As Nintendo fans await the next release of the company’s most famous franchises, a breathtaking piece of art is going to have many wishing for their beloved heroes to return in comic form, as well as video games.

Given the success of Nintendo’s core brands across the entertainment industry (like the blockbuster success of The Super Mario Bros. Movie), it’s strange that games remain the sole form in which fans can engage with most of them. But comic book writer and artist Sean Murphy (Tokyo Ghost, Batman: White Knight) has just created our next must-have Star Fox product.

It’s impossible to behold the cast of Star Fox rendered in cover-ready artwork by Murphy via Instagram (and colored by Simon Gough) and not immediately ask the question: why hasn’t Nintendo made a Star Fox comic a reality? It’s a question even harder to answer when you dig into the company’s largely forgotten history with the comic book medium.

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While Murphy’s art is a self-contained pitch for a Star Fox comic expansion to the mythology, the idea of comic book entries for several of Nintendo’s prized properties shouldn’t be a new one. While mostly unknown by modern gamers, Nintendo attempted the feat in 1990, with the release of Nintendo Comics System from Valiant Comics.

The series was shortlived, but its adaptations of properties like Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda, and Metroid are remembered fondly by fans lucky enough to have enjoyed them firsthand. And the adoring fanbases of all these properties (like the ranks of comic writers and artists who grew up on these games) have only grown since then.

Longtime fans of the larger Star Fox lore known that it’s a universe filled with heroes, villains, alien races, and planets prime for exploration, especially if tackled with the kind of top-tier talent Murphy displays. Not only would it be a simpler way of keeping Star Fox in the public consciousness without a major game release, but it would also bring the Star Fox franchise full circle for fans in the West.

While the release of Star Fox for the original NES took place in early 1993, Nintendo fans outside of Japan had to wait a few extra weeks. In that time, the arrival of Nintendo Power Vol. 47 introduced the masses to Fox McCloud, Slippy, Peppy, and more through a 132-page comic by Benimaru Itoh. Told across 11 issues of the magazine, the story adapted the main events of the first game (with some changes).

Is it fate that Star Fox would be introduced to the West in comic book form, and now seem a prime candidate for Nintendo to leap back into the medium? Only time will tell, but as usual, Star Fox fans can only wait and hope.

Source: Sean Murphy

Star Fox

Released

March 22, 1993

ESRB

r

Developer(s)

Nintendo, Argonaut Software

Publisher(s)

Nintendo

Engine

nintendo

Number of Players

1