Heroes of Dvoreki

Heroes of Dvoreki (Slovene: Junakov Dvoreki, Chinese: 英雄二條河) is a Malichkan superhero franchise created in 1999 by public broadcaster RTVM and sponsored by the Royal Federal Police and Dvoreki Constabulary. For the entirety of its 20-year run, it has spawned a franchise of 3 films, 8 video games, a TV series and a toy line.

Originally planned as "Junakov Malički" (Heroes of Malichka) in 1997 in the run-up to the bicentennial celebrations of Malichka, it later was renamed to "Junakov Dvoreki". The series takes lots of influence from the Japanese tokusatsu franchise Super Sentai.

The series was forced on a 2-year hiatus from 2012 as a result of copyright infringement from Toei Co., Ltd and Saban Brands, after complaining that the series' names were ripped off from Power Rangers, while the themes were ripped off from Super Sentai. A lawsuit was filed in 2011, only for the charges to be dropped in 2015.

Premise
Usually, the story has a group of teenagers (generally six) who carry artifacts that give them superpowers and can turn into superheroes. As superheroes, they wear color-coded costumes, weapons of choice, various fighting skills, and control individual robots (which can fuse into one single robot like a Megazord). They are depicted fighting villains threatening to take over Dvoreki and possibly Malichka.

Seasons list
Heroes of Dvoreki (1999, original)

Elementals (2000)

Into the Wild (2001)

Ninja Squad (2002)

Dino Squad (2003)

Future Police (2004)

Wizard Magic (2005)

Explorers We Are! (2006)

Rage of the Jungle (2008)

Roadster Racers (2008)

Samurai Sword Madness (2009)

Mega Mode (2010)

Pirate Posse (2011)

(Cancelled 2012-2014 as penalty for copyright infringement)

Ninja Force (2015)

Animal Force (2016)

Stars of Hope (2017)

Cops and Robbers (2018)

Dino Knights (2019)

Genie Gems (2020)

Film adaptation
A film adaptation of the 2nd series served as the finale to said series. Another film adaptation was made for the 7th series, made in 2005, which served as the middle-part of the series. A loose adaptation of the first series was made in 2018. The latter grossed 90 million Malichkan dollars worldwide.

Controversy
The series took a lot of flak for its themes. Toei didn't like the way the series took influence from Super Sentai. Saban also complained that the season names were too similar to those of Power Rangers. That led them to file a copyright lawsuit against RTVM and the series was put on a 2-year hiatus until 2014. The series was resumed in 2015 with "Ninja Force".