Stranger Things expands again: books, comics and more

Netflix has taken Stranger Things, its flagship Hawkins-set series, well past the TV show itself. The world now stretches across books, comics, a stage play, games, and screen spinoffs.

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If you’re after more Hawkins lore, there’s plenty to dig into. Suspicious Minds gets into Terry Ives and MKUltra. Darkness on the Edge of Town follows Jim Hopper in 1977 New York. Runaway Max and Rebel Robin fill out Max Mayfield and Robin Buckley a little more. On the comics side, Dark Horse has stories about Will Byers in the Upside Down, plus Stranger Things: SIX, which centers on another Hawkins Lab subject with precognitive powers.

Canon gets a little fuzzy, as it usually does with franchise tie-ins. These stories mostly sit in that canon-adjacent space, usually made with Netflix so they line up with the show’s tone, character voices, and lore. on-screen confirmation Even so, some fans still hold out for on-screen confirmation. Meanwhile, Stranger Things: The First Shadow heads back to 1959 Hawkins and Henry Creel, Netflix is backing a Vecna VR project, and the reported anime-style Stranger Things: Tokyo and Tales from ’85, a live-action spinoff, suggest the franchise may be pushing past Hawkins and maybe past the U.S. too.

If you’ve wanted more time in this world, these spinoffs are worth a look. They open up the Hawkins Lab mythology and spend more time with the people whose lives it changed.

The books and comics are out now, Stranger Things: The First Shadow is onstage, and the new shows are ones to keep an eye out for on Netflix.

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