Street Fighter X G.I. Joe #1
IDW Publishing
Written by: Aubrey Sitterson
Art by: Emilio Laiso
When I saw there was going to be a crossover comic between G.I. Joe and Street Fighter, saying I was excited was an understatement. Two of my favorite childhood franchises thrown together for some crazy and over the top action sounded fantastic! Little did I know how quickly I would be disappointed.
Our story takes place in Mrigankan, the home base of Shadaloo, run by M. Bison. A World Warrior tournament is being sponsored by the head of M.A.R.S., the Military Armament Research System, Destro. This issue covers four fights; C. Viper versus Snake Eyes, The Baroness versus Rufus, Hakan versus Roadblock, and Ryu versus Jinx. Little do the competitors know that their fighting energy is being absorbed to power some device. Its not very clear what the device is, but by the end of the book, Bison assures Destro it will be ready when he enters into his fight.
I figured going into this book that there would be a cliched story and of course there is. Unknowing people are powering a possible doomsday device that’s put there by the people sponsoring the fight. Wouldn’t the Joes be suspicious as soon as they see Destro is sponsoring the tournament? Wouldn’t Ryu be a little concerned to see Bison welcoming people to the base of Shadaloo? Its just too common a trope to be very interesting. Even the fights, most only being a couple pages long, leave much to be desired. Perhaps its because most of my favorite Street Fighter characters weren’t in this book and I just didn’t really care, plus the one character I do like loses his fight.
And speaking of the pages, I really didn’t care for the art style. I’m not sure what I was expecting really, but it seems very messy and inconsistent. They tried to add some interesting touches by having a versus screen at the beginning of the fight as well as a big KO emblazoned on the end panel. This just wasn’t enough to make it appealing to the eye. Most of the backgrounds are bland or a mix of random colors. Even when there is a structure in the background its not very detailed. The same bland backgrounds seem to be used again and again, and the most glaring example of this is the stage that Bison and Destro sit on while watching the fights.
While initially I was excited to run out and grab this book, I’ve pretty much decided its not for me. An uninteresting story coupled with messy artwork has me very disappointed in Street Fighter X G.I. Joe #1. This might be a comic for only the truly hardcore fans or someone looking to grab a very simple read. Perhaps the series will get better, but issue one leaves me with little hope of that.