Ex-wrestler and current Mayor of Metro City, Mike Haggar, is smashing his way through Mad Gear gang members on a subway train, with the goal of finding his kidnapped daughter, Jessica. Meanwhile, above ground, Jessica’s boyfriend Cody and his friend, Guy, are speeding across town, about to have their own run in with some very crooked cops.

As you’d expect from a comic based on a classic, iconic arcade beat ’em up, Final Fight is relentlessly action packed, right from the first panel. Though the action lurches from one improbable scenario to the next, fans of the game will love how it takes you on a trip through the exact stages of the game, in the correct order too. What’s more, so many of the characters from the game appear here, and it even explains one inexplicable scene shift from the game along the way. It’s clear that writer Matt Moylan knows his stuff when it comes to Final Fight, as does artist Matt Weldon, who recreates the characters and settings of the video game beautifully. It’s very different to the usual faux-anime style that UDON are well known for, but Weldon’s more realistic and gritty aesthetic is perfect for the subject matter.

This issue also has a rather cool trick up its sleeve, and it’s one I was definitely not expecting: all of the action unfolds horizontally and across full, double page spreads at 90°! Just check out this familiar scene from the game, as a massive, splash page style sequence:

It’s fantastic stuff, and though there’s little depth to proceedings, who cares when it’s this much fun, when the creators are having such a good time (the reference to street meat is superb, for example), or when it’s as close to the video game as you can possibly get?

Final Fight #2 is an absolute blast from the first page to the last, has a surprisingly excellent artistic flourish in terms of its issue-long horizontal orientation, and I can’t wait to read more.