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Audience-Coloring Adaptation
(aka: Ink Stain Adaptation)

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"People don't really hate Aquaman.
It's just that the '70s version of him is such an easy and irresistible target."

A form of Adaptation Displacement in which an installment or adaptation in a long-running franchise irrevocably colors the public's perception of the franchise as a whole.

Done badly, this can not only damage a franchise's reputation but may also forever kill any interest in continuing it. Or at least put it on hiatus for a decade or two, until someone with enough clout and interest in the series comes along to push another attempt. Done well, however? It can attract more potential fans to the franchise and even introduce new elements that go forth to be used in all future installments.

Sometimes, it is used for Lost in Imitation.

See also Adaptation Displacement, Hard-to-Adapt Work, Never Live It Down, Franchise Codifier and First Installment Wins, where the first iteration of a franchise is more remembered than its sequels, regardless of quality.


Examples:

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    Anime & Manga 
  • Anne of Green Gables (1979) is the most well-known adaptation of Anne of Green Gables in Japan, hence why so many other anime specifically reference it rather than the book it's based on.
  • Dragon Ball:
    • The anime is this to the manga. People familiar with the many (fairly accurate) jokes about how slow-paced the fights are might be surprised to find that the manga is, for the most part, fairly fast-paced and frantic. The anime also colours Goku as a more intentionally heroic character than in the manga, where he's more focused on a good fight and only steps in if someone has been cruel to those he cares about.
    • For the West, in particular the United States, Funimation's 1998 in-house dub of Dragon Ball Z is effectively more canon than the Japanese original and other English dubs. The grittier rock score by Bruce Falcouner and cheesy scripting changes resulted in a show with a very different tone despite telling the same overall story, and many character and attack names were changed note . Goku's character in particular is more outwardly heroic and has parallels to a traditional hero like Superman, possibly aided by their similar origin stories. As a result, most U.S. fans have a reverse They Changed It, Now It Sucks! to the Japanese show, decrying aspects like the lighter, more orchestral Kikuchi score and that almost all of the Son family is voiced by "some old lady". Dragon Ball Z Kai was met with some backlash by US fans for being more faithful to the original show when it was dubbed, as have later productions like Dragon Ball Super for the same reasons.
    • In a more meta sense, the popularity of Dragon Ball Z in the West has meant that the previous series, Dragon Ball, may as well not exist for many American fans (due to Z being the first portion of the franchise to take off in the US). The lesser focus on big battles with energy attacks, Goku as a child, the absence of many fan-favourite characters, and a very different tone make this portion unfavourable in comparison to Z. Almost all Dragon Ball games that get published in the West have been fighting games in the Z style, with few games based on the early Dragon Ball style (although it helps that Z is also extremely popular in Japan).
    • In general, a lot of elements people stereotypically associate with the franchise were far more significant in the various Non-Serial Movies than the series proper. This was due in large part to the films reusing elements from the series and each other, leading to Character Exaggeration of traits like Piccolo's protectiveness of Gohan, Krillin's ineffectiveness in a fight, and Goku always being the one to defeat the villain with an out-of-nowhere new powerup (usually lethally). In particular, there's the films' treatment of Goku and Vegeta as rival Bash Brothers working together to fight the foe of the day — this only happened once in the entire run of the manga and anime (in the final battle with Buu, no less) but has become so significant to the franchise as to be its modern status quo.
  • When it comes to Ghost in the Shell, the seminal 1995 movie by Mamoru Oshii is generally going to overshadow everything else. Many people associate the franchise with the film’s hauntingly dream-like tone, the long stretches of sci-fi Tokyo atmosphere complete with a eerie Japanese choir chant, the cerebral and philosophical story interspersed with a few well choreographed action scenes and the off-kilter ending where the heroine fuses her mind with the antagonist and they begin a new life. Yet the film is actually a different kettle of fish compared to the original manga. Notably, the first thing most fans will picture about Major Motoko Kusanagi is an uncanny Aloof Dark-Haired Girl who ponders her existence… rather than the playfully juvenile and extremely hilarious tomboy she is in the original manga. In fact while much of the same events —including the anticlimactic ending with the Puppet Master — happen in the manga as well, the tone couldn’t be more different with gags between the Major and Batou still occurring on the final pages. Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex often got flak by fans in comparison to the 1995 film, but it is really Truer to the Text of the manga. Additionally the movie contains only one Spider Tank, whereas they’re all over the place in the manga and later anime adaptations, being a staple of the series.
  • Gundam:
    • While still well-liked by the general fandom, Mobile Suit Gundam Wing has garnered derision from some old-timer fans of the Universal Century setting (the verse where most Gundam series happen, but notably not Wing, which is an Alternate Continuity), who have accused the series of coloring the general perception of Gundam and Mecha series in the Western world. When Wing aired on the Toonami, it garnered higher ratings in the US than in its native Japan and acted as a Gateway Series to Gundam. However, its popularity eclipsed those of the UC entries as the original Mobile Suit Gundam aired after Wing's run only to suffer abysmal ratings. Furthermore, as Wing had many female fans, it was also blamed for intensifying the Ship-to-Ship Combat and Die for Our Ship sentiments in Gundam that started in Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam. Much of the rift stems from the differences in narrative and aesthetic styles of Wing and UC entries. Wing is about a Ho Yay-filled independent paramilitary organization trying to end wars between different factions without directly aligning themselves with a specific one. In contrast, the UC entries focus on a single protagonist acting melodramatically in a conflict between two major superpowers. Subsequently, many people in Western anime communities are more likely to associate Gundam with the aesthetics of Wing, as it was the most popular series outside of Japan.
    • Likewise, Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket and Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team shaped American fan perceptions of the Universal Century timeline. As these OVAs were critically acclaimed and were the first UC entries to gain mainstream exposure (thanks to airing on Toonami alongside the aforementioned Gundam Wing), American Gundam fans came to preferthe UC entries with Real Robot mecha designs and gritty tone. Subsequently, the mainline UC shows flopped in America partially because those series have more fantastical elements like Newtypes (essentially pilots with psychic powers), melodramatic tones and Super Robot-esque mecha designs that clashed with the OVAs.
    • SD Gundam gets constantly derided by fans for being "kiddy" and "silly" compared to the more serious mainline works, and as such is looked down upon for "trying to dumb down" the franchise as a whole. The main culprit for this perception? SD Gundam Force, which received immediate backlash due to Toonami deciding to air it around the same time they aired more typical Gundam shows (between the Hot-Blooded G Gundam and the more traditionally melodramatic SEED) which had stark contrasting tones and Gundams that "look too cutesy". This later leaked onto perception towards the sub-franchise as a whole, with fans declaring it a blemish. The two works that got hit the hardest with this are the two Anime series that came after Force (Brave Battle Warriors and Sangoku Soketsuden), with people once again judging the Gundam designs, and writing both off as childish drivel. The thing is, while the claims about some SD Gundam works being more silly and childish aren't EXACTLY inaccurate, a good number of them still contain a good number of serious moments to them that you would expect from a "regular" Gundam work, they just don't go as hard as the main Gundam works do on the darker and more depressing aspects of their stories, and also contain more lighthearted and comedic moments to balance things out. And the claims that Force is just "a silly kids show'' aren't even entirely accurate, as it only acts like that for the first couple of episodes before it gets more serious about its world and characters (though, granted, there are still some silly moments here and there).
  • Kaze no Shōjo Emily: Regional example. In the Middle East, Western Literature isn't as well known as it is in its home area, so this anime was the first introduction they had to the Emily of New Moon. It's to the point that even the original book is referred to as "فتاة الرياح إيميلي " (Wind Girl Emily), the anime's Arabic title over there.
