Had I realised that Street Fighter vs Final Fight #1 was essentially a Free Comic Book Day 2024 exclusive (though you can buy it with a variant cover directly from the UDON Entertainment website), I probably would have reviewed it sooner.

For the uninitiated, Free Comic Book Day is an annual event, held internationally on the first Saturday in May. Comic book stores buy in promotional titles that are given away free to customers, with the intention of bringing in new, hopefully repeat, customers to the store.

Most of the time, the comics on offer are reprints or excerpts of upcoming issues; occasionally, a full, new issue or exclusive is on offer from certain publishers, and that’s what we gave here with UDON’s Street Fighter vs Final Fight #1, which is a crossover of two action packed, iconic video game franchises.

In this issue, we see hotheaded Cody Travers, following the events of the classic 1989 scrolling beat ’em up Final Fight (in which he’s one of the three playable characters, and, incidentally, the one I always chose to play as), continuing to clean up the streets of Metro City. Though the game saw him teaming up with ex-wrestler (and now the city’s Mayor) Mike Haggar and the monynomous ninja Guy, both believe that Cody is going too far in his vigilante activities.

When two law enforcement agents, who’ll be familiar to Street Fighter fans, arrive to arrest Cody for taking out one of their undercover agents, he’s determined not to go quietly…

I’ve said it before about UDON’s licensed Capcom titles; they’re not exactly high art when it comes to their writing, but damn if they aren’t good fun. They seem to take themselves very seriously, but perhaps because of this, they end up feeling pretty campy in tone, and the artwork is always phenomenal.

With this story taking place across four distinct time periods, the art is handled by four different artists, who each bring their own OTT style to the story. Each one has a different way of exaggerating the larger than life characters, and they all do a fantastic job with the numerous, crazy fight scenes too.

I’ve always had the sense that UDON really understand both the Capcom games and exactly what their audiences want; daft, soapy stories with a simplistic view of morality (and legal matters!), punctuated by action sequences that always reference the source material, complete with stunning artwork.

And that’s exactly what we always get; it’s silly to expect anything else, especially when the story is based on a scrolling beat ’em up and a fighting game series, where punches and kicks do most of the talking, and combatants can summon up literal fireballs or generate sonic booms as part of their offensive repertoire.

For me, UDON’s comics are the literary equivalent of silly martial arts action movies, which definitely have their place in terms of cinematic enjoyment. Well made, beautifully presented action movies on paper; not everything has to be, or should be, Watchmen. Final Fight vs Street Fighter is great fun, and makes me very excited for the upcoming, standalone Final Fight mini series.