Metroid Database.com

This just in... Metroid is a guy!! We secretly suspected this all along, and this manga proves it!!

Because it's on the Metroid Database, your Number 1 source for Metroid news, it MUST be true!!

This weird little manga is called Famiken Ryu, and it came out in 1985-1987, during the height of the Famicom boom. It stars Ryu, a kenpo master who first protected his classmates from the bullies of a rival school, but then applied his martial arts skills to beat Famicom games. This combination of Famicom games and kenpo is called...Famiken! This gives him superpowers like rapid-fire and lightning reflexes. Eventually, Ryu gets sucked into the games. There's even a giant evil brain supercomputer called Cobra. If that sounds as campy as Captain N, you're right!

Cobra is behind a conspiracy to conquer the world by kidnapping the top Famicom players in Japan and using their skills to play his videogames - which are modifications of hit titles like Tower of Druaga, Gradius, Legend of Valkyrie, and Metroid. The games have been modified to hack into America's - I mean, "A Country's" - defense system. By playing the games, you hack into a military computer system! He's also created an army of mutants - some of them failed game masters.

Some games have been converted into "Psychic Illusions" by Cobra's henchman, Dr. Madoh. You enter one of these, and you're basically inside a videogame, with all the cool powers and abilities of the hero. Unfortunately, that means if you get killed in there, you're dead for good! The only way to escape is by beating the game!

The manga is ultra-rare, but there were dozens of manga like at the time, which you can read about on this collector's blog (in Japanese). It was originally published by our favorite Comic Bom Bom (the same guys who did Samus & Joey and Episode of Aether 20 years later), then collected in five volumes. Sadly, we only have the first four, but that's OK since Volume 4 was the only one with Metroid in it. If you want to see what happens next, go here. We've scanned and translated those two chapters for you. Enjoy!

Until next time...
Captain Commando