Me reading a Captain N comic didn’t happen because someone suggested it to me. Nobody told me that there was a Captain N comic. I didn’t stumble upon it or come across an issue in a bin anywhere. It’s just that one day I randomly reminisced about the cartoon and thought to myself, “Was there a Captain N comic book? I bet there was.”

Lo and behold, my instincts were correct. You know I had to get my mitts on this one. The five-issue series came out over the course of 1990, released by Valiant Comics. They released the Game Boy comic around that time, which I’ve reviewed months back.

To fully understand the comic and what makes it worth talking about, you have to understand the TV show. Captain N: The Game Master is a cartoon about a teenager named Kevin Keene who is so good at playing his NES that he and his dog Duke are pulled into his Nintendo by “the Ultimate Warpzone”. It’s there that he exists in a multiverse of videogame franchises, even if they weren’t Nintendo-owned. Armed with a controller belt buckle and a zapper gun, Captain N fights for the original character Princess Lana along with existing videogame heroes Kid Icarus (aka Pit), Mega Man and Simon Belmont. Those three are probably banded together due to their shared success in having awesome theme music. The main villain is Mother Brain from Metroid, commanding over the Eggplant Wizard, King Hippo, Dr. Wily and the Count (they couldn’t call him “Dracula” for whatever reason). Donkey Kong’s there too, but he’s more of a wildcard villain, like the crocodile from Peter Pan.

In concept, it’s a videogame fanboy wet dream. Unfortunately, there were some snags to the show, such as the character designs for the preexisting heroes. Kid Icarus is a midget who won’t stop adding “icus” to the end of his sentences, yet he’s the least problematic. Mega Man is also a midget, only pudgy and more annoying. They saw how dynamic and cool his 8-bit sprite was and came up with that? Then there’s Simon Belmont. Jeeeesus. Instead of a badass vampire hunter, he’s a doofy narcissist with pilot goggles. I get that these guys are all based on early 8-bit designs that lacked characterization, but as a marketing ploy, I can’t imagine any kid was thinking, “I want to play as that annoying, scratchy-voiced toddler in the green tights!” It got even worse in the third season when they introduced Alucard, re-imagined as a totally radical skater dude.

It’s like if Poochy wanted your blood.

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I have a review of a comic about a certain late-80’s/early-90’s animated series almost finished. In the meantime, here’s a segment from it that I couldn’t find a spot for in the article.

How did a shitty cartoon turn into a surprisingly good comic series? Check back in a day or so.

Back in the early 90’s, the comic company Valiant struck a deal with Nintendo. Over the next two years or so, Valiant would release a multitude of series based on Nintendo franchises. There were a couple that felt natural. Super Mario Brothers and Legend of Zelda each had their own cartoons at the time, so they would get picked up. Captain N: The Game Master would also get his own comic, though transformed due to the inability to use videogame characters outside of Nintendo. There was even a series called Nintendo Comics System that acted like an anthology of stories featuring those I mentioned and miscellaneous games like Dr. Mario and Punch Out.

Around that time, Nintendo’s Game Boy was still fresh on the scene and they wanted to do whatever they could to get the word out. Sure, advertising was easy for the Nintendo Entertainment System. Captain N was one big commercial for the console and all its games. Well, all the games that weren’t on that crappy knockoff cartoon Power Team (anyone else remember that? It had the monster truck Bigfoot, a basketball player and a talking tomato). Anyway, outside of commercials and magazine ads, how do you advertise what is essentially a lesser NES that you can carry around with you?

With the Captain N cartoon, they eventually introduced a Slimer-like character named Game Boy who was one, big, annoying Game Boy levitating around. With Valiant, they went in another direction. They gave it its own comic book.

I’m sure by now you’re already asking the million dollar question: “How exactly does a Game Boy comic work?” That’s a very good question and having found out the answer, I just had to get my hands on this 4-issue series.

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