Line #17 ComicBook/NintendoComicsSystem


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ncs_no1_front.jpg]]
2	The Nintendo Comics System, first published in 1990, was an early and short-lived imprint of the comic book company Creator/{{Valiant Comics}}. As the name suggests, it was a series of comic books based on the popular Creator/{{Nintendo}} video game franchises and their [[AnimatedAdaptation cartoon spin-offs]]. The titles published within this imprint included stories based on:
3
4	* ''Franchise/SuperMarioBros'' (of course) - In the only truly comedic comic in the series, Mario and Luigi defend the Mushroom Kingdom against the evil forces of Bowser Koopa.
5	* ''Platform/GameBoy'' - In what may or may not be a SpinOff from the ''Franchise/SuperMarioBros'' comic, a disgruntled man named Herman Smirch is turned into a slave for ''VideoGame/SuperMarioLand'' villain Tatanga and is forced to release through "the gateway" (a.k.a. a Game Boy) when the alien demands it. Luckily, other Game Boy players are always around to release Mario ([[DependingOnTheWriter who has a strangely different personality here than in his other comic]]) through the gateway so he can drive Tatanga's forces away.
6	* ''ComicBook/TheLegendOfZelda'' - Link and Zelda have to protect the Triforce of Wisdom from Ganon, the Prince of Darkness. These comics take place following the events of ''VideoGame/ZeldaIITheAdventureOfLink'' and have many details in common with the [[WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfZelda1989 cartoon series]] based on the games which debuted around the same time.
7	* ''WesternAnimation/CaptainNTheGameMaster'' - Based on the cartoon of the same name, except it takes itself more seriously. Also, [[Franchise/{{Metroid}} Samus Aran]], having been oddly absent from the cartoon, is here, while third party characters [[Franchise/{{Castlevania}} Simon Belmont]] and ''[[VideoGame/MegaManClassic Mega Man]]'' are absent.
8	* ''Franchise/{{Metroid}}'' - Documents further adventures of Samus Aran and is possibly set in the same continuity as the ''Captain N'' comics (it uses the same design for Mother Brain). Unfortunately, only one story was written for this one.
9	* ''VideoGame/PunchOut'' - Stories are made based off of Little Mac's matches with his opponents in the games. OK, only two (Piston Honda and Super Macho Man).
10
11	Unfortunately, despite Nintendo's prominence in the video game market at the time, the comics apparently did not sell very well; arguably, the Zelda comics were the most popular and had the longest run. They were all discontinued right around the time the Platform/SuperNES was launched (though as ''Magazine/NintendoPower'' showed the following year, it was not the end of Nintendo comics in general).
12
13	----
14
15	!!These comic books contain examples of:
16
17	[[AC:Franchise/SuperMarioBros and Platform/GameBoy]]
18	* AbhorrentAdmirer: Big Bertha to just about everyone, since Stanley, who is her usual object of affection, is always dumping her on the lap of the nearest sap. Although him trying to get away from her is excusable considering she's extremely needy and violently jealous (as seen in "Fins and Roses", where she beat seven shades of tar out of Wendy just because [[MisplacedRetribution Stanley was trying to woo her]], while Wendy just wanted to get rid of him because he was ruining her plan to ambush Mario), it doesn't help that Stanley's such a tool.
19	* [[AcmeProducts Apook Corporation Products]]: The fact that nobody catches on to the fact that this is just "Koopa" [[SdrawkcabName spelled backwards]] is part of the joke.
20	** In "Magic Carpet Madness", a fast-growing beanstalk is what stops the brainwashed Princess Toadstool and snaps her awake. It grew like that because Mario sat on a fertilizer sack right over the seeds. Funnily enough, the sack reads (upside down): "Super Fert(alizer) - NOT a product of the Apook Corporation".
21	* AdaptationalBadass: Compare [[https://mario.wiki.gallery/images/d/d6/Tatanga_in_the_Game_Boy_comics.png Tatanga's appearance here]] to how he looks in the [[https://mario.wiki.gallery/images/9/92/Tatanga1.PNG official game artwork]].
22	* AntiPoopSocking: A downright ridiculous inversion in ''Game Boy # 1'' where the hero chastises his older, not-as-competent brother of spending too much time with girls and not enough time playing Nintendo.
23	* BeachEpisode: Mario, the Princess, and Toad end up on a tropical island of surfer Toads in "Beauty and the Beach."
