I was reading a Comixology trade paperback of Mark Waid’s first run on Captain America, which has a surprising amount of bonus material. There were selections from a comic format magazine one-shot named Captain America Collectors’ Preview, something I hadn’t even heard of until now. Luckily the cover has a giant blurb for the “First Look: Data East’s Galactic Storm” feature that wasn’t included in the TPB. So I bought a one from eBay and just a look at the first page makes it immediately worth it.
Whether the March 1995 listed on the inside cover is the date it was published, it’s safe to say this book hit shelves a few seasons before the game hit arcades but was probably put together in or before late 1994. The article written by Brain David-Marshall solidly explains the video game side of things to comic fans and vice-versa, with a line that perfectly sums up game development:
“The anticipated release date of September 1995 may leave game fans wondering what’s taking so long. After uncovering all the considerations that go into making this project a reality, they are more likely to wonder how it gets done so fast.”
What we see are some renders of Captain America and line art of some backgrounds, but, surprisingly, it doesn’t look like the model of Cap seen in the final game.
pages 8 and 9
The game was very early in development when this feature was written, not just because the Marvel staff in the interview say it, but because there’s a test render of Captain America that doesn’t match the version in the game.
pages 10 and 11
pages 12 and 13
Interesting (to me) items in the article:
1.) The biggest shock is that this game was almost a beat ’em up/fighter hybrid. “Pretty much the way that it works is it’s a platform game – which means it’s a horizontal play field and you go back and forth fighting villains as they come along, and at the end of each level you reach a point where your graphics enlarge until you have a single background, and then you do have to just fight it out with that level’s boss. It’s a combination of the two video game standards of scroll and fight and the strict fighting format.” In other words the Story Mode we got was half of the original plan. We know they had the tech for the zoom-ins because of the effects the final game uses for sprites like Giant-Man’s size-changing. I’m guessing we would’ve been able to fight the Kree soldiers who appear during this mode. It’s going to be tough to not think about what we didn’t get here.
2.) Part of the beat ’em up’s plan was to have co-op special moves. “Some under consideration include Hercules being able to catch a partner who has been punched or kicked by an enemy, Thunderstrike being able to speed up a partner’s special attack by using his tornado wind, and Captain America using his shield to redirect a partner’s energy blast.”
3.) The sales for Acclaim’s Maximum Carnage inspired the idea to adapt specific comic book arcs. The fact that this was originally planned to be a scrolling beat ’em up factored into choosing Operation: Galactic Storm, a story that would let them avoid the usual street and rooftop settings for beat ’em ups in general and a lot of Marvel characters.
4.) More confirmation that Iron Man’s home video game (presumably the crossover with XO Manowar, but the game is never mentioned when this issue is talked about) prevented him from being a playable character in arcade games. This same problem prevented Iron Man from appearing in Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter and Marvel vs. Capcom years later.
5.) Somehow Iron Man’s playable roster slot was taken by… Thunderstrike? For those who don’t know, Thunderstrike is to Thor what U.S. Agent is to Captain America: a character (Eric Masterson) who temporarily held the identity of a long-running hero and then got their own name when the original hero returned. Masterson was Thor during the original OGS comic storyline.
6.) The original playable roster list here had two additional heroes: The Vision (who became a striker) and Hercules. The original cameo list was: The Hulk, Iron Man, Beast, Quasar, Quicksilver, Giant-Man, USAgent, Wonder Man, Sersi, Thor, The Scarlet Witch. They were considering the Hulk? By the 1990s the Avengers had probably fought the Hulk far more than he’d ever been an Avenger (he’d been in the FF more than the Avengers. But I guess he was in the “we can’t swing a whole arcade game out of him, but he can be easily be a guest-star. As an old dude who saw the Beast in the Avengers first, I’d have been happy to see him and Wonder Man in the same game back then.
BTW: I have to finish this early for the site anniversary, but I’ll update this in a few days with better scans. For now, the photos are clear enough to read (I hope).
edit: here’s the scans with some slight editing to stitch the two-page spreads together.
