RYU versus DHALSIM

Battle 04: Carnival (Tokuma)
Where: Street Fighter II #3 When: June 1994
Why: Masaomi Kanzaki How: Masaomi Kanzaki

The Story So Far...
Ryu has travelled from Japan to the crime-ridden island metropolis of Shad in pursuit of earning his place in the renowned Third Annual Grand Fight. Something he can only do by competing in street fights to earn a place in the final stadium tournament bracket.

A victory over former boxing champion Balrog has made Ryu a hot prospect, but to assure himself a place in the stadium showcase he must overcome a warrior with unique insight, who has sensed the power of his chi and is determined to defeat him.

Tale of the Tape...
Strength: Ryu 3 (Athlete)
Intelligence: Dhalsim 3 (Straight A)
Speed: Ryu 3 (Athlete)
Stamina: Draw 4 (Athlete)
Agility: Dhalsim 6 (Rubber)
Fighting: Ryu 5 (Martial Artist)
Energy: Ryu 3 (Explosives)
Total: Draw 23 (Champion)

Ryu is the eternal "World Warrior", wandering the globe in search of truth through fist. Although there are significant departures from established Capcom canon in Masaomi Kanzaki's 1993 manga adaptation (and it's Tokuma Comics version edited for US distribution) -- that spirit of competitive fighting remains true!

Ryu won the first major fight of the localized series when he faced Balrog (aka; "Boxer") in a match that almost ended with his assassination.

The sniper was cut-off by Guile, but this time the US Special Forces man won't have his back. He joins Ryu as a competitor in the Grand Fight Tournament -- a renowned event held in Shad to crown the strongest fighter in the world.

Dhalsim may not have the outwardly appearance of a muscle-bound powerhouse capable of claiming that title -- but his mastery of esoteric yoga techniques has made him an enduring force in the world of Street Fighter.

In UDON's comic book adaptation, Ryu sought the wisdom of Dhalsim's council as he honed his fighting technique and wrestled with the inner darkness of his desire to avenge his master Gouken -- who was murdered by Akuma.

In that encounter, Ryu was humbled in defeat, as he learned the value of Dhalsim's unusual philosophy towards the spirit of fighting. Something Sagat had already experienced when he sought out Dhalsim's training for similar reasons.

Gamers know Dhalsim is ostensibly a pacifist who uses his fighting techniques to protect and sustain his village in India. He believes in the yogic principles of harmony & understanding, mostly reluctant to use the offensive capabilities of his style, which includes breathing "yoga flame" for a variety of short & long range fire attacks, as well as extending his limbs for uncanny striking reach.

Ryu is arguably a superior fighter to Dhalsim, continually honing his ansatsuken style in friendly competition with his martial arts brother Ken and against powerful opponents like Sagat. He harnesses his chi for a variety of fire-based attacks, famously scarring Sagat with his violent shoryuken dragon punch.

Yet, Ryu has also been shown to still have much to learn. During the prequel plot of the Street Fighter Alpha manga, he was defeated by the similarly enlightened approach of Rose. Will his SFII manga battle be a moment of learning - or victory? Let's drop some quarters in the slot and get this fight started!

History: Dhalsim (1-0-0)

The Tape: Draw Ranking: Ryu (#30)

What Went Down...

Dhalsim pulls away the turban and robes covering his body, revealing sparse decoration on his slender frame. A metal ring clinks and dangles around each his wrists, while three small skulls stare across the street to his eager opponent.

Ryu didn't expect to meet the impressive yogi so soon in his quest to reach the Grand Fight. He can tell Dhalsim is a tough fighter, but has no intention of losing his ticket to the big battle. Dhalsim swears on his skulls that he will win.

Ryu makes the first move, closing in on his opponent with an overhand punch -- but Dhalsim dashes backwards to avoid the blow and create space.

The Japanese fighter is stunned to immediately find himself forced to block a kick!

He can hardly believe that Dhalsim's limbs are closing the divide - stretching for dangerous long-ranged kicks and punches!

Undeterred by the blocked kick - Dhalsim quickly follows with a stretching punch!

Ryu blocks that too, but still feels the mental and physical toll of the blow.

His mind begins to race. He can't find a way to get close to Dhalsim!

