A whole decade before UDON secured the license to create comic books based on the Street Fighter video games, which they still hold to this day (they continually nail the tone, style and characters of the video game perfectly), the now defunct publisher Malibu Comics brought US-originated Street Fighter comics to print for the first time.

This first issue gets things off to a pretty weak start, in all honesty, but in fairness to Malibu, in 1993 the official cast of characters, their backstories and their relationships to each other were far less defined than they are now.

Still, if it’s action you’re after, it certainly delivers; it’s probably true to say that Street Fighter fans in 1993 probably weren’t expecting much more than a series of fight scenes, and you really don’t have much more than that in this issue. Even if the synopsis makes it feel as if there’s more going on within its pages, as you’ll soon see.

Bison goads Sagat with footage of his defeat at the hands (and feet!) of Ryu, with the intention of luring him into attacking Ryu’s friends to exact revenge. Ryu himself is losing Chun-Li, his girlfriend (!) who’s focused on pursuing Bison via her new role at Interpol; she believes he’s responsible for her father’s death. Ryu’s friend, Ken, has a new role of his own, and seemks fame as an actor; however, Bison has dispatched two of his powerful minions to take on Ken, with the intention of provoking Ryu.

The art is nothing spectacular by today’s standards, and even pretty weak in places (and certainly not a patch on UDON’s consistently lavish, gorgeous style), but the colouring work is stellar, certainly by 1993 standards. It’s surprisingly bloody too; did the creators think they were adapting Mortal Kombat? On a related note, and amusingly, an ad for Mortal Kombat, the long term rival of the Street Fighter games, appears on the back of this issue, which surely can’t have been something Capcom were thrilled by.

The real problem with the issue is writer Len Strazewski’s script, with terrible dialogue and an uninteresting, very basic story.

Remarkably, the foreword and afterword by Tom Mason reveals that Strazewski hadn’t even played Street Fighter II when he was offered the job, but played a SNES version of the game for ‘two months’ before beginning to write the script. Compare this to the lifelong Street Fighter fans at UDON finally getting to live their dream to adapt their favourite game, and it’s clear why there’s such a difference in the two adaptations, right from the start.

Reportedly, Capcom weren’t happy with how Malibu handled the Street Fighter license, and it’s easy to see why, just from this first issue. Do things improve in issue 2? Well, something huge happens which no doubt infuriated Capcom even further, so watch this space for my review of the second issue!