Each 24-page issue contains two 10-page stories, because kids in the 80's couldn't be expected to sit still for a whole 24-page story. There were also 3-4 pages of various junk to divide the two stories, probably for the same reason.
Welcome to Videoland
We start this series off with... exposition! We get a 2/3rds page spread of Princess Lana looking at various monitors in Videoland. These monitors show Pit (I'm not calling him "Kid Icarus.") fighting the Eggplant Wizard, Little Mac (who will never appear again) fighting King Hippo, Samus firing something out her left hand at... something, and a picture of the Palace of Power. Lana can watch anyone, anywhere, at anytime.
Princess Lana sees you in your sleep. Princess Lana sees you... in your nightmares!
Captions tell us that Lana has been ruling Videoland since Good King Charles's disappearance. What, was that his full name, "Good King Charles?" The captions also say that there was balance in Videoland, until Mother Brain said screw that and made a super-team of villains. Cut to a panel of Mother Brain, sporting her Captain N look (ie: having a face), looking at a bunch of monitors showing various villains. Including Donkey King, who in the series was more "Chaotic Hungry" than evil, and won't be appearing in the comic outside of this panel and a few cameos later.
Next page, captions tell us that, since Mother Brain tipped "the balance," Lana and Pit decided to employ hax and bring someone in from outside videoland. The "Ultimate Warp Zone" (not a Power Glove in this incarnation) pulls a clean-cut WASPy teen named Kevin Keene into Videoland. His NES Zapper becomes a real gun capable of disintegrating anything (except that damn Duck Hunt dog), and his powerpad is grafted to his belt and becomes an all-purpose plot-resolver.
Oh and speaking of dogs, his dog Duke gets pulled in too. Wonderful.
Thus, Captain N is born!
Really, comic? Your first story isn't even going to be an origin story like the TV show? You're just going to declare that he's here and everything's better? No character introduction, just set up the situation and let the hijinks ensue?
Swell.
The Fruit and Vegetable War
Our first actual story begins with a full-page spread of Pit and Captain N flying to Cornucopia, an "island of plenty". Sure, whatever. Oh, and Kevin's wearing mechanical wings that somehow allow him to fly. This is actually more ridiculous than it sounds.
Kevin makes a lame joke about flying "tourist class," and then Pit tells us why they're here. See, since they're fighting a war, they're going to have to make sure that their army is well feed. An army we never see, btw: it's always just the N-Team. Cornucopia has a lot of food, so they're presumably going to negotiate for it.
Oh, and then they encounter some "Pear-odactyls." Yes, flying pears. They even fire "grape shot" at Pit.
Pit is captured, thus starting off his running theme for this series: being useless.* Kevin tries to take a shot at one of the guys flying off with him, but a Pear monster (I'm not calling them that) grabs onto his back. Kevin, in all of his wisdom, asks the aggressive creature what it's doing. And it pulls off his wings.
Ask a silly question...
Of course, Kevin has hax, so he survives to hurl more fruit-based puns at us. He is then confronted by an army of anthropomorphic fruit that demands to know who he is. He tells them, and they are of course honoured to be in the presence of such a magnificent Mary Sue. They beseech Kevin to aid them in their war against, and I swear I am not making this up, "Vegetania." See, Vegetania abducted all of the tomatoes, because they're under the impression that tomatoes are vegetables.
So... what, did the vegetables never ask the tomatoes if they were fruits or something? Anyway, Kevin says that this is certainly something to go to war over, rather than sorting out a simple misunderstanding. After all, he went to school, he knows tomatoes are fruit.
Cut to Vegetania, where Pit managed to free himself off-panel using a love-arrow. He didn't bother to go collect Kevin or anything; he just kept going to the Vegetania Royal Court, and wow, are those three words I never thought I'd have to write. Pit narrates that he was then captured by some pickles, also off-panel.
Because God-forbid that we actually see any of that.
So the Pumpkin King of Vegetania orders Pit's release, since he recognizes him as... well Pit. The King explains what Kevin was told, obviously leaving out the whole "tomatoes are fruit" thing. And he asks Pit to aid them. Since Pit never went to school, he agrees and flies off to war.
One panel later, Eggplant Wizard appears before the Pumpkin King, and exposition tells us that he's the king's advisor. Wonderful. Wearing a shit-eating grin, he tells the king that Captain N joined the fruits to invade, and that the king should send Pit after him. Except that... Pit's already going after them. So... what did that accomplish?
