This third issue also marks the last in Malibu’s very short-lived Street Fighter series. In issue #2, despite Ken’s scalping and apparent death at the hands of Sagat, from the pages of Malibu’s The Protectors, popular sumo wrestler E. Honda and The Ferret from the Street Fighter II video game A considerable amount of time is given to the battle between. .
This is another puzzling diversion, and one that probably goes a long way toward showing exactly why Malibu was forced to pull the plug on Street Fighter comics. This issue also features a fairly lengthy editorial lamenting the fact that they lost the license, and ends with a summary text page that briefly summarizes what’s going on with each character.
The issue of Ken’s death is handled reasonably well, and the news spreads quickly through the Street Fighter community, but the ferret isn’t the only inexplicably added character here. No, despite the fact that some of the cast hasn’t been properly introduced at this stage, screenwriter Len Straszewski felt it was appropriate to introduce another all-new character, Nida. I thought about it. I was poisoned. Nida, who harbors a grudge against Ryu, goes out to look for him, but this is where these three strange little stories end.
Strazewski doesn’t just randomly throw new characters into the mix. He also used the name of a character that existed only as an April Fool’s prank for a gaming magazine. Sheng Long’s name comes from a mistranslation of the Street Fighter II arcade game, which video game magazine Electronic Gaming Monthly used as the basis for a prank article. This 1992 article details how to unlock Shenron as a hidden character, and the rumor spread so well that it was reprinted in several other magazines without verification and widely accepted as true. I believed it. Strazewski clearly took this information as gospel, as he introduced Shenron in the Street Fighter comics without indicating that it was an inside joke.
Anyway, Malibu Comics’ bizarre “Street Fighter” story ends here. Another hilarious touch in this series was that two of the three issues had an advertisement for Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter’s main rival at the time, on the back cover.
This is interesting information, as Malibu went on to successfully adapt Mortal Kombat into comics, releasing several Mortal Kombat comic series and one-shots between 1994 and 1995.
Of course, UDON later licensed Street Fighter comics in the early ’00s and it was so successful and well-received that they still publish Street Fighter comics today.
What about this forgotten Malibu series? This is definitely best left in the past as a poorly thought out curio that will only have interest and value to Street Fighter’s most hardcore completionists.
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