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Jan Tenner is a German science fiction and fantasy franchise, developed and marketed by Kiddinx and Zauberstern. It follows the titular hero as he and his friends protect their home Westland and the Earth from both human and alien threats. It consists of:- Jan Tenner - Der Superheld (Jan Tenner: The Superhero), also known as Jan Tenner Classic (1980 - 1989, 2000).
- Jan Tenner: Die Neue Dimension (Jan Tenner: The New Dimension; 2001 - 2002).
- Jan Tenner: Der Neue Superheld (Jan Tenner: The New Superhero; 2019 - present).
There are comics based on a couple of episodes of the classic series as well as a computer game based on "Jan Tenner: Die Neue Dimension".
The comics can be found here
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SPOILERS WILL BE UNMARKED since this series has not been translated into english.
Jan Tenner contains examples of:
- After the End: Der Neue Superheld reveals that Jan Tenner takes place 1,000 years after a big war destroyed everything and the continents fused to 2 supercontinents which house the two states Westland and Ostland.
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot:
- Super Brain was developed by Zweistein with the ability to take over every computer system. After a talk with Mimo about free will, he turns on Zweistein and takes over as the episodes Big Bad. However, he proves himself worse than Zweistein as he desires to Kill All Humans.
- Xarxas, the Big Bad of the first arc of Die Neue Dimension, is another one of Zweistein's creations. His goal is to turn every living being inhabiting the universe he landed in into a robot and kill the rest.
- Aliens Speaking English: Every alien Jan and his friends encounter can speak their language, even if they have never heard of humans before. While sometimes, this is explained by having the characters use a gadget or serum that lets them understand and speak alien languages, most of the time, it remains unexplained.
- All Nations Are Superpowers: There are only 2 countries on Earth in the world of Jan Tenner, those being Ostland und Westland. Both are nuclear powers.
- Androids Are People, Too: Zig-zagged. While the heroes treat AI's equally, villains only see them as tools, minions to do their bidding.
- Another Dimension:
- The Dark Empire is set into an entirely different universe with its own set of laws of physics.
- The universe the heroes strand in at the beginning of Der Neue Superheld is a similar looking but still different universe.
- Artificial Intelligence: Every AI in the story, like Mimo, Andromeda or Super Brain, is a fully self-aware, sentient being with free will and freedom of choice.
- Astral Projection:
- In episode 13 of Classic, a ghost possesses Jan, kicking him out of his own body. He can still talk to people but is invisible and intangible.
- In episode 25 of Classic, Jan and Laura take a serum that lets them leave their body for a limited time. They are invisible and intangible and cannot interact with the physical world in any way, shape or form. In order to move, they have to think about what they want to do.
- Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: One episode sees Zweistein forcibly inject Futura with a seum that turns him into an aggressive mindless giant who keeps growing until he dies.
- Barbarian Tribe: Subverted with The Dark Empire. While they look the part, they are quite technologically advanced, having built spaceships and floating platforms.
- Benevolent A.I.:
- Mimo, the board computer of the Silbervogel can be a bit sensitive and moody from time to time but he is good-natured and a full fledged part of the heroes team.
- Andromeda is a medical AI developed by the Order of Futura. She is very concerned about the well-being of her patients.
- Bond Villain Stupidity:
- Zweistein manages to outsmart and trap Jan and his friends quite regularly but either talks in length about the way he bested them giving them time to escape or sets up a convoluted way to kill them rather than just executing them on the spoz.
- Despite having the military and technical means to just invade and conquer Earth, the Leonen prefer to use plans and trickery to try and conquer earth. Subverted in the last few episodes of the Leonen arc where they do invade and take over the planet very easily.
- After realising Jan caused an uprising among her puppets, Seytania swore she would turn him into a puppet. But rather than doing it there and then, which would have ensured her victory, she sent him back to his room allowing him to escape with the help of another puppet.