Well, it allowed the Eggplant Wizard to make another bad pun. Only this one is so bad that even characters in universe think it's bad. Wow, you really have to suck to make a pun that bad in this comic.
Cut to... some surreal imagery. In the foreground are people in togas fleeing for their lives, because in the background are fruits and vegetables fighting with pictures of burning buildings behind them. Whatever in the hell? This is a Captain N comic?
Gee, I wonder why it only lasted 6 issues.
Hurricane Sandy of puns arrives, followed by Captain N shooting at celery. OK. Kevin's having second thoughts about this whole "war" thing, then Pit appears to shoot him with an itching arrow. Yes, really. Pit says that the tomatoes belong with the vegetables, and Kevin says that they're actually fruits. Pit says that he never studied it, but the Vegetanians thought they were vegetables, and that was good enough for Pit.
Pumpkin King appears from... um... Pumpkin King appears and says that the Eggplant Wizard told them that. And that was good enough for them. Then Kevin says, "If that evil Eggplant is behind this war,".
What? See, I kinda assumed, since we were never provided a proper origin story, that the heroes simply didn't know that the Eggplant Wizard was one of Mother Brain's flunkies. But now that we know they knew... why wouldn't Lana, the ruler of all Videoland send out information about any/all of Mother Brain's henchman to everyone around? You know, to prevent exactly this sort of problem.
Anyway, we get shots of the two sides screaming angrily back and forth... for some reason. Pit wonders what Eggplant Wizard's plan was, and I'm wondering that too.
Cut to Eggplant Wizard in "The Legendary Temple of Fruit." He exposites that he's here to steal some gem from a statue that will give him domination over "all plant life." OK, I'm no particular fan of Kid Icarus as a game, but damn it, the game was not about plants! Granted, I'm saying this to a comic based on a show that thought Mega Man was green.
Kevin and Pit interrupt him from off panel. And we get a panel of Eggy, his hand literally inches away from the gem, and he says, "No, not you-not now. Not with my plans were so close to fru-it-shun." -_-
And then we cut straight to the dénouement. That's right, Eggplant Wizard doesn't even get the luxury of an on-screen fight or defeat. The fruits and vegetables make up, and the story ends with a bad fruit pun.
Of course it does.
This is a good example of the systemic failures of this comic series. First, the story is way too fast paced. Important scenes aren't shown or heavily compressed for time. Granted, most of my comic reading has been from today's modern Decompressed Comic era, so it may simply be an aversion to the style. But with only 10 pages to tell a story, there's a lot dropped on the floor. Of course, the fact that they spend page 1 on a full page spread shows that they weren't exactly economical in their storytelling.
Next we have our Mary Sue: Kevin is right, Pit is wrong, and that's the end of it. It couldn't be that they both had parts of things right and wrong, no. Kevin's right and Pit's useless.
But here's the worst part of this story. The intro makes it perfectly clear that Kevin and Pit are going here to procure food. The people here are made of food. Can you figure out the horrifying implications that the authors (I hope) missed?
Filler
Since this is a slightly longer comic with that 2 page infodump, we are reduced to only 2 pages of filler. The filler "story" is that Uranos, "Lord of the Sky"* says that he's discovered that Captain N and Co have left the palace, with only one guard. He sends his skeleton warriors in to take it. We see the armored, armed skeleton soldiers in their... flying boat. Sure why not. They land and start roaming the halls of the palace.
They startle in fright as a large, bestial shadow looms towards them. They all scurry away. Cut to a panel of the N-team returning to find Kevin's dog, Duke, playing with the bones of a skeleton warrior. Yes, it was the dog to made them flee. Why? Because dogs like bones. That's the joke.
Oh, and the comic itself points out the obvious plot-hole: the skeletons are armed. They could just slaughter Duke with their swords and proceed on their way. But no, we have to have filler.
Money Changes Everything
The next story starts with... competence. "Deep inside the fortress planet of Zebes..." What the hell is this? This is Captain N; you're not allowed to get things right here.
The picture is of Kevin, Pit, and Lana standing on a ledge with Samus Aran dropping down on them. The narration boxes make us think that she's going to attack, but then she just shoots some things they hadn't noticed while telling them that they suck. Well not to be outdone, our Mary Sue pulls hax and takes out some more baddies. This prompts Samus to introduce herself. Pit and Lana then start praising Samus's accomplishments and abilities, even making reference to the "Galactic Federation".