The yogi takes full advantage of his command of the space. If his limbs cannot strike their target -- he will try a projectile attack!

The ball of Yoga Fire hurtles toward Ryu!

He does his best to mitigate its burning seer -- dropping and rolling on the ground as gathered onlookers watch in slack jawed awe.

"Like I said, I swear on these skulls that I will not lose."

Ryu regains a vertical base, his arms sizzling as he assumes a ready stance.

Fighting through the crowd, his friends Po-Lin and her young brother are shocked to see the martial artist in such rough shape.

Dhalsim throws another furious stretching punch, which Ryu barely manages to block with his burnt arms.

He attempts to fight fire with fire, unleashing a hadoken fireball!

Once again the yogi stuns his opponent -- standing stoically as he catches the fireball with his bare hands and lets it dissipate to nothingness.

He is impressed by the strength of Ryu's chi, but it will be useless against one who has mastered the ways of yoga in pursuit of a noble cause.

Dhalsim reveals the terrible toll of economic hardship suffered in his country. The pointless deaths of innocent women and children who suffer the frequent wars, disease, and starvation that afflict the poverty-stricken nation.

He once pledged himself to the teachings of Brahman, and the ways of yoga, but came to learn they were useless in protecting his people. So he has abandoned the way, intent on earning victory through fighting to divert his winnings to the children. Children like those who produced the skulls he wears around his neck.

Ryu sympathizes with Dhalsim's plight, but doubts that a street fight will offer much of a solution.

He remains committed to fighting for himself, but as he contemplates his last resort, Ryu recalls his master's teachings: 'Listen, the sho-ryu-ken (dragon punch) is a powerful force... but use it only when necessary! It may call upon death!'

Dhalsim forces the issue with Yoga Flame!

Ryu is doused in the inferno of the spewing flame!

Afraid for his friend, young Wong-Mei cries his name -- and Dhalsim hears!

The child's voice provides a momentary distraction. A distraction that costs Dhalsim dearly as Ryu resorts to his most powerful strike -- the shoryuken!

The Hammer...

In repurposing the original chapters of the Tokuma Shoten manga for a format and tone more in keeping with American comics; the English colorized version creates a cliffhanger that doesn't exist within collected tankobon editions.

Secret Wars on Infinite Earths usually adheres to rules restricting an entry to the contents of an individual issue, but fortunately, this issue's final page ends with Ryu charging his shoryuken -- the finishing move of the fight!

We can therefore cheat a little and record a definitive result, with the impact (pictured below), taken from Street Fighter II #4, page four.

The [almost] full-page image is one of the most striking of the adapted series so far, and one of the most successful applications of colour to the original greyscale Kanzaki art.

Unlike some of the other panels featured in this article - this one removes original black & white shading methods, replacing Dhalsim's zipatone flesh with relatively straight colour. You'll notice in other panels they awkwardly coloured right over the top of horizontal lines used to create darker shades in original black & white art. It's more obvious in the digital scans, but it's still a clumsy visual to the eye.

The process of making this image has pros and cons. The American comic creates a clean, well realized version by completely re-doing background action lines in colour, which presumably also made it easier to replace Japanese sound effects with English translations. Unfortunately, the inks still become muddier and simplified in the process, losing the finer details of impact motion lines on Dhalsim's body, and diminishing the marriage of Ryu's dragon fist in non-linear contrast to the background, which is rendered originally with similar lines, just in different directions. Ultimately, the original looks the best, but this one is still nice.

UDON did a wonderful job of localizing the complete Masaomi Kanzaki story in three black & white volumes in 2007, which includes the entire 450-or-so page story in its original format, with English translations.

In addition to revealing various edits of panel size, layout, and slight changes to context of various dialogue exchanges -- the collections also include an entire excised plot running much longer than the eight-issue American series.

Ordinarily I'd skew towards referencing the original format, but I only have two of the UDON volumes, and I think it's interesting and worthwhile to explore the oddities of what Western gamers were subjected to in the 1994 American editions.

Back then you had to work a little harder to get the story details of your favourite characters. Gamers should have been savvy enough to know Po-Lin and Wong-Mei were invented for the manga, along with the Shad location of the series, but this version of Dhalsim at least skews fairly close to the basic premise of the Street Fighter II video game character.

