Beowulf
The Original Film: Comics and literature giant Neil Gaiman teamed with Roger Avary for a take on the an🌟cient epic that strayed deep into the uncanny valley but was an intriguing and fresh take on the tale.
The Comic Spin-Off: Writer Chris Ryall and Locke & Key artist Gabriel Rod෴riguez adapted the story for IDW.
Why It’s Great: Rodriguez’s stellar art is better suited to the story than the ℱdigital efforts of the filmmakers.
RED
The Original Film: Based on Warren Ellis and Cully Hamner’ꦦs short miniseries, the Bruce Willis action movie strayed considerably from the original tale with its ensemble cast and comic tone.
The Comic Spin-Off: Four prequel comics were made to introduce the characters, making this a comic based 🐭on a film based on a comic.
Why It’s Great: These were a very different beast from the original comic - capturing the spirit of the films - and were also d💙elivered with skill🍨 and style.
TRON: Betrayal
The Original Film: Disney’s 1982 classic Tron is best remembered for its striking visuals and imag𓆉inative gazing into the future of technology. It took 28 years for the sequel, Legacy, to arrive🔯.
The Comic Spin-Off: This series fills in the gaps in Kevin Flynn’s story and introduces readers to his son Sam, the star of Legacy .
Why It’s Great: Th📖ree decades is a long time. Here is the pla🐬ce to fill in that extensive gap.
Man of Steel Prequel
The Original Film: Zac🌳k Snyder and David Goyer’s newly grim reimagination of Superman was divisive but a decided h𒐪it.
The Comic Spin-Off: Snyder🤪, Goyers and DC mainstay Geoff Johns delivered this comic, which gave us more background on Krypton and that crashed spaceship from ✅the movie.
Why It’s Great: This sowed the seeds of a potential retu𒉰rn for Kara Zor-El. You may know her better as Supergirl.
Captain America: The Winter Soldier Prelude
The Original Film: Marvel’s new film is based on Ed Brubaker and Steve Eꦕpting’s modern classic about the mysterious Soviet agent the Winter Soldier.
The Comic Spin-Off: Marvel has made a habit of delivering preludes to its films. This concerns Captain Amer▨ica’s life since thawing out in the ‘future’.
Why It’s Great: Avengers didn’t show us much of Cap’s life in modern times. Here’s a look for anyone intere🌜sted.
Scott Pilgrims Finest Hour
The Original Film: A bit of a complex situation - Edgar Wright’s Scott Pilgrim was based on the graphic novel series of the same name by Bry𓆏an Lee O’Malley. The sixth and final book arrived at the same time as the movie.
The Comic Spin-Off: While not based on the movie per se, O’Malley was closely involved in the making of the f💎ilm, and has said it fed back into the creation of the finale, such as the development of Gideon (with the help o꧂f Jason Schwartzman).
Why It’s Great: The climax of the ult🃏imate series for geeks and ‘90s children alike𒁏.
RoboCop: Last Stand
The Original Film: The 1990 sequel to th🐽e classic ‘80s sci-fi film was actually drafted by comics legend Frank Miller, although little𒅌 of his story made it to the screen.
The Comic Spin-Off: Miller also delivered a script for the unfilmed RoboCop 3, which BOOM! Studios e👍ventually brought to life as a miniseries 🐟in 2013.
Why It’s Great: This feels like a piece of film a🏅nd comics history come to life.
Godzilla
The Original Film: The Japaneses Kaiju classic and a hundred spinoffs and reboots. You remember. 🃏It’s coming back ag🌠ain, with Brian Cranston no less.
The Comic Spin-Off: There have been more Godzilla comics than can be counted beginning ඣfrom its⛄ 1954 launch in Japan and enjoying stints at publishers including Marvel, Dark Horse and, most recently, IDW.
Why It’s Great: Th💟ese have spawned some brilliantly imaginative spin-offs, ♌recently including beautiful art by James Stokoe and Alberto Ponticelli.
The Last Airbender: Zukos Story
The Original Film: Twist ending obsessive M Night Shඣyamalan turned his hand to the beloved Nickelodeon cartoon in his 💎famously ill-received adaptation.
