Malibu Comics Street Fighter Issue 1

By Mark Rodriguez

Before Udon started doing the Street Fighter comics… there was another company that tried their hand at the epic fighting game series. Malibu comics tried to adapt the classic Street Fighter 2 game back in the 90’s during the SNES VS Genesis era… and was cancelled after issue 3. Yep, the comic was so lame that Capcom itself told Malibu to pull the plug. 

These were my older comics, buying the first two back when they were released in Chicago (back in the day when the local drugstore would sell comics), and being lucky enough to find the third one at the Sci Fi Valley Con.

Keep in mind that back then, all we really knew story wise were the short ending pics for the characters. Other than knowing that Bison was big bad guy, there wasn't that many story details to tie a proper story together. This is why the animated movie went with Monitor Cyborgs and Bison brainwashing Ken, the SF 2 V anime having Bison brainwash Ryu and Chun Li, and the Raul Julia movie adding in all the military garbage. Let's see what Malibu comics did at the time.

It had to be the nostalgia, but I'll always love this poster

Street Fighter issue 1 starts with ‘Battle Scars’ and goes right into the classic scene where Ryu gives Sagat his trademark scar with his Sho Ryu Ken… or Dragon Punch since the comic prefers to use the English names. Sagat realized that Ryu’s attack burned him, and Ryu (in a uncharacteristically douchey move) says it’s a reminder of his defeat by him. Enraged, Sagat throws a kick that Ryu easily dodges. He reminds him that he is the Street Fighter champion and Hurricane Kicks the hell out of Sagat’s face.

We see that this is actually a pre-recorded fight on TV that Sagat and Balrog are watching. Sagat can’t take seeing his defeat any longer and destroys the TV with his Tiger Shot. He asks why he must be humiliated like this. Balrog tells him to calm down or he’ll have to trim him down to size. Sagat then punches Balrog and reminds him that he was champion for ten years. Balrog and Sagat fight it out, until Bison shows up and tells them to stop.

Bison reminds them that they work for him and will fight when he says they fight. Bison wants Sagat to destroy Ryu and regain the Street Fighter championship. Sagat tells him that Ryu has turned down any attempt for a rematch, even when threatened. Bison reminds him that Ryu has friends, namely Chun Li and Ken. They are his weaknesses and he can be made to fight.

Elsewhere, Chun Li is taking a stroll when suddenly Ryu tries a sneak attack on her. Chun Li manages to toss him over her shoulder but Ryu flips and lands on his feet. He then tosses a fireball at her (literally yelling out Fireball!!), and Chun Li counters with her new fireball (literally yelling out YAAH!! like in SF 2 Turbo which is before she said Kikkoken in later games).

Chun Li says she’s the strongest woman in the world and then smacks Ryu with her Lightning Kick… that is portrayed as a jump kick to the face rather than her throwing a zillion kicks per second like in the game…

Chun Li slams Ryu into some rocks. Ryu says she has learned new techniques since they last fought but still has not mastered how to use chi. He shoots another fireball at her. She jumps over it and takes him down. Having won the fight, Chun Li asks if she’s not the strongest woman in the world… and also the most beautiful and starts kissing him. 

Ryu shoves her off and reminds them they’re only there to train together. Ryu says that Chun Li has changed and that her quest for revenge against Bison had made her a different person. Chun Li says that she is justified in seeking justice over Bison murdering her father. Ryu says she has no proof, but our female World Warrior tells him she’s been training as a detective in Hong Kong and works with Interpol now. Ryu is shocked that she’s leaving ‘the way of the warrior’ for common police work.

Chun Li says there’s nothing dishonorable in seeking justice and elbows him in the gut. She says Ryu only dedicates his life to fighting and has no room for friends or love. He avoided her for months and hasn’t spoken to Ken in a year. She says they used to be close friends and even trained with Shen Long together (this was before we found out about the whole Sheng Long/Gouken thing). Ryu says Ken has changed, and Chun Li starts crying and tells him that they all changed and he has to accept that.

Ryu thinks to himself about how she’s right and that they’ve all been scarred in their own way after the big Street Fighter tournament, in less obvious ways than Sagat. He remembers back to their earlier days when he didn’t take his training as seriously and was goofing off with Ken. Ken didn't care if Ryu was the better fighter, as long as he was the better lover. As they fought in the tournament, Ryu would become champion while Ken would take advantage of the fame and media exposure to launch his own clothing line and film a movie. After the tournament, Ken and Ryu parted ways, and Chun Li found out her father was murdered, so she also went on her own path. Ryu says he feels more alone than ever and wonders if Ken still trains nowadays.

