WMythopoeia is a narrative genre in modern literature and film where a fictional or artificial mythology is created by the writer of prose or other fiction. This meaning of the word mythopoeia follows its use by J. R. R. Tolkien in the 1930s. The authors in this genre integrate traditional mythological themes and archetypes into fiction.
WBerserk is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Kentaro Miura. Set in a medieval Europe-inspired dark fantasy world, the story centers on the characters of Guts, a lone mercenary, and Griffith, the leader of a mercenary band called the "Band of the Hawk". Miura premiered a prototype of Berserk in 1988. The series began the following year in the Hakusensha's now-defunct magazine Monthly Animal House, which was replaced in 1992 by the semimonthly magazine Young Animal, where Berserk has continued its publication intermittently. Miura died of aortic dissection in May 2021. A posthumous chapter was published in the magazine in September 2021.
WBlasphemous is a Metroidvania video game developed by Spanish studio The Game Kitchen and published by Team17. The game was released for Nintendo Switch, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on 10 September 2019, and for macOS and Linux on 21 September 2020.
WBleach is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Tite Kubo. Bleach follows the adventures of the hotheaded teenager Ichigo Kurosaki, who inherits his parents' destiny after he obtains the powers of a Soul Reaper—a death personification similar to the Grim Reaper—from another Soul Reaper, Rukia Kuchiki. His new-found powers force him to take on the duties of defending humans from evil spirits and guiding departed souls to the afterlife, and set him on journeys to various ghostly realms of existence.
WThe Buffyverse or Slayerverse is a media franchise created by Joss Whedon. The term also refers to the shared fictional universe in which the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel are set. This term, originally coined by fans of the TV series, has since been used in the titles of published works, and adopted by Joss Whedon, the creator of the fictional universe. The Buffyverse is a place in which supernatural phenomena exist, and supernatural evil can be challenged by people willing to fight against such forces. Much of the licensed Buffyverse merchandise and media, while being official, isn't considered to be canon within the universe.
WCarnivàle is an American television series set in the United States during the Great Depression. The series traces the disparate storylines of a young carnival worker named Ben Hawkins and Brother Justin Crowe, a preacher in California. The overarching story is built around a good and evil theme, which serves as a human-scaled metaphor within a complex structure of myth and allegory. Samson, the carnival's dwarf manager, sets up the show's mythology with a prologue in the pilot episode, talking of "a creature of light and a creature of darkness" being born "to each generation" preparing for a final battle.
WThe Cthulhu Mythos is a mythopoeia and a shared fictional universe, originating in the works of American horror writer H. P. Lovecraft. The term was coined by August Derleth, a contemporary correspondent and protégé of Lovecraft, to identify the settings, tropes, and lore that were employed by Lovecraft and his literary successors. The name Cthulhu derives from the central creature in Lovecraft's seminal short story "The Call of Cthulhu", first published in the pulp magazine Weird Tales in 1928.
WThe Dark Tower is a series of eight books and one short story written by American author Stephen King. Incorporating themes from multiple genres, including dark fantasy, science fantasy, horror, and Western, it describes a "gunslinger" and his quest toward a tower, the nature of which is both physical and metaphorical. The series, and its use of the Dark Tower, expands upon Stephen King's multiverse and in doing so, links together many of his other novels.
WThe DC Animated Universe is a shared universe of superhero-based animated television series, produced by Warner Bros. Animation and based on characters that appear in American comic books published by DC Comics. The shared universe, much like the original DC Universe in comic books, was established by crossing over common plot elements, settings, cast, and characters.
WThe DC Universe (DCU) is the fictional shared universe where most stories in American comic book titles published by DC Comics take place. DC superheroes such as Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Martian Manhunter, The Flash, Green Lantern and Aquaman are from this universe, as well as teams such as the Justice League and the Teen Titans. It also contains well-known supervillains such as Lex Luthor, the Joker, Sinestro, Harley Quinn, Reverse-Flash, Darkseid, General Zod, Penguin, the Riddler, Catwoman, Ra’s al Ghul, Bane and Two-Face. In context, the term "DC Universe" usually refers to the main DC continuity.
WCount Dracula is the title character of Bram Stoker's 1897 gothic horror novel Dracula. He is considered to be both the prototypical and the archetypal vampire in subsequent works of fiction. He is also depicted in the novel to have been the origin of werewolf legends. Some aspects of the character are believed to have been inspired by the 15th-century Wallachian Prince Vlad the Impaler, who was also known as Dracula, and by Sir Henry Irving, an actor for whom Stoker was a personal assistant.