  • Kirby: Right Back at Ya! 's dub defined, in the eyes of many, how the main Kirby cast speaks: Dedede has a Southern accent, Meta Knight has a Spanish accent, and (although to a lesser extent than the former two) Kirby speaks in "Poyo!" The widespread popularity of King Dedede's anime personality is a point of contention with fans of the modern Kirby games, in which he has undergone extensive Character Development and has become a (generally) heroic Friendly Rival who takes his title seriously rather than the bratty, half-witted Authority in Name Only that most audiences see him as.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords (2004) is invariably the basis for any kind of fan work related to The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures, which was one of the lowest-selling games in Zelda history. The manga has the benefit of giving each of the four Links his own personality instead of making them The Dividual, and gives Shadow Link a lot of Adaptational Sympathy.
  • Naruto: The anime's designs and Character Exaggeration are the mainstream interpretation of the characters. For example, in the manga, Ino doesn't have blue eyes, Naruto's chakra (and as a result, his Rasengan) isn't blue, and most of Sakura's angrier and jerkier moments are anime-exclusive.
  • One Piece
    • The anime by Toei has this effect on the manga, which people tend to be less familiar with. Character Exaggeration is treated as the norm, for example Luffy being such an idiot that he actually tries eating a treasure chest, or Zoro’s sense of direction being so bad that a dead end into the ocean stumps him. The oft-derided Male Gaze shots of characters like Nami are more the fault of the anime, which adds in Hotter and Sexier moments and scenes while exaggerating the physiques of Nami, Robin and every other attractive female character. Ironically enough when One Piece (2023) featured Sanji’s mentor Zeff eating his own foot, many considered it a Darker and Edgier addition by the Netflix, when it was actually Truer to the Text to the manga. Toei had changed it to Zeff using anchor to tear off his leg to save a drowning Sanji after it got trapped, as they felt the Auto Cannibalism was too much for young viewers and that version of events stuck in many fans’ minds.
    • For years after its debut, the 4Kids dub was how many anime fans in western countries (who firmly believed in the Animation Age Ghetto) based their opinions on the series, seeing it as nothing more than a nonsensical, juvenile cartoon, unlike more "mature" contemperaries (that got faithful dubs) like Naruto and Bleach; all thanks to 4Kids' many changes to the seriesnote  in order to make it appropriate for Saturday morning broadcast TV.
  • Pokémon the Series:
    • The "original series" of the anime will always be how the Pokémon franchise is most known outside of Japan, for better or worse. In many people's eyes, Ash will always be present, evil teams are generally bumbling, and Pokémon will always speak Pokémon Speak. Certain game characters can't quite break the rep of their anime counterparts, and some folks even believe that the anime (and its associated characters like Ash and Misty) are what the games are based on, rather than being the other way around.
    • Notably, the first season of the anime had such a marked impact on public perception of the franchise that Pokémon Yellow was made to specifically adapt it back to the game series. Making Pikachu the only available starter, redesigning Blue to resemble Gary Oak, introducing Jessie & James as recurring villains, and redesigning all the Pokémon to match their anime appearances was done specifically due to how drastically and immediately the anime came to define the IP.
    • Pokémon: The First Movie completely defined Mewtwo's personality and backstory for most fans, to the point where they're often assumed to be canon to the games. Team Rocket and Giovanni have no connection to Mewtwo's creation in Pokémon Red and Blue, and Mewtwo had no defined personality, though Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon had Giovanni with a Mewtwo as a nod to the anime, while Pokémon Let's Go, Pikachu! and Let's Go, Eevee! (itself a loose remake of Yellow) made Giovanni interested in finding and capturing Mewtwo as part of his plan.
    • Ditto not being able to change its face when it transforms was supposed to be a flaw exclusive to one Ditto in the episode "Ditto's Mysterious Mansion" that it would get over by the end. Nonetheless, this flaw became associated with transformed Ditto all throughout the franchise except in the mainline games and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, where it instead turns into a purple, slimy version of the fighter it's copying.
  • Rozen Maiden: To people in and out of the fanbase, Studio NOMAD's 2004 anime adaptation is the series even though it is an entirely different story compared to the manga it supposedly adapts. The 2004 anime has a louder, more action-packed story compared to the quieter, more introspective manga.
  • Sailor Moon:
    • The characterization and plot of the 1992-1997 anime adaptation has eclipsed the original manga to the point that fans discovering Sailor Moon Crystal (a much Truer to the Text adaptation of the manga) were surprised to find a vast number of discrepancies. For example, while Mamoru had Deadpan Snarker tendencies in the manga, he was never the Jerk with a Heart of Gold the first anime made him out to be and had magical attacks/powers of his own to boot. The "break-up arc" of Sailor Moon R was completely original to the anime, and out of character for manga Mamoru/Endymion. Rei also has a very different personality from the manga, where she's much more of an elegant, Aloof Dark-Haired Girl who Does Not Like Men. Her Hot-Blooded tendencies are played up by the anime, which also gave her an interest in Mamoru that she never had in the manga.
    • The original '90s English dub by DiC Entertainment possesses a lot of discrepancies from the Japanese version of the anime, had lots of censorship, awkward voice acting, script and name changes,note  changed the music and story, and a few episodes were cut completely. But the show still proved to be entertaining and a hit with children in North America, its theme song became a '90s icon, and it was one of the catalyst shows that kicked off the anime boom in the 1990s. To many fans, the '90s dub and all of its flavor and lingo was their definitive experience with Sailor Moon, and it's really hard to see the show as anything else. To them Usagi is always Serena, her nickname is always "Meatball Head", Luna will always have a British accent, and to a lesser extent Naru/Molly always sounds like a Brooklynite. Which is why when the series received an uncut re-dub by Viz Media in 2014, which was more faithful, dubbed with professional voice actors, kept the original music, and didn't make any cuts or edits, a Broken Base formed over the quality of the Viz dub. While it is praised for its improvements and being much more faithful to the original version, it lacks the campy fun and energy and distinctiveness of the '90s dub that made it so memorable, and DiC's replacement soundtrack was missed by many, even by its most staunch critics.
  • School Days is mainly known by its anime adaptation, which heavily ramps up the characters' worst traits and infamously ends on a rather violent note. Most will be surprised to see in the original visual novel that the core three of Makoto, Sekai and Kotonoha are relatively more stable, and that the endings in which one or more characters meet a grisly end are the exception, not the norm.
  • Sonic X is the most influential Sonic the Hedgehog derivative outside of the Archie comics thanks to it airing during a Newbie Boom and it being Truer to the Text than other adaptations. Elements of it were even used in the games, sometimes simply because fans expected them to be there. The fandom's portrayals of Amy, Tails, Shadow, and Maria owe as much to the animenote  as to the games, as does Knuckles and Rouge's relationship.
  • Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie is a tremendous case of this. It brought in many elements that weren't in the games or at least weren't as overt but soon became the status quo from then on, like Ryu and Ken being Bash Brothers, Vega having a violent Villainous Crush on Chun-Li, Dhalsim being a wise mentor to the other characters, and Chun-Li being a certified Ms. Fanservice. The anime was so influential it directly inspired the Street Fighter Alpha series, particularly in how young Ryu and Ken were portrayed in flashbacks training together.
  • When it comes to Urusei Yatsura, much of the Common Knowledge about the series stems from the 1981 anime adaptation:
    • The use of catchphrases by the various characters is largely an anime-exclusive thing.
    • Ryunosuke's father is known for riding random waves to enter the scene and for shouting "I love the sea!" He does the former and uses the latter catchphrase once apiece in the entire manga, although he does wear "I (heart) the sea" on his shirt and calls his cafe the "I (heart) the sea Cafe". The anime invented both his inexplicable ability to summon waves and gave him the catchphrase.
    • Lum nicknaming her wrathful zaps of Ataru "Divine Retribution" is an early anime thing, and she actually drops the Calling Your Attacks gimmick very quickly. Giving Ataru an electrified version of The Glomp only happens in five chapters in the entire manga (the last two times being when Lum is drunk and under the effects of a Love Potion), and whilst it's slightly more prevalent in the early anime, it too fades out quickly — the last episode it appears in is Episode 42, with a reference in chapter 60. Nicknaming this move as "Expression of Love" was unique to the anime, though she does use the name in the final chapter where it appears, which was also adapted into the OVA "Catch the Heart".
  • Yu-Gi-Oh!:
    • People generally associate Yu-Gi-Oh! with the Merchandise-Driven Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters series, where card games are Serious Business and Duels Decide Everything. Spin-offs take this even further, as non-dueling games are almost nonexistent and many characters' decks revolve around whatever archetype is being promoted in the TCG.
    • Toei's Yu-Gi-Oh! (first anime series) is regarded as Darker and Edgier and close to the manga, when it was much Lighter and Softer than the manga and had tons of original content, making it a loose adaptation as well. Its "Season 0" fan nickname has also led people to think it is a lost season and canon to the second-series anime.