Speaking of which, we see Ken fighting with a bunch of ninjas, also throwing out his win quote. However, this is all a commercial as he tells the viewers that 'even Street Fighters get thirsty and when he's done fighting, he can refresh himself with Quickfresh' as a supermodel smiles and kids chant they wanna be like Ken. Ken's done filming for the day, so he heads out for a beer.

Ken heads out in his fancy red sports car and thinks about how he's happy to be married to Eliza, but needs a break every now and then. He hits a nightclub and has a few drinks with some fans. He decides he should probably just head home for now, and runs into Balrog waiting in the parking lot. Balrog puts on some brass knuckles and calls him out, but Ken says he's a married man and doesn't Street Fight anymore. Balrog says there's no retirement from 'their line of work' and tries to grab him, but Ken punches him back. 

Ken tosses Balrog into some trash cans, and the boxer says that Ken 'used to be pretty good'. Ken declares that he and Ryu were the best. Balrog says that was a long time ago and Ken is now just an actor. Ken retaliates with one of his fireballs.

Balrog gets hit by the fireball but says it doesn't hurt as bad as it used to. He says that Ken got weaker while he's gotten stronger since the last time they fought in the ring. Ken tries a jumpkick, but Balrog smacks him out of the air with a Dashing Uppercut.

Ken tries to take him down with some kicks. However, Balrog manages to get some devastating punches in and starts beating the crap out of him. Balrog smashes Ken with a Dashing Uppercut. Ken decides to take advantage of when he's gloating to trip him up with a leg sweep. He fries the boxer with another fireball and then hits him with a jumpkick, followed by an uppercut.

Ken is ready to end the fight, but suddenly gun shots are fired. Some of Balrog's goons shoot up the place, giving him time to run to his car. Ken is relieved the fight is over and comments that he hasn't been training hard enough. Unfortunately he has little time to reflect on his little wake-up call as Sagat suddenly jumps in behind him and tells him that his fight has just begun!!!

My Opinions

The comic was pretty good for what it was back in the day. I was a HUGE Street Fighter 2 fan, so you can bet I was pumped to get the first issue as soon as it was released. I remember an interview with the guys at Malibu about the comic said it would have (and this is me paraphrasing) 'intense bloody action that wouldn't be afraid to hold back' and 'it's so violent some of the fighters might not survive'. During the era of things like the Death of Superman and Spawn, this was music to the ears of any 90's kid. And by the look of the fights in this issue, they weren't kidding about the fights being hard hitting and intense.

The comic took full advantage of what little was known about Street Fighter at the time, with the characters dishing out their arcade win quotes whenever they could. Even a variation of Balrog's 'my fists have your blood on them' which was censored out of the SNES version made it in. Ken mentioning his 'berserker rage', Balrog saying 'whoever hits the hardest wins' and Ryu and Ken's martial art being called Shotokan is all out of the SNES game's instruction manual.

The art could have been a little better, but it was acceptable. Sometimes the characters look cool, Balrog in particular matches his SF2 appearance heavily, but other times they look crappy, ugly or rushed. There's also a weird angle problem where it looks like Ryu and Ken are throwing their fireballs upwards, yet in the next panel they're going straight. We have a part when Chun Li seems to be crying in one panel and then back to normal in the next. I did like the extra touch of seeing Balrog fight bare-fisted and then he has to top it off with brass knuckles. Even back then he was one of the game's hardest hitters and adding brass knuckles to those killer fists just sounds terrifying. 

My two main complaints were the Ryu and Chun Li romance that was unnecessary and not in the game and the special moves being said in English. I would assume in Japan yelling out Ha-Do-Ken is as lame to them as it is to us to be yelling out 'fireball!!' but for some reason it just sounds so much cooler to actually have Ryu and Ken yell out Ha-Do-Ken and Sho Ryu Ken like they do in the games instead of just Fireball and Dragon Punch in the comic.  As for Chun Li and Ryu.. I guess they fell into the ‘main male character must be in relationship with main female character’ cliché.

Another bizzare character change is having Ken be a hotshot actor, similar to Johnny Cage. This was before later games would show Ken as being rich, so I wonder where they got that idea from. 

As for the tournament itself, it looks like a mix between SF 1 and 2 since the SF2 cast took part, but Ryu just gave Sagat his infamous scar. Let's see where this comic leads.

I was surprised that Chun Li was also throwing fireballs in this issue, since Street Fighter 2 Turbo was still pretty new. At the time Chun Li throwing fireballs felt very 'new' and I was expecting the comic to stick closer to the older games.

Oddly enough, I actually ran into another copy of the comic. It was weird seeing an actual second copy other than my own. Obviously it wasn't worth much.

A buck. Worth even less than the cover price of 2.95