The Comic Spin-Off: The comic filled in some 𓄧of gaps in Fire Prince Zuko’s story in both the film and thܫe original series.
Why It’s Great: Unlike ꦰthe film, Dave Roman and Alison Wilgus’s characterisation was spot on.
Noah
The Original Film: Darren Aronofky&rs♚quo;s new Biblical epic casts Russell Crowe as the titular hero, facing oꩲff against the rising tide and a barbaric mankind desperate to cling to life.
The Comic Spin-Off: Aronofky proved tಞhat he knows the value of comics with his Fountain project, t♌he filmmaker has brought an adaptation of the film to Image Comics with producing partner Ari Handel and artist Niko Henrichon.
Why It’s Great: Henrichon’s art infuses the ancient story with a ᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚbrilliant science fantasy sensibility.
28 Days Later
The Original Film: ꦿ Danny Boyle’s low budget horror𝔍 film gave us the memorable scenes of a deserted London and kicked off the ‘running zombie’ craze.
The Comic Spin-Off: The BOOM! Studios series gave an expanded view of the post-infection world created in the film and its sequel, 28 Weeks Later .
Why It’s Great: While ♚most spin-offs tend towards brevity, this extended series really gave fans something to sink their teeth into. Figuratively speaking𒈔.
Thor: The Dark World Prelude
The Original Film: The Chr🌺is Hemsworth-starring second film in Marvel’s energetic and pitch perfect comic book movie ♌franchise.
The Comic Spin-Off: The comic book filled in the gaps between the original film, Joss Whedon’s Avengers and the new movie, as well as revea꧅ling the origin of the Gꦐod of Thunder.
Why It’s Great: This two-part ser𝕴ies was great for filling in the gaps, as well as highlighting the diffe✤rences between the comics and film continuities.
Shawn of the Dead: Theres Something About Mary
The Original Film: Edgar Wright’s first Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy film. Essentially Spaced with zombies.
The Comic Spin-Off: 2000 AD published a short story starring the film’s first zombie, Mary, in the run-up to 💦its release.
Why It’s Great: Not only was it written by Wright and star Simon Pegg, it was also drawn by t🙈he fantastic Frazer Irviꦑng.
Guardians of the Galaxy: Prelude
The Original Film: Considered a risky prop🌼osition by critics, Marvel Studios’ cosmic film will be the first to feature a cast of characters unfamiliar to the non-comics reading public.
The Comic Spin-Off: This two-issue series will introduce the movie incarnations of the characters Star-Lord, Gamora, Drax, Rocket Raccoon, Groot a💞nd man🌜y more.
Why It’s Great: It hasn&rsq♎uo;t arrived yet, but arriving from the pens of Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning - the pair that skilfully established the modern incarnation of the team - this is definitely in safe hands.
Star Wars: Legacy
The Original Film: JJ Abrams will soon begin edging Star Wars into the future. Dark Horse is way ahead of him.
The Comic Spin-Off: Set 125 years after the fall of t🐓he Empire, Jan Duursema and comics veteran John Ostrander introduced usꩲ to the pirate Cade, who plays down a very familiar family name: Skywalker.
Why It’s Great: The Star Wars Extended Universe has tended to edge only slowly into the future. Legacy jumped well ahead in the story of the Sith and the Skywalkerꦡs.
Judge Dredd vs Aliens
The Original Film: The classic sci-fi f﷽ranchise collides with the comic book (and sꦛometime film) character.
The Comic Spin-Off: Uniting the British talent of 2000 AD writers John Wagner and Andy Diggle and ace artist Henry Flint, Dredd brought his brut⛄al justice to the amoral xenomor♒phs.
Why It’s Great: Of all the♛ Alien team-ups, this was possibly the most bomඣbastic.
Clerks
The Original Film: Kevin Smith’s first film, which established many of the characters and themes that wou🐻ld stretch throughout his career.
The Comic Spin-Off: Tank Girl ’s Jim Mahfood led a s🦹eries of adaptations with covers from comics legends Gilbert Hernandez and Art Adams.
