This article presents two case studies of transmedial entertainment, one of the pulp franchise The Shadow and one of the contemporary franchise Transformers. The article argues that previous studies of transmedia entertainment have focused too much on narrative in a strict sense (plot/story), ignoring the interplay between the contexts of production and reception as well as narrative elements other than plot, notably those that create the greater narrative ‘world’. The article therefore focuses on an integrated analysis of the production/reception of the two transmedia properties, and the narrative disjunctions created by extending a transmedia world across different media platforms. The study finds that transmedia narratives cannot be understood without taking media industry objectives into account, and that previous studies have overemphasized the narrative integration of transmedial properties.