Merchandise-Driven: Difference between revisions

** Bug still appears without the rest of the team, since he bears so little resemblance to the "Galatic Warrior" figure on which he was very loosely based, that Marvel can claim him as their own original creation.

* [[Marvel Comics]] had ''several'' toy-based series in the late 70s/early 80s: in addition to ''Micronauts,'' there was also ''[[Super Robot|Shogun Warriors]], [[ROM Spaceknight]], [[Transformers]], [[G.I. Joe]]'' and others. Somewhat unexpectedly, nearly all of them, especially G.I. Joe, are usually regarded as quite good. All of these (except ''Transformers'' and ''Joe'') were considered part of the main Marvel Universe, meaning they could interact with Marvel characters. In fact, even after losing the rights to the main characters, Marvel still owns the ones they created (such as the Dire Wraiths from ''Rom'') and they still show up in the comics occasionally. Marvel also created a few series that were ''intended'' to be adapted as toy lines, such as ''[[Crystar Crystal Warrior]]'' with Remco.

* Marvel's ''[[Secret Wars]]'' miniseries was created to promote sales of Mattel's Marvel toys.

* The Superfriends cartoon had a tie-in comic, and was later renamed The Super Powers show to help promote the toyline.

* This is becoming more and more common in "regular" comic books, from Events to other stories. Many, many stories now heavily feature rapid-fire costume switches and variants on old costume designs, as heroes gain temoprary power-ups. DC's ''Blackest Night'' and Marvel's ''Fear Itself'' show this most strongly. In the former, a dozen heroes get possessed by Power Rings that alter their costumes more than once. In the latter, heroes and villains get new costumes and weapons. All have the side-effect of allowing whole new sets of toys to be created in their likeness.

* Larry Hama's legendary run of ''[[G.I. Joe]]'' was full of this, in spite of his writing. Many, ''many'' issues featured an entirely new cast of characters on their "first mission" or a "training run" or somesuch thing, as they were based off of new toys that were coming out. Hama seemed to take it in good cheer, and enjoyed coming up with creative new concepts and character names. Aside from a near-constant recurring main cast, the comic featured an endless supply of new background characters.

 

== [[Film]] ==