It’s a borderline random update, but I’ve been working on borderline random things this month.

Custom Sprites:
– Bucky O’Hare (new gallery): Bucky O’Hare, apparently here to celebrate two holidays at once!
– Marvel Comics: Crystal in classic yellow, FF, and her 90s black and white suit with bomber jacket (as seen in Avengers in Galactic Storm).
– Kunio-kun/River City Ransom 8-bit: Scratch-made Link, Zelda, Marvel’s Storm, Black Tiger (Capcom).

Now that I have separate Superhero Sprite Showcase episodes for all the characters I’ve done them for so far, I’m embedding them in their sub-galleries.
Superman – Wolverine – Iron Man – Batman – Storm

Mini-Logos: Bucky O’Hare added to Comics – other and Crystal added to Marvel.

All new custom sprites and mini-logos were added to the PHP-powered GFX Generators where I made the screenshot at the top of this post! The fighting game-scale sprites are in this big graphic maker while the Kunio/RCR stuff is used in this screenshot maker that focuses on 8-bit screens.

I also added four new Bunnysuit Gal sprites with longer hair for a little variety! The have the same extra palette options as the earlier sprites, so you can customize them far more than I did here.

Game Index: Avengers in Galactic Storm: added a page for it that also contains scans of the very early behind-the-scenes article on the game from the 1995 “Captain America Collectors’ Preview” comic. If you didn’t see the post I made about it before, this was from when the game was almost a side-scrolling beat ’em up/fighting game hybrid and had more playable characters. I have more to add to this entry in the future, but I really just wanted to get this update out there for Easter!

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The Trick or Beat ‘Em Up project, the horror-themed side-scrolling brawler, is currently taking donations for fund work on the game. One of the goals is to “Immortalize Batsy The Cat” in pixel art that lives on in the game. Please read the plea and give if you can!

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Filed under: ScrollBoss Updates, Site News, Updates by PrimeOp
Tags: Avengers in Galactic Storm, Black Tiger, Bucky O'Hare, Kunio-Kun, marvel comics, River City Ransom, the Avengers, the Legend of Zelda, Trick or Beat 'Em Up, X-Men, Zelda series
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Back in 2021, I posted the third and fourth Superhero Sprite Showcases in a single video, mostly because I couldn’t make new video clips the usual way as Anime Studio stopped working (long story) and I had to cobble together a bunch of new ways to make clips in Blender and Magix Vegas. Batman got his solo Showcase a while back and now it’s time for Iron Man to get his. And to make up for it, I’ve added a lot of new and updated clips. That video hit the YouTube Channel last Friday, and here’s the site update with some of the new stuff made for the video:

Custom Sprites: Marvel
– Iron Man: all-new War of the Gems idle stance, improved Data East Avengers 1 idle
– War Machine: improved taunt sprite and added the early version without the uni-beam port. Remember: this armor is from before the movie, it’s not an arc reactor.
– Black Widow: new variants of her debut panel pose
– villains: all new sprites of the Crimson Dynamo v.1, Madame Masque, and the Melter (in his Iron Man & X-O Manowar idle stance)

Mini-logos – Marvel: Crimson Dynamo and Madame Masque added.

All new custom sprites and mini-logos were added to the GFX Generators, where you can make your own graphics like the one at the top of this post!

And now, check out the Iron Man 2025 Sprite Showcase!

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Filed under: ScrollBoss Updates, Site News, Updates by PrimeOp
Tags: Captain America and the Avengers, Iron Man and X-O Manowar, marvel comics
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We’re in the middle of Black History Month, so I’m hitting you with some new sprites of Black characters from comics and toys!

Custom Sprites:
– Marvel: the Falcon
– DC Comics: Bumblebee (’00s cartoon and ’80s comic versions)
– M.A.S.K.: Hondo MacLean in his v.1 outfit and Blaster mask

Mini-logos: Bumblebee added to DC Comics.

all new custom sprites and mini-logos were added to the GFX Generator, which is what I used to make the graphic at the top of the post.

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Just a heads up: I’m now working more hours at the day job, so I have less time (and energy) to work on this stuff and commissions. I’ll do my best to keep it moving, though! Also, unless we talked about it before now, I won’t be taking on any more commission work until further notice.

Filed under: ScrollBoss Updates, Site News, Updates by PrimeOp
Tags: dc comics, M.A.S.K., marvel comics
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For the first update of 2025, and it’s more than me just adding sprites (but there are sprites)

Custom Sprites
– Ganbare Goemon: Goemon gets a sprite based on his design mostly famous for its 16-bit era. Officially the “long overdue” sprite of the update.
– Captain Commando: Mummy Commando gets a scratch-made idle sprite. 3/4ths of the team done!
– Shao-Lin’s Road: Wanpyou, the hero, in his famous GUTS! victory pose.
– Marvel Comics: Black Widow gets a sprite in the same pose as her first full panel appearance in Tales of Suspense #52, drawn by the late great Don Heck. Included styles: ToS #52 green dress, ToS #64 black fishnet outfit, classic black suit, and 80s gray suit.
– Illmosis Network: My character Nutroll seems to be up to something with his new sprite, making the whole update look weird. I can’t be mad at him, I made him up and he’s BEEN weird. I almost didn’t add this to the site today, but I figure maybe he’ll have a more fun sprite later if I post this now. Never can tell with him, but it’s worth a shot.