    Comic Books 
  • Batman: The Dark Knight Returns absolutely qualifies, not only to the mainstream audience but the Batman mythos in general as Frank Miller’s comic helped pioneer many of the modern conventions of Batman and DC that many people don’t realise are Newer Than They Think. In the '80s comics at the time, Batman, while darker than he was in the Silver Age, still had plenty of lighthearted camp about him. TKDR, however, featured a far Darker and Edgier Batman than had been seen before with his superhero antics being akin to an addiction he’s fallen back into after losing almost everything else in his life. Bruce treating the Robins as “soldiers”, his devil may care stubbornness in the face of authority, being extra Crazy-Prepared when dealing with Superman, extreme brutality to opponents, and the black and grey costume returning (in the '80s at the time it was still blue and grey) all come from The Dark Knight Returns and were folded forward into the mainline comics (and films and cartoons) one way or another. Thanks to this comic, Superman and Batman’s relationship also changed — no longer being perfect friends, The World's Finest, but rather somewhat distant and distrusting (if respectful) of each other. Even the strange sexual overtones Joker has towards Batman, something that’s considered normal nowadays, were a strange addition at the time where Joker in the other comics was a traditional Arch-Enemy with no overt Foe Romance Subtext.
  • The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is widely considered to be the single most iconic and influential depiction of Captain Nemo in any medium, since it was the first interpretation to really emphasize the character's Indian heritage and make it a core part of his characterization. For context: in Nemo's original appearance in Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (where he's a central character), his ethnicity is left intentionally ambiguous, and the only clue about his background is that he has a vendetta against an unnamed imperialistic country that conquered his homeland and forced him into exile (Verne wanted to make the character Polish, but was talked out of it by his editor); The Mysterious Island (in which Nemo is only a supporting character, and doesn’t appear until late in the novel) reveals that he's an Indian nobleman with a vendetta against the British Empire, but this revelation doesn't come out until shortly before his death and most adaptations such as Disney film had him played by Caucasian actors. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen makes it clear from the outset, with Kevin O'Neill's illustrations making it all the more explicit: Nemo is a dark-skinned South Asian who dresses in a turban and a sadri, and the interior of the Nautilus is festooned with Hindu religious art (details that are nowhere to be found in the original books). Thanks to the comic's influence, it's now practically unthinkable to do an adaptation of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea without a South Asian actor in the lead role.
  • The Marvel Universe's The Mighty Thor has certainly had this effect on Norse Mythology as a whole, overlapping with Sadly Mythtaken. In the Prose Edda, Thor instead of being blonde is red-haired and flies around on a chariot driven by two goats, Loki and Sif are fair-haired instead of dark-haired whilst Fandral, Hogun and Volstagg are nowhere to be seen, being original creations of Marvel. Look up artwork of Thor and Loki online, however, and the vast majority of it will be of their Marvel versions or clearly inspired by them. For God of War Ragnarök, there were many complaints that Thor looked different when his image was first revealed even though he is actually Truer to the Text to a lot of the myths — really fans were more upset that he didn’t look more like the Marvel version. It’s noticeable compared to Classical Mythology which has been interpreted in all manner of ways, whilst Norse Mythology by contrast has been glued to the Marvel version in the public’s consciousness.
  • DC's New 52 2011 reboot, especially as shortly after, DC stepped up their adaptation efforts in animation and Live Action, and based many of them directly off of the New 52's universe. As a result, elements like Barry Allen as The Flash, Damian Wayne as Robin, Barbara Gordon being Batgirl again, and more became mainstream among wider audiences, and elements from the previous two decades (such as Wally West and the extended Flash Family, the importance of the prior Robins like Tim Drake, and the later Batgirls Cassandra Cain and Stephanie Brown) were downplayed. This also came with the universe becoming Darker and Edgier on top, which combined with the adaptations following suit, lead to DC gaining a reputation for being dark, grim, and depressing next to Marvel's Lighter and Softer approach — historically, this had almost always been the other way around *.
  • The Punisher: Garth Ennis's Punisher from the MAX imprint has left a significant mark on the character's identity to this day, infusing it with touches of realism, grit, and glimpses of complexity and humanity that, in many ways, have made it the definitive version of the character. He's a character that simply doesn't fit within a more caricatured superhero environment (as it did before) due to his inherently brutal and mundane nature, and that's something Ennis made very clear. It's also influenced some of the Punisher's non-comic incarnations, most notably Punisher: War Zone and the Marvel Cinematic Universe version of the character.
  • Runaways has an interesting example of this trope — because Jo Chen's covers for the series have become so iconic, artists who employ the characters in other series have a bad tendency to draw the characters based on how they look on the covers, despite Chen being notorious for taking liberties with her art that don't reflect what the characters look like in the interior art. In A-Force, for example, Gert's cameo appearance was based on her first portrait cover with Old Lace, despite Chen having portrayed her as much skinnier and more conventionally attractive than she is in the interior art, and Nico was given a Stripperiffic costume based on her clothes from the first Volume 2 cover, despite Nico being a devout Christian girl who usually dresses more modestly. Perhaps the most drastic example of this was Klara's sudden transformation from Girly Girl with a Tomboy Streak into a straight Girly Girl after Sara Pichelli took over drawing for the series; Pichelli had evidently taken her inspiration from Klara's only portrait cover, in which she wears a white dress, rather than any of the interior art, in which she wore boys' clothing.
  • The Sensational She-Hulk by John Byrne, has had this effect on She-Hulk to a massive extent. Originally Jen's story was much closer to her cousin Bruce's, being regarded as a monster and acting like it being burly and ill-tempered. Shulkie's adventures, like Hulk, were often Monster of the Week with her struggling to keep her gamma rage monster in check while also being a practicing attorney. By the time of Sensational She-Hulk however, she became a Lighter and Softer character and her appearance while still tall had become supermodel petite, with her Fanservice and often fourth wall-breaking humour being at the forefront. This version quickly became the most popular iteration of She-Hulk and any attempts to make her more serious and "Hulk"-like again having often been met with considerable dislike from fans. The MCU's She-Hulk: Attorney at Law series takes great influence from Byrne's She-Hulk, with her skinnier design, campy rom-com behaviour, and Breaking the Fourth Wall humour.
  • Spider-Man: The '90s era of The Amazing Spider-Man (1963) instigated by Todd McFarlane with further touches by artists like Mark Bagley helped shaped a lot of the modern perception of Spidey. The massive wide eye-lenses that take up most of the mask, the extremely stringy webbing, and very stylised and unfeasible poses all originate from this period as well as the idea of Mary Jane being the nigh-permanent love interest as they were married at this point, unlike the previous decades where Spidey had rotating love interests before marrying MJ in 1987. Additionally the popular perception of Venom being a hilarious wisecracking Cloudcuckoolander Anti-Hero similar to Deadpool comes from this era as he was previously a much more serious and nightmarishly threatening antagonist when he debuted in the late '80s.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics) is this to the Sonic the Hedgehog fandom due to being a long-running adaptation that began when the series had minimal plot. Even two decades after Sonic Adventure, many Western fans believe Sonic lives on Mobius instead of Earth. Some even treat Canon Foreigner comic characters like they're either game-canon or canon to Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM) due to the shared origin.
  • Supergirl: When Kara Zor-El first appeared in The Supergirl From Krypton (1959), she was about fifteen years younger than Superman, and her parents sent her to Earth expecting that her adult cousin would take care of her. When Kara was introduced to the Post-Crisis continuity in The Supergirl from Krypton (2004), she was about fifteen years older than Superman, born long before Krypton's destruction, and was sent to Earth to save her life AND take care of her baby cousin, but suspended animation shenanigans caused her to arrive thirty years late. The latter story arc became so influential in shaping the character's popular view that everybody assume that Kara being older than Superman has always been the case, and nobody can imagine a Supergirl origin where she was born after Superman.
  • Ultimate Marvel had this effect for a while during the 2000s and very early 2010s, due to (at first) being a streamlined, modernised take on the Marvel Universe, particularly in terms of wardrobe and setting, while also providing updated origins that took advantage of Genetic Engineering Is the New Nuke or "realistic" deconstructions. Though the harsher characterisation is still highly controversial, for many it was looked at as an easier avenue to be introduced to Marvel and generally used as a basis for new adaptations.
  • X-Men: The '90s era will always be the major audience-influencing incarnation of the team (unsurprisingly given X-Men (1991) (Vol. 2) #1 by Chris Claremont and Jim Lee was the highest-selling comic of all time). The perception of Cyclops being in his blue kevlar suit with yellow cross belts and a wraparound visor, Jean in her yellow and blue bodysuit, Storm in her silver bodysuit, Rogue with her green and yellow bodysuit as well as bomber jacket and massive mane of hair, and Gambit and Jubilee being highly prominent (despite being quite new members at the time) is all thanks to this period. Thanks to this era, fans will likely easily recognise Psylocke in her fanservicey ninja form but will not recognise her purple-haired and pink outfit which was her look for decades prior to getting a body swap. A similar case occurs with Angel, as he's more remembered in the rad-looking metallic Archangel form than his normal Angel persona he had for years before becoming a Horseman of Apocalypse. This comic period would go onto to inspire both the Fox Kids animated series) and X-Men: Children of the Atom and the subsequent Marvel vs. Capcom franchise. There's also a spin-off comic based on the animated series, which was based on this era.

