Tie-in media can be weird, especially when they’re adapting video games. Since games don’t tend to have a lot of plots, especially back in the past, writers would take them into some funny directions. So, what happens when comic writers need to adapt a genre that isn’t known for its storytelling? Like fighting games?
Sure, there are fans who love the lore behind Street Fighter and the like. They’ve kept Udon Comics’ series going for about 20 years and change. But there are others who’d prefer to go straight online and stick to the gameplay. Still, the writers took a look at these top fighting games, and hammered them into a story that didn’t last, but are remembered for how bizarre they are.
6 Tekken Forever
Tekken’s going to be a recurring theme on this list, as it’s perhaps the most popular 3D fighting game of all time, and it’s already got a pretty weird story. This effort from Image Comics seems fairly straightforward for Tekken, as it has lead characters Jin and Kazuya beating each other up, then Jin and his rival Hwoarang beating each other up. Generally, there’s a lot of people taking a beating.
The weird part is the dialogue. It has that snarky attitude classic Image Comics like Spawn had, which was popular at the time. Unfortunately, the lines were just as cringy in 2001 as they are now. Whether it’s Bryan doing a scatological take on Dio’s “How many breads” line, Lei calling him a bitch 3 times in one sentence, or Hwoarang telling Jin he’s going to “lay some smack on that ass”, it all produces a snigger or two. The bad reception led to its run stopping at its sole debut issue. Shame, as it could’ve explained why Paul called himself a “fatty boom batty”.
5 Malibu Mortal Kombat Comics
The short-lived Malibu Comics company is largely remembered for producing the original Men in Black comics. But they also adapted two of the biggest fighting games into comic form. Their Mortal Kombat run was fairly typical, consisting largely of a bunch of miniseries that tied into each other. One series would follow the Special Forces, another would follow Goro, etc.
Most of the stories involved the characters hunting down one MacGuffin or another, which is pretty dry. But the events were pepped up a touch with some odd characters, be it a villain made out of stone called Henge, or the Shaolin twins Sing and Sang, who’d fuse together Dragonball Z style into a warrior called Siang. While canon characters got tweaked about, like Baraka being a crazy anti-hero instead of a jobber, or Goro bringing out a laser gun and growling “Lets Get Crazy!”.
4 Malibu Street Fighter Comics
While Malibu’s Mortal Kombat comic didn’t stray too far from what the game’s established. Their Street Fighter comics became much more notorious. Instead of holding a fighting tournament, M.Bison seeks to conquer the world by…making Ryu fight Sagat again. Not that readers got to see where this plan would’ve gone, as the comic ended after 3 issues. Why so short? Because the second issue had Balrog and Sagat defeat Ken, then mail what looks like his bloody scalp to Ryu.
The third issue had the rest of the cast react to the news of his death, like the jungle monster Blanka learning about it from the newspaper, complete with reading glasses. Capcom didn’t like this and shut it down, leading to Malibu to sum up what would’ve happened in quick profiles. Ken would’ve been alive all along, Bison would’ve used evil clones of the SF2 cast for his army, and Malibu original hero The Ferret would’ve helped the heroes out. At least he got to fight E.Honda before it ended.
3 Knightstone Tekken Comics
Tekken Forever had hilarious dialogue, but Image Comics were a step up from Knightstone. They produced the two volume-long Tekken Saga, and the single volume Tekken 2: Family Values. The former had Heihachi and Kazuya Mishima searching for the ‘Toshin Stones’, only for Heihachi to Kazuya off a cliff, leading to the younger Mishima searching for revenge. While the latter focused on the whole fighting tournament side of things, with Kazuya fighting his way through the cast to get to his dad.
Aside from the ‘Toshin Stones’ bit, that’s loosely the plot to Tekken 1. Except for a few oddities. Like King taking his mask off and proclaiming his love for Jack Daniels' whiskey. The comic using $ instead of S in swear words. Or the Tekken cast making short work of characters who look similar but legally distinct to ones from Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat and King of Fighters. It’s just a coincidence that green-cap guy who knows people called ‘Joseph’ and ‘Andrew’ is similar to the red-cap guy who fights with Joe and Andy.
2 King Of Fighters ’96 Manhwa
So, it’s just as well that King of Fighters got to fire back at Tekken. Though whether Namco (sans Bandai at the time) or SNK knew about it is another matter. Before the two series clashed in KOF All Star and Tekken 7, Hong Kong Comics adapted the King of Fighters series up to KOF XII. For their debut series, which covered KOF ’96, they added in an extra team to spice up the proceedings.
They looked a lot like Tekken 2’s Kazuya Mishima, Anna Williams, and King. Except Anna had black hair and a green dress, Kazuya had a white cravat instead of a red one, and King shoots a fireball from his mouth. There’s no explanation for their appearance. They’re just another team who want to fight. Kazuya even takes on Iori in his Devil form. KOF ’96 is the most blatant one, though the following year’s KOF ’97 comic saw a character in the same gloves and pants as Jin Kazama turn up. He just had a slightly different hairstyle to ward off the lawyers.
1 SVC: SNK Vs Capcom Chaos Manhwa
Not to be outdone by an unofficial crossover, DrMaster Publications and author Chi Wan Shum put together an official tie-in for SVC: SNK Vs Capcom Chaos, SNK’s counterpart to Capcom Vs SNK. The game itself didn’t really have a plot beyond the fighters going to fight Athena or Red Arremer in the afterlife because beating Shin Akuma or Serious Mr Karate was just that intense. The manhwa added on top of that by having all the characters fight each other in the afterlife, with the good guys represented by Athena, and the bad guys represented by Red Arremer.
Whoever wins gets to decide the fate of the universe, and each member has about three lives before they’re dead for good. How did everyone die? M.Bison decided to act on a hunch there were supernatural forces at bay by destroyed himself and all of humanity in one swoop with his Psycho Power. Geese Howard also makes his entry riding a mastodon, which casually smashes through a few characters. Just in case Kyo almost falling victim to Demitri’s Midnight Bliss, the super move that turns male characters into women, wasn’t weird enough.