- Brought to You by the Letter "S": Jan and Jan Jr. both have the letters "J" and "T" on the left side of their vests while Zeno wears the letter "Z" in the exact same place.
- Changing of the Guard: Zig-zagged. While Jan Jr. is officially The Hero of Der Neue Superheld, Jan senior still steps up a lot of times to defend Westland, either alongside his son or on his own.
- Chekhov's Gun: In episode 7, Jan received a silver orb that can detect Leonen and their creations from grateful aliens. But he was warned that the silver orb would petrify him if he wore it for too long. This finally happened in episode 13 of Classic resulting in the orb falling into Zweistein's hands. The retrieval of the orb to cure Jan is the main conflict of the episode.
- Combat Tentacles: A number of inhuman enemies use tentacles to attack the heroes. These include the Void and its monsters, Dr. Brain in his final form as a giant, ever growing brain and the monster of Azzarus.
- Continuity Snarl:
- In Die Neue Dimension, Laura is a computer specialist rather than Futura's assistant.
- In Classic, their Earth was a Fictional Earth with Westland being one of many states. However, in Der Neue Superheld, Westland is only one of two continent-spanning states and it is explicitly said that this has been the case for centuries.
- In Classic, it is explicitly stated that Tanja's accident happened while testing the Invisibility serum. But in the first episode of Der Neue Superheld, it was changed to be a Telekinesis serum.
- In Die Neue Dimension, Zweistein reveals to have developed an eternal life-serum but in Der Neue Superheld, he is explicitly mortal and dying of old age.
- The Disembodied: Seytania creates her bodies by driving out their souls. These souls then roam the night trying to take control of anyone they come across.
- Distant Sequel: Der Neue Superheld takes place 30 years after the previous two installments.
- Enemy Mine: While stranded on the Planet of a Thousand Wonders, Zweistein and the heroes temporarily team up to master the challenges and find the Stone of Power.
- Evil Versus Evil:
- Seytania's and Zweistein's Villain Team-Up in episode 36 from Classic ends with the two fighting each other allowing the heroes to turn the situation to their advantage.
- Episode 5 of Der Neue Superheld sees the previous Big Bad, Dr. Brain, fight and eventually kill the episodes' Big Bad, the Rat King.
- Exotic Eye Designs: The irises of the Azzari are colored silver instead of white.
- Fictional Earth: While no map exists of this world, the Earthnote in "Jan Tenner" is quite different from our own. It is made up of only two massive continents as well as a few minor islands. Most of the story takes place in the state Grevil of the fictional country of Westland which shares a lot of similarities with the US which spans one of the two continents. The only other named country is Westland's neighbour "Ostland" which is located on the other continent. Der Neue Superheld reveals that the series has been taking place at least a thousand years in the future after a nuclear apocalypse forced the world to rebuild.
- Flight: The flight-serum allows those who take it to fly for an hour whenever they like. Though as General Forbeit demonstrated the first time he used it, it does take some practice to get it right. In the series, it is often used in combination with the invisibility-serum when Jan and Laura need to infiltrate an enemy base.
- The Future: Der Neue Superheld reveals that Jan Tenner takes place in the year 3,000 AD.
- Giant Spider: The first adventure deals with an attack of giant green spiders which were modified by the government in hopes of using their webs to stop tanks.
- Hijacked by Ganon:
- Hollywood Natives: In episode 6, a native american tribe appears. They hunt with muskets on horseback while letting out war cries. The story sees them having found an alien and mistaking him for Manitou. They have shamans trying to heal his wounds and scoff at the idea of bringing him to a hospital. Lastly, they are portrayed as very violent and territorial.
- Humanoid Aliens: Most aliens encountered as humanoids. Many, such as the Leonen or the Moha, are described as humanoid aliens with heads of earthly animals. Others, such as Satoan and his people, are humanoids with slightly different body proportions than humans.
