Are you still riding a high from watching Ready Player One? Have you gone back and watched a series you loved? Is it a former Saturday morning spectacular, or a prime time must see? Are they based on toys that inspired you to create new adventures? Has the property gone through a remake or two? I’m sure some of you have. In the age of streaming and bingeing it is almost predictable that a viewer would go back to a showthey loved to watch. But what happens when it’s over again? If you’re like me you kind of want to know more stories that happen, but the show‘s over.
Thankfully we currently live in an amazing time to be a media consumer. As I mentioned some properties have found a new breath of life in new shows. G.I. Joe has gone through multiple studios since the 80’s; same for Transformers. In the early 2000’s He-Man got a new show on Cartoon Network that ran for two seasons. Over on Netflix, fans of Voltron can experience the nostalgia while enjoying new story elements and different twist. But these are few and far between for the hundreds of fandoms that exist. But taking a trip to your local comic book store will open fans to thousands of stories.
Star Wars fans are in a great place as Disney has essentially reset the canon of the universe and created further stories of various characters. The next row over a reader can find Star Trek: The Next Generations still continuing adventures to boldly go where no man has gone before. Some of these adventures can include crossovers with Dr. Who, though he just prefers to go by The Doctor. Go to the bottom of that shelf and Browncoats can get more questions answered as they follow their favorite Big Damn Heroes. Next to that are popular “Whedon Verse” shows:Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Dr. Horrible. Look across the aisle and you’ll find Hasbro is letting you relive every favorite toy Transformers(with multiple issues for multiple shows), G.I. Joe(same as Transformers), M.A.S.K., and of course their most recent success My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. Andas of March 28, anyone who was curious about the trailer that appeared about an evil Tommy – there is a Mighty Morphin Power Rangers ready to have its pages turned.
This is great news for fans of the show, comic book readers, and families where parents want to show their kids something they loved but with some more depth. These stories can vary from maintaining the campiness to exploring the more down–to–earth scenarios, or the classic “what if” scenarios. Recently, I picked up a Transformers comic entitled “ALL HAIL MEGATRON” published by IDW. The time frame for the book is set around the present, but the Transformers are all from the first generation (1980’s cartoon) and it starts by having the Decepticons attacking New York City with the humans having nothing to put up a possible fight. Now if you’re asking “where are the Autobots?” Well, they are on Cybertron, mourning the loss of their leader Optimus Prime.
For me this is a fascinating find. I love the premise and the amount of violence and destruction would never be in the cartoons. And if I’m being brutally honest: I’ll never see Michael Bay be this original in the movies.These are only a fraction of the printed ways for fans to continue their search of stories.
Fans of both Star Wars and Dr. Who know of the dozens of novels set across the canon timeline. Now some stories are apart of the cannon; and yet, some are not accepted. In October, Firefly will return as the first of three novels, where stories have been approved by Joss Whedon. These stories can be found in any local bookstore.
There is one more way for fans to rekindle their love: thru Amazon. Readers can find a subsection called Kindle Worlds. The easiest way to describe this is service is that it’s paid fanfiction. Basically, there are various intellectual properties, or worlds, where the owners have said that authors can use the “world” and publish stories for profits. Now most of these worlds are romance stories that one finds at an airport, but there are a few titles like Veronica Marsand Pretty Little Liars, but for me there is G.I. Joe.
Here I found a story by Buzz Dixon. Dixon was the Story Editor for the 1980’s Cartoon series and wrote G.I. Joe The Movie. The story published here is basically a lost episode of the cartoon. The story is set prior to two the second season and follows what Dixon originally proposed to be the origin of Cobra. There’s no Serpentor and no Cobra-La. But there is a sense of realism and consequences and follows the origins of one of my favorite Joes Shipwreck. If you’re interested then look up Buzz Dixon and G.I. Joe The Most Dangerous Man in the World: The Lost Classic G.I. Joe Episode for sale on Amazon for $3.99.
These are only a small portion of the published stories about the shows we loved. I suggest you make the trip to your local Comic Bookstore or Barnes and Nobles to buy these stories. And if you go to Kindle Worlds, leave a review for the author. Or maybe try creating your own story. Let us know in the comments below what you’re reading, or what you would love to read?