WEquestria is the fictional setting of the fourth and fifth generation of the My Little Pony toyline and media franchise, including the animated television series My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic and My Little Pony: Pony Life. Created by Lauren Faust, the setting incorporates many elements of fantasy, including European and Greek mythology.
WThe Hyborian Age is a fictional period of Earth's history within the artificial mythology created by Robert E. Howard, serving as the setting for the sword and sorcery tales of Conan the Barbarian.
WIron John: A Book About Men is a book by American poet Robert Bly, and an exegesis of Iron John, a parable belonging to the Grimms' Fairy Tales (1812) by German folklorists Brothers Grimm about a boy maturing into adulthood with help of the wild man.
WKirby: Genesis is an American comic book limited series published from May 25, 2011 to July 11, 2012 by Dynamite Entertainment. It was based on Jack Kirby's work for Pacific Comics in the 1980s and the "Kirbyverse" line published by Topps Comics in the 1990s.
WThe Lord of the Rings is an epic high-fantasy novel by English author and scholar J. R. R. Tolkien. Set in Middle-earth, intended to be Earth at some distant time in the past, the story began as a sequel to Tolkien's 1937 children's book The Hobbit, but eventually developed into a much larger work. Written in stages between 1937 and 1949, The Lord of the Rings is one of the best-selling books ever written, with over 150 million copies sold.
WThe Marvel Universe is a fictional universe where the stories in most American comic book titles and other media published by Marvel Comics take place. Super-teams such as the Avengers, the X-Men, the Fantastic Four, and many Marvel superheroes live in this universe, including characters such as Spider-Man, Iron Man, Thor, the Hulk, Ant-Man, the Wasp, Captain America, Wolverine, Black Panther, Doctor Strange, Daredevil, Captain Marvel and Deadpool, among numerous others. It also contains well-known supervillains such as Doctor Doom, Magneto, Ultron, Thanos, Loki, Green Goblin, Kang the Conqueror, Kingpin, Doctor Octopus and Venom.
WMortal Kombat is an American media franchise centered on a series of video games, originally developed by Midway Games in 1992. The development of the first game was originally based on an idea that Ed Boon and John Tobias had of making a video game starring Jean-Claude Van Damme, but as that idea fell through, a science fantasy-themed fighting game was created instead. Still the developers paid homage to him with Johnny Cage, a fictional film star whose personal style resembles Van Damme's. The original Mortal Kombat was the first fighting game to introduce a secret fighter, reached if the player fulfilled a set of requirements.
WThe Mythopoeic Awards for literature and literary studies are given annually for outstanding works in the fields of myth, fantasy, and the scholarly study of these areas. Established by the Mythopoeic Society in 1971, the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award is given for "fiction in the spirit of the Inklings", and the Scholarship Award for non-fiction work. The award is a statuette of a seated lion, with a plaque on the base. It has drawn resemblance to, and is often called, the "Aslan".
WThe Mythopoeic Society (MythSoc) is a non-profit organization devoted to the study of mythopoeic literature, particularly the works of J. R. R. Tolkien, Charles Williams, and C. S. Lewis, all members of The Inklings, an informal group of writers who met weekly in C.S. Lewis' rooms at Magdalen College, Oxford, from the early 1930s through late 1949.
WNaruto is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Masashi Kishimoto. It tells the story of Naruto Uzumaki, a young ninja who seeks recognition from his peers and dreams of becoming the Hokage, the leader of his village. The story is told in two parts – the first set in Naruto's pre-teen years, and the second in his teens. The series is based on two one-shot manga by Kishimoto: Karakuri (1995), which earned Kishimoto an honorable mention in Shueisha's monthly Hop Step Award the following year, and Naruto (1997).
WRise of Incarnates was a multiplayer free-to-play fighting video game developed and published by Bandai Namco Entertainment. Announced early 2014 and presented at the 2014 Electronic Entertainment Expo, the game featured two-on-two gameplay. The game was developed by the same staff that worked on the Soulcalibur, Tekken, and Mobile Suit Gundam: Extreme Vs. series, three major fighting game franchises of Bandai Namco. It was released in July 2015. The game was pulled from Steam in October 2015, and its servers were shut down in December 2015.
