Welcome to the first installment of a new series I'm calling Nostalgia Snake, a look at a curious phenomenon from the past...the early 2000s revival of genre properties from the 1980s and how Wizard magazine predicted the trend.

The early 2000s brought revivals of everything from G. I. Joe to Battle of the Planets to ThundercatsHasbro's Transformers property also underwent a resurgence of popularity during this time, very possibly paving the way for the Michael Bay films. (Reportedly, one reason why the movies came into existence was because producer Steven Spielberg had fond memories of watching Transformers cartoons with his son.) However, Wizard magazine actually predicted that trend in comics very early.

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"Yo Joe! The '80s are back in style!" reads the cover blurb of Wizard #111, cover dated December 2000. This specific issue laid much of the groundwork for the 2000s revivals of '80s properties. Wizard and its sister magazine Toyfare was produced by a staff of Generation Xers, largely young men who held a great nostalgic connection to 1980s pop culture.

One of its features, "Twisted Mego Theater" (later renamed "Twisted Toyfare Theater"), was a proto-Robot Chicken, with vintage action figures starring in occasionally clever, occasionally dumb, adventures. Initially, this was purely kitsch. But the feature helped to keep memories of dormant properties like G. I. Joe alive.

Its influence has perhaps been forgotten over the years, but Wizard was a major cultural force within the world of comics from the '90s until the early 2000s. (When new editor-in-chief Joe Quesada and president Bill Jemas took the reigns of Marvel Comics in late 2000, most of their decisions seemed tailor-made to please the Wizard staff.) So when Wizard #111 hired some of the most popular artists in comics to draw pinups of 1980s properties, and fantasized about the dream creative teams for their hypothetical revivals, the industry noticed.

The artists and characters selected by Wizard included Transformers by Pat Lee and Alvin Lee, with Mark Millar as the ideal writer...

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G.I. Joe, by J. Scott Campbell, Jason Gorder and Greg Rucka...

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles by Joe Madureira, Tim Townsend and Chuck Dixon...

Masters of the Universe, by Ed McGuinness, Jason Martin and Jim Krueger...

... and finally, Thundercats, by Jim Cheung, Dexter Vines, Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning, years before their reinvention of Guardians of the Galaxy.

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Within the next two years, all of these properties returned as high-profile comics series. And many of them actually featured work by the creators selected by Wizard. Not necessarily on the same books -- Ed McGuinness ends up on Thundercats rather than Masters of the Universe, for example. The dream writers don't materialize, either (though perhaps it was wishful thinking to believe Mark Millar would tackle a Transformers series.) Still, it's a remarkable piece in hindsight; a case of Wizard truly predicting an impending fad and having a direct influence on the next shift of the industry. This article, coupled with the Casting Call feature, which routinely predicted (and influenced) Hollywood's casting for superhero films, marks the final days of Wizard's cultural imprint.

The fad of '80s revived properties began to fade before the end of the decade, but some of these titles continue all the way into the present. I'd personally like to focus on the earliest revivals, particularly the ones foreshadowed by this article. But if you have any suggestions for specific revival efforts to cover, let me hear them. Just contact me on Twitter and we'll see if it's possible to revive both the '80s and the '00s.

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