Category: Written Reviews

The final issue of Game Boy is among us… and you wouldn’t know it by reading the issue because it reads just like every other story in this series. That asshole Herman shows up somewhere, lets Tatanga and his cronies loose some place, and they cause some havoc… although this time around, Tatanga is lenient enough to throw Princess Daisy a birthday party.

Oh yes, they included Princess Daisy in here… who, at this time, was just a mild palette swap of Princess Peach. (To be fair, Daisy showed up for one game and was completely forgotten about afterwards until, what, Mario Tennis on N64 or something like that?) She’s been a character in these things and she’s always in the clutches of that dastardly alien. Again, appreciate these moments of Tatanga being treated as a major threat before we forget about him in short order.

There is some high stakes here, because Mario has to do some plumbing in a nuclear power plant and that exposes him to radiation, which can kill him. And video game characters who die in the real world… die for real. Which means Nintendo will have to hedge their bets on Luigi going forward if the world’s most famous plumber doesn’t make it back to the world of Game Boy. And then someone stole this idea and turned it into Wreck-It-Ralph. Go figure.

The final issue of Game Boy ends with neither a bang nor a whimper. It just ends and whatever happens next is best left to the imagination. Honestly, it’s probably for the best. I will say one thing; the comics themselves might not have been great, but I’d be lying if I said that they were boring. I actually got a bit of a kick reading these thing and I maintain that of all the Nintendo Comics System series that Valiant put out, Game Boy was the most interesting in terms of concept. I only wish that they went a little further with the idea and expanded into other Game Boy titles being put into play here. Mario was in a bunch of them. Not so sure why you couldn’t pull this off.

Maybe someone can… perhaps they should. In fact, you know what, Nintendo? Do it. Get someone to revive the Game Boy comic and continue where this left off. It’ll be the best thing to happen since the Wii.

One thing’s for sure… Wii U is NEVER getting its own comic book.

Never gonna happen.

Happy 25th, Game Boy.

Last time, Mario was on a passenger jet. This time, Mario takes to the skies as that dastardly Tatanga attempts to take over an aircraft carrier… oh, and that Herman fellow is still around, now pursued by the FBI for his alleged hijacking of the airplane from last issue. Seems like he’s our main secondary character that we follow after Tatanga, Mario, and all the minions. Feel free to appreciate Tatanga’s only stretch as a major threat to Mario before he gets bumped down to Moon Zone boss a year or so down the line, but I digress.

I feel like I’m lost when it comes to these stories. I get that these were primarily aimed at children and thus is written as children’s fare, but even within that context, you would think that, at some point, we’d get some explanation as to how these intrusions keep happening and why no one figured the solution would be to take these cursed Game Boys and Mario Land cartridges and just destroy them. That way, no more Tatanga invading our world. Seems like a simple fix, but they never address it.

Then again, this is simple fare where the core audience this is written for only cares about Mario and his shenanigans… and hey, he brought SkyPop with him. I’m all for more SkyPop in Mario media, especially one part where SkyPop gets a considerable upgrade in firepower. It’s entertaining fluff, if nothing else.

Well… we’ve got one more issue to go, folks. Let’s see how this thing comes to an end.

So one of the main characters in this issue – a girl named Tannis – complains about not being rescued by something from Tetris, since she knows that game. Not so sure how that’d work out, but hey, at least we’re referencing different games.

So, the premise of Game Boy becomes readily apparent here; this Herman fellow frees up Tatanga and crew to wreck havoc in different locations and some other character releases Mario in another Game Boy so that he can save the day. We’re on a plane this time around. Our main protagonist is the aforementioned Tannis. And now we sort of see what we’re dealing with here; it’s mostly Super Mario Land elements and not much else, but invading real world settings and even trashing a Disney ride in the process. Again, there’s not much to the story. Humans and Mario help each other out, push Tatanga back into Videoland or whatever the case may be, and ol’ Herman scurries off to another gig of failure.

It’s lightweight storytelling, but to be fair and in a rare positive to the series in general, you’re getting a full issue worth of story divided into two chapters, as opposed to the other books where they gave you two short stories and a couple extras. It’s worth noting that one of the many artists to contribute to Game Boy’s artistic efforts (not featured here, though) is one Gray Morrow, the one name I recognize from the menagerie of artists working on this thing because he would do some of the MMPR comics from Hamilton Comics. In fairness, the way that the humans are depicted in these books don’t vary too much and there are so many people on art duties that him skipping out on this issue is not even a factor.

Game Boy #2 feels like a rehash of what came before and pretty much cements the gimmick of this series.

Valiant Comics – a name you probably haven’t heard much of these days because they’re no longer around – published a number of comics . … Somewhere along the way, they got the rights to produce some Nintendo comics. Mostly Super Mario Bros, but there was also a Captain N comic, a Legend Of Zelda comic, and a Game Boy comic.

You hear me. Game Boy.

Yes, the Game Boy got its own comic in 1990. That’s how hot that thing was.

I don’t recall Atari Lynx getting a comic book.

Or Sega Game Gear.

Running for four issues, Game Boy presents an interesting inverse of the Captain N concept. In Captain N, real life high schooler Kevin Keene is sucked into the world of video games as the chosen savior. In Game Boy, the video game critters pop out of a Game Boy to invade the real world and the only one who can save them all is Super Mario… who is also popping out of a Game Boy. Coincidentally, all the critters seem to come from Super Mario Land, the sole portable Mario platformer at the time.

It’s an interesting yet silly little premise for a book. Certainly something unique for what is essentially another Mario comic, as instead of doing more of what they did in the other two SMB comics, they’re bringing Mario and his menagerie into the real world – which feature fairly realistic looking humans and real world settings to contrast with these incredibly cartoonish looking caricatures, whom look the parts if nothing else. You only get a tease of that in the last few pages of the book and I’m wondering if the series eventually adopts other Game Boy titles into the mix. (Yes, they mostly used first-party Nintendo games… so what? Alleyway is still something they can use.)

Let’s be fair here; this isn’t a particularly good comic. The first bit of it is dedicated to unlikeable store clerk Herman and our main protagonists, Rick and Josh – one cool kid and the other not so cool kid. I’ll let you decide which is which. And then we have Mario Land final boss Tatanga taking over a shopping mall and then Mario shows up from another Game Boy via a third door at the end of a typical Mario Land level (usually, there’s two, so we have some semblance of an out here?) And from there, stuff happens fairly quickly, everyone is repelled back to Game Boy Land, and you’re left wondering how and why… and I’m not so sure that we ever got those answers. And given that this only ran for three more issues before the license expired, I can only imagine how things work out from here.

But you know what? Now I’m intrigued by where this go. Can’t think of a better thing to cover for Game Boy’s 25th anniversary than a comic about Game Boy.

PSP ain’t getting no comic book any time soon.