    Films — Animation 
  • The four Direct-to-Video BIONICLE films are far easier to digest than the dozens of books, comics, short stories, online games, and animations that tell the meat of the lore. People with a casual interest tend to judge the series by the films alone, but they rewrite and neglect crucial details and only tell minute fractions of the story that make little sense by themselves, which even LEGO admits. None of them explain what "Bionicle" even means, character traits are changed, and 70-minute kids' films by their nature couldn't do justice to the multi-year-long connected stories and expansive worldbuilding that fans liked about the franchise.
  • Disney has played an enormous role in coloring public knowledge of numerous fairy tales and some novels and short stories, with Dumbonote , Lady and the Tramp, 101 Dalmatians, The Rescuers, The Fox and the Hound, The Black Cauldron and The Great Mouse Detective being but a few titles now almost entirely unknown outside their Disney version.
  • DreamWorks Animation's How to Train Your Dragon series, which was adapted from a long-running, but somewhat obscure British children's book series of the same name, have defined the series in the general public. The average person might be surprised at the wide amount of differences between the books and the movies if you hand them one of the books. The most obvious difference is that part of the books' premise is that semi-domesticated dragons have already been a common aspect of viking life for generations, rather than Hiccup being the one to spearhead the concept. What made Hiccup notable in the books was that he was one of very few people who could speak their language, which by proxy meant that all the dragons spoke in the books, with Toothless being quite talkative and sarcastic. Aside from the basic premise of "fantasy vikings with dragons", the books and the films might as well be two different intellectual properties with a handful of recycled character names.
  • Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children:
    • Advent Children is a huge example, as it had this effect upon not only the original game and its expanded material, but how the Fanon views the FFVII characters in general. Cloud, instead of being a BFS spinning cocky showoff who hides his insecure dorkier side under a cool guy persona (as seen with his attempt at a Rousing Speech before the final battle being the immediately lambasted "Let's mosey"), is an angst-heavy Stoic Woobie who almost never smiles note . Aerith, rather than being a street smart tomboy who speaks in slang in the original Japanese script and famously threatens to rip a mafioso's balls off, is a Too Good for This Sinful Earth Purity Personified figure. Tifa, rather than being quite the Shrinking Violet compared to Aerith, keeping her feelings to herself, is Hot-Blooded and confident to go along with her Ms. Fanservice appearance. Thanks to Advent Children along with other titles such as Kingdom Hearts I and Dissidia Final Fantasy this is how a lot of people view the characters as and many were shocked at Final Fantasy VII Remake for seemingly altering their personalities (e.g. having Aerith curse "Shit!") even though it was actually just making them Truer to the Text.
    • Notably Emotionless Girl Lightning from Final Fantasy XIII's character was devised and frequently seen as a kind of Distaff Counterpart to Cloud when it's more accurate to say she’s the female version of the Advent Children-era Cloud since she actually has little in common with the lighthearted 1997 version of him. This shows Square Enix themselves, like the fans, took the "brooding emo" perception of Cloud as the norm, and wasn't until Tetsuya Nomura decided he wanted to bring Cloud back closer to his original characterisation in Remake that this changed.
    • Advent Children also introduced a lot of the realistic aesthetics and 2000s-era all black Hot Topic appearance to the FFVII world, rather than the zany and colourful action figure-esque look of the original game. This often affects gamers who are more familiar with the later FFVII titles and upon starting the original game can't get over the cartoony '90s visuals.
  • Kiki's Delivery Service: Due to the popularity of the Studio Ghibli film, many subsequent works and adaptations (such as the 2014 live action adaptation) tend to portray Kiki's hair as being short as it is in the Ghibli film as opposed to long as it is in the novel. Even some versions of the novel outside of Japan have depicted her with short hair, such as the British version.
  • The Prince of Egypt has been cited as a major source of many popular misconceptions about the Book of Exodus—most notably the common belief that Moses didn't learn about his Hebrew heritage until he was an adult, and that Moses went before the Pharaoh to demand the Hebrews' freedom singlehandedly; in Scripture, it's heavily implied that Moses always knew that he was a Hebrew, and Moses' brother Aaron was the one who spoke to the Pharaoh (albeit with Moses' guidance). While The Ten Commandments (1956) (the other most famous adaptation of the Book of Exodus) does take some artistic license with the story, it gets most of that stuff right: Moses is the one who demands the Hebrews' freedom, but it accurately shows Aaron accompanying him, and he's the one who casts down the staff that transforms into a snake.

