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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Comic Books: Ace Harlem, the first recorded Black hero to star in a comic book story (part of an anthology book) in 1947. He’s been on my to-sprite list ever since I first heard about him a few years ago, so I’m glad he’s also the first public domain character I’ve sprited (and won’t be the last).
Marvel Comics: a redrawn Konami stance for Storm.
Final Fight: Damnd gets a new standing laugh frame added to the site.

Is that not enough Storm for you? You’re in luck then, because Storm is star of the brand-new Superhero Sprite Showcase video!

That other new pose you saw in the video will hit the site at a later date, I still want to make some adjustments to it.

This is the first real Superhero Showcase I’ve done since finishing the new computer in early 2021, so I had to hunt down and re-render some of the series’ files and streamline how the main videos are assembled. This should make future videos easier, which is a good thing because you’ll be seeing the Superhero Showcase happen more often. My current plan is to make one all-new episode followed by one update until the all four original episodes (Wolverine, Superman, Iron Man, Bat-Man) get remade.

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BTW: There was another mandatory PHP update by the hosting company yesterday, so please let me know if you run into any errors. I did some basic checking, along with trying those partial palette choice characters in the image generators and didn’t see any problems. I’ll look around some more this weekend. There will be yet another of these later this year (didn’t seem like this happened that often until recently), so I want to make sure things are alright before all that.

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Huge congratulations to the Arcade Quartermaster site celebrating it’s 16-bit anniversary! The site celebrates with a giant update of four new shrines: Final Fight Revenge, the relatively-recently uncovered Danger Express, Lone Wolf and Cub, Steel Gunner 2. Be sure to take a second look at some of the other shrines there if you haven’t been there in a while, because the webmaster’s been updating some of the older sections and you’ll never know what you’ll find (or hear)!

Filed under: ScrollBoss Updates by PrimeOp
Tags: Final Fight, marvel comics, public domain
Comments Off on February Storm System

I’ve mostly been working on animations for this year’s videos since NYE, but I’ve got a few things to add this month.

Custom Sprites:
– Mega Man: I’m experimenting with my own Mega Man sprites, because I want to have some that are just mine and not trying to add to the Marvel vs. Capcom sprites.
– Golden Axe: new sprites of Longmoan and male villager. If you visited this site in the old days, you may remember how the index page used to have animated GIFs of arcade version, and that’s part of why I had to animate it myself:

– Mega Man: An all-new Mega Man sprite
– Marvel: Daredevil – two poses, new style, because I disliked the sprite I made in 2018.
– DC Comics: Peacemaker, from the backlog of sprites I’d drawn lineart for but hadn’t pixeltraced yet.
– Illmosis: ScrollBoss site character Vonetta (aka Vernacula) redone holding stack of books sprite in her 2023 outfit. You’ll see more of Vonetta and other ScrollBoss site characters this year.
– Street Fighter Alpha 3 Vs. portraits: Blaze Fielding (SoR2)

Mini-logos: Peacemaker added to DC Comics.
portraits:
– Street Fighter Alpha 3 Vs.: Blaze Fielding (Streets of Rage)

All these new pixel-things were also added to the GFX Generators where you can make fake screenshots, scenes, and other graphics.

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Arcade Quartermaster also updated today with new shrines: Street Smart (SNK) and Aquajack (Taito)!

Filed under: ScrollBoss Updates, Site News, Updates by PrimeOp
Tags: dc comics, Golden Axe, marvel comics, Mega Man, Streets of Rage series
Comments Off on Set It Off 2024

– G.I.JOE: Low-Light v.1, Red Ninja added. Redrew Grunt from scratch and made a Footloose based on the base sprite. BTW: this FINALLY replaces all my ancient Capcom edits in G.I.JOE gallery (but they’re still there to see in a sub-gallery.
– M.A.S.K.: Vanessa Warfield (masked and unmasked) added to the new separate gallery
– Street Fighter: scratch-made G.I.JOE versions of Blanka and Ryu
– Toys and Cartoons:Skull (Super Naturals) and… Barbie? Yes, Barbie. That lady’s everywhere.
– Marvel Comics: Secret Wars Mattel Magneto
– Illmosis: My Christmas mascot (and toy store owner) Hilde Santessa

portraits: Street Fighter Alpha 3 – Snake-Eyes and Cobra Commander

Mini-logos: Barbie and Super Naturals
ToyBoss: group shot of Golden Axe (Storm Collectibles), Super Mario (Jakks) (only five figures, just got Luigi, Peach, and a 2nd Mario in a 3-pack).

GFX Generators: All new custom sprites were also added to the generators. Still finding and fixing things from the PHP upgrade (that’ll be going on a looong time). Also added:
– the Toy Aisle background got a big update, with more variations to figures (all wave 1 Super Powers figures carded) and many more boxes (especially the Transformers section). Some weird issue is keeping a thumbnail of the new version of showing up on the background selection screen on my hard drive’s copy of the site.

Finally, the toys get their own video this year. Check it out here or on the ScrollBoss YouTube Channel!

