By Mark Rodriguez
The Mad Gear gang has kidnapped the daughter of the new Mayor of Metro City in order to buy his services. Mike Haggar happens to be a former pro wrestler, so he sets out to rescue his daughter alongside Street Fighter Cody and Bushinryu Ninja Guy. During the fight, Haggar and Damnd break through the concrete and they fall into the subway below. Cody and Guy steal some motorbikes to catch up to the next stop. Meanwhile, Haggar is surrounded by the train passengers, who all happen to be Mad Gear gang members!
"Shakedown" opens in the Metro City subway system, the roughest part of an already rough town. The train was packed with all sorts of hoodlums and gang members... and they'll all regret ever hearing the name Mike Haggar. The Mayor defeats them all and focuses his ire on Damnd.
The Mad Gear member says he's followed his career and knows Mike has been in six Slam Master Battle Royales. He knows that as more fresh contenders come in, sooner or later Haggar is going to run out of steam. Haggar is overpowered and pinned to the floor. Damnd sends Billy and Sid to 'convince' the train operator to stop while they give 'Muscle Bomber' one more shot at the belt.
Meanwhile, Cody and Guy are still on their way riding the Mad Gear motorcycles. Cody snatches a large roast ham from a meat vendor and drops some cash, telling the vendor to keep the change. Cody says nothing beats some Metro City street meat to recharge the batteries. Guy says he hopes he doesn't forget the seriousness of their mission and how Jessica is still in danger. Cody says he knows this is serious but he can't help it if he gets to beat up on some Mad Gears along the way. Guy says he just hopes he doesn't confuse his priorities. Just then, two police officers, Edi E and Lucia, show up and say they're both under arrest. Lucia tells her boss that Cody and Guy match the descriptions in the reports.
Guy tries to explain their mission, and Cody cuts in and says they've been beating up on the Mad Gear gang... like the guys behind the cops. G. Oriber, Bill Bull and Wong Who are standing behind the cops, all known Mad Gears. The cop says they're concerned citizens that are worried about Cody and Guy's rampage through the city. The cop points his gun at them and Cody knocks it out of his hand with the bone from the barbecue meat he was snacking on. Guy tells Cody to hold on since these guys are police officers. Cody says they might wear the uniforms but they're corrupt and are also Mad Gears. He lunges out towards them.
Elsewhere, Haggar is thrown into a wrestling ring where Damnd announces they he will be coming out of retirement for one night only. He is pinned up against a guy wearing samurai armor and armed with swords named Sodom.
Sodom dashes towards Haggar and starts to attack. While Haggar manages to dodge some of the sword strikes, Sodom manages to slice him across the shoulder. Haggar says they wanted to break him in but instead they put him in the ring, which is where he learned to survive. Haggar grabs a steel pipe and smashes Sodom across the face with it. Haggar bounces off the ropes and flies into Sodom with a missile dropkick. He then leaps into the air, pipe in hand, and slams into the samurai.
Haggar says he could do this blindfolded. Damnd tells everyone in the crowd to go after him, and the surround the hulking mayor, still armed with the steel pipe. Suddenly some shuriken smash the lights and Haggar takes advantage of the darkness to fight his way through the crowd. He leaves as the crowd fight among themselves. Two dark figures watch the scene, Maki and Zeku. Maki says she thought they weren't supposed to intervene. Zeku says that Haggar isn't the one being tested, at least not by them.
Back to the Cody and Guy, Edi E says that Cody will be spending time in prison. Cody says that will never happen and he punches him across the face. Guy tells Lucia that he'd rather not have this fight. Lucia says Cody threw the first punch, so it's all justifiable force from here. She does a flying kick that knocks Guy back. Guy tries to explain the current situation to Lucia but Wong Who hits him from behind with a running headbutt. Cody is distracted by what happened to Guy and Edi takes this chance to smack him around with his baton.
Edi grapples with Cody and tells Lucia to grab his gun. She is about to grab it until he says he's going to put Cody down for good. Lucia hesitates and says they're already subdued and have to be arrested. Edi tells her that she's still fresh out of training but this is how things work in Metro City. He has to take them out now before they become bigger headaches down the line. Edi orders Lucia to 'give it to him'. Lucia obliges and hits him with a flying kick.