Mini-logos
– Konami: Shao-lin’s Road

ToyBoss
– pictures: new Mega Man villains pic (Elec Man and Cut Man were my first figures of the year), updated and separated Super Mario rosters (just got a regular Koopa Troopa), X-Men Genesis/Mega Drive roster, and Brotherhood of Mutants (comic). Also: a quick pic of Jada Toys Street Fighter II Cammy, which just arrived from BigBadToyStore this morning.

Game Index
– added Shao-lin’s Road (arcade)

Logos
– added Shao-lin’s Road (arcade)

All new custom sprites and mini-logos have been added to the main GFX Generator, where you can make graphics and fake screenshots like the one at the top of this post!

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I also dropped a quick ScrollBoss channel ident to the ScrollBoss YouTube channel a few days before this update.

Making their first public appearance are the chunky lo-res sprites that represent the words Scroll and Boss. I also updated the clip that zooms out to show a bunch of my scratch-made sprites, making the zoom distance longer and adding more sprites, including that brand-new Goemon sprite. That’s not the clip’s final form, I’ll be adding more and more to that as time goes on.

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July 19th, 2025 will be the 25th Anniversary of the day I started this site. I can’t believe it, and I don’t know where the time went, but at least I’ve got something to show for it. Thanks for stopping by and making it even more fun to know I’m not alone in liking this stuff, back in the days when pixels weren’t fashionable. I don’t know if I’ll be doing anything big to celebrate, but I’d like to try.

I’ve got non-anniversary plans, though I’m not sure how much commission work will eat into that like it did last year, so I’m going to cool it with the teases for now. But I’m going to try and finish some of that stuff I teased before and didn’t get to complete (specific things in this update were made for that).

I’m not feeling 100% right now, so the updates may be small for a while as I try to get better. But I’ll try to keep at least a small update per month going until I can grab some health item from a Castlevania brick or Metro City garbage can and get back in the game. See you in February!

Filed under: ScrollBoss Updates, Site News, Updates by PrimeOp
Tags: Captain Commando, Ganbare Goemon, Illmosis, marvel comics, Mega Man series, Shao-lin's Road, Super Mario series, toyboss
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Right now I’m starting work on an old commission request, but I have a few new, overdue, and fixed things for the site.

Custom Sprites:
– DC Comics: Catwoman’s character gallery is fixed (thanks to the site visitor on IG who let me know that was broken before), she now has her own little row on the main page. I also finished and added the Batman Returns and Golden Age Purple Dress versions of her calm stand pose, originally done for the Catwoman sprite display for a Batman video showcase long ago but not added to the site until now.

GFX Generator –
– Marvel vs. Capcom 2 characters/sprites of Ruby Heart, Hayato (Star Gladiator), Amingo finally added (JustNoPoint rips).
– Marvel vs Capcom ending: the Punisher (arcade) and MvC2 skins added. I made the MvC2 skin’s font by hand based on the font in the credits and score screen, forcing everything into 8×16 spaces as it’d be in a CPS-2 game

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Rob ‘Dire51’ Strangman (author and creator of the OPCFG, West Mansion Splatterhouse fan site, and more) has a Kickstarter campaign for four of his books about gaming and more, including updated versions of his previously released books.

I’m looking forward to the material I haven’t read yet and re-reading what I’d read before. One of the things I’ll continue to mention is that I’m grateful he wrote a book talking about the early 80s from a non-rich kid point of view, especially when talking about things like the now-mythical Video Game Crash of 1983. There are also interviews with game creators and other people in the industry and contributions from others in the fan community. If you want to know how much community is in the mix, I drew all the covers and was one of the people who requested a music-related question to arcade Strider director/artist Kouichi Yotsui about a fan-favorite character. Please check it out, back it if you can, and spread the word!

Filed under: ScrollBoss Updates, Site News, Updates by PrimeOp
Tags: dc comics, marvel comics, Marvel vs. Capcom 2, the Punisher
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Time to wrap up this year’s 1989 celebration with new sprites and a new video!

Custom Sprites:
– Final Fight: big update for my 2019 Rolento FF1 sprite
– Ninja Gaiden: new Bomberhead sprite added.
– Strider: new Strider Hiryu pose (based on the Famicom ad from the unrealeased game) and a new side-view idle sprite of the Grandmaster added
– Marvel Comics: Dazzler (heavily updated sprites + new separate and more accurate PotX and Konami outfits) and the Juggernaut (PotX) (appeared in the 1989 NES Uncanny X-Men game and 1989’Pryde of the X-Men’ cartoon pilot)

The new custom sprites were added to the Fight-size generator.