    Literature 
  • The Princess Bride: The latter runs include post-novel content in which William Goldman tells us (kayfabe) that Stephen King felt this way about Goldman's abridged version of the story. Goldman also cites this as one of the reasons he can't secure the rights to publish the sequel to the book in English; the Morgenstern estate feels that his abridgment was a travesty and won't let him near the sequel. The in-universe narrative is that The Princess Bride is really an elaborate satire of Florinese culture that just happens to contain a swashbuckling adventure story in it, and that Goldman's publishing of his "good parts" version was decried by purists as completely missing the point of the novel. (The reality is Goldman had made a few abortive attempts to start the sequel, but each time he realized he couldn't recapture the magic of the original.)

    Live-Action TV 
  • The Arrowverse has had this effect for the mythos of Green Arrow, The Flash, and Supergirl, which have been the biggest out-of-comics takes on those franchises. As a result, several Flash villains like Zoom, Captain Cold, and Savitar are more likely to bring up their show versions than the originals, and elements of Supergirl (2015) like the name Kara Danvers and National City have made their way to the comics, and the general audience would be surprised to learn they didn't exist before 2015. Unfortunately for many fans of the comics, though, as the shows receive a great deal of They Changed It, Now It Sucks! treatment and there's something of a Fandom Rivalry between fans of the comic versions and fans of the shows, having the shows become the popular representation of the franchises in pop culture can be something of a sour point. This especially goes for the Green Arrow, whose comic version is very different (the show version begins as a very dark Judge, Jury, and Executioner, and after that is always struggling with his own dark side. He is The Cowl to The Cape of Barry, and even a Russian Mafia captain nicknamed "The K. G. Beast" is shocked by his brutality. Very compelling, yes, but it leaves him with nothing in common with the comic version, or any other adaptation, beyond "shoots arrows".)
  • Batman (1966)'s high Camp depiction of Batman and company still lingers on as some (generally older) people's view of the character, despite several adaptations and major character changes since. This has continued to the extent that Warner Bros. Consumer Products approached Adam West and 20th Century Fox (producers of the TV show) in 2012 about producing merchandise based on the TV shows (also, greeting cards from Hallmark tend to follow the Adam West design, which most closely resembled the traditional comic book design).
    • Many also complain that the show paints The Comics Code/Silver Age-era Batman comics, which are now remembered as being as campy and silly as the show. Many forget that the West show was intended as a parody, and was restrained by the production values and budget of an ABC show in the 1960s. Fans of classic comics lament that so many view this period of comics as an Audience-Alienating Era because despite not treating a guy who dresses up as a giant bat to fight crime as such serious business, the Batman of the Silver Age comics at the time was still cool in his own right.
    • In some ways, Batman colored the perception for the entire genre of Western superheroes. Until 2000 or so, when superhero movies started being huge, any outside journalism on the genre would invariably feature "Bif! Pow!" in the headline, as if Adam West was the last word on the subject.
    • Notably, The Dark Age of Comic Books may have revitalized interest in the show as a backlash against all the grimdarkness. Batman: The Brave and the Bold was something of a love letter to both the show and the Silver Age DC comics, and included episodes written by Paul Dini, who did plenty of serious work for the comparatively serious Batman: The Animated Series. Also, in 2013 DC Comics debuted Batman '66, which treats the TV show as an alternate universe, even adding characters that either weren't in the show (such as Two-Face and Poison Ivy) or didn't even exist in 1966 (such as Bane from Knightfall and Harley Quinn from the '90s animated series), to modest success.
    • In an entirely positive example, thanks to Frank Gorshin's wonderful portrayal, the show almost single-handedly restored the Riddler in the public eye as one of Batman's chief archenemies alongside Joker and Penguin; prior to that, he was a minor villain that appeared in exactly three stories and had only just returned to the comics after an absence of 17 years, in a story that would inspire his inclusion. The smart suit, bowler hat and cane worn by Gorshin as a way to get out of the leotard has also become a staple of the character, to the point that it's hard to find a modern version wearing tights.
    • Mr. Freeze is a similar example; he only had one comic book appearance (in which he was called Mr. Zero and wore a garish-colored costume) prior to this show, but George Sanders' Wicked Cultured, Affably Evil portrayal of the character made him more popular among the comics' fans, to the point where the Adaptational Name Change got back ported into the comics. Even the silvery color of his costume and Preminger and Wallach's unnatural skin tones became the standard for Freeze's future appearances. His modern characterization wouldn't be fully codified until Batman: The Animated Series famously reinvented him as a Tragic Villain, but even that still owes a lot to his depiction in this show. Batman & Robin infamously tried to combine these two entirely different portrayals, to mixed results.
    • The Adam West TV show is still the metric in which anything Batman-related is compared to in Japan since that show was the first serious attempt to localize Batman for Japanese audiences. As a result, Batman gained a reputation for being a campy weirdo in a bat costume who punches and kicks equally campy weird villains, and the Japanese loved him for being exactly that. The result was later attempts to show more serious Batman stories falling flat in Japan because Japanese consumers were expecting something like Adam West's Batman and were disappointed. This persisted for at least a few decades, such as how the Christopher Nolan Batman trilogy was a Box-Office Bomb in Japan for not being campy, and some echoes of it are still felt today, considering nothing Batman-related has ever succeeded in Japan without being at least a little bit silly, such as Batman Ninja.
  • The Boys is definitely this for people in regards to the comic it's based on. The comic is one of Garth Ennis' lesser-known works and was generally meant to be a way for him to vent his frustrations and distaste at the superhero industry being a massive Take That! at DC and Marvel with shock for shock's sake violence, sex (often non-consensual), grotesque imagery, nihilism, and good old fashioned Toilet Humour. The much more well-known Amazon show, though still exceptionally dark and edgy, is really a Lighter and Softer Reconstruction that celebrates superhero tropes as much as it subverts them, leading to a far more nuanced and less hateful look at the genre. The show's portrayals of Homelander, Starlight, A-Train, The Deep, Maeve, and Soldier Boy in the show are all loved by fans, but in the comic itself, most said characters were very generic (even Starlight is just the Satellite Love Interest to Hughie). Comic Homelander in particular isn't anything like the Love to Hate charismatic super-bastard of the TV show that fans are fascinated by. Ironically, a good deal of fans of the show are simply turned off by the comic, either finding it too gross or just unsatisfied that it doesn't have the layers of the TV series.
  • The best-known entry of the Canadian teen drama franchise Degrassi is Degrassi: The Next Generation, the fourth incarnation, which ran from 2001 to 2015, and the one which starred future musician Drake. To this day, this entry has colored general public perception of the franchise; one of the effects of this being that many people, even if they are aware that it isn't, still speak of it as if it were the original or "default" version, despite it being a reboot of a beloved '80s Canadian cult classic, and the numerous allusions to this fact. Where this trope really affects the franchise can be seen in how a lot of people criticise Degrassi as a "whole" for falling prey to the same annoying and/or problematic tropes of most other Teen Drama series, when only Degrassi: The Next Generation and Degrassi: Next Class are really guilty of doing this, or at least are by far the most egregious; Degrassi Junior High and Degrassi High, the '80s series of which Next Generation was a continuation, both largely avoid a lot of the trappings that Next Generation is criticised for.
  • Any Doctor in Doctor Who will be inevitably compared to Tom Baker's take on the character, who is considered the default Doctor portrayal even though he was the fourth actor to play the rolenote  and was in contrast to his predecessors at the time. The "Hinchcliffe era" of the show, which had over-the-top Gothic Horror villains, a metafictional tone, What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?, No Hugging, No Kissing and lots of BBC Quarry sets, and corridor-running, is considered to be the way the show operates at its most Strictly Formula. (Note that this is something of a Dead Unicorn Trope.) After the New series took off, any new Doctor will also be compared to David Tennant, who is considered the default NuWho Doctor (although some use Matt Smith as a yardstick, given his more distinctive Doctor appearance).
  • The 2017 Inhumans series is likely to serve as this for the The Inhumans, albeit for the wrong reasons, since it was the first major adaptation to be centered on the Inhumans and thus the general public's first real exposure to the characters.note  First, the reason why the Inhumans tv series even existed at all was to popularize the Inhumans IP as the Marvel Cinematic Universe's alternative to mutants due to 20th Century Fox having the rights to the X-Men at the time. Second, while the series was intended to be set in the MCU, it was produced by Marvel Television and NOT Marvel Studios (the latter of whom produces the MCU films) — a situation caused by disputes between their respective heads, Ike Perlmutter and Kevin Feige.note  Third, when the Inhumans series ultimately came out, it not only received scathing reviews, it was released shortly around the time that Marvel's parent company Disney bought 20th Century Fox — thereby acquiring the X-Men film rights and making the whole endeavor to promote the Inhumans characters pointless. As a result of all this, the Inhumans (especially the royal family) in the comics have largely been downplayed (the major exception being Kamala Khan, who would later headline her own series). In fact, the 2017 Inhumans series was so damaging to the Inhumans brand that the Ms. Marvel series not only removed any connections between Kamala and the Inhumans, but established Kamala as a mutant instead.