- Immediate Sequel: Die Neue Dimension picks up right after the end of Classic
- Immortality:
- Grom was the last Olk who survived his species extinction thanks to biological immortality gained from genetic engineering done by his species. He subsequently traveled the universe in a moon-sized spaceship looking for a new world to call home while the ship's computer grew monstrous bodies for the lingering spirits of his people.
- Thousands of years ago, a dark sorcerer from the city of Azzarus created a flower to achieve immortality. However, the guardians of the world put a spell on it so only the worthy who would use its power for good can receive its power.
- The 15th episode of Der Neue Superheld introduced a spring of immortality which, of course, could make the one drinking from it immortal. Though it was destroyed by the end of the episode.
- Intangibility: The dematerialization-serum allows someone to become intangible. It is often used when characters walk into an obvious trap to make them invincible to whatever the villain, usually Zweistein, throws at them. Though since they can't touch anyone or anything during that time, it is rarely used.
- Intergenerational Friendship:
- Jan, Laura, Tanja and later Jan Jr. with Forbett, who Laura mentioned was old enough to be her dad, and Futura who is portrayed as being an old man.
- Zig-zagged with Tanja and Laura since Tanja was born in her generation but due to her time in cryo-sleep has the body and mind of a 20 years old.
- Invisibility: The aptly named Invisibility-serum makes people invisible for an hour. Originally, they had to completely undress for it to work but that was later fixed.
- Last-Name Basis:
- Initially, Forbett only referred to Jan as "Tenner". But as their relationship grew to a solid friendship, he only did it when angry at Jan, referring to him by first name otherwise.
- Initially played straight again with Forbett as well as Mimo and Futura in Die Neue Dimension though the latter two eventually returned to First-Name Basis again.
- Legally Dead: Tanja, Forbett and Futura were all declared dead after Futura's lab blew up at the beginning of Der Neue Superheld, despite no body ever being found.
- Magical Land: The Dark Empire is set in a different universe with different laws of physics, warlocks, pegasi and alicorns. Not to mention the all consuming Void made up of pure dark magic.
- Militaries Are Useless: Zig-Zagged. While the military of Westland usually can't do anything to stop of the threat of the week and has to rely on Jan Tenner and Laura to save the day, they do shine as a supporting force e.g. by evacuating civilians, keeping the threat at bay until Team Tenner arrives or coming in after the villain is defeated to clean up and, if the heroes are in some way incapacitated, to bring them to safety. Though when the main heroes are otherwise busy, the military does manage to shine through as the heroes of the hour.
- Mind Control:
- Seytania's magic allows her to take control of unprepared minds and subdued enemies.
- The Ginnicks, a monkey-like alien species with 4 eyes, use mind control to turn humans into their fanatical soldiers in their war with their interplanetary neighbours, the Mohas. Their leader's power is great enough to control the rest of his species.
- Negative Continuity: Whereas Der Neue Superheld frequently references Classic, the events of Die Neue Dimension are never mentioned. Further, while Zweistein had an Immortality-serum in Die Neue Dimension, he is explicitly mortal in Der Neue Superheld.
- Never Trust a Title: Episode 38 of Classic is titled "Logars Rache" (engl. Logar's revenge) — despite Logar being a prisoner throughout the vast majority of the episode and Thol being killed before Logar is freed.
- No Communities Were Harmed: The story takes place in the state of Grevil located in the fictional country of Westland. This country is heavily inspired by the US: It is a democracy with a president as the head of state, many of its geographic locations have american names such as the "Rocky Tal", it is inhabited by native american tribes such as the Navajo and many characters have american names as well such as Major Simmons, one of General Forbett's most loyal officers. Lastly, it's also a nuclear power. Der Neue Superheld reveals the in-universe reason: The series takes place at least a thousand years in the future after a nuclear apocalypse forced the world to rebuild. Westland is located on one of the two remaining continents which is in part made up of the former American continent.