Why It’s Great: Clerks ’ sensibilities (not to mention Ja𝓡y and Silent Bob) are the perfect match for a comic book.
Star Wars: Tales
The Original Film: Many Star Wars comics shoot off in ♕to 🍎far past and future, but other expanded tales have been set right at the heart of the original trilogy.
The Comic Spin-Off: Star Wars: Tales was an anthology series that ran in and around the classic stories. Por🐟trayed as a series of holo rentals, it established the questionable veracity of some of the stories, which were not🍌 all considered to be in canon.
Why It’s Great: Tales attracted a great range of celebrated creators including Peter David, John Ostrander and – strangest of all - funny book veteran S🌳ergio Aragonés.
Chasing Dogma
The Original Film: Jay and Silent Bob served as the common thread between the majority of Kevin Smith’s early films, including Clerks , Mallrats , Chasing Amy , Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and Dogma .
The Comic Spin-Off: Smith united with Hellboy veteran artist Duncan Fegredo for the miniseries that revealed just what Jay and Bob were up to between Chasing Amy and Dogma .
Why It’s Great: We finally get༺ to learn more about the pair’s ill-fated quest to find Shermer,𒅌 Illinois.
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
The Original Film: The Star Wars original films and prequels only ever hinted at the grand past of the Republic and the order of Jedi Knights, leaving huge💃 gaps to be filled by t🅺he Expanded Universe stories.
The Comic Spin-Off: Set 4,000 years before the ori🀅ginal trilogy and tying int♎o the video game of the same name, it saw a Jedi apprentice go on the run with outlaws after being accused of massacring his classmates.
Why It’s Great: A great opportunity to peer into Star Wars ’ past, not to mention the lashings of action and ൩intrigue.
Aliens vs Predator
The Original Film: We’re leading you astray. Technically the Alien vs Predator film an adaptation of a comic book/film mash-up.
The Comic Spin-Off: Dark Horse first had the bright idea to bring the iconic aliens together in 1989, spawning two films and coun💙tless games and comi🌊cs in the intervening decades.
Why It’s Great: 𒀰 The two franchise melded so successfully that it’s now hard to imagine Aliens and Predators not sharing the same uncaring galactic voi🌞d.
Scarface: Scarred for Life
The Original Film: The Al Pacino 1983 classic Scarface was d🗹irected by Brian De Palma and written by Oliver Stone, and is pos💃sibly best remember for its liberal use of the f-bomb.
The Comic Spin-Off: John Layman and Dave Crosland delivered a five-iss🐼ue ꦺsequel at IDW Publishing in 2006.
Why It’s Great: Layman’s Chew and Detective Comics run has cemented his reputation as one of comics’ great imaginations. This dar🌟kly humorous sꦇequel is a fine opportunity to explore his earlier work.
Blade Runner
The Original Film: The 1982 Ridley Scott classic adapted Philip K Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? with a far more concise title. You🌜’ll o🎃nly watch the director’s cut, obviously.
The Comic Spin-Off: Archie Goodw⛦in (a name that recurs a few times in this list) delivered another strong comic book adaptation with Marvel Comics.
Why It’s Great: The Jim Steranko cover is reason enough for us.
Nightbreed
The Original Film: Clive Barker directed the cult classic horror from his novella The Cabal ꧙ . The critics didn’t like it, although Alejandro Jodorowsky praised it as "the first truly gay horror fantasy epic". So that’s something.
The Comic Spin-Off: Epic Comics published a four-issue adaptation that transformed into a 25-issue continuation of the film. BOOM! Studios recently announced a new series fr🐻🏅om Piotr Kowalski and Marc Andreyko.
Why It’s Great: With the rather abrupt ending of both the filmไ and novella, this is the only place where you’re likely to find the story continuing.
Loki: Agent of Asgard
The Original Film: Tom Hiddleston’s Loki has become a surprise favourite in Marvel Studios’ films, and arguably stole the show in Thor: The Dark World .
The Comic Spin-Off: Previous versions of Loki (classic, kid and female) are decidedly different from his film incarnat🐻ion. Al Ewing and Lee Garbett’s new series has brought the comics character closer to his movie portrayal🌟 than ever before.