He remains a deeply spiritual practitioner of yoga in the comic, choosing to fight only to raise funds to protect the innocents of his homeland, who are afflicted with famine and pestilence caused by poverty and war. At the time, the manga may have been one of the most effective deliveries of this premise.

This generally became Dhalsim's motivation moving throughout the franchise, albeit with more specific focus on his village, rather than the entire nation of India, which goes largely unnamed in both versions of the translated manga & comic.

India is only specifically mentioned in Dhalsim's entry in the character bios that are included at the bottom of every page in each American issue. These bios inform readers of each character's background and stats, while also compensating for the different dimensions of American comic book and manga page sizes. The manga is slightly more squat, leaving empty space at the top or bottom of pages.

In the earliest contemporaneous versions of the Street Fighter II arcade game(s), Dhalsim was explicitly shown returning home to a wife after the tournament, with whom he parents an inquisitive young son some three years after the game. That doesn't seem to be represented here, but women & children remain significant.

The undersized skulls Dhalsim wears around his neck provide literal and spiritual protection in the comic. They are motivational keepsakes of the children who died in his country, but are ultimately destroyed while saving his life -- absorbing the brunt of Ryu's shoryuken dragon fist that is described as a potentially lethal killing technique. A reinforcement of their defensive, mystic properties.

The concept of the skulls may be a fictionalized derivation of the Kapalika "skull-bearers" of ancient Shaivite ascetics, who worshipped Shiva and carried begging cups carved from human skulls, among other things. Dhalsim does not appear to explicitly share any of the ritual context associated with those tantric sects.

The American version describes Dhalsim's lapsed dedication to "Brahman", a Hindu concept of reality, with ties to the creation deity Brahma, and appropriate etymological origins denoting "to swell, expand, grow, enlarge" -- much like his extending arms and legs. The UDON translation of this dialogue refers instead to a generic, non-denominational "Yoga god". I presume the latter is more accurate.

Both versions of India are depicted as an overtly war-torn nation. I might speculate that was inspired by the Kashmir territorial conflict between India and Pakistan, but I'm not expert enough in world politics to know, or recall, what tensions and unrest existed within the country around that time.

I do have very specific, fond memories of playing Dhalsim in the Street Fighter II video game back in those days, though.

I was a youngster, grabbing life and pop culture with both hands. I was fairly immediately taken with the international flavour and fantastical martial arts characters of Street Fighter II. The iconic battlecries of the various fighters were like a siren-song beckoning me to any game cabinet that might be in the nearby vicinity -- and back in those days there were plenty!

Arcades, movie theatres, supermarkets, delis, video stores, bowling alleys -- you name the location, and there's a pretty good chance they had a coin muncher or two. Of course, for me, Dhalsim will always be linked with the home PC port.

That was how I beat Street Fighter II for the first time. I used Dhalsim -- a character I perceived as having the basic advantage of punching & kicking across most of the screen. It took hours, and playing through a PC glitch that turned Vega's cage fight into a bizarre, twinkling pixel abstract nightmare, but in the end I was successful. A double rite of passage as it was the first time I had ever deliberately stayed up deep into the AM. Something gamers know all about!

We didn't have a PC at home, but I was sleeping over at a family friend's house. At that point I don't think they had any children, so I enjoyed the loose discipline and pop culture corruption of a pseudo-nephew. Alas, "Uncle" David isn't with us any more, but as with many comic books, this one comes with a nice memory.

There are plenty more memories to be had with the Street Fighter II comic series, but for now we move on to other interests. Like other recent entries, this one was inspired by the release of the Marvel vs Capcom Fighting Collection, but if you'd like to make sure I come back to this topic sooner, perhaps you'd like to consider becoming a Secret Wars on Infinite Earths supporter on Patreon.

Secret Wars on Infinite Earths has featured well over 700 fights and ranked more than 1,000 characters! You can find them all for free by diving into the Secret Archive for a complete index of battles in order of publisher, series, and issue -- or by hitting links to your favourite topics found throughout each entry. For Street Fighter, you might need to scroll through to the bottom. You can also find more from Capcom and the Street Fighter world. Shoryuken!