24	* BrainwashedAndCrazy: Princess Toadstool in "Magic Carpet Madness"; When the princess' MagicCarpet floats past the ozone, the oh-no zone and into the Koopa Zone, a pair of Pidgets use hypnosis to turn her into a delinquent who harasses people with her rug. She snaps out of it when she collides with a giant beanstalk.
25	* CatchPhrase: Bowser likes to declare that his current plan is "gonna be excellent!"
26	* ChainedHeat: In "The Buddy System", Mario and Bowser are chained together by Mousers, and are forced to work together to save the underground world from flooding and themselves from drowning. Their teamwork is short-lived.
27	* ChekhovsVolcano: In "Beauty and the Beach," Bowser is trying to cause a volcanic eruption by tricking a bunch of surfer Toads into throwing bombs into the volcano to scare away the Cheep Cheeps that are making it impossible to surf. Mario, the Princess, and Toad have to work to stop the volcano from erupting.
28	* TheDitz: King Toadstool (who apparently did not even ''know'' what cacti were) and Lemmy Koopa.
29	* DreamWithinADream: "You Again?", with a rather {{Mind Screw}}y TwistEnding: [[spoiler:all those dreams of Mario getting beaten up by Shy Guys were ''Toad''[='=]s, and when he wakes up, [[HereWeGoAgain he himself starts to go through Mario's torment]].]]
30	* DumbassHasAPoint: Subverted because King Toadstool's assumption that Wooster was betraying them was wrong, while for a moment Mario and Toad thought he was right because they caught him feeding Koopa (turns out he was stuffing him full on purpose, so he would fall asleep and Wooster could slip away).
31	* ExactWords: Lemmy passes his ambush test by attacking his own father, because it was indeed an ambush.
32	* FlippantForgiveness: Bowser gets really mad at the Koopalings when Princess Peach tricks them into letting her go -- except for Lemmy, because Bowser already knew ''he'' was an idiot.
33	* FourthWallMailSlot: "Dear Princess Toadstool" was treated as such, despite the fact that she was really just answering mail from other characters.
34	* ImThinkingItOver: Mario is obsessed with "Dirk Drain-Head" comic books. When he drops the latest issue in a dangerous area filled with Koopa's minions, he has trouble deciding if the comic book is worth going back for.
35	--> '''Luigi''': What's more important, that comic book or your life?''
36	--> '''Mario''': I'm thinking it over.''
37	* IronicEcho:
38	-->'''Tatanga''': But not this time. Mario dies today. You see, in ''this'' world, you only live once.\
39	''(later, after Mario has gotten a Starman and is now invincible)''\
40	'''Daisy''': Mario won't stop until you're finished. He '''is''' invincible, now. And what was it you said? In this world...\
41	'''Tatanga''': [[OhCrap ...you only live once.]]
42	* TheJeeves: Wooster, whose name is almost certainly a ShoutOut to... well, Literature/JeevesAndWooster.
43	* JerkAss: Mario tends to act like this in the ''Super Mario Bros.'' stories
44	** Stanley the Talking Fish in his three Mario appearances.
45	** Herman Smirch in the ''Game Boy'' comics.
46	* {{LARP}}: The story ''The Revenge of Pipe Ooze!'' has Mario and the others attending a Dirk Drain-Head LARP. Mario, of course, goes as Dirk Drain-Head, even though Luigi is the spitting image of Dirk when he wears the costume.
47	* LiteralMinded: The King of Mushroom Land.
48	--> '''Peach''': My fellow Mushroomites, we are facing dark days ahead.
49	--> '''King''': Oh no! Higher lighting bills!
50	* MinionWithAnFInEvil: Lemmy. At one point, Mario even asks Bowser if he's ''sure'' the kid is on his side.
51	--> '''Bowser''': You wondered that too, huh?
52	* MistreatmentInducedBetrayal: Truffle Toes, one of the Toads [[MySpeciesDothProtestTooMuch working for Bowser]] in "Mutiny of the Fungi", turns against Bowser after the latter continuously abuses the former over his odd obsession with caring for one particular coin and is subsequently rescued by Mario.
53	* NotSoAboveItAll: While Mario's nerding over the InUniverse Comic Book ''Dirk Drain-Head'' often causes trouble for the others, Princess Toadstool is revealed to be just as big a fan of another In-Universe comic book, ''Baroness Blueblood,'' even being capable of reciting entire issues.