Why It’s Great: With no appare🃏nt plans for a Loki f✱ilm, this is the place for Hiddleston fans to get their fix.
Star Wars: Dark Empire
The Original Film: The Star Wars 🦩 sequels may be on the way from JJ Abrams, b🐻ut for a long time the film world was silent on the fate of Luke, Leia, Han and the rest.
The Comic Spin-Off: Step forward Dark Empire . Tom Veitch, Cam Kennedy and Jim Baikie delivered three miniseries that saw Luke become the ﷽apprentice to a resurrected Emperor Palpatine.
Why It’s Great: This was a thoroughly satisfying continuation, exploring the darker side of Luke glimpsed in Return of the Jedi and bringing it to a head.
Alien: The Illustrated Story
The Original Film: You know the one. Ridley Scott. Face huggers. Stomach bursting. Si꧅gourney Weaver fighting in her underwear.
The Comic Spin-Off: This film went on to spawn numerous films, and countless comics, but it was first adapted in the pages of Heavy Metal by comics vets Archie Goodwin and Walt Simonson.
Why It’s Great: Produced while the film was stil🐠l in production, the cꦛomic offers a fresh take on the now very familiar film.
Dune
The Original Film: We never♐ got to see Alejandro Jodorowsky&rsಞquo;s ambitious adaptation of Frank Herbet’s sci-fi classic, but David Lynch delivered a version in 1984.
The Comic Spin-Off: Even Lynch was keen to distance himself from the baffling adaptation, which it fell to Elektra artist Bill Sienkiewicz to adapt for Marvel.
Why It’s Great: Luckily for us, Sienkiewicz is ri𝓰ghtfully considered legend, and brought all his talent to bear on the trippy🦂 material to stunning effect.
Dick Tracy
The Original Film: Warren Beatty starred in the 1990 movie based itself on the ext๊remely lಞong running private eye comic strip by Chester Gould.
The Comic Spin-Off: Disney Comi♎cs🍎 hired John Moore and fan favourite Kyle Baker to deliver two prequels for the film based on the strip. Meta.
Why It’s Great: Baker’s fantastic art made for another comic that elevated its uneven 🅺source material (sorry, Madonna).
Star Wars: Vector
The Original Film: Under the umbrella of the expanded Star Wars Universe, this crossover is as far as we have💫 strayed into the unknown.
The Comic Spin-Off: The 12-issue series collided the past of Knights of the Old Republic with the future of Legacy with the ‘conte▨mporary’ time of original trilogy.
Why It’s Great: This took the scope of the Star Wars Universe and tripled it, just for fun.
Outland
The Original Film: Back in the mists of time (1981), when Sean Connery still appeared on the big screen, a little-rem🐷embered British sci-fi thriller.
The Comic Spin-Off: Comics legend Jim Steranko tackled the comics adaptation, which was serialised in Heavy Metal .
Why It’s Great: Steranko’s body of work is actually remarkably small give his reputatio🙈n. Outland showcased his talent in a series of double-page spreads.
The Matrix Comics
The Original Film: It’s ✅easy to forget how revolutionary Wachowskis surprise 1999 sci-fi hit was, regardless of your response to later sequels.
The Comic Spin-Off: The Matrix spawned some fantastic spin-offs, including superb Animatrix anthology and the Matrix webcomics
Why It’s Great: This attracted a who’s who of great creators, including Neil Gaiman, Geof Darrow, Poppy Z Brite, Paul Chadwick, Dave Gibbon𝓀s, Da💧vid Lapham and Bill Sienkiewicz.
Before the Dawn
The Original Film: Rise of the Planet of the Apes breathed n𒐪ew life into the long running sci-fi franchise with James Franco and perennial motion༒ capture actor Andy Serkis at the head. The sequel is arriving this summer.
The Comic Spin-Off: The digital comic Before the Dawn serves as a prequel to the forthcoming Dawn of the Planet of the Apes .
Why It’s Great: This filled the three year ga♏p between films and gave us a taste of Caesar’s super-ape society.