Is... is this comic trying to actually have some kind of credibility with its audience? Captain N? It's almost like the writers actually gave the slightest shit about the material they were using.
Then Samus pulls off her helmet, and Pit and Lana are shocked by what we have a trope for. Kevin's dialog also can be interpreted as being surprised that she's a girl too (or simply that she's hot), which means that our alleged "Game Master" never beat Metroid in 5 hours.
OK, now that's the credibility I expect from a Captain N story. Whew; I thought I was going to have to start taking this shit seriously or something...
While the comic continues to show that it's writers have an actual familiarity with the game, the N-Team exposites to Samus why they're here. Mother Brain runs on Zebetite, so they're here to halt her next shipment. That'll shut her down. Samus is against this plan, since that would mean she doesn't get the bounty on Mother Brain. Then she goes charging through a door leading to Gamets that attack her.
Kevin blasts them off her (because Pit's arrows, like himself, are useless), but Samus's power armor is going to explode. She tells them to run for it, since the blast will take out "most of this level." Wow, really? Seems kinda randomly destructive.
But Kevin knows the level. He scurries off to grab an energy tank for her, which stabilizes her suit. And again, this actually looks like something from the game (though obviously stylized).
So... the Mary Sue just saved Samus's life. This cannot end well...
Kevin suggests cutting through Tourian to get to the shuttle. Well, they got the reference right at least; I don't know why you would ever want to cut through it though. Then we get this exchange between Samus and Lana.
Oh good God no!
Cut to Mother Brain on a monitor, talking to her minions loading Zebetite. We see the N-Team + Samus watching from cover. Kevin spouts a line that exists to give Samus the chance to ask about their future past this mission. She invites him to join her on her adventures, saying that "The universe will be ours!" That's not a line of dialog you get from non-villians much. Just saying.
Lana interrupts before Kevin answers, and his inability to speak words causes him to charge into battle. But his shots do nothing to the Zebetite; granted, neither do Pits arrows, but that's to be expected. Mother Brain, via screen, taunts them with the fact their weapons can't scratch the cargo. Naturally forgetting that their weapons can kill all the guys loading the cargo.
Anyway, Samus interrupts, pointing out that only her missiles can destroy Zebetites. You know, I think someone who wrote this may have actually played the game. Crazy, I know. Mother Brain asks what Samus's interest in helping the N-Team are, and she says that she's in it for the money. So Mother Brain offers her 10x her own bounty, if she'll let the Zebetite go and deliver the N-Team to her.
Lana tells Mother Brain to ram it, saying that Samus would never sell them out. And then... Samus sells them out. Good call, Lana. Oh, but she wants Kevin; Mother Brain can keep the other two. Then Samus does this:
Um... OK. Kevin rejects the offer, but Lana tells him to go with her. She wants someone to still be out there fighting the good fight. Um, what? Hey Lana, here's an idea: tell Kevin to shoot Samus! Isn't that what you normally do to the badguy? You shoot them, right? So get to the shooting already. Yes, I know that Lana and Pit are useless in a... are useless, but Kevin might have a shot at taking Samus out.
Anyway, cut to Lana and Pit in a cell on board the transport. Pit speaks the section quote and charges out of the cell (the bars are too far apart to stop him from just flying through), only to find that the two armored pilots are Samus and Kevin in disguise.
Samus then calculates her spoils: 10 million credits, all the Zebetite, and a shuttle. Kevin points out that they accomplished their objective and Mother Brain is defeated. Wait, really?
Of course not; Samus pushes the Reset Button by saying that another shipment of Zebetite arrives on Metroid tomorrow. Of course, nobody talks about intercepting that, because then it wouldn't be a reset button.
It is then revealed that the whole scheme wasn't for Samus to get the Zebetite; it was to get Mother Brain's supply of cash.
Huh.
Well, that was... I'm not sure what to say about it. The story moves really fast, Samus's attraction to Kevin is vomit-inducing, and there's not really much happening here. That being said, it's better than the last one, as this one is at least about something. It's about introducing Samus as a character. And as an intro, it's not bad.
It establishes her character traits that we will see later: shooting stuff (and doesn't afraid of anything), independence, being somewhat mercenary, and her infatuation with Kevin. And even the last part comes about primarily because she appreciates his skills and abilities. And while that's is prime Mary Sue stroke fantasy territory (the hot, strong girl taking an interest in you because you play lots of games), it does say something about her as a person as well. So, not bad.
Relatively speaking of course.
