Street Fighter X G.I Joe # 1

 By Mark Rodriguez

I finished my review on the TMNT/Street Fighter crossover, but this isn't the first time that IDW has access to the World Warriors. Back in 2016, IDW still owned the G.I Joe license, so they made a crossover series between the Joes and the Street Fighters. At the time it was probably the first time there was a non-Udon Street Fighter comics since the Malibu days. Let's check it out.

 

Bison announces that the World Warrior Tournament is about to begin, with Destro by his side. The qualifying rounds are done so now only the best remain and the winner will become the World Warrior. Crimson Viper and The Baroness get ready, as Viper is about to face off against Snake Eyes. Baroness warns to expect betrayal either from Bison or Destro.

The first match starts and Snake Eyes is so quick that Crimson Viper can't lay a hand on him. She gets tired of him dodging all her moves and starts using her super moves on him (the Thunder Knuckle and the Burning Kick). Just as Viper is about to hit him with her Emergency Combo, Snake Eyes flips out of the way. He draws two kunai and hacks at her gloves. He then finishes the match by kicking her on the back of the head, knocking her out.

 

Baroness calls out Bison for allowing knives to be used in the tournament, an he remarks that they also turned a blind eye towards Viper's S.I.N Battlesuit. Viper apologizes for her loss, and Baroness says she's used to being disappointed and having to handle things herself.

The next match is between the Baroness and Rufus. Rufus says his girlfriend Candy is pretty open-minded and suggests a threesome. Baroness socks him in the face. She then knees him in the face and lays him out. Baroness complains to Destro about her opponent and wonder how he even made it to the 8th finals. Rufus gets back up, to her surprise, and continues the fight, hitting her with his special moves. He finishes her off with the Big Bang Typhoon and ends the match.

Destro charms Baroness into working with them. They have a special weapon that can only be powered by contained one on one combat and they need Bison's organization to help out with that.

The next match is Roadblock VS Hakan, who boasts about the fine oils his company makes. Roadblock socks him out, making him land on his own barrel of oil. Hakan is now oiled up and ready to continue, but Roadblock pulls out a Gatling gun and opens fire. A Gatling gun? Knives are one thing but a gun in a martial arts tournament? Hakan slides under the gunfire and sends Roadblock flying. He then catches him and use his Ultra Combo, the Oil Combination Hold that sends him shooting out into a brick wall. Hakan tells him not to feel bad since his oil grants him a big advantage. Roadblock tastes the oil and is impressed, saying he'd love to cook using it.

The next match is Ryu VS Jinx, and apparently they've been training together. As they fight, Jinx manages to use Ryu's own Sho Ryu Ken against him. This would flare up his Dark Hado, but he would quickly try to calm back down. Ryu fires off a Metsu HadoKen, which Jinx manages to dodge. She says he went wide on purpose and she doesn't want him to hold back. Ryu asks if that's what she wants, Jinx says it's exactly what she wants as they both fly into each other with kicks. Jinx overcomes Ryu and wins the match. Jinx thanks her master but Ryu tells her to keep an eye out for danger in the tournament.

 

Destro asks if their machine is working and Bison says it's working perfectly. He says he will be ready by the time he steps into the ring. The next issue promises fight between Guile and Gung Ho, Chun Li and Dan, Storm Shadow and Croc Master and Bison VS Cammy!

The comic also explains the following matches between the 16 Street Fighters and the 16 Joes and Cobras and how we ended up with the final 8.