Thank you for stopping by! Whatever it is you’re celebrating or not celebrating, I hope you have a good weekend

Filed under: ScrollBoss Updates by PrimeOp
Tags: Barbie, dc comics, g.i. joe, Illmosis, M.A.S.K., marvel comics, Masters of the Universe, Super Naturals, Toy Haul
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Marvel’s Avengers comic book celebrated its 60th anniversary at some time this month and I’ve got some new pixel art to honor the series and a group that is one of the secret main reasons why I got hooked on comic books (thanks to the Grantray-Lawrence Marvel cartoons that were still in syndication)) before I was even in school.

Custom Sprites – Marvel:
– Captain America: scratch-made sprites of a calmly standing Cap and the Avengers #16 cover pose.
– Thor: Mjolnir raise pose in a slightly different drawing style from the earlier sprites.
– Scarlet Witch: new poses in a style similar to my 2022 SW sprite
– Vision: Captain America and the Avengers fight stance and classic Vision in the John Buscema folded arms pose
– Black Knight: 1 pose, classic outfit and jacket outfit (like Data East’s “Avengers in Galactic Storm”)
– Kang the Conqueror: 1 pose
– Baron Zemo: 1 pose, 2 variations
– Mandarin: 1 sprite

Mini-logos – Marvel Comics: (Baron) Zemo, Kang.

As usual, all new custom sprites and mini-logos are in the image generators, where you can make your own graphics like the one at the top of this post. I also uploaded what should be a fix to an issue with the sprite palette feature, something that slipped through the huge site code fix session to get the entire site (and some of my other sites) ready for the PHP 8 upgrade.

Here’s a video showing the heroes’ new sprites, including some early animation work, and a preview of the 2024 Avengers Sprite Showcase video:

Filed under: ScrollBoss Updates, Site News, Updates by PrimeOp
Tags: Avengers in Galactic Storm, Captain America and the Avengers, marvel comics
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So, what’s new? Nearly the entire website. I’ve spent bits of the last four months having to get this site (and illmosis.net and Beans vs. Cornbread) ready for a server upgrade. That’s a nice way of saying “fixing up my old crappy code with new less-crappy code,” along with replacing depreciated programming that’d either carpet the site with warnings or make the entire website doo-doo on itself. The Image Generators were the toughest to fix, they’re more complex than the rest of this site, Illmosis, and BvsC put together, multiplied by five with cheese on top. To be honest, I spent a lot of time making sure this website keeps working and make sure it looks almost exactly the same. So what’s really new? Almost nothing. I’ll still have to keep an eye out for errors, so please let me know if you find any.

Custom Sprites: separated gallery pages for ESWAT, Kiki Kai Kai (Pocky and Rocky), and Taito’s Ninja Warriors. Also added today:
– Gain Ground (new gallery): redrawn sprite of Betty
– Pengo (new gallery): Pengo (and friends), Sno-Bees
– Marvel Comics: a new scratch-made Hawkeye sprite in his Avengers #189 cover pose, (drawn by John Byrne) to replace the old Capcom sprite edit

ToyBoss/Toybox: You can now see the new header for this section that would’ve been part of last week’s update, but wasn’t seen until now because part of its code was tied into the all-around site coding update.

(edit 2023 September 5th): All of these were added to the GFX Image Generators where you can make images like the one at the top of this post and this one…

… which mentions that I’ve added new colors to the ‘ScrollBoss bunnysuit ladies’ extra palettes, including some all-new skin colors, and even added a new ‘lipstick’ extra palette to let you choose that. Getting the image generators to work was probably the hardest task in redoing this site’s code, and I rewrote a lot of the extra palette code from scratch, so adding a bunch of new colors to the bunnysuit ladies seemed like a fun way to celebrate (and push the limits of the feature). Characters with that feature now have a special section near the top of the character list, too. Now that I know it works on the rewritten site, I’ll be adding the feature to more characters in future updates.

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I know what some of you are thinking. “One of those sprites seems a bit out of place.” Well, just consider it a preview for something else I’ve been working on this year.

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Elsewhere, Arcade Quartermaster’s new shrines of the month are in: Gang Wars (Alpha Denshi/ADK) and Caveman Ninja (Data East). Weird timing, because Shadi planned this out way in advance, at the same time I was working on this year’s Revenge of 1989 update with sprites of Jackie and Mike from Gang Wars.

Filed under: ScrollBoss Updates, Site News, Site Work, Updates by PrimeOp
Tags: Gain Ground, marvel comics, Pengo
7 Comments »

The coding work to get this site (along with Illmosis and Beans vs. Cornbread) for the Dreamhost server update is FINALLY done, but I promised to have an update to the a ToyBoss section before that happens and here’s that update!

new:
– Jada Toys’ excellent Street Fighter Ryu and Fei Long figures.
– Golden Axe: added shot of Storm Collectibles Tyris and Gilius.
– X-Men (LJN) – playable heroes.
– Spider-Man and the X-Men get their own revenge of Arcade.
– an Articulated Icons/Fwoosh parts-swapped custom made to look like Ryu Hayabusa. They have pre-orders up for a reissued (and from what I’ve read, slightly retooled) Crimson Fury, the dark red ninja.
– The Marvel Super Heroes (Capcom) heroes team, with a work-in-progress custom figure of Psylocke!

updated group shots:
– Captain America and the Avengers (Data East) – heroes – added new Sky-cycle Hawkeye and a recently re-acquired Neo-classic Iron Man (retro card version).
– X-Men (Konami) – villains – includes a customized VHS Mystique and more added characters.

