8 Massive Franchises You Didn't Realise Started As Comic Books
4. Transformers
Despite being initially conceived as a toy-line, created during a collaboration between American toy company Hasbro and Japanese toy company Takara Tomy, both the backstory and characters of the Transformer's franchise were created by Marvel Comics.
The original Marvel Transformers comic was initially intended to run as a 4 issue mini-series however, due to the series' popularity, it was later expanded to a 80-issue series featuring a variety of story-arcs.
The series proved especially popular in the UK, with the regional comic book series running for 332 issues featuring additional stories and characters.
Alongside the comic book series, a successful animated series of the same name ran between 1984 and 1987, as well as a 1986 animated tie-in feature film which both served to only increase the franchise's popularity further.
Following the original Generation 1's success, a number of spin-off animated TV series have since been produced, as well as Michael Bay's enormously successful live-action film series which is currently the 13th highest-grossing film series of all time.