- Odd Friendship: Despite Futura's, Jan's and Laura's outspoken unfavorable views on all things military, they still managed to form a true friendship with General Forbett, who not only is the supreme commander of all military forces of Westland, but also a military man through and through. Granted, there is a lot of bickering and snark involved in their usual conversations.
- Our Wormholes Are Different: In the first episode of Die Neue Dimension, it's revealed that black holes are actually wormholes, each leading to a specific universe. They appear and disappear randomly.
- Pinned to the Ground:
- In episode 23 of Classic, Jan and Forbett are climbing a seemingless endless set of stairs as part of the fifth test they have to pass before they can get the Stone of Power. When they suddenly reach the end of the stairs and fight spacecrafts waiting for them, Forbett is about to take one so that the two as well as their friends, whom they had to leave behind as part of the last test, can get back to Earth. But Jan, correctly deducing that this is part of the test, tackles him to the ground and pins him down with his knee pressing on Forbett's back until the General comes back to his senses.
- The cover◊ of the episode "Schatten über Westland" shows Jan pinning down his son Jan Jr., ready to deliver a Coup de Grâce.
- Rich Boredom: Both Seytania and her grandfather Butor suffer from it. While Seytania lured spacefarers to her planet and transformed them into puppets, Butor decided to end everything and created the Void.
- Running Gag: In the Classic-series, Jan pulled a prank on General Forbett at the end of nearly every episode.
- Secret Public Identity: No character, heroes and villains alike, ever call themself by names other than their real ones.
- Sequel Series: Classic has two: The Immediate Sequel Die Neue Dimension which was teased in the last episode of Classic and takes place directly following its last episode as well as the Distant Sequel Der Neue Superheld which takes place 30 years after Classic and is still running.
- Shapeshifting: The body change-serum allows those who take it to become either an animal or another person looking and sounding just like them. If the physiology of the new form is non-humanoid, however, it will take some practice before one can act like the non-humanoid.
- Shrink Ray: The thumbling-serum shrinks down anyone injected with it to the size of an ant. While originally used to pilot small robots, it found greater use as a way to lock someone up as the main group did to Zweistein and Zweistein later did to them in "Die neue Dimension".
- Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: Most of the time when meeting a new alien species, you have Wide-Eyed Idealist Jan who believes they are friendly and The Cynic General Forbett who believes they are actually enemies. Most of the time, it appears at first like Forbett is right only for it to turn out the aliens were actually just in need of help. But from time to time, the opposite happens where it appears like Jan is right only for it to end with Forbett's suspicions to be proven correct.
- Sliding Scale of Leadership Responsibility: Forbett is the Superman, who is part of Westland's vanguard, the Tenner team. Most other benevolent leaders, like Logar, are the Theoden who fight with their men. Those who have no notable martial skill, such as Ragung, are the Hammond. The villainous leaders, such as Zweistein, Dr. Brain or Seytania, are the Magneto. None of them particularly care about their underlings as much as they care about reaching their goals, but they also don't throw away their soldier's lives like they grow on trees.
- Sliding Scale of Villain Effectiveness:
- Most villains are Credible. They usually manage to successfully implement the first few stages of their plans but rarely achieve a Near-Villain Victory.
- Zweistein, the Void and Seytania are all High. All three have consistently almost won, Zweistein due to being a master of the Batman Gambit, Seytania due to being an Invincible Villain and the Void, later the Erazer, an Eldritch Abomination that is made of Black Magic.
- Super Not-Drowning Skills: The dive serum makes it so the one to use it breaths even more through the skin rather than the lungs thus allowing them to breath underwater.
- Super Serum: The serums created by Professor Futura give a specific superpower either for a short time or until the cure is injected. These superpowers range from Shapeshifting, Invisibility, Flight, being able to breathe underwater or shrinking someone to Intangibility. However, it is said it takes a strong will to survive the procedure. As such, the serums are rarely given to anyone outside the core group.