WThe Round World Version is an alternative creation myth to the canonical version of J.R.R. Tolkien's legendarium as it appears in The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings. In the canonical version, the Earth was created flat and was changed to round as a cataclysmic event during the Second Age in order to prevent direct access by Men to Valinor, home of the immortals. In the Round World Version, the Earth is created spherical from the beginning.
WSaint Seiya , also known as Saint Seiya: Knights of the Zodiac or simply Knights of the Zodiac, is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Masami Kurumada. The story follows five mystical warriors called the Saints who fight wearing sacred sets of armor named "Cloths", the designs of which derive from the various constellations the characters have adopted as their destined guardian symbols, and empowered by a mystical energy called "Cosmo". The Saints have sworn to defend the reincarnation of the Greek goddess Athena in her battle against other Olympian gods who want to dominate Earth. It was serialized in Weekly Shōnen Jump from 1986 to 1990, with the chapters collected into 28 tankōbon volumes by Shueisha.
WThere exists a wide range of secular Christmas stories, told in popular music, on television, and in the cinema, that are told about the Christian holiday of Christmas, that may be based on or allegorize the biblical Christian mythology of Christmas, as the birth of Jesus, but not necessarily. The stories may also have newer interpretations and introduce new characters. These secular Christmas stories could be classified as mythopoeia, or Christian allegories.
WThe Silmarillion is a collection of mythopoeic stories by the English writer J. R. R. Tolkien, edited and published posthumously by his son Christopher Tolkien in 1977 with assistance from the fantasy author Guy Gavriel Kay. The Silmarillion tells of Eä, a fictional universe that includes the Blessed Realm of Valinor, the once-great region of Beleriand, the sunken island of Númenor, and the continent of Middle-earth, where Tolkien's most popular works—The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings—take place. After the success of The Hobbit, Tolkien's publisher Stanley Unwin requested a sequel, and Tolkien offered a draft of the stories that would later become The Silmarillion. Unwin rejected this proposal, calling the draft obscure and "too Celtic", so Tolkien began working on a new story that eventually became The Lord of the Rings.
WStar Wars is an American epic space opera multimedia franchise created by George Lucas, which began with the eponymous 1977 film and quickly became a worldwide pop-culture phenomenon. The franchise has been expanded into various films and other media, including television series, video games, novels, comic books, theme park attractions, and themed areas, comprising an all-encompassing fictional universe. In 2020, its total value was estimated at US$70 billion, and it is currently the fifth-highest-grossing media franchise of all time.
WStreet Fighter , commonly abbreviated as SF or スト (Suto), is a Japanese competitive fighting video game franchise developed and published by Capcom. The first game in the series was released in 1987, followed by five other main series games, various spin-offs and crossovers, and numerous appearances in other media. Its best-selling 1991 release Street Fighter II established many of the conventions of the one-on-one fighting genre.
WTam Lin is a 1991 contemporary fantasy novel by United States author Pamela Dean, who based it on the traditional Scottish border ballad "Tam Lin".
WTransformers: The Covenant of Primus is a companion novel to the Aligned continuity of the Transformers franchise, which includes the Transformers: Prime animated series. The term Covenant of Primus also describes an artifact featured in several continuities of the Transformers franchise, beginning with Beast Wars: Transformers, as well as an organization that was featured in storyline for the Botcon fan convention.
WThe World's Desire is a fantasy novel first published in 1890 and written by H. Rider Haggard and Andrew Lang. It was published in paperback by Ballantine Books as the fortieth volume of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series in January 1972.
WSadako Yamamura , also known as Park Eun-suh and Samara Morgan, is the main antagonist of Koji Suzuki's Ring novel series and the film franchise of the same name. Sadako's fictional history alternates between continuities, but all depict her as the vengeful ghost of a psychic who was murdered and thrown into a well. As a ghost, she uses nensha, her most distinctive power and weapon, to create a cursed video tape that will kill whoever watches it exactly one week later unless the tape is copied and shown to another person, who then must repeat the same process.
WYu-Gi-Oh! is a Japanese manga series about trading card gaming written and illustrated by Kazuki Takahashi. It was serialized in Shueisha's Weekly Shōnen Jump magazine between September 1996 and March 2004. The plot follows the story of a boy named Yugi Mutou, who solves the ancient Millennium Puzzle. Yugi awakens a gambling alter-ego or spirit within his body that solves his conflicts using various games.