54	* PapaWolf: Bowser calls Lemmy an idiot often, but the second [[http://catfish.it.cx/trsrockin/trsrockin.com/images/smb_rev6.jpg someone else does...]]
55	* PaperThinDisguise: Toad, when infiltrating Bowser's castle, disguises himself as a Shyguy... by wearing badly-fitting robes and a Shyguy mask behind which his mushroom cap and face are easily visible. Bowser is still fooled, though.
56	* ParentService: A rather cheeky FunnyBackgroundEvent cersion in the story ''Bowser Knows Best,'' when the Princess is running from the Koopalings. She's seen jumping over a green pipe, from which a ''very happy-looking'' Piranha Plant is peeking up her skirt.
57	* ParodyCommercial: The comic would occasionally feature Bowser in one-page fake ads for Koopa brand products, such as the soft drink "Koopa Kola."
58	* PetTheDog: In the 2nd Game Boy comic "It's a Small World After All" both Herman and to a lesser extent Tatanga did this. After Herman is convinced by his mother to get rid of that Game Boy he was using he gave it to a couple of little girls who were nearby. Also when Tatanga's crew hijacked the Space Shuttle he was somewhat abrasive to Tannis at first until she started to cry in which then he then tried to calm her down and give her his jacket to help warm her up. Oh sure he did display some DirtyCoward tendencies as he was quick to point fingers at Tannis when Mario got his way into the Shuttle by the Game Boy. But he was also horrified when Tatanga fully intended to let him and Tannis die on the shuttle as his crew escapes as Herman pointed out that Tatanga at one point liked Tannis first. As for Tatanga while it wasn't his intention the fact that he did get Tannis on board in the Shuttle was something that Tannis greatly appreciated as it was her dream to go to space in which even Princess Daisy lampshaded this.
59	* PhlebotinumInducedStupidity: The "Stupid Bomb" is a literal IdiotBall that, when it's triggered by throwing or dropping, causes everyone around it to become stupid. (Incidentally, the King of Mushroomland, who is already an idiot, is completely unaffected.)
60	** Inverted with the "Smart Bomb" from the same story, which makes people smarter when they explode on them.
61	* PrecisionFStrike: From Princess Toadstool, in the form of SymbolSwearing in "Magic Carpet Madness".
62	* RefugeeFromTVLand: The Game Boy comics are all about Tatanga and Mario leaving the game and entering the real life.
63	* RoyalBrat: While she is level-headed most of the time, Princess Toadstool has her moments, most notably in "Love Flounders" when she sends Mario out to pick chuckberries for her, ignoring that he probably had already committed himself to go bowling with Luigi and Toad that day and outright acknowledging he would be "risk[ing his] life for a handful of berries".
64	-->'''Mario:''' Sometimes I think she takes this Princess stuff a little ''too'' seriously.
65	* SanitySlippage: From the 2nd story onward in the Game Boy comic series Herman Smirch became this as after the events of the initial story Herman is trying to hide from Tatanga in a New Jersey appartment with a BeardOfSorrow and a increasingly unhinged behavior as he tries to explain to his mother on the phone about the "Little men in the Game Boy" who are after him. The fact that the comics did not fully shy away from the DarkerAndEdgier undertones here doesn't help as Herman spends a good portion of the series trying to evade Tatanga and the Cops (considering all the crimes the Tatanga & his army forced Herman to commit).
66	* ServileSnarker: Wooster, the Mushroom Kingdom royal family's head steward, is as snarky as they come.
67	* {{Sleepwalking}}: After spending too long reading ''Dirk Drain-Head'' comic books, Mario has a bad habit of sleepwalking and thinking he's Dirk Drain-Head. In the story ''Bedtime for Drain-Head,'' Mario proceeds to sleepwalk his way to and through Bowser's castle, defeat all his minions, capture Bowser singlehandedly, and rescue Toad, who was kidnapped by Bowser. Bowser is ''not'' pleased when he finds out Mario was sleepwalking the whole time.
68	* SpaceWhaleAesop: It can be interpreted as "Don't shoplift Game Boys or you'll be hypnotised into releasing Tatanga into the real world".
69	* StockAnimalDiet: Subverted in "A Mouser in the Houser": the Mousers actually hate cheese despite being given it constantly.