Guy breaks free from Wong Who's grasp and tells Lucia that she has proven herself to be virtuous. Lucia says they can all die together as the Mad Gear jump towards them. Haggar suddenly charges in and knocks them back. Lucia is surprised to see the Mayor involved. Cody says they were on their way to rescue him. Haggar asks who the woman is and she introduces herself as Officer Lucia Morgan. Guy says she has proven herself to be honorable but her superior is one of the Mad Gear. Haggar says they'll need good cops like Lucia to help clean up the police force.
Haggar says they need to focus on rescuing Jessica and find that souped-up car. Lucia asks if they mean Bred's car. She knows of it and tells them to hit up the gas station in the Bay Area near the Scrap Metal yard. Haggar says it's their only lead and he thanks her. Lucia will lock Edi E up so he can't tell the Mad Gear higher ups that they're coming. Cody tells Haggar that they'll find the car, as Lucia says it'll get there eventually. Haggar hopes that eventually is soon enough for Jessica.
Speaking of which, Bred drops Jessica off. Jessica talks trash towards her captors and the one in charge says she has the same fire her father had. That fire was what got him elected as mayor. The boss adds that the city belongs to the Mad Gear and the Mad Gear belongs to him. We see the final boss, Belger with Rolento, Poison and Hugo Andore standing behind him.
My thoughts-
So the first thing I noticed was that the entire issue was set to be read by turning the comic to its side, from up to down instead of left to right. I've seen some issues do this for splash pages or maybe to make the title page that much more epic... but the whole issue? It's odd and every page I turned made me wondering when the comic was going to return to its regular format. I'm not sure if this is going to be the thing for the rest of the mini-series, but if this ever gets collected into a trade, it'll be weird to have to turn the book on its side when you get to the issue 2 portion as if you were reading a Playboy. Someone else in the room watching you read it will think the trade came with a pin up of Poison or Lucia.
Anyway, the comic is full of references, and not just the obvious stuff since the comic is supposed to be following the game's plot. Damnd calls Haggar 'Muscle Bomber' which is the Japanese name for Saturday Night Slam Masters. We also see Billy and Sid in there. For those that remember, the SNES version of Final Fight censored Poison and Roxy by replacing them with male characters that fight exactly like them called Billy and Sid. Capcom or Nintendo or both had issues with the guys beating up women for the home versions (even though Double Dragon had no such problem with Linda). It's funny how in the comic Poison, Roxy, Billy and Sid all co-exist as separate characters.
I was surprised to see characters from Final Fight 2 and 3 here. While Maki and Zeku get cameos, Lucia is more front and center working alongside Edi E. Edi was always a corrupt cop on the Mad Gear payroll, so it's natural that someone that takes her job as seriously as Lucia would turn on him. While Lucia was introduced in Final Fight 3, Street Fighter 5 suggests she was actually around and helped out to some degree in the original run to rescue Jessica. I guess this was a way to show this in the comic. She helped them locate Bred, but doesn't get involved in the rest of the action.
On a similar note, Street Fighter 5 had several arcade modes based on the different games, like Street Fighter Alpha and Street Fighter III using the available characters. Due to lack of characters representing the first game, the Street Fighter campaign throws in Cody, Abigail, Zeku, Poison and Lucia, sort of hinting that the events of Final Fight took place around the same time as the first Street Fighter tournament. And yes, before anyone brings it up... Final Fight was at one point intended to be the sequel to Street Fighter called Street Fighter 89 until the higher ups decided the game was so different it deserved to be its own title.
Another fun reference is the food you can pick up in Final Fight (and other similar beat-em-ups). There were several items in the game but the barbecue ham (or whatever that is) always gave you full health. Not only did Cody comment on it 'recharging the batteries', he even used the bone to knock Edi's gun away, which make the cooked meat part of the story. At least they got it off a meat truck and not from a garbage can or random crates.
The story itself was fun as we get to see Haggar take on Sodom in the wrestling ring. Since Final Fight was a simple game and didn't have any cut scenes other than the intro and the ending, back then I just assumed Sodom was a Japanese samurai guy. It wasn't until the Alpha games where we found out he was an American that was a super-otaku, his win-quotes full of broken Japanese.
We also see Cody having a little too much beating up on the bad guys, and fighting overall. Guy gives us a slight foreshadowing in Cody's future, as he's concerned Cody is in this more for the fighting than for actually rescuing Jessica. That Free Comic Book Day Street Fighter VS Final Fight issue went through Cody's life from Metro City hero, to a bored jailbird to the new Mayor.
The crew is reunited and headed towards the Bay Area. We'll see how it goes next issue as we get closer and closer to Bred losing his fancy new car.
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