  • The Incredible Hulk (1977) immortalized the titular hero as a pop culture icon, and influenced most subsequent adaptations. A notable example was the show's decision to not have the Hulk speak outside of grunts and roars, which many people took as a default part of the character. It became so ingrained in the minds of audiences that the character didn't consistently use his trademark Hulk Speak in the movies until 2017's Thor: Ragnarok (the Hulk's fourth major appearance in the MCU). The Hulk's iconic You Wouldn't Like Me When I'm Angry! catchphrase also originated in the series.
  • For the live action adaptations of the manga series The Kindaichi Case Files, it's almost unanimously agreed by fans and viewers that Tsuyoshi Domoto, Hajime's first actor from the 1990s version, is the Hajime Kindaichi, even if other actors have played Hajime over the decades. It's come to the point that when the 2022 adaptation premiered, there was a short that premiered with it of Tsuyoshi Domoto and Hajime's current actor, Shunsuke Michieda, talking about the impact of the '90s series with Domoto giving Michieda tips on playing Hajime.
  • Masked Rider, Saban's adaptation of Kamen Rider BLACK RX, didn't just color the Kamen Rider franchise itself, it also tarnished its very own name. Originally "Masked Rider" was the official romanized name of Kamen Rider (kamen simply means "mask" in Japanese), but because the name "Masked Rider" is so closely associated to the Saban version outside Japan, most fans refuse to use it despite its prominence in many products. When Adness made Kamen Rider Dragon Knight (adapted from Kamen Rider Ryuki), Executive Producer Steve Wang insisted on using "Kamen Rider" instead of "Masked Rider" since he wanted to distance the show from the Saban version. The Japanese shows, which were using the romanized name of "Masked Rider" on the logos since Kamen Rider Kuuga, followed suit by switching to "Kamen Rider" beginning with Kamen Rider Double. On top of that, some time ago Saban applied for a trademark for "Power Rider", which many believe is their giving "Kamen Rider" another swing. Although, that was around the time Power Rangers Samurai was airing (which gave fans the impression they would try to adapt Kamen Rider Decade, considering how it intersected with Samurai's source series), and the fact that Saban let the trademark expire suggests Saban merely did so so no one else could use it.
  • While Power Rangers is a successful franchise on its own, many Super Sentai purists view it as the reason why Super Sentai will never get the proper international recognition it deserves since the adapted footage of the costumes and giant robot battles are so deeply ingrained with Power Rangers, Super Sentai could never stand on its own merits. It's not uncommon to see Super Sentai videos on the internet (such as the "Legendary War" scene from Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger) to be labeled as Power Rangers videos or even Sentai toys sold on eBay also marked as Power Rangers as well. This is especially prevalent among fans from countries such as Brazil, the Philippines, or France, which used to air locally-dubbed versions of Super Sentai before switching to Power Rangers dubs.
    • On another level, the individual Sentai seasons can be tarred with the Rangers brush. Some past seasons get a bad reputation simply because of the following Rangers adaptations. Some fans who watch Rangers first looked a little skeptically on Gaoranger or Boukenger simply because of how badly they were adapted into Wild Force and Operation Overdrive, respectively.
    • This also applies to tokusatsu in general. Fairly often people would call any superhero from Japan "a Power Ranger" (or even worse, "a Power Ranger ripoff"), despite having no resemblance to one whatsoever. The only exception is GARO, largely due to its more adult themes, and the anime adaptation is far more well-known.
  • Sabrina the Teenage Witch (1996) is how most people know about the titular comics that have been running off and on since 1962. The animated series took more cues from the sitcom than the comics, such as Sabrina having long golden blonde hair rather than her comics' platinum blonde bob, Salem being a warlock turned into a cat (a black cat, at that — Salem had orange fur in the comics) as punishment for trying to take over the world, and Hilda being the ditzy aunt and Zelda the responsible one (other way around in the comics). It remains to be seen if the more horror-based adaptation Chilling Adventures of Sabrina will change audience perceptions.
  • Warehouse 13 uses this as a major plot point. All of the stories children grew up with, such as Cinderella and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, were bowdlerized Warehouse-issue fabrications designed to downplay the more horrifying aspects of the true stories.
  • The Wonder Woman series starring Lynda Carter colored, and continues to color, people's cultural knowledge of the character. Until the 2017 film, Wonder Woman never had the benefit of a successful adaptation that mitigates the Camp elements of the '70s show, and even after, older fans and pop culture still look heavily to the Carter version. The Justice League animated series has helped to some extent, but an adaptation with Adrianne Palicki was cancelled before it aired. And because, unlike the Batman show, it very rarely attempted to adapt any of the villain concepts from the comics, it's also left future filmmakers floundering to find a villain from the comics that the mainstream will recognize and care about. Patty Jenkins, a fan of the show, ended up leaning heavily towards the show's camp with Wonder Woman 1984, though this time to critical and audience indifference.

    Music 
  • The Beach Boys, despite being known as a surf band, actually transitioned into a highly influential Progressive Pop band in 1966 with the release of their Magnum Opus Pet Sounds. However, Pet Sounds was an Acclaimed Flop (except in Britain), immediately overshadowed by the "Best Of" record Best of the Beach Boys Vol. 1 issued by their label without the band's permission to make up for the loss of producing Pet Sounds. While the worldwide success of the single "Good Vibrations" put them on the road to being taken as seriously as rival band The Beatles, the failure of the follow-up single "Heroes and Villains" and the cancellation of Pet Sounds' follow-up SMiLE doomed them to "has-been" status. Then the release of the wildly successful Greatest Hits Album Endless Summer in 1974 cemented their reputation in the public eye as nothing more than a silly surf rock band, and it shifted the band's direction towards attempting to re-capture the success of their early hits (arguably for the worst).
  • Eminem:

    Mythology & Religion 
  • The Bible: The King James translation, with its florid verse and antiquated diction (it was deliberately written to be a bit archaic, even in James' day) has played a significant role in shaping the average person's image of The Bible in the English-speaking world. Most notably, it's the primary reason why so many people envision God speaking in archaic English, with His speech peppered with "thees" and "thous". Some anglophone Christians, specifically the King James Only movement, hold it in such high regard that they treat it as the perfect translation of the Bible and dismiss all other translations as heretical. This is a bit ironic if you know that the King James Bible initially became popular because of its literary merit rather than its accuracy: it wasn't intended to be a literal translation from Hebrew and Greek, but rather a work of English verse in its own right.
  • Classical Mythology:
    • The Metamorphoses by the late Roman poet Ovid are this to Classical Mythology as a whole; Greek was a lost language in Western Europe for most of the Middle Ages, so most people from that region's only expose to Classical Myth only came through what the Roman's had translated into Latin (which was widely spoken thanks to being the Lingua Franca of the Roman Empire and later the Catholic Church). As a result, the versions of the stories presented by Ovid are more widely known and influential than the earlier Greek versions (see Medusa's backstory for an excellent example). Ovid's depiction of the Olympians as a pantheon of Jerkass Gods was a deliberate choice reflecting his own anti-traditionalist views, but due to his works being among the most influential interpretations of Greek mythology, most people will think that your average ancient Greek really believed their gods were rapists and selfish manchildren prone to smiting for the most petty of reasons.
    • Popular perception of Orpheus comes from Virgil and Ovid, the latter being a parodist, who first retold the tragic myth of Orpheus and Eurydice as we know it today—his music charmed the Underworld and persuaded its rulers to give him a chance to save Eurydice, but he looked back and lost her again. This inadvertently made Orpheus's other accomplishments, like traveling with the Argonauts or his reputation as a magician and healer, pale in comparison to his failure at saving Eurydice. Operas like L'Orfeo and Orfeo ed Euridice further shaped his perception by focusing solely on his quest for Eurydice, to the point where even his adventure with the Argonauts is secondary in popular culture.
    • Medusa's perception as a Tragic Monster largely came from Ovid, who first depicted her as the victim of a curse due to relations with Poseidon (consensual or otherwise) in Athena's temple. In earlier stories she and her sisters were born monsters and purely evil, but for any sympathetic retellings of her story, Ovid's is the one people remember and write about most.
    • Medea killing her own children just to spite Jason seems to have been Euripides's invention, but it eventually became the more popular version and is the one most people remember. Originally, it was the citizens of Corinth who killed Medea's children to avenge their murdered king and princess.
    • King Midas truly realizing how his Midas Touch was Blessed with Suck by inadvertently turning his daughter into a static gold statue actually originates from Nathaniel Hawthorne's adaptation of King Midas' story in A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys, not the original Greek tellings.
    • Achilles'...well, Achilles' Heel is famous to the point that it's a term still widely used today, but that actually comes from Statius' The Achilleid and does not actually exist in The Trojan Cycle at all.