Superman & Batman vs Aliens & Predator
The Original Film: Alien🐓 and Predator have deliv♔ered their fair share of spinoffs. Here they collide with film (and comic) stars of a very different kind.
The Comic Spin-Off: This 2007 series was🧔 not even the first time that the characters had crossed over in parts, b🗹ut here they all bundled in together for a major brawl.
Why It’s Great: Batman teaming up with Predators against th♍e ꦡxenomorphs. Need we say more?
Star Trek: Countdown
The Original Film: JJ Abrams’ 2009 film revived the moribund 💛sci-fi property with wit, energy and a hot young cast fronted by Chris Pine, Zoe Saldana and Zachary Quinto.
The Comic Spin-Off: IDW’s Countdown served as a prequel to the film and also followed on from the conclusion of The Next Generation show.
Why It’s Great: Time travel plots often require a ♛bit of clarification, and here it is. The involvement of the film’s writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman in plotting the comic also leant it weight.
Ghostbusters
The Original Film: Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis and Ernie Hudson memorable starred in the comedic adventures of the Ghostbusters in 1984. We say𒅌 comedic, but we still have nightmares about the Gatekeeper and the Keymaster.
The Comic Spin-Off: Marvel Comics, Marvel UK and - most recently - IDW have all taken their turn at the Ghostbusters comics, running back as far as 1988.
Why It’s Great: Like the cartoons you may remember from your younger days, G🙈hostbuste🌠rs is a franchise made for comics.
Avengers Assemble
The Original Film: Joss Whedon’s Avengers united the heroes of Mar𒐪vel 🅠Studios solo films for a fun, action-packed and unbelievably successful ensemble movie.
The Comic Spin-Off: Set within mainstream Marvel continuity, this wasn’t exactly a spin-off, but was a title made to compliment the 🐬fi🎶lm with the same lineup of characters.
Why It’s Great: Launched by Avengers staple Brian Michael Bendis, this really came ℱinto its own under the excellent Kelly Sue DeConn🔴ick.
Serenity: Leaves on the Wind
The Original Film: Joss Whedon revived his short-lived and much-lamented Firefly sci-fi television series with the 2005 film Serenity .
The Comic Spin-Off: The new miniseries from Dark Horse Comics continues the adventures of Mal and his crew from the penꦯ of Whedon’s broth🌌er Zack.
Why It’s Great: For fans of the series (that’s browncoats to you), the opportunity to devour any more ﷽Firefly st♉ories is not to be missed.
Friday the 13th
The Original Film: The classic 1980s horror and its many sequels. The 💯hockey-masked Jason, helpless teens and buckets of blood.
The Comic Spin-Off: Topps Comics, Avatar Press and DC Comics have all put out Friday the 13th comics over the years. These have included team-ups and showdowns with Ash (of Evil Dead ), Freddie (of Nightmare on Elm Street ) and his own future self.
Why It’s Great: The comics have allowed for some particularly imaginative and bizarre tales. A 2008 one-shot was also an early pro🍰ject for the brilliant Joshua Hale FIalko🔯v.
The Fountain
The Original Film: Darren Aronofsky’s roไmantic drama cast Rachel Weisz and Hugh Jackman as star-crosseᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚd lovers across three very different time periods.
The Comic Spin-Off: Aronofsky has proven that he knows the va🙈lue of comics. When the film was original put on hold, he held onto the graphic novel rights, and the book arrived before the film was released.
Why It’s Great: The oversized format and painted illustrations came together in a genuinely stunn🌊ing book.
The Dark Crystal
The Original Film: Jim Henson and Fra🃏nk Oz built an immersive fantasy world in their 1982 film, with unforgettable creations like the Skeksis and the Gelflings.
The Comic Spin-Off: Marvel adapted the film in the early 1980s. It has also received a manga prequel and more recent Arc🐠haia g♔raphic novels.
Why It’s Great: The Archaia volumes in particular have delivered some spectaculꦜar art from the world of Thra.
Big Trouble in Little China
The Original Film: John Carpenter’s fantasy kung-fu flop-turned-cult-classic gave us Kurt Swagger, a young Kim Catrall, mystical war beneath the st꧙reets of San Francisco and a valuable lesson about Chinese girls with green eyes.
