Comments on: Valiant Comic Book Alphabet of Cool - N

By: felgekarp

felgekarp — Tue, 06 May 2008 09:10:48 +0000

Please tell me that the awful gameboy character from the second series of the cartoon doesn't show up in any of the comics?

By: Lucion

Lucion — Tue, 06 May 2008 01:34:55 +0000

I just looked and found the SMB comics I was recalling. They were part of the same Nintendo Comics System, published by Valiant, as Captain N. More info and some scans can be found here: http://trsrockin.com/ncs.html

By: Lynxara

Lynxara — Mon, 05 May 2008 23:00:56 +0000

Were those Super Mario Bros. comics the ones that ran in Nintendo Power? Those, I recall, were done by manga great Shotaro Ishinomori, and had art that was really quite excellent.

By: Lucion

Lucion — Mon, 05 May 2008 22:46:52 +0000

I don't know if it was a Valiant book, but one of my students had an old copy of a Super Mario Bros. comic that had some really great art in it. I was actually stunned by how much personality the art had. I thought it would look awful and rushed, but it was really nicely done. Very colorful and had quite a lot of cute touches that leant it character.

I love the way they made Mother Brain from Metroid look on those covers. It's more horrifying than the "real" thing!

By: Patent Dragon

Patent Dragon — Mon, 05 May 2008 21:58:38 +0000

Captain N The TV Show also had appearances by Link and Zelda of Legend Of Zelda fame, but I must admit to prefering the Zelda in the Legend of Zelda cartoons.

By: Thok

Thok — Mon, 05 May 2008 20:08:47 +0000

Somehow I could imagine a manga style revamp of this title, with the supporting cast looking and acting a bit more like the original video game counterparts. How cool would it be to your avergage kid to have a strange Nintendo inspired multiverse where Castlevania, Mega Man, or Metroid could pop up at anytime. Throw in the occasional appearance of Mario, Donkey Kong, Star Fox or Pokemon too. Mix and serve.

There's a decent fan-written sequel webcomic called Captain SNES (located at http://www.captainsnes.com). Be aware that it is a sprite webcomic, it's got something of a "darker, more edgier" plot (although Eggplant Wizard and King Hippo are still the same as in the cartoon), and that it's updating schedule is more sporadic than Whedon's Astonishing X-Men. But given all that, it's fairly interesting.

(Among other things, there are periodic side features. For example, he did about 20 issues discussing the various Captain N characters. There's also an amusing bit involving Captain Atari.)

By: Michael

Michael — Mon, 05 May 2008 18:44:57 +0000

I've read that one with "The Real Captain N." He has a bigger Zapper and a bigger control pad, but Kevin proves he's just an impostor by knowing more about the minutia of video games.

Being 8 years old at the time, I did not quite get the subtext there.

By: Bill Reed

Bill Reed — Mon, 05 May 2008 17:53:19 +0000

Well, my mind is blown.

By: Lynxara

Lynxara — Mon, 05 May 2008 17:21:51 +0000

I wouldn't really say it was more serious, so much as most people really hated what the cartoon did with Simon Belmont and the Castlevania franchise.

Everything related to Castevania was played for comic relief, I guess because a real vampire hunter fighting Dracula was too scary for Saturday Morning. However, Saturday Morning comic relief was always horrible even when you were a kid, so any episode with a lot of Simon or Castlevania ended up being really annoying on top of having nothing to do with the NES games to a positively aggravating degree.

Samus Aran took herself really, really seriously in the comics. (This is by itself is kind of silly since the comic kept the silly Mother Brain design the cartoon used.) But it also meant she wasn't cracking lame jokes every other panel, and it also meant there was a woman hanging around the book whose job wasn't "get captured a lot."

A definite improvement, even if it doesn't make Captain N any less ridiculous at heart!

By: Craig

Craig — Mon, 05 May 2008 17:19:31 +0000

You can definitely see the Valiant "look" on those covers. I know they tried to run ads against the accusations of their "house style", but it's plastered all over their early work, including this stuff.

By: Tomer S

Tomer S — Mon, 05 May 2008 15:39:08 +0000

Never read the comics, but the TV show was one of my favorites as a kid.

By: Michael Sacal

Michael Sacal — Mon, 05 May 2008 13:52:45 +0000

No Ninjak?

By: Jeff Ryan

Jeff Ryan — Mon, 05 May 2008 13:07:48 +0000

These comics sat on the bottom shelf of my local EB Games, beat up like ROM the Space Knights fromt he quarter bin. I think they were anhtology stories, so instead of one comic you didn't want to read, you got three or four!

Too bad Valiant didn't learn their lesson not to mix video games in with their comics!

By: Andrew

Andrew — Mon, 05 May 2008 12:46:19 +0000

The cover to issue 5 certainly looks like early Quesada.

By: Anthony Strand

Anthony Strand — Mon, 05 May 2008 12:05:14 +0000

The Nintendo Comics System was the only Valiant comics I ever remember seeing. I was wondering when they were gonna show up.

thekamisama - I like that idea. A great deal.

By: thekamisama

thekamisama — Mon, 05 May 2008 11:51:41 +0000