Get daily links to fights inspired by the topics of the day by subscribing to Twitter! Don't forget to smash that like, fave, and share -- and keep your eyes peeled for the week's top trending battles every Sunday on Twitter & Discord! The lively Discord chat is one of the bonuses of becoming a Patreon subscriber!

Winner: Ryu
#24 (+6) Ryu
#75 (-10) Dhalsim

CHUN-LI versus BLANKA

Battle 03: Recall (Tokuma)
Where: Street Fighter II #2 When: August 1994
Why: Masaomi Kanzaki How: Masaomi Kanzaki

The Story So Far...
The crime-riddled island of Shad is a modern metropolis that plays host to some of the greatest fighters in the world. The best among them will meet in the Third Annual Grand Fight, advancing to the stadium stage by proving themselves under the rule of street fights.

Only in the stadium will they face the reigning champion: M. Bison -- a man without a history, nation, or known fighting style. He is the rumored master behind the criminal organization Shadowlaw, responsible for flooding the streets with a pain-suppressing designer drug called "Doll".

Undercover Interpol agents work to thwart the scourge of Shadowlaw, but their ranks continue to disappear. Now one of their daughters, Chun-Li, fights to find answers, and with the boxer Balrog embarrassed by another newcomer, upheaval within the ranks of the Shadowlaw Lords could deliver her the man she seeks!

Tale of the Tape...
Strength: Blanka 4 (Enhanced)
Intelligence: Chun-Li 3 (Straight A)
Speed: Draw 4 (Olympian)
Stamina: Blanka 5 (Marathoner)
Agility: Chun-Li 4 (GYmnast)
Fighting: Chun-Li 5 (Martial Artist)
Energy: Draw 3 (Explosives)
Total: Chun-Li 25 (Champion)

Chun-Li is the self-described "Strongest Woman in the World", but she'll find a physical match in the mutated Brazilian man-beast that is Blanka.

An outlier as the first "freak" of the Street Fighter franchise; Blanka is best characterized by his hunched muscular physique, wild hair, and typically bright green skin - a characteristic owed to his upbringing subsisting on skin-tinting plant chlorophyll, and maybe even radioactive materials, in the jungles of Brazil.

As the victim of a plane crash that left him to fend for himself in the wilderness, Blanka is a little bit like Tarzan, but his unusual appearance isn't the only product of his strange mutation. He also learned to imitate the techniques of electric eels, generating a shocking natural voltage that electrifies his opponents on contact!

Gamers will also know that his animalistic fighting style is complimented by an ability to launch himself like a cannonball into a fast-moving, flipping attack. The same kind of tumble you'd see Mortal Kombat's Kano utilize, but arguably with even more spectacular results.

That's a lot for Chun-Li to contend with, but the studious Chinese Interpol agent comes with extensive expertise in kung fu, and a fitness regime that keeps her incredibly fast, agile, and mobile, with an emphasis on powerful kicks and leaps.

Her lightning fast Hyakuretsu Kyaku kicks were on full display in the previous issue of the Tokuma Shoten series, and when she matched the physically imposing Birdie in Street Fighter Alpha Vol. 1.

Her powerful legs are also famous for delivering the inverted flying Spinning Bird Kick -- an attack similar to Ryu's Tatsumaki dragon hurricane kick. Like Ryu, Chun-Li can also harness her chi into a kiko-ken energy ball, helping her to defeat the blood-thirsty Vega later in the Shoten Street Fighter II series.

Despite his ferocious appearance, Blanka has fallen into a cuddly, comedic role later in the series, but in the 1994 Tokuma adaptation, he is a brutal enforcer for Bison's "Shadowlaw", with aspirations of replacing the defeated Balrog within the ranks of the Four Lords. Will he earn his place? Let's find out!

The Tape: Chun-Li Ranking: Chun-Li (#126)

What Went Down...

Face-to-face with the man-beast claiming to have killed Interpol Investigators that included her father -- Chun-Li begins to give in to furious emotions!

Her only desire is to defeat Blanka and make him talk -- and for a moment it seems as if that might be enough, but not everyone is convinced. From the audience, a mysterious Dhalsim notes that without Ryu's advice - she will lose.

The young agent launches into a furious barrage of kicks, getting her first