Part I

If you’re reading this review, you’ve at least heard of Street Fighter.

More likely, you’ve played the game in one form or another, whether it was in the corner of some dingy, dimly-lit convenience store, or in the confines of your room hitting the pause button on the controller of your newly purchased Super Nintendo at just the right frame to see Chun Li’s undergarments, or reliving the arcade scene on XBOX Live losing for the umpteenth time against some redheaded bastard in Seattle, WA whom you swear is hacking you, no doubt using your credit cards and selling your personal information to Nigerian royalty as he performs a “I lost count after the tenth hit” combo with Twelve. It’s a game you have known for years and loved; a game that has rewarded you with memorable moments; a game that, despite some missteps the last few years, still manages to stand atop the upper echelon of the fighting genre, the very genre it established in the first place. You and I know this game well.

You also know that with something that has reached the top, the only place to go is down. That leaves us with the majority of the SF-related products. Yes, a few of them have been great. But for every Animated Movie, SOTA toy-line and Azasuke-drawn image, there’s a dozen Jean Claude Van Dammes over the two decades that have threatened to nearly end our love of the game. A live-action movie telling you to change the channel (quickly, no less) should you manage to catch its third daily showing on the local cable channel.

Mediocre animated incarnations from both sides of the Pacific. The US TV series was more or less the demon spawn of the live action series, and its low production values were certainly not going to win over either new fans or dedicated followers who were burned terribly with the Hollywood flick. Honestly, I don’t know what’s more baffling to me: Guile pulling off a Flash Kick that he managed to do while descending from a jump, completely whiffing in the process, forcing the villains to (over)sell the move; or how he managed to fit a strobe light in his boots and turn it on when doing said stunts.

Then, there was a comic book series by Malibu, featuring a Chun Li who basically looked like Ryu with lipstick.

Gavok went over that dreadful series in detail (scroll down a bit). I remember picking this comic up when it was initially released and knew then it was bucketload of shit that had been gathered from the orifice of retardedness. Capcom obviously thought so too, and aborted the series before the damage got any worse. At that point though, it was trying to prevent a scratch on a car that Mike Haggar had a few minutes with.

Street Fighter was given a few chances to save face from that horrific aforementioned series with Masaomi Kanazaki’s Street Fighter II; Masahiko Nakahira’s take on the popular amnesiac agent Cammy White; and the manga adaptation of the Animated Movie, but all were rarely seen outside of Japan, especially the Animated Movie adaptation. You will note that all were Japanese adaptations. Capcom must have felt burned with Malibu’s take on its moneymaker, and felt gunshy about letting another Western publisher handle its property again. It’s probably why we never saw our beloved cast of weirdoes and eccentrics going up against Marvel’s own cast of weirdoes and eccentrics, though it may have been for the best. On a slight tangent, this probability is also the reason why I believe in alternate dimensions; there’s no way a DC and Capcom crossover couldn’t have happened somewhere out there, which would have likely spawned off an incredible miniseries featuring Bizzaro teaching Blanka how (not) to speak and Rainbow Mika, while in the middle of an oil wrestling match with Power Girl, learning her true identity: she was once the roommate of the cousin of a nephew of Superman, thrice removed.

But I digress. DC and Capcom getting in bed together never happened in the first place. Marvel got there first, and even then Capcom only let Marvel get to second base in the form of video game crossovers. Ryu and company wouldn’t find themselves in the 616 universe, and they never got the chance once EA came into the equation and created their own “fighting game” (both words used extremely loose, like an extra-large condom on an Asian penis) using the Marvel characters.

When Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike came and went without setting the world ablaze during its initial release in 1999 (it has since seen a renewed interest, but wait, you know this!), the suffocating arcade scene taking its last breaths, and Resaurus Toys going out of business, essentially dooming the Street Fighter toy line, it seemed Street Fighter would be lost forever in the annals of time, being nothing more than a mere footnote of gaming history. Capcom would likely depend on its other strong points: Jill sandwiches and books on how to master unlocking within mere minutes, a badass (albeit emo) white haired wise cracking human with the blood of a demon, and its 90% share in the recycling business (one of these days, I will make that fifteen minute drive to the Capcom building and demand a nickel each for the thousands of cans of Sprites and Coca-Colas I have consumed and subsequently recycled).

But Capcom knew it had a loyal fanbase (this idea was solidified with the number of doujinshi released over the years, no doubt), and 2003 was touted as Street Fighter’s 15th anniversary, despite no Street Fighter-related products having come out in 1988. But one does not sweat the small details – the only thing that mattered was Street Fighter was coming back, in full force! Sound the trumpets and fanfare! Merchandise would come out of the woodwork! Figures! Stationery! Apparel! A dedicated website to the franchise! AND a new video game (!) named Capcom Fighting All-Stars…

…wait. Fuck.

That game never saw the light of day, and the fans were simply left with “shit to buy that you couldn’t get from the website anyway because it’s only offered to our Japanese fans, you weeaboo fucks” and “memories to relive again and again, and again and again” while Capcom was busy trying to figure out where else it could use its Morrigan sprites in. And during this time, Palisades, a toy company, lost its license to make figures of characters from the Street Fighter and Darkstalkers realms. We were boned. Nothing good would come out again for the US audience. We would have to import all the cool merchandise and shit. Nixon would have popped a boner if this were the 70s, and if Japan was China.

But an unusual thing happened. Capcom, probably realizing it was sitting on a virtually untapped market, allowed Canadian-based Dreamwave Productions, the creative minds behind the successful comic book resurrection of Transformers and the lauded yet overlooked Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic revival, to create comics based on several of its properties: Rival Schools, Darkstalkers, Mega Man and Devil May Cry. Though Street Fighter was nowhere in sight, a teaser image had been drawn.

Decent for some, horrible for others, and no minature flags in sight.

BUT…! a swerve came soon afterwards in the form of UDON Comics, comprised of former Dreamwave artists, announcing they had acquired the SF license. There was some murmurings after the announcemnt (the internet would cease to be without them). UDON hadn’t really proven itself yet, and with so many false starts in the comic book medium and Dreamwave’s own rocky start with a simple teaser image, would UDON’s venture completely head on be yet another victim of the massive license, crushed under intense scrutiny and (unwarranted, but understandably placed) scorn of both the company and fans? Perhaps this was Capcom’s final squeeze out of the bone dry teat for the fighting game series. Today, the release of yet another subpar comic – tomorrow, the cancellation of said comic, and the burial of Hadoukens and Spinning Bird kicks.

Then the first image popped up from Udon.

Looking good.

Then early promotional artwork trickled in.

Still looking good.

Then the first pages of issue #0 were released online.

…

They say there is nothing to fear but fear itself. And the artwork presented was not fear. No. This was splendid and wonderful in a huge orgasmic tidal wave. This is what we always dreamed of.