Video Games Turned Comic Books.

Most gamers aren’t new to comic books, in fact for a lot of us they kind of come hand in hand. With a good number of games being released with comic book styles and themes, its no wonder that they’ve also made comic books based on video games.

With the announcement of UDON’s Darkstalkers 3 issue comic book miniseries (expected to release early next year), I thought it would be a good time to take a look at some other games and characters that have made the jump from console to paper.

You can click any of the thumbnail previews along the way to get a little glimpse of what the comics read like.

Sonic the Hedgehog

Although not 100% game based, as some of the concepts and characters came from the old Sonic cartoons, it actually isn’t a bad series. Making its first debut in 1993, Archie Comics has kept this series running to this day. In 2008 it was recognized by the Guinness World Records as the longest running comic based off a video game.

Archie Comics took it so far as to give Knuckles his own spin off comic brilliantly titled “Knuckles the Echidna” which ran for 32 issues. They are currently running through Sonic Universe and even went on to make the fairly successful “Sonic X” television series, which I think a lot of us are guilty of watching at least once since it started . There was even a children’s comic published in the U.K entitled “Sonic the Comic” (another brilliant title) which ran from 1993 till 2002. Way to be Sonic.

Metal Gear Solid

Probably the most well known video game based comic book on the market, partially due to the fact that an entire digital comic book was released for the PSP.

Metal Gear Solid is one of the rare, if perhaps only, comic book port that stayed true to its story. There are two hard copy comic books series available to date, one taking place in Shadow Moses keeping with the story from the first game (published in 2004), and the second following the story of Metal Gear Solid 2 (under the same tag line as the game, “Sons of Liberty”, in 2006). Aside from those there’s the Digital Graphic Novel mentioned above, which also takes you through the storyline of Metal Gear Solid 1 (2006). They were published by IDW and Konami.

Resident Evil

In 1998 Wildstorm and DC released a number of Resident Evil based comics featuring short stories in and around the actual games. Unfortunately at the time of their release the latest game in the Resident Evil series was 2, thus a lot of the comic books stories have been contradicted through later entries to the games.

The Legend of Zelda

Back in the day Nintendo actually published comic books under the brand of “Nintendo Comics System”. Among them was a comic based on Super Mario World along with the Legend of Zelda comic book series, both released in 1990 and both calling it quits only a year later.

The comics were based on the two NES games that were around at the time as well as  the animated shorts featured in the Super Mario Bros. Super Show. Later a few manga series were released which were based off the N64 classics, Ocarina of Time and Majora’s Mask.

Halo

Yes that’s right, before everyone was buzzing over the Halo animations there was indeed a graphic novel, as well as a couple of print novels. “The Halo Graphic Novel” was printed in 2006 telling four short stories that shed some light on some of the other happenings in the Halo universe.

In 2007 “Halo: Uprising” was released to fill in storyline between Halo 2 and Halo 3. Both were published by Marvel, oddly enough. Look out Spidey, there’s a new hero in town.

Darkstalkers

Considering this is the main reason I’m writing this article, I figured I’d better shed some light on the previous Darkstalkers comic books.

Viz Media released 6 comic books based on Darkstalkers, or more so the OVA series “Night Warriors: Darkstalkers’ Revenge”. The series was then treated to 6 other books published by UDON which ended pretty abruptly. Now UDON is looking to take another shot at the Darkstalkers universe with there newly announced mini series.

Lilith was also featured in a manga that ran for 5 books under the title “The Vampire Savior”.

Other video game comics: Prototype, Virtua Fighter, Tomb Raider, Tekken, Super Mario Bros, Street Fighter, Space Quest, Silent Hill, Rival Schools, Prince of Persia, Perfect Dark, Mortal Kombat, Megaman, Gears of War, Double Dragon, Doom, Dark Sector, City of Heroes, Captain N, Brothers in Arms, Blood Rayne, Atari Force, Dead Space, World of Warcraft and Army of Two.

How many of these bad boys are sprawled across your houses?, or better yet, what games do you think should be next on the list of games to be comic books?

Tags: Comics Darkstalkers halo Metal Gear Solid Resident Evil sonic Zelda