    Theatre 
  • The Marriage of Figaro was originally a play by Beaumarchais, and was the second installment in his Figaro trilogy. Mozart's opera adaptation, however, has been so much more successful than the original playnote that all subsequent adaptations of the plays are compared to Mozart's version of the story, rather than Beaumarchais':
    • Rossini's adaptation of the "prequel" (The Barber of Seville, the actual first installment of the trilogy) gives Marcellina a much larger role than in the original play, due to her importance in Mozart's sequel, although it changes her name to Berta.
    • Additionally, the success of Mozart's version has doomed any attempt to adapt the third play in the trilogy, The Guilty Mother, because of its darker tone. Beaumarchais wrote the trilogy as a progression from comedy to tragedy, but Mozart toned down or removed many of the darker themes from the second play that made that progression more gradual; his version only hinted at Cherubino's lust for the Countess and cut any mention of her reciprocation, and it plays for laughs the Count's plan to force Cherubino into military service. As such, Guilty Mother's revelation that the Countess had an affair with Cherubino (who is now dead, having been killed in battle) and gave birth to his child is a Genre Shift that is too abrupt for audiences to accept, given the light comedic tone of Mozart's opera.
  • Since its debut in 1986, the musical adaptation of The Phantom of the Opera popularized the Phantom's image of wearing a mask covering only half his face rather than the full face mask in the book. This only came about because it made it easier for the actor to wear a headset microphone and be more clearly understood while performing. The 1986 musical is also directly responsible for turning the Phantom from a Tragic Monster to a sensual Draco in Leather Pants villain who enthralls the heroine Christine, in contrast to Gaston Leroux’s version where Erik (that’s his name in the book) while sympathetic is still horrifying and repulsive in his appearance as well as his Ax-Crazy behaviour. You will find plenty of people who complain about the Lon Chaney version of the Phantom being too ugly and monstrous even though it’s far more accurate to the original book than the musical version. Christine is also affected by the musical. The most popular perception of her: The Ingenue brunette Sarah Brightman version, who is very submissive to the Phantom’s machinations is actually far removed from the book version of Christine who is a blonde, bold, outspoken Well, Excuse Me, Princess! Plucky Girl who spends most of the book protecting her Love Interest Raoul after learning the “Angel of Music”'s true nature. Fans who started with the musical are often quite surprised upon reading the novel at how different Christine is (i.e courageous and active) compared to her musical theater counterpart.
  • William Shakespeare did this with almost every story he adapted for the stage.
    • When we talk about historical figures like Richard III of England or Macbeth, King of Scotland, we're usually talking about — or at least acknowledging — their decidedly villainous portrayals in Shakespeare. These two plays in particular are often given a Setting Update, such as the 1995 version of Richard III with Ian McKellen, which transplants the character into the 1930s and the rise of fascism, or the 2007 Patrick Stewart Macbeth, which was set in something resembling the Soviet Union in the late '40s and early '50s, taking the characters out of their historical contexts. If audiences weren't already trained to see Richard III and Macbeth as literary characters first and historical figures second, this would seem ridiculous and anachronistic.
    • Everyone knows Lady Macbeth, but most people couldn't tell you her actual name, because it's never mentioned in the play. For the curious, it was Gruoch. Many scholars and English classes have debated her lines "I have given suck, and know \ How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me" since no child of hers appears in the play, and a few adaptations will play her as having lost a child in the backstory. It's rarely mentioned in analysis of the play that she did have a son, Lulach, by her first husband (Lulach was thus Macbeth's stepson), and he outlived Macbeth by a good 18 years.
    • When we talk about Pyramus and Thisbe, we're probably talking about the incompetent Show Within a Show from A Midsummer Night's Dream, and not the story from Ovid's Metamorphoses.
    • There was actually a bit of a fuss around this during Shakespeare's own lifetime: in early versions of the Henry IV plays, the character of Sir John Falstaff — an alcoholic Fat Bastard and all-around Lazy Bum, though undeniably a Jerk with a Heart of Gold — was named Sir John Oldcastle, after an actual knight at Henry's court. The descendants of the actual Oldcastle, anticipating this trope, complained that the play would ruin their ancestor's good name, so Shakespeare renamed the character.
    • Everybody knows that at the end of Hamlet, almost every main character is dead, right? Not many people know that's an Adaptational Alternate Ending; in the original Scandinavian legend of Amleth, as recorded by Saxo, the title character kills his Evil Uncle (whose name is Feng, and not Claudius) and becomes king of Jutland. His story doesn't even stop there; he gets mixed up in a whole series of wacky antics in the British Isles, is simultaneously married to two princesses, before ultimately falling in battle to a rival king from his mother's family. There's another version of the story in which it isn't even Amleth who kills Feng, but the ghost of his murdered father (whose name, in this version, is Orwendel).
    • The story of King Lear is actually drawn from the Historia Regum Britanniae...which has a happy ending, with Lear restored to the throne and Cordelia eventually succeeding him. Funnily enough, Shakespeare's tragedy was largely replaced by a bowdlerized version, Nahum Tate's The History of King Lear, for 150 years. It's rarely shown today but has always proven popular with audiences.

    Video Games 
  • Final Fantasy VII's immense popularity has meant every other Final Fantasy entry is compared to it, and tropes that only happen in VII are considered to be emblematic cliches of the series. On top of that, a lot of the tropes that people associate with VII are Dead Unicorn Tropes originating from successive portrayals of the characters in Kingdom Hearts and Fanon (as well as Advent Children, as mentioned in the animated films section).
  • In a partial example, Dak'kon from Planescape: Torment. Dak'kon, a canonically Lawful Neutral Zen Survivor with shades of Warrior Monk, was deliberately an unusual Githzerai; most were Chaotic Neutral, befitting their home in the inherently chaotic plane of Limbo. For every edition of Dungeons & Dragons thereafter, the Githzerai became more and more like Dak'kon, who himself became a major, often-referenced figure in their history after his time with the Nameless One.
  • Super Smash Bros. has done this for a number of characters, due to intentional and unintentional reinterpretation:
    • Many depictions of Solid Snake use his Smash design, which he never actually looked like. Smash Snake's design is essentially Big Boss wearing Snake's outfit, and even then it's based entirely on the Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty Sneaking Suit (as that game was Solid Snake's most recent appearance when Super Smash Bros. Brawl added him to the series).
    • Roy has been named in fanon to be a Hot-Blooded tough guy when he's actually a soft-spoken and underconfident strategist.
    • Samus tends to be treated in fanon as a Femme Fatale, an athlete, and/or a huge Animal Lover based on her "Zero Suit" depictions in Smash (with the "animal lover" part specifically coming from the Subspace Emissary where she saves and protects Pikachu, which also extends to her suited form, though this also has its roots in a much older game). In her native series meanwhile, she's generally depicted as a stock Silent Protagonist, with what little dialogue she does get being fairly clinical, the sole exception being her more timid portrayal in Metroid: Other M.
    • Captain Falcon is treated as a flamboyant superhero with highly-damaging attacks, when in his native series he's a stoic racer who never gets into a single fistfight (the superhero archetype is actually Super Arrow, along with his wife, Mrs. Arrow). Plus, several of his movements and animations, like his Victory Pose where he does an overhead kick, are more fitting for the hunter character Beastman. Notably, fan portrayals of Captain Falcon based on his Smash appearances got big enough to directly inform the campier direction of F-Zero GX and the stylistic middle ground of both F-Zero: GP Legend and later promotional material (both in and out of Smash).
    • Ness and Lucas are often treated in fanon as knowing offensive PSI skills like PK Thunder and PK Fire like they do in Smash, while in their own games those abilities are actually used by Paula and Kumatora, respectively.
  • Madou Monogatari has a reputation among Westerners for being a dark and gritty lore-ridden dungeon crawling RPG due to having a more realistic art style compared to the cuter, Denser and Wackier Puyo Puyo games that came out around the same time. They are entirely referring to the PC-98 version of Madou Monogatari 1-2-3, which was intentionally made Darker and Edgier compared to every other version of the game due to Compile wanting it to resonate more with the "hardcore" PC crowd. Madou Monogatari at its core was no darker than even the more serious Puyo Puyo games.
  • Twisted Metal: The fifth game in the series, Twisted Metal: Black, gave it a Darker and Edgier makeover and an M rating after the previous two games had been criticized for going in a Lighter and Softer direction. Most of the playable characters are now inmates in an asylum for the criminally insane, the series' mascot Needles Kane (aka Sweet Tooth) has gone from just a kooky weirdo clown to a Monster Clown Serial Killer, the Twisted Metal tournament's malevolent organizer Calypso has gone from a Man of Wealth and Taste to a bald-headed guy who looks like a drifter, and the aesthetic of the vehicles and maps has gone full-blown grimdark, swapping out the realistic environments and cars of prior games for a crumbling hellhole of a city and old beaters covered in improvised armor plating. While the next "main" game, the 2012 installment simply titled Twisted Metal,note  brought some color back to the environments, the subject matter in the characters' stories remained as violent, gory, and depraved as it was in Black. As such, the series gained a reputation as being about a bunch of psycho serial killers with backstories as twisted as, well, the metal in the games, to the point that the goofy action/comedy B-Movie tone of the TV adaptation came as a shock to many people who were only familiar with Black and the 2012 game, even though it was pretty faithful to what the rest of the series was like. This retrospective on Black by Tactical Bacon Productions describes how, when he was streaming gameplay footage of one of the earlier games to record for a video, one of his friends, knowing the series only from Black and the 2012 game, said he wouldn't watch because he was squeamish about gore even though the game wasn't gory in the slightest.
  • Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines: The raving lunatic flavour of Malkavian was not pioneered by Bloodlines, but the PC Malk is such a relentless and over the top example that their portrayal has practically become synonymous with the clan; their unique route is also one of the most well-remembered things about this game. This has historically been a pet peeve for Vampire: The Masquerade tabletop players, who often find "fishmalk" to be a popular choice for newbies who love the idea of playing a wacky vampire and forgo the clan's intricacies and potential for drama in favour of emulating the Malkavian PC's behaviour in Bloodlines. Also notable is that the other major Malkavian characters in the game, Jeanette/Therese and Grout, incline much more to the mental-illness-gone-haywire depiction of the clan, and their twisted psyches are Played for Drama.
  • The Witcher game series by CD Projekt RED is undoubtedly this across the Witcher franchise as despite deviating from the source books it is many people's first introduction to Geralt and co. The original author Andrzej Sapkowski has even expressed some annoyance over the fact the video game series is people's go-to when it comes to his work (in fairness, the books weren't even translated into English by the time the first game came out). Interestingly. the Netflix series caused a Broken Base as fans of the games disliked it for being different even though it's more faithful to the books in a good deal of respects than the games. For instance, Triss Merigold is horribly burned below her neck in the books, which the show goes with, whereas in the heavily Rule of Sexy games, her injuries are not seen even with a Navel-Deep Neckline.