Bad news: the video is ALMOST ready. It’ll be added to the YouTube Channel and this post either later tonight or tomorrow. Sorry for the delay, but I’ll try to make it worth the wait.
The video is now ready! Here’s the Revenge of 1989 Sprite Showcase video!

Technically I should’ve called it a Showcade (multiple showcases), but some aren’t even whole showcases, but… whatever, man.

This hasn’t been an easy month (for offline reasons), so a lot of items I’d planned just aren’t ready yet, but you’ll see previews of a few (especially the backgrounds) in the new video.

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The Arcade Quartermaster site just updated, too! New shrines of Battle Shark and Riding Fight have been added.

Filed under: ScrollBoss Updates, Site News, Updates by PrimeOp
Tags: Final Fight, Golden Axe, marvel comics, Ninja Gaiden, Strider, X-Men
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Time for a little 1989 Boss Rush update!

Custom Sprites:
– Mega Man: Alien (Mega Man 2) added
– Strider: new Strider Hiryu pose (based on the Famicom ad from the unrealeased game) and Tong Pooh pose (and sub-gallery) added
– Shinobi: Shadow Dancer boss (from the Revenge of Shinobi)
– Marvel Comics: White Queen Emma Frost (appeared in the 1989 NES Uncanny X-Men game and 1989’Pryde of the X-Men’ cartoon pilot)

The new custom sprites were added to the Fight-size generator.

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Filed under: ScrollBoss Updates, Site News, Updates by PrimeOp
Tags: marvel comics, Mega Man 2, Mega Man series, Shinobi series, The Revenge of 1989, The Revenge of Shinobi, X-Men
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It’s the 24th Anniversary of the site, so I’m here with a variety of newness! It’s all game-related, even the comic and cartoon characters are game-specific. Beat ’em ups, platformers, and fighting games are all repped here.

Custom Sprites:
– Double Dragon: Abobo (victory pose)
– Fighter’s History: new sprite of Fighter’s History series hero Liu Yungmie
– Metroid: Mother Brain
– Popeye: Popeye the Sailor Man (finally, I know, I know)
– Marvel: the Punisher (new pose), female ninjas from Capcom Punisher game

All new custom sprites added to the image generators, except for the really tall Mother Brain sprite, only the shorter version is in there since it seems to work in most big scene situations.

Sprites: the Punisher (more sprites)

Also added or updated in the generators: Akuma/Gouki (Cyber-Akuma sprites)

ToyBoss: I just got my pre-order of the 52Toys Baby Commando figure from HobbyLink Japan in the mail this week and took a picture of the whole squad still on the cards. I’ll be opening them up soon and taking more pics, and I can’t wait because they all look amazing. For now, I’ve added a pic of the crew to the Toyboss page.

I found a comic book article that talks about the really early plans for Data East’s “Avengers in Galactic Storm” and even has pictures of an earlier 3D character model for Captain America in a different style. I put it in a blog post with scans large enough for you to read. You’ll find a lot of interesting info like the earlier roster plans, more confirmation that Iron Man’s home game rights interfered with how he was used in arcade games for years, and the original genre-bending plans for the Story Mode.

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Thank you for visiting the site and extra thanks for the people who reply here in the news posts and elsewhere on the internet! Due to offline reasons I didn’t get to do all the things I’d planned (Cadillacs and Dinosars, more SNK stuff in the generators), but I’ll try to work them into future updates. I just want you to know you’ve been heard!

There are a few things that still need to be done (better scans for the Avengers article and putting Popeye’s mini-logo in the gallery, I’ll work on that over the weekend.

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added July 20th, 2024:

Popeye had his Ninento mini-logo in the image generators, but it wasn’t in the Toys and ‘Toons mini-logo gallery. now it is, along with a new mini-logo of his 1970s logo with in the 1980 movie colors.

Filed under: ScrollBoss Updates, Site News, Updates by PrimeOp
Tags: Avengers in Galactic Storm, Double Dragon, Fighter's History, marvel comics, Metroid, Popeye, the Punisher
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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.

Filed under: Other by PrimeOp
Tags: Avengers in Galactic Storm, Data East, marvel comics
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Custom Sprites
– Marvel Comics: New sprites of Archangel, Beast, Cyclops, Magik, Rogue, Goblin Queen, Magneto, Mister Sinister, Toad.
– Portraits – X-Men:Children of the Atom: Mister Sinister
mini-logos (Marvel): Magik and Minster Sinister

All new custom sprites and mini-logos were added to the GFX Generators, where you can make your own screenshot-like graphics like the ones at the top of this post!

edit May 27th, 2024: it’s late, but there’s now a little video to go along with this update, and you’ll even see a few sprites that aren’t on the site:

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Chris Baker of the SUPERHEROdotVG channel and author of “WRONG! Retro Games, You Messed Up Our Comic Book Heroes!” has a recent video about some of the X-Men games that never made it to store shelves, including a deep dive and brand new footage of one I’d never even heard of before this. As always, it’s well-researched and definitely worth your time!

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Filed under: ScrollBoss Updates, Site News, Updates by PrimeOp
Tags: marvel comics, X-Men
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