this was because of a number of bad behind-the-scenes decisions – studios execs, when will you learn!- which eventually led to a lot of favorite leads being dropped from the show. And don't get me started about the dumbing down of the show over the years. Good news is, Sliders did get a bit of coverage as a few stand-alone comics. Some of them were based on ideas that were deemed too far-out for the show.

 

Planet of the Apes

There, I turned right at the traffic light and have official left the 'Dumped Shows' lane. Planet of the Apes didn't start out as the last few, rather it was just a concerted effort to build on the rich universe created in the book, movies and series. There have been numerous PotA comics and many have been by various publishers. I find it fascinating that the earliest comics date back to the 1970s; my cynical side is more willing to view these comics more favorably as this was before the time when a lot of concepts were dumped down to suit a mainstream audience.

Star Wars

This is the cash cow that just won't stop giving. Truth be told, at least Star Wars is – or was- full of possibilities and thereby was something that can be expanded and built on over time. So you can understand the reason behind these comics. Only problem here is that not all of the works will appeal to die-hard fans. On the other hand, a greater number of works, each offering a specific angle catering to a niche group or taste, can work better at pleasing more fans.

Labyrinth

I didn't know about this one until I started making this list. It cannot be! Is it about the same Bowie and Henson movie? Yes it is. Labyrinth was that cult classic from the 1980s which saw the wonderful Bowie dressing up as the goblin king and kidnapping the younger brother of Jennifer Connelly. What ensues is a quest against as Connelly braves the dangers of the labyrinth  to save the brat. It seems like this beloved story was revived in many ways, including a Marvel adaptation and a manga version as well! I must say the the goblin king looks just as dashing in the comic version.

Army of Darkness

And you thought the movies signaled the end of this fabulous series? Such was the fervor and enthusiasm for all things Evil Dead that a whole series of comics picked up on the movies' storyline. A lot of them are once-off comics or stories based either on the main protagonist or are in some ways linked to the movies themselves.

 

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