Star Wars is an American epic space opera media franchise created by George Lucas, which began with the eponymous 1977 film and quickly became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon. The franchise has been expanded into various films and other media, including television series, video games, novels, comic books, theme park attractions, and themed areas, comprising an all-encompassing fictional universe. Star Wars is one of the highest-grossing media franchises of all time.
Traveller is a science fiction role-playing game first published in 1977 by Game Designers' Workshop. Marc Miller designed Traveller with help from Frank Chadwick, John Harshman, and Loren Wiseman. Editions were published for GURPS, d20, and other role-playing game systems. From its origin and in the currently published systems, the game relied upon six-sided dice for random elements. Traveller has been featured in a few novels and at least two video games.
Grand Admiral Thrawn is a fictional character in the Star Wars franchise. He appeared as the eponymous character in the 1991–1993 Thrawn trilogy of novels by Timothy Zahn. An Imperial military leader and a member of the Chiss race, Thrawn leads remnants of the scattered Galactic Empire in the aftermath of its fall.
Usagi Yojimbo is a comic book series created by Stan Sakai. It is set primarily at the beginning of the Edo period of Japanese history and features anthropomorphic animals replacing humans. The main character is a rabbit rōnin, Miyamoto Usagi, whom Sakai based partially on the famous swordsman Miyamoto Musashi. Usagi wanders the land on a musha shugyō, occasionally selling his services as a bodyguard.
Darkstalkers, known in Japan as Vampire (ヴァンパイア), is a fighting game series and media franchise created by Capcom. The first game, Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors, was released in arcades in 1994. The series is set in a pastiche gothic fiction universe with characters based on monsters from international folklore, and features a stylized 2D graphic style. Darkstalkers introduced gameplay concepts used in later Capcom fighting games, including the Street Fighter Alpha and Marvel vs. Capcom series.
Joann Sfar is a French comics artist, comic book creator, novelist, and film director.
Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire is a 1996 multimedia project created by Lucasfilm. The idea was to create a story set between the films The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, and to explore all commercial possibilities of a full motion picture release without actually making a film. The venture was intended to reinvigorate interest in the franchise ahead of the theatrical Special Editions of the Star Wars trilogy released the following year.
Stargate is a military science fiction media franchise based on the film directed by Roland Emmerich, which he co-wrote with producer Dean Devlin. The franchise is based on the idea of an alien wormhole device that enables nearly instantaneous travel across the cosmos. The franchise began with the film Stargate, released on October 28, 1994, by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Carolco, which grossed US$197 million worldwide. In 1997, Brad Wright and Jonathan Glassner created a television series titled Stargate SG-1 as a sequel to the film. This show was joined by Stargate Atlantis in 2004, Stargate Universe in 2009, and a prequel web series, Stargate Origins, in 2018. Also consistent with the same story are a variety of books, video games and comic books, as well as the direct-to-DVD movies Stargate: Children of the Gods, Stargate: The Ark of Truth, and Stargate: Continuum, which concluded the first television show after 10 seasons.
Rebellion Developments Limited is a British video game developer based in Oxford, England. Founded by Jason and Chris Kingsley in December 1992, the company is best known for its Sniper Elite series and multiple games in the Alien vs. Predator series. Sister company Rebellion Publishing has published comic books since 2000, when it purchased 2000 AD, the publisher of characters such as Judge Dredd and Rogue Trooper.
Planet of Adventure is a series of four science fiction novels by Jack Vance, published between 1968 and 1970. The novels relate the adventures of the scout Adam Reith, the sole survivor of an Earth ship investigating a signal from the distant planet Tschai.
Avatar: The Last Airbender, also known as Avatar: The Legend of Aang in some regions, is an American animated fantasy action television series created by Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko and produced by Nickelodeon Animation Studio.
Star Wars comics have been produced by various comic book publishers since the debut of the 1977 film Star Wars. Marvel Comics launched its original series in 1977, beginning with a six-issue comic adaptation of the film and running for 107 issues, including an adaptation of The Empire Strikes Back. Marvel also released an adaptation of Return of the Jedi and spin-offs based on Droids and Ewoks. A self-titled comic strip ran in American newspapers between 1979 and 1984. Blackthorne Publishing released a three-issue run of 3-D comics from 1987 to 1988.
Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors, known in Japan as Vampire: The Night Warriors, is the first title in the Darkstalkers fighting game series, developed and released by Capcom in 1994, originally for the CPS II arcade hardware. It was ported to the PlayStation by Psygnosis in 1996 and was followed by Night Warriors: Darkstalkers' Revenge in 1995. Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors was ported as a part of Capcom Fighting Collection on June 24, 2022 to Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One.
Star Wars has been expanded to media other than the original films. This spin-off material is licensed and moderated by Lucasfilm, though during his involvement with the franchise Star Wars creator George Lucas reserved the right to both draw from and contradict it in his own works. Such derivative works have been produced concurrently with, between, and after the original, prequel, and sequel trilogies, as well as the spin-off films and television series. Commonly explored Star Wars media include books, comic books, and video games, though other forms such as audio dramas have also been produced.
"War of Kings" is a comic book crossover storyline written by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning, published by Marvel Comics, and set in Marvel's main shared universe. The six-issue limited series was published between March and August 2009.
Assassin's Creed is a historical action-adventure video game series and media franchise published by Ubisoft and developed mainly by its studio Ubisoft Montreal using the game engine Anvil and its more advanced derivatives. Created by Patrice Désilets, Jade Raymond, and Corey May, the Assassin's Creed video game series depicts a fictional millennia-old struggle between the Order of Assassins, who fight for peace and free will, and the Knights Templar, who desire peace through order and control. The series features historical fiction, science fiction, and fictional characters intertwined with real-world historical events and historical figures. In most games, players control a historical Assassin while also playing as an Assassin Initiate or someone caught in the Assassin–Templar conflict in the present-day framing story. Considered a spiritual successor to the Prince of Persia series, Assassin's Creed took inspiration from the novel Alamut by the Slovenian writer Vladimir Bartol, based on the historical Hashashin sect of the medieval Middle East.
The Expanse is a series of science fiction novels by James S. A. Corey, the joint pen name of authors Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck. The first novel, Leviathan Wakes, was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 2012. The complete series was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Series in 2017. It later won, following its second nomination for the same award in 2020.
Bungo Stray Dogs is a Japanese manga series written by Kafka Asagiri and illustrated by Sango Harukawa, which has been serialized in Kadokawa Shoten's seinen manga magazine Young Ace since 2012. Each character is named after influential authors throughout history, and their powers are based on said author's books. The series follows the members of the "Armed Detective Agency" as they try to protect Yokohama from the Port Mafia. The show mainly focuses on the weretiger Atsushi Nakajima, who joins others gifted with supernatural powers to accomplish different tasks including running a business, solving mysteries and carrying out missions assigned by the agency.
The Collapsing Empire is a space opera novel by American writer John Scalzi. The book was published by Tor Books on March 21, 2017. It is the first of a series that was originally intended to be two books but is now a trilogy. The second book, The Consuming Fire, was released October 16, 2018 and the final book, The Last Emperox, was released on April 14, 2020.
Empress is a creator-owned comic book limited series written by Mark Millar, illustrated by Stuart Immonen and published by the Icon Comics imprint of Marvel Comics in 2016. Set in the Millarworld, the series follows Queen Emporia, Empress of the Royal Empire that ruled Earth 65 million years ago, as she decides to leave her husband King Morax along with their three children.