The Comic Spin-Off: This was just recently announced, but with Goon creator Eric Powell and a𒀰rtist Brian Churilla on board we know it’s in safe hands.
Why It’s Great: We can’t wait to relive our childhood fi🗹lm.
Hellraiser
The Original Film: Clive Barker’s 1987 horror classic adapted his Hellbound Heart novella and brought the unforgettable villain 𒉰Pinhead into the world.
The Comic Spin-Off: Another franchise with a long history of comic book adaptations, expanding the d♍isturbing mythos of Lemarchand’s Box.
Why It’s Great: While the f𝄹ilm franchise seems to have run wild without him, the comics have given Barker (and other creators) 🃏the opportunity to return to the Hellraiser world.
Army of Darkness
The Original Film: Sam Raimi’s Bruce Campbell-starring Evil Dead sequel took the comedy aspects of the🦩 second film and ran with them into the demon-haunted dark ages.
The Comic Spin-Off: The film has spawned a huge ꦏnumber of comics at Dark Horse and now Dynamite Entertainment, including a slew of crossovers with Freddy, Jason, Xena, Hack/Slash and... er... Barack Obama.
Why It’s Great: Bru♔ce Campbell’s comedic Ash translates perfectly💦 into the comic book world.
2001: A Space Odyssey
The Original Film: Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 classic doesn’t need much of an introduction. It was co-written by Arꦰthur C Clarke, in case its sci-fi creden🌞tials were ever in doubt.
The Comic Spin-Off: Marvel added another legendary name to the property in the form of ꧅Jack Kirby.
Why It’s Great: This is some of Kirby’s most explosive and exprꦇessive work, and pe▨rfectly suited to 2001.
Conspiracy
The Original Film : IDW’s new crossover features The X-Files , Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles , Ghostbusters and Transformers . Our brains just exploded.
The Comic Spin-Off: The latest in a series of multiple licensed property crossovers for IDW, focusing on the dimension-jumping exploits of The X-Files ’ Lone Gunmen.
Why It’s Great: Remember when they killed off the Lone Gunmen in the X-Files TV show? Well they’re back now, and hanging with the Ninja Tu♑rtles.
Empire of the Dead
The Original Film: George A Romero established the modern zombie genre with his 1968 horror film Night of the Living Dead , and -ꦓ five films later - continues to expand the franchise.
The Comic Spin-Off: Empire of the Dead arrived at Marvel Comics earlier this year from the pen of Romero himself and🐈 a new twist to the saga.
Why It’s Great: There’s aꦰ new type of predator haunting the streets of New Yo🥀rk City...
Return to Labyrinth
The Original Film: A youngꦕ Jennifer Connelly. David Bowie in a giant wig. Jim Henson directing an army of his puppet creaꩵtions. The favourite film of kids who wanted to get rid of their younger siblings everywhere.
The Comic Spin-Off: The four-volume manga centred arou🍷nd baby Toby - now a teenager - and his return to the Labyrint🐟h.
Why It’s Great: This is the comic for everyone who wondered why S🐠arah didn’t just stay in the Labyrinth.
Dredd: Underbelly
The Original Film: Pete Travis and Alex Garland🍃’s 2012 was a cinematic flop, but fan demand🎀 and its performance on DVD has had star Karl Urban hinting at a sequel.
The Comic Spin-Off: Judge Dredd publishers Rebellion have gone ahead with a sell-out sequel comic, Underbelly from Arthur Wyatt and Henry Flint.
Why It’s Great: Flint is always great๊ on art, and the comic’s success is likely to make a movie se💛quel all the more likely.
RoboCop versus The Terminator
The Original Film: The comic was based on a mashup of the original RoboCop and Terminator ‘80s classics.
The Comic Spin-Off: Boasting comics legends Frank Miller and Walt Simonson a𓄧s its creators, this♔ 1992 mash-up miniseries is due two for reprint editions.
Why It’s Great: Miller and Simonson manage to tie-in RoboCop’s origin to the creation of Skynet, then 🉐let the robots punch it out.