70	* StrawmanPolitical: Herman from the ''Game Boy'' series is a straw conservative.
71	* TheUnintelligible: Larry Koopa, in his one appearance. Only Lemmy appears to understand him, and frequently acts as TranslatorBuddy.
72	* VillainBall: The Mousers carry one in "The Buddy System."
73	* WelcomeToTheRealWorld: Pretty much the plot of all the ''Game Boy'' stories.
74	* YouAndWhatArmy:
75	--> '''Pionpi''': This army! Tatanga's!
76	--> '''Mario''': Oh.
77
78	[[AC:Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda]]
79	* This series [[ComicBook/TheLegendOfZelda has its own page.]]
80
81	[[AC:WesternAnimation/CaptainNTheGameMaster and Franchise/{{Metroid}}]]
82	* AdaptedOut: Prince Lyle, Game Boy and all third-party characters.
83	* BadFuture: The future Videoland from "A King of Shreds and Patches" is ''not'' a pretty place.
84	* BettyAndVeronica: Samus Aran and Princess Lana are rivals for Kevin's affections in the comics.
85	* ADayInTheLimelight: "Breakout" is mainly a Lana and Samus story; Kevin only appears in the final page for two panels.
86	* FantasticVoyagePlot: "Nervous Meltdown".
87	* FreakyFridayFlip: Happens to Kevin and Duke in "A Dog's Life." No one else even ''realizes'' that thanks to Kevin's subtle directing of his body - not even as "Kevin" barks at Kid Icarus.
88	%%* GilliganCut
89	* [[SheIsNotMyGirlfriend He is Not My Boyfriend]]: Lana's response to Samus' inquiry about her relationship with Kevin. It doesn't stop her from being jealous, though.
90	* ImpersonationExclusiveCharacter: "Breakout" has the character Judge Racklas. He briefly appears in one panel while completely bound with rope and does not have any dialogue, while the rest of the comic features [[Franchise/{{Metroid}} Ridley]] impersonating him. Therefore, most of what we know about Racklas comes from the Galactic Federation, Princess Lana, and Mother Brain discussing the disguised Ridley.
91	* InformedAttribute: For all of Kevin Keene's alleged game mastery, it's quite a shock to discover that he never finished the original ''Metroid'' fast enough to learn that SamusIsAGirl.
92	* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Samus Aran almost goes ahead with some pretty questionable stuff to win Captain N's affections:
93	** In "Breakout", where she and Princess Lana are in jail, she almost leaves Lana there when escaping.
94	** In "A King of Shreds and Patches", she ends up in the BadFuture, rejoices that Lana is gone and she can have Kevin all to herself, despite the fact that, you know, the bad guys have taken over every world, except the garbage planet where Kevin now lives, and by not going back in time, and [[ForWantOfANail changing one thing,]] she's screwing over everyone in Videoland (though she did have plans to help liberate Videoland in that future). She does go back in the end, although it takes a WhatTheHellHero from Kid Icarus for her to have such a realization.
95	** And in "The Happy Zone", Mother Brain traps Princess Lana in a LotusEaterMachine while her armies are posted at the Palace of Power's doorstep, thus giving Kevin a SadisticChoice: save Lana and let the armies of evil overrun the Palace, or defend the Palace and leave Videoland without a ruler. Samus pushes hard for Kevin not to go and save her, arguing he would be running away from the fight ahead of them. [[spoiler:He ends up [[TakeAThirdOption taking a third option]].]]
96	* SamusIsAGirl: Literally. When the N Team first meet Samus Aran, none of them are aware of her gender until she removes her helmet. This is a bit of FridgeLogic for Princess Lana, who has already been shown, to monitor the various realms of Videoland, using magical television screens; one would think that Samus would have removed her helmet, at ''some'' point while Lana was watching. Quoted at the trope page. It's worth noting Kevin's reaction might actually be being blown away by her looks seeing her in person.
97	* WeCanRuleTogether: Samus makes an offer of this sort to Kevin.
98	----
99
100	[[AC: VideoGame/PunchOut]]
101	%%* AdaptationExpansion
102	* TheCameo: Mario makes a brief appearance as the referee, reflecting his role in the NES game.
103	%%* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Piston Honda.
104	* SmallNameBigEgo: Reg from "Fox and Hounds."

Context ComicBook / NintendoComicsSystem