    Western Animation 
  • Batman: The Animated Series had a profound and long-lasting impact on how audiences came to view the Batman IP, with later entries in the franchise more often than not using the show's gothic neo-noir tone and "Dark Deco" aesthetic as the building blocks for their own interpretations. Among other specific examples, the show's Tragic Villain version of Mr. Freeze got so popular that it was incorporated into most later versions of the character, series-original villain Harley Quinn is generally regarded as being as crucial to the franchise as the Joker himself, and both Kevin Conroy's Batman and Mark Hamill's Joker are still the yardsticks by which later actors in the roles are compared.
  • Castlevania (2017) is the best known incarnation of the Castlevania franchise, which has influenced how the public at large percieve various aspects of the series. The show painted the series in a far grimmer and less altruistic light, repeatedly emphasising the evil of humanity and Grey-and-Grey Morality while making various changes to the characters that have taken over the older characterisations from the game. Rather than a proud but compassionate warrior that fearlessly led the charge against Dracula, Trevor is perceived as a surly, cynical drunkard with a heart of gold, Alucard becomes a standoffish, tortured but ultimately heroic young man, a stark contrast to the noble but cold and inhuman version introduced in Symphony of the Night, and Sypha is changed the most by becoming a Speaker Magician, in her own words seperate from a witch, hunted by the church, when in the games she was a witch both protected and employed by the church, and then there's Grant who was left out entirely due to Warren Ellis having a personal distain for the character, leading Grant being ignored outright. This has caused something of an Old Guard Versus New Blood divide as long standing aspects of the games that were taken for granted were disregarded or outright contradicted, such as Dracula's status as the eternal God of Evil or Death being Dracula's unwavering right hand, or most drastically Dracula giving up his warpath and permanantly stepping out of the villain role, something that the game incarnation wouldn't do even if he wanted to due to his role in universe.
  • Starting in the mid-2010s, the DC Super Hero Girls cartoons have made Jessica Cruz one of the more prominent Green Lanterns for younger general audiences as well, helped that she's a Latina woman bearing the mantle of one of the more well-known superheroes. Some media such as the RWBY/Justice League crossover comic use her volumetric hair with a green streak, based on her 2019 DC Super Hero Girls appearance, and her popularity as well as being a representation character are why she's sometimes used in place of Hal and John nowadays.
  • Rankin/Bass's adaptation of Frosty the Snowman. While Frosty has been a staple of the holiday season since 1950 and gained an animated adaptation by UPA in 1953, the Rankin/Bass version of Frosty the Snowman has become the default version of the character and song. Most parodies and shoutouts are entirely based on the "Rankin/Bass Frosty". Even the 1992 semi-sequel Frosty Returns by Bill Meléndez takes cues from the 1969 special, with Frosty's design being similar to the Rankin/Bass version. The official music video of the song (performed by Jimmy Durante before performing it again in the special) is also designed after this version of him, including the hat and nose.
  • Everyone remembers He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (1983), with its goofy takes on the characters and the moral segments at the end. It was a cultural phenomenon in its day and is ripe for Memetic Mutation in the Internet age. Fewer know that it was not the first version, and it wasn't even close to the last. The earliest version of He-Man were the minicomics sold with the Mattel Action Figures; he had no Secret Identity, just being a Barbarian Hero in a sort of Future Primitive setting implied to be After the End of their world. The 2002 series was a reboot that primarily drew from the first cartoon, but dialed down the camp and bumped things up a stage on the Sliding Scale of Continuity. DC Comics would handle another reboot in 2012, in the form of a Darker and Edgier comic series. On top of that, you have the spin-off of the first cartoon, She-Ra, about He-Man's long-lost sister, and the pseudo-sequel, The New Adventures of He-Man, which moved to a new setting, mostly new cast, and transitioned to sci-fi.
  • How the Grinch Stole Christmas! depicted its titular antagonist as green instead of white (though color printing wasn't widely available when the original book was published), cemented Boris Karloff as the voice of the Grinch, and famously made "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" a staple of any future adaptions to have it covered. But because of the special's influence, it's The Grinch most audiences are familiar with. The more prominent roles featuring his pet dog Max were also thanks to the very same special, since in the original book, Max's role was subordinately supporting at its largest.
  • Invincible (2021) is this for the Robert Kirkman comic it's adapted from. While the comic is beloved among comic book readers, it's simply more obscure to mainstream audiences than DC and Marvel works, consequently making the animated Amazon series a lot of people's first exposure to the Invincible franchise. This means that the changes the show makes to the comic book are treated as normal by people simply not familiar with the source material. For instance, Mark the protagonist is treated as something of a Memetic Loser by fans of the show for getting the shit kicked out of him and bent bloody in most battles. In the comic, it's not until Mark fights his father Nolan as well as other powerful villains that he almost dies and is bloodily beaten up, as he's actually much more durable the majority of the time, whilst the show makes Mark more fragile to emphasise his Ironic Nickname. Omni-Man is also compared to Homelander by new fans (both series being on the same streaming service) with the frequently talked-about moment where he puts Mark in the path of a speeding train with the passengers getting torn apart all over him being actually original to the show, and a case of Adaptational Villainy compared to the comic, where Nolan never deliberately kills innocent civilians to traumatise Mark. Even the famous "Think, Mark!" pose which has been heavily memed by everyone didn't happen in the comic issue.
  • Justice League influenced many people's views on characters like Wonder Woman and Green Lantern for years, because it served as their only major appearances throughout the 2000s and early 2010s. For example, many are surprised to find that Batman and Wonder Woman are not an Official Couple in the comics. In regards to the latter, while they're sometimes written as having feelings for each other, Wonder Woman is usually with Steve Trevor (or Superman in any sort of Elseworlds story).note  In regards to the latter, when the 2011 Green Lantern film came out, many accused DC of Race Lifting Green Lantern, unaware that Hal predated John and that there are multiple Green Lanterns of Earth (not counting Alan Scott, there were four Lanterns operating concurrently in the comics at that point). Even the comics themselves have taken influence from the DCAU show, with Justice League (2018) by Scott Snyder having the Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Martian Manhunter, John Stewart Green Lantern, and Hawkgirl line-up in addition to a lot of the humorous team chemistry from the show.
  • My Little Pony: Material from older iterations of the franchise is frequently dismissed by the 4th Generation fandom as an unwatchable pile of sugary sweetness. This is almost entirely because of My Little Pony (G3), which had Slice of Life stories with no villains to speak of. People turned onto the franchise by My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic are often surprised to find the G1 TV specials, movie, and cartoon show can be remarkably mature, can be a bit dark, and on occasion quite horrifying. My Little Pony Tales, while also a slice-of-life show with no villains, gets less flak by virtue of its only claim to fame being that it was obscure to begin with.
  • The Popeye theatrical shorts are far better known than the comic strip he originated from, meaning anyone who reads them are surprised to find that the comic boasts actual storylines and strong continuity, as opposed to the shorts, which are a pure Gag Series. Similarly, the comic rarely uses any spinach to get Popeye out of a fix — the shorts made the vegetable an integral part of his character.
  • Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964):
  • Spider-Man: The Animated Series (1994) on Fox Kids, much like its sister show X-Men, greatly impacted Spidey’s lore, and became one of the most celebrated and long-running adaptations of the superhero. Notably, the idea of Venom Symbiote affecting the host’s personality, i.e. making Peter douchey and aggressive, originated from the animated version of the saga, as in the comic version the Symbiote (being in love with Peter) was actually happy just being a cool costume and it didn’t change his personality whatsoever. It only went nuts and villainous when Peter rejected it upon learning from Mr. Fantastic that it was alive. Now, thanks to the '90s show, every subsequent retelling of the Symbiote Saga (e.g Spider-Man 3, The Spectacular Spider-Man, Ultimate Spider-Man (2000) and Marvel's Spider-Man 2) has the Symbiote suit adversely affect Spidey when he wears it, to the point of it being a Superpowered Evil Side.
  • Super Friends has crippled Aquaman as a character for quite a long time, largely because of the memetic value of the show always making sure he can contribute to the team dynamics. Give him a harpoon hand, replace it with a magical water hand, point out how life at the bottom of the ocean has made him stronger, faster, and more resilient than most humans... and everyone will still be like, "He's just some guy who swims fast and talks to fish". The comic and various other adaptations have been trying to combat this for years (for instance, Justice League followed the comics of the time and gave him features of a Barbarian Hero, while Batman: The Brave and the Bold made him a Boisterous Bruiser and Large Ham), but while these versions each had their share of fans none seemed to permanently stick in the public consciousness until he was featured in the DC Extended Universe (which also went the barbarian look route), where he's played by Jason Momoa. Between Ronon Dex, Khal Drogo and Conan, if there was one person in the world who could rescue Aquaman's reputation as a stone-cold badass, it was him. Based on how his solo movie's turned into a billion-dollar success, it's a fair bet to say he's succeeded.
  • Superman: The Animated Series introduced a new version of Brainiac who has largely shaped popular perceptions of the character, to the point that he's arguably more iconic than the original version from the comics. Thanks to the show, many casual fans are likely to believe that Brainiac is a Kryptonian android rather than a Coluan cyborg, and they're likely to picture him as a stoic and dispassionate villain driven by the pursuit of knowledge (rather than a ruthless cyborg driven to conquer or assimilate lesser lifeforms). Notably, the version of Brainiac from the animated series was something of a Composite Character with "The Eradicator", who is now relatively obscure due to Brainiac replacing him in the show.
  • Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles:
    • Everyone remembers the 1987 cartoon, while the much darker original comics and subsequent cartoons and movies seem to be living in its shadow... Much like the '60s Batman example earlier in the page. Most notable are the heroes in a half-shell having differently colored bandanas (in the original comics, they all had red bandanas), the Shredder being promoted from a Token Motivational Nemesis to the Big Bad, and the show's depiction of April O'Neil and her famous yellow jumpsuit, to the point that most other TMNT adaptions will find a small way to homage it, if not have her outright wear something similar.
    • The 2003 cartoon has a more notable character example with Karai. Karai as she appeared in the comics was originally a much more neutral character who could be ruthless but was not an enemy of the Turtles and while she was also a Foot Clan member, she didn't have much to do with Shredder either. However, the 2003 show established her as a daughter figure to the Shredder with varying degrees of loyalty to him and usually starts out as an enemy to the Turtles with her and Leonardo having some kind of connection of sorts. This characterization of Karai would go on to be her more familiar template for future incarnations.
  • The popularity of both the 2000s Teen Titans animated series and the 2010s Teen Titans Go! has made those incarnations of the characters — from personality to costumes — the definitive version of the superhero team, with the comic book versions of these characters being changed to account for the fact that potential readers would be more familiar with the animated versions. Foremost was the higher humor quotient between Cyborg as a Boisterous Bruiser and Fun Personified, Raven as a Perky Goth and The Comically Serious while Starfire as a Funny Foreigner with a Verbal Tic in avoiding contractions and regularly say the word "the." Raven's costume also changed to be a Leotard of Power (because it was easier to animate) and Starfire uses green starbolts, with her sister Blackfire now sporting purple ones, as opposed to the entire Tameranian species just having red starbolts. Cyborg in the comics got a "promotion" of sorts to become a Justice League of America founding member in the New 52 DC Comics era, which followed through in both the DC Animated Movie Universe and Justice League (2017) film. But when Justice League vs. Teen Titans came out, there was a notable effort to keep a very similar roster (Robin is Damian Wayne rather than Dick Grayson, and the Jaime Reyes Blue Beetle is a tech-centered character like Cyborg) and ensure that Cyborg became more friendly with the group because of the Teen Titans show's legacy.
  • The Smurfs (1981):
    • While The Smurfs has been active since 1958, the Hanna-Barbera series that ran throughout the 1980s has left a huge impact with the franchise as a whole (especially in the United States). The series made the Smurf species notably nicer and cuter compared to their mischievous behavior and tendencies present in original Belgian comics. Despite the show ending in 1989, it left a huge impact with the public (mainly Americans) believing The Smurfs to be saccharine and sentimental. Even Peanuts creator Charles Schulz hated The Smurfs finding them "ugly" as detailed in some of his autobiography books. This doesn't affect fans of the series in Europe (especially in France, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany) due to Franco-Belgian Comics being huge compared to the United States. It also toned down the slapstick and social satirical elements that was common in the comics and pre-HB animated media.
    • The show popularized the idea of Gargamel and Azrael always being the Arch-Enemy to The Smurfs. In the comics and older Smurf media, Gargamel and Azrael only appeared in two storylines from the comics with The Smurfs facing other dangerous humans and animals (such as The Howlibird). The massive popularity of the Hanna-Barbera cartoon caused both Gargamel and his cat to be the default antagonists which Peyo decided to incorporate into the comics near the end of his life.
    • In the comics, The Smurfs' food of choice was Sarsaparilla. The 1980s series changed it to "Smurfberries" which gained its own cereal brand during the show's original run. Their love for Smurfberries was present in the live-action film series by Sony Pictures Animation and the CGI animated film Smurfs: The Lost Village. The 2021 series reverted back to them loving Sarsaparilla despite taking place in the same universe as the 2017 animated film. The 2010 mobile game Smurfs Village features The Smurfs equally enjoying both Smurfberries and Sarsaparilla.
  • The 1992 X-Men: The Animated Series cartoon from Fox Kids is pretty true to the story of the original comics, but its distinctive visual style and futuristic art direction have had a pretty big impact on how general audiences picture the X-Men. Notably, it used the character designs of Jim Lee, who only drew the comics for a very brief window of time in the early 1990s. Thanks to the show, many people tend to picture Cyclops wearing a blue kevlar suit with yellow cross belts and a wraparound visor (he wore a tight spandex suit with a full-face mask for most of his history), they tend to picture Professor Xavier using a fancy yellow hover-chair, and they tend to picture Rogue with a bomber jacket and a huge mane of dark hair; it probably doesn't hurt that those same character designs would be used in several classic Capcom arcade games of the period (most famously Marvel vs. Capcom), which remained popular with gamers for decades afterward, cementing their iconic status. The show is also likely why Gambit and Jubilee are widely considered "classic" X-Men, despite being relatively recent additions to the franchise (at the time the show started, Jubilee had only been introduced three years prior, and Gambit two years). To give you an idea of this: while most of the Marvel character icons on the Disney+ app are from the movies, the X-Men icons are all slightly modernized versions of the '90s cartoon designs. Special mention to the iconic theme song, which has been used in the MCU as a leitmotif!
  • When The Railway Series storybooks were adapted into the now insanely-successful Thomas & Friends series, there were numerous changes right out of the gate; Annie and Clarabel had 4 wheels each instead of bogies, there was only one Sir Topham Hatt, the Skarloey Railway engines were painted in different colors instead of sharing a uniform livery, Henry never received a blue livery, neither did Donald and Douglas, Toad is Oliver's break van rather than Douglas', and Thomas himself retains his distinctive sloped footplate dip on his front. Knapford was also changed from a minor junction to the main terminus in the middle of Sodor, while Gordon's hill was now an actual hill rather than a simple incline. The first 26 books were published annually beginning in 1945 before stopping, followed by 13 more on a similar schedule in 1983, before finally ending with two one-off prints in 2007 and 2011. The television series, however, ran consecutively for 37 years, from 1984 to 2021. While the series did switch to CGI in 2009 before a 2D reboot replaced it in 2021, the original live-action model episodes, especially those from the first to seventh series, are the most well-remembered of the entire franchise, and aside from liberal fan adaptations, most fan stories tend to draw inspiration and visual cues from those episodes the most. Most younger fans, however, are much more familiar with the CGI entries in the franchise, with these being emulated just as much as the original model episodes (though the writing is more along the lines of seasons 17-21, which are widely considered the best seasons of CGI Thomas).


 
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How Movies Changed Comics

Film Theory breaks down how exactly the Marvel movies managed to change the characters in the Marvel comics to better outline the film counterparts, listing examples like Wolverine, the Avengers, and the Guardians of the Galaxy

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