Included as a bonus within the box for the game Action 52, The Cheetahmen is a Comic-Book Adaptation starring the game's flagship characters. The story and art were created by Joe Martinez. The comic's story contains twelve pages that detail the origin story of the fighting felines.
In the African jungle, a mother cheetah is shot dead by the evil scientist Dr. Morbis, who then captures her three babies. Taking the cubs to his laboratory, he injects them with a mutagenic formula that causes them to grow into half-animal, half-human creatures he calls "Sub-Humans". Fifteen years pass, and he decides the three are ready to help him carry out his plans for world domination, but they refuse, having grown to question the morals of their master. Outraged, Morbis banishes them from his lab, but as they discuss their master's actions, they trigger some long forgotten memories of their mother's death, and return to the doctor for some answers. Morbis instead sends a group of new Sub-Humans to fight his failed creations. The Cheetahmen dispatch these new enemies easily, but Morbis escapes before they can deal with him. From here, the Cheetahmen vow to protect the world from whatever evil deeds Morbis has planned for the future.
The story featured within the book is titled "The Creation" and is labeled as "Book One", suggesting that more Cheetahmen comics were planned at one point, but no more would ever come to fruition, and Active Enterprises would leave the gaming industry not long after the release of Action 52. The final pages of the book contain an advertisement for Cheetahmen action figures, showing drawings of figures of all three Cheetahmen, as well as the various villains, but these too would never end up getting made.
And now... the Cheetahmen:
- Artificial Limbs: Cygore's right arm is replaced with a robotic prosthetic.
- Big, Thin, Short Trio: Hercules, being the largest and strongest Cheetahman, is the Big, Aries, described as small and quick, is the Short, and Apollo falls into a middle ground, being leaner than Hercules but taller than Aries, making him the Tall.
- Cat Folk: The Cheetahmen are a trio of cheetahs mutated into a humanoid form after Dr. Morbis injected them with his mutating formula.
- Character Catchphrase: The final panel features the Cheetahmen saying "Livin' large!", which may have been intended to be their signature phrase had the franchise continued.
- Create Your Own Hero: Dr. Morbis raises the Cheetahmen into a trio of powerful warriors, then kicks them out after they choose not to help his plans, and the fact that he killed their mother ensures that they will betray him completely.
- Evil Counterpart: The second group of Sub-Humans are another trio, albeit of different animals this time, and they have similar dynamics to the heroic Cheetahmen. While the White Rhino is clearly intended as the antithesis to Hercules, since they're both the muscle of their respective teams, it's a bit less clear with the other two, since in the video game, which member Aries and Apollo fight are switched, and the Hyena and Scavenger don't get much characterization.
- Evil Overlooker: The cover shows the face of the villainous Dr. Morbis looking down at the heroic Cheetahmen.
- Feathered Fiend: The Scavenger is a vulture Sub-Human that Dr. Morbis creates and uses to fight the Cheetahmen.
- Gentle Giant: Hercules is the largest and strongest of the three Cheetahmen, but his introduction describes him as being as gentle as a lamb, and only willing to fight as a last resort.
- Get Out!: Dr. Morbis furiously kicks the Cheetahmen out of his lab after they refuse to help him carry out his evil plans.
- The Hyena: One of Morbis' Sub-Humans is literally named the Hyena, and appropriately, he spends his fight with Apollo cackling like his namesake.
- Mad Doctor: Dr. Morbis captures ordinary animals and injects them with his formulas in order to mutate them into his underlings, seemingly taking pleasure in the pain he causes in the process.Morbis: "This is going to hurt."
- Mama Bear: The Cheetahmen's mother loses her life protecting her cubs from the attacking Dr. Morbis.
- Misplaced Wildlife: The Cheetahmen and their mother are said to have been living in the jungles of Africa before Morbis hunted them down. Real cheetahs live in grasslands and savannahs, but not jungles.
- Missing Mom: The mother of the Cheetahmen is shot dead by Dr. Morbis within the first two panels of the story. This later serves as their motivation for turning on him.
- Power Trio: There are three Cheetahmen, and they make up a team.
- Repressed Memories: The mutation process seems to cause the Cheetahmen to forget about their lives as regular cheetah cubs, including the death of their mother. The memories of this event return after they question why Morbis wants to turn them into killing machines.
- Rhino Rampage: The White Rhino is the largest of Morbis' loyal Sub-Humans, and the one with the most brute strength. It takes Hercules' own strength to take him down.
- Satellite Character: Cygore doesn't get much focus, and his only role is to be Dr. Morbis' right-hand man.
- The Smart Guy: Apollo is the most intelligent Cheetahman, having dedicated much of his time to reading books on all kinds of subjects, being the most knowledgeable on the way of the world, and being the first to question the morality of Dr. Morbis.
- Speed, Smarts and Strength: Aries is a super athlete and the most quick and agile of the three, Apollo is the most intelligent, with knowledge of many subjects from the books he's read, and Hercules is the strongest.
- Super-Strength: Hercules has the most raw strength of all the Cheetahmen, so much so that he's able to lift the equally-large White Rhino over his head and throw him to the ground.
- Three Plus Two: Dr. Morbis and his sidekick Cygore command a trio of other Sub-Humans created from different animals and send them after the traitorous Cheetahmen when they return to confront him. They were going to have this kind of relationship with the Cheetahmen until their falling out.
- Villain: Exit, Stage Left: The Cheetahmen successfully defeat the three Sub-Humans that Dr. Morbis made to fight them, but he and Cygore prepared a force field that the cheetahs cannot break through, which they fly away in and escape to fight another day.
