Reviewer: James Hatton
Story Title: Street Fighter: Stage 11
Story by: Ken Siu-Chang
Art by: Arnold Tsang, Omar Dogan, Eric Vedder
M3TH, Andrew Hou, Scott Hepburn, Rey, and UDON
Special Guest: Josh Middleton
Publisher: Udon Studios
Hey! Did you check out my Darkstalker’s review? It’s Capcom week for me, and since this is being done during my Thanksgiving vacation which has consisted of me sitting and playing a new batch of video games, and trying to get to the next level in City of Heroes – it seems appropriate. Next week, I’ll hopefully get books about exercise.
Anyway, let’s get right into the story and see what’s going on with our World Warriors.
Story!
The story in Street Fighter has been following three or four stories fairly close. The first is the obvious story of Ryu. He has been on a journey to find the man who killed his master – the really hard to beat, AKUMA!!! Along the way he has picked up Sakura, who is known to be the female, lesser powerful Ryu. In this issue they only touch upon those two briefly, but we get a look into the story of the HADOUKEN. (The cool blue fireball)
We get to see how Chun-Li (Interpol Agent of doom!) visits Fei Long, who is suffering in the hospital from a prior attack – and finally her story interconnects with the main attraction lately in this title – the story of Cammy.
Cammy used to work for the big bad M. Bison – but due to a mysterious event, which they handily cover in this month’s Josh Middleton drawn back-up story – she has gone rogue. Now, working for the government to take down Shadoloo (Bison’s group who want, of course, world domination) – she has come to find out her secretly bad history and she wants to tell them what she knows. The moment comes where she is going to reveal and.. BAF! BIF! KAPOW! We get hot, sexy, fighting between Cammy and Chun-Li as Li shows up and recognizes Cammy as the girl who killed her father.
See! Depth! …sorta… it really was a bit pointless, but it leads to the quick forgiveness of Chun-Li because it’s obvious this is not the same girl.
Huh?
If you follow my reviews of this book, and there have been a couple, you will see that the writing has been on a down swing. I don’t expect Maus out of this book, and I understand that Street Fighter is this huge story that they have lots of characters they want to get through, but it would be a little better if they, maybe, told one story completely instead of three stories in this fragmented ‘quick resolution’ style. I’ve gotten used to it, but it doesn’t make me happy.
Art!
Now I am a huge fan of Udon. Love the studio as a whole – but I have to say that something in this book just didn’t fit right. The fight scene looked great, the general posturing was perfectly fine, but there was some intangible that didn’t sit right with me. Looking over it again, it seems that the lines are just a little too thick when compared to the other work of Udon.
Again, let me tell you that Middleton does a back-up story in this book, and if you miss Middleton, as I do. He’s in prime form.
Overall
So, I will admit this isn’t one of my best reviews ever, but this title was a bit of a disappointment. The bit with Ryu and Sakura was perfect and exactly what I expect out of this book, but the rest kind of fell short. Yes, it moved the plot whimsically along, but the book seems to have very little focus anymore.
I am going to continue enjoying them for what they are, which is the comic book equivalent of a pro-wrestling spot-fest, but it does need to find it’s own personal chi.