Snake Eyes defeated Ken to advance
Crimson Viper defeated Munitia to advance

The Baroness defeated Elena to advance
Rufus defeated Cover Girl to advance
(the summary explains she forfeit the fight on purpose just to get away from Rufus' gropey holds

Roadblock defeated Zangief to advance
Hakan defeated Shipwreck to advance

Jinx defeated Blanka to advance
Ryu defeated Overkill to advance

Guile defeated Crusher to advance
Gung Ho defeated Dhalsim to advance

Chun Li defeated Quick Kick to advance
Dan defeated Sakura to advance
(I'm honestly not sure how. Sakura can beat Dan on her worst day. Karin must have thrown a banana peel in there somewhere)

Storm Shadow defeated Fei Long to advance
Croc Master defeated Alex to advance

Cammy defeated Firefly to advance
Bison defeated Rock N' Roll to advance

 

My Thoughts-

 

I certainly wasn't expecting this. For a game popular for being about an international martial arts tournament.... most forms of media seem to show everything except the actual tournament. Yeah, over the years Capcom has added a lot of backstory to all of the characters so most of the movies, anime, comics and what-have-you dealt with that. In fact I don't think there even was a tournament during the Alpha series. It was all about everything that happened between Street Fighter 1 and 2. Whether it's the made-up foolishness like Raul Julia movie and Malibu comics to the more faithful Udon comics, once in a while you just wanna see these guys go at it in a tournament, you know, just like the games. And this comic skips all of the story and goes right to it. They even kept the Street Fighters' battle stances in and used the same font for FIGHT as seen in the games.

The plot seems to be some sort of super weapon that is somehow powered by martial arts combat, and Destro and Bison are using each other to fuel it. With stuff like Ryu training with Jinx for who knows how long before this story started this crossover seems to be another case of 'they always existed in the same universe, they just never crossed paths before now' kind of thing, like the Street Fighter X Tekken game.

The fights are short and sweet and they do a great job of drawing all the special moves. In fact, the Joes and Cobras are kind of outgunned here. They are, at the end of the day, just heavily trained people. Sure the same applies to the Street Fighter crew but they're able to throw huge fireballs and other weird stuff. To keep the Street Fighters from mopping the floor with the Joes and Cobras, Snake Eyes managed to defeat Viper on sheer ninja skill. I do kinda buy it since Viper seems to rely on her supersuit. Although she's a superspy, it's hard to know just how well she can actually fight without it. I can see Vega and Ibuki giving her similar trouble. 

 

Not sure about Roadblock getting away with using a Gatling Gun on Hakan though. Good thing Hakan is good at dodging rapid fire gunshots.

I kinda think Ryu let Jinx win, though who knows, maybe when it comes to flying kicks, she did out-kick him. But he would have finished the fight quickly if his fireball hit, which kinda isn't fair since she doesn't have a fireball of her own to counter with. Also, Ryu seemed rather grumpy when he lost to her. I don't know. I always figured Ryu as an overall nice and humble guy, and he'd humbly face defeat as long as the fight was won cleanly.

The comic also offers short bios on all the characters and mentions the fights we didn't see which would lead to these 8 finalists. I don't know how strong Roadblock is supposed to be but Zangief is like... freakishly strong, possibly the only one stronger than him being Hugo and Abigail... so I don't know how Roadblock got past him... and then somehow lost to Hakan. And maybe Sakura had the flu or something but I don't really see how on Earth she lost to Dan unless she just threw the fight. Maybe she couldn't concentrate when she found out Ryu was training Jinx instead of her. I think they just wanted to see Dan's shenanigans in the actual comic so they made him win against a schoolgirl, even though that schoolgirl has shown she has way greater skill than him. Oh well.

Well, we'll see what awaits us next issue and how long the comic will continue in this format before we find out what the super weapon is.

Finally let me end this by saying this isn't exactly the first time Street Fighter has crossed paths with G.I Joe. Back in the 90's when Street Fighter was battling it out on both the SNES and Genesis, the G.I Joe toyline decided to bring in the characters as part of their toyline. Yes, at least according to the toys, they considered the main 8 to be part of the Joes, and the 4 bosses to be part of Cobra.

Now some of the characters that were already military related like Guile and Bison fit in.... but everyone else.... most of the characters were slightly re-designed to now be a soldier of some kind. Oh man, poor Chun Li! What have they done with you???

 

 

I think I ran across some of these at one of the Steelcity cons from back of the day.... anyways I'm glad that partnership ended quickly, this new crossover notwithstanding. Let's see what happens in issue 2!