- Super-Soldier: In Die neue Dimension, Zweistein tricks Forbeits soldiers into taking a serum that makes them taller and gives them super strength but also makes them subservient to him.
- Super Wrist-Gadget: In Die Neue Dimension, the heroes carry special devices on their arms that act both as Comm Links and portable injectors for serum.
- Time Travel Episode:
- There are two episodes in Classic:
- The first is episode 14 which sees Zweistein throw Jan, Laura and Futura into the past onto a doomed planet using a mobile Time Portal. In this episode, the three find the Silbervogel, a time-space ship built and used by the Leonen.
- The next time happens in episode 39 of where the heroes and Seytania travel back in time to destroy the Void while it was still weak.
- An unreleased episode of Der Neue Superheld would have seen the group stumble into a time trap of the Xantha'Uh, a recent enemy, which would have thrown them back into the time of the dinosaurs.
- There are two episodes in Classic:
- Time Machine: The spac-time ship Silbervogel can travel through both time and space.
- Time Police: The Guardians of Time are a group of beings dedicated to protecting the space-time continuum.
- Translator Microbes:
- Futura developed a serum that allows the one using it to understand and speak any language upon hearing it be spoken.
- Eventually, the heroes get the so-called "Logic Transformer", devices carried around the neck that translate any language to and from one's native language.
- Underwater City: The city Azzarus, an ancient Greek city, was sunk by the gods due to their attempt to gain immortality. It was sunk so deep that the ground folded creating a cavern filled with oxygen.
- Ursine Aliens: In episode 7 of Classic, a fleet of nomadic aliens looking like bears accidently block the sun. They return in episode 26 where the heroes help them escape a black hole.
- Vine Tentacles: The space plants from episode 11 of Classic as well as the sentient trees from episode 21 of Classic use their vines as whips and tentacles for combat.
- Weather-Control Machine: Episode 33 of Classic reveals that Westland's weather is controlled by computers.
- Wham Episode:
- Episode 4 of Classic sees Tanja put into a cryogenic sleep and introduces Laura as her permanent replacement.
- Episode 9 of Classic introduces the Leonen, a physically strong warrior race set on conquering Earth.
- In episode 10 of Classic, Zweistein, the most recurring enemy of the team, is introduced.
- Episode 14 of Classic sees the introduction of the team's spaceship Silver Bird and their last permanent member Mimo.
- In episode 32 of Classic, Seytania's father Logar, his Dark Empire and the Void are introduced.
- In episode 39 of Classic, the origin of the Void is revealed and Seytania sacrifices herself to destroy it.
- In episode 6 of Der Neue Superheld, the history of Earth is explained and Jan gets kidnapped and brainwashed by the ruler of Ostland.
- In episode 9 of Der Neue Superheld, the Void returns more powerful than ever. It is also revealed that Logar's home universe has been consumed by the Void.
- In episode 14 of Der Neue Superheld, Brain dies.
- In episode 18 of Der Neue Superheld, Zeno is revealed to be a mixed clone of Jan sr. and Zweistein.
- In episode 19 of Der Neue Superheld, the Silbervogel is sunk into the bottom of the ocean.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: In episode 18 of Classic, the heroes left behind a group of soldiers on another planet. There was never any mention of their rescue and they never appeared again.
- You Already Changed the Past: Discussed in episode 14 of Classic, the first episode featuring time travel, where Futura, Jan and Laura are transported to Quintus, originally the 5th planet of the solar system which had exploded around the time they arrived. It turns out that the Leonen were the reason for the destruction of the planet as they travel back in time before the planet's destruction to get all its uranium before it blows up using nukes to break open the planet's crust. Due to this, Futura theorizes that since the past has already happened for anyone traveling back in time, it can't be changed but rather that any action they take is shaping the present they already know.
- You Can't Thwart Stage One: It is common for the villains to succeed in the first few steps before they are foiled. A few even manage to consistently almost win.
