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 10 and 11

pages 12 and 13

pages 12 and 13


Interesting (to me) items in the article:

Kree soliders surround Captain America and Thunderstrike, but Iron Man is here for a rescue

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.

Friends, it’s that time of year when we give thanks to someone who has brought so much joy into our lives and made us the people we are today. This man has given so much, but always asked for much more in return. So let’s celebrate gaming’s favorite fire-breathing, Tyrannosaurus Rex-beating strongman and master of cameos, Karnov! Be sure to check out the Karnovember on Tumblr to see more Karnov appreciation!

I’ve improved the “Karnov: Bad Dudes stance” I made last year and added outfits from Fighter’s History and his cameo in Street Hoops. These sprites have been added to the Data East gallery and GFX Generators. A Karnov’s Revenge-style Karnov logo and the Fighter’s History mini-logos have been added to the Data East mini-logo page.

edit: I don’t know why I kept referring to Street Hoop as Street Hoops, but I’ll clear that up in the other parts of the site once I get the chance.

This site has spent most of this year celebrating the 25th anniversary of 1989, easily one of the most llama butt-whipping years in the history of video games. It’s so dense with digital greatness that I couldn’t give dap to all things to which dap is due, even with nearly a year to work on the theme. The clock is winding down and this update is an attempt to strengthen the custom sprite galleries (and image generator banks) of those games.




Custom Sprites – The following changes were made to the galleries:
Data East: Karnov (new scratch-made sprites in outfits from Karnov, Bad Dudes, Sly Spy and Trio the Punch)
Capcom: Crash Man, Strobaya (Strider)
Final Fight: Damnd and Jessica Haggar
Konami: Strongwoman from S.P.Y.: Special Project Y
Sega: Joe Musashi (1 new sprite, 1 improved sprite), Yamato, Neo-Zeed Leader, Queen of the Oasis
Golden Axe: new gallery page with new Gilius Thunderhead sprite
Tecmo: Ryu Hayabusa, Irene Lew
TMNT: Raphael

GFX Generator – All new sprites were added to the proper characters (they’re at the top of the “Update” character list). There’s also a new background: the 1989 arcade!


YouTube user Cralfer put together a video that showcases many of the multi-plane beat ’em ups released before Final Fight was in 1989. You’ll see a lot of obscure titles in here!


That’s all for this update, but don’t be surprised to see a bit more newness added to the site before the year is out. Also, even after the year-long 1989 theme is over, I’ve decided that every August 9th (1989) will be dedicated to 1989’s Revenge. Take care and I hope your holidays are happy!

More like crap-tastic, amirite? This update pays respect to the release of the new Captain America: First Avenger movie by hitting you with content based on characters from Cap’s comic along with Data East’s “Captain America and the Avengers” arcade game. Non-comic book fans won’t be left out thanks to a classic beat-em-up bad guy crashing the party since this is also the 11th Anniversary week of ScrollBoss. Gotta have some gaming stuff in there somewhere!

GFX Generators
New Characters
Marvel – Batroc the Leaper, the Falcon, Namor, the Red Skull, Ultron, the Wasp, Other Heroes (Ant-Man and Diamondback) and “Other Villains” (Absorbing Man, the Controller, Crossbones, the Grim Reaper, Klaw, the Living Laser and Whirlwind).
Toys & ‘Toons – Jem
Updated Characters: Abobo (new Capcom SFA/Vs. style edits) from Technos, Iron Man (new taunt sprite edit), the Vision (new sprites and palettes)

Custom Sprites:
Marvel – Diamondback (scratch-made), the Falcon, the Grim Reaper, Namor, the Red Skull, the Vision, the Wasp (scratch-made) and Whirlwind. An Iron Man taunt has been edited into the armor he wore in CAatA.
Technos – Abobo (two versions), Juggernaut (a new edit based his odd look in the Avengers game)
Toys & Cartoons – Jem

Sprites:
Captain America and the Avengers gallery rebuilt in the current style and has new sprites.

Mini Logos: Sakura added to Capcom. Batroc, the Red Skull added to Marvel. Jem added to Toys and Cartoons.


The Announcement: ScrollBoss is on hiatus until further notice. There won’t be another update for a while and updates won’t be regular when they start up again. I have some important projects that require a lot of time so I’ll have to put this site on pause for a while. The main thing is that it’s time for me to hit the drawing page again. One of the main reasons that I kept working to make sure that the GFX Generators were loaded with options was because I wanted you to keep having fun as the site was inactive.

ScrollBoss will NOT be neglected. I have some coding improvements in mind and it’s nearly impossible to do them while also trying to get enough content for a site update. I can work on those things on the side until the time comes to un-pause ScrollBoss again. I also have some bigger things pixel-related things that I could never do because I had to keep doing smaller things to make sure I had an update. There will be previews of these things on the weblog and main menu. I’m still taking sprite and pixel art commissions (because it costs money to have this site hosted), posting ridiculous screenshots on the Tumblr and you may see some new scratch-made sprites appear on Illmosis.

ScrollBoss will be active again before the end of the year and it’s going to hit hard. Until then, please leave any feedback in the comment section of this topic. Thank you for reading and thanks for stopping in.

GFX Generators – Slight improvements were made to the engine but the only one you’ll notice is that the transparent shadows no longer overlap and make darker areas.

New characters: Adon, Birdie, Dee Jay, Fei Long, Gen, Karin, R. Mika, Rose, Sakura, Shadaloo Dolls and T.Hawk from Capcom’s Street Fighter. Marian, Abobo & Burnov from Technos’ Double Dragon games (Neo Geo fighter sprites).
Updated chars: Double Dragons (Neo Geo sprites added), Jubilee (mini-logo & X-Men:COTA name graphic), Zangief (new sprites)
GroupShot scene updates: Golden Axe vs. 01 – improved shadow transparency
VS. Mode “Custom Scene” backgrounds: Italy from Street Fighter Alpha 2, Code Red and On The Hilltop from X-Men vs. Street Fighter.

Game IndexCaptain America and the Avengers added.


The next update update will be in about two weeks from now. That puts it close to the 11th Anniversary. It won’t be anywhere near as big as the 10th Anniversary but there will be medium-large announcement about why it will be the last ScrollBoss update for a while.


Another reminder: the ScrollBoss Tumblr, Scroll like a Boss, exists, is active and has more than update post links. I’ve been posting screenshots that make me smile for all sorts of right and wrong reasons along with videos and reposts of cool game-related stuff I like there.