BTW: Articulated Icons/Fwoosh is still having a sale on “Sakit (Martial Artist)” and the “Arms/Hands/Wraps Pack (Red)” pack ($3.99!) and also put up have pre-orders up for a reissued Crimson Fury, the dark red ninja.

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The big coding update will hit this site within the first few days of September, so if you really need something from the site I suggest you get it before then, because I really won’t know if everything works until it’s uploaded and tested. The site may be temporarily closed until it’s all complete, but it shouldn’t take longer than a day.

Oddly enough, I made a new header for the Toy section, but the coding is connected with the updated version of the site, so you won’t see it until then.

Filed under: ScrollBoss Updates, Updates by PrimeOp
Tags: Captain America and the Avengers, Golden Axe, marvel comics, Marvel Super Heroes, Ninja Gaiden, toyboss, X-Men
Comments Off on ToyBoss August 2023

It’s the birthday of this website, but the presents are for you! No, you can’t exchange them at the store if they don’t fit. First, thank you for visiting the site, whether you’ve been stopping by since the Tripod and Angelfire years or if this is your first time. It’s fun to make these things, but it’s even more fun when people other people enjoy it. But you know what? Instead of doing the usual thing with shots from the generator, I’ve got a short video with most of the sprites in it.

Custom Sprites:
– Captain Commando: all-new sprites of Captain Commando (1991 design), Carol, Brenda, Wooky, Eddy, Dick.
– Final Fight: Eliza (a.k.a. Elissa) and Mary from Final Fight 2
– Mega Man: original Mega Man robot master lineup is completed with new sprites of Cut Man, Guts Man, and Ice Man.
– Street Fighter: Kimberly
– DC Comics: Green Lantern Hal Jordan
– Marvel Comics: Shadowcat/Kitty Pryde
– Music: Wu-Tang Killer Bees

Mini-logos:
– Capcom: Street Fighter 6 cutscene style logos for Kimberly, Dee Jay, Juri, and Damnd
– Atlus: Atlus
– Marvel Comics: Shadowcat
– Music: Wu-Tang Clan

Custom Sprite Packs: (edit: 2023 July 22) Kitty Pryde and Shadowcat added to the X-Men CotA name graphics pack.

The high amount of new Capcom items is making up for the fact that I planned to do a bigger Capcom anniversary update a while back, but I had to concentrate on commission work. As usual, the new custom sprites and mini-logos are available to use in the GFX image generators

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ToyBoss: A few new pics have been added, including that brand new side-scroller legend you see off to the side. Last year’s anniversary update featured a pic of my then-new Tyris Flare figure from Storm Collectibles and this update just happens to parallel that event with my new Gilius Thunderhead figure. I lucked out and caught one of the last sets on sale from Entertainment Earth, the online store where I got some of the luckiest finds of my rebuilt collection. Storm Collectibles is now exclusive to BigBadToyStore and you can find their Golden Axe line (and other Golden Axe items) here. Entertainment Earth still has one “Not Mint” Gilius left for $96.53 and free shipping, but it probably won’t be in stock for long. I also managed to get another figure I’ve wanted for years but aftermarket prices usually kept me away, until I found an incomplete one for a decent price: Sodom! It may have been a Street Fighter figure from SOTA, but we all know Sodom comes from the Final Fight series. I’ll probably have to customize a crest for his helmet and get a spare pair of swords so he can reach his full boss potential.

There’ll be more updates to the ToyBoss section soon because I need to update a few roster pics and my current customized figure project is about halfway done. I also got a new digital camera (on sale, of course) that won’t immediately murder its battery after being on for more than 8 minutes, so I’ll be having fun with that, too.

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I mentioned a while back that I’ll have to rewrite a lot of code on the site to get it ready for the updated Dreamhost servers, and that’s going to be my main focus for a while. My hard drive has copies of the old and new code versions of the site running in two different XAMPP installs, which complicates adding new things to the online (and old) version of this site. So while site updates will be limited as I work on the new version of the site, I’m going add more things to the ScrollBoss YouTube channel on the side. Some areas may temporarily disappear when the site upgrade starts in August, so be sure to check out, enjoy, and right-click save what you want before then.

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Elsewhere:

Kimimi just posted an article all about my favorite game genre: the beat ’em up! She’s got a few of my faves in there and she also sticks up for a maligned title that deserves another look in its original form.

Filed under: ScrollBoss Updates, Site News, Updates by PrimeOp
Tags: Atlus, Captain, dc comics, Final Fight 2, Final Fight series, marvel comics, Mega Man, Mega Man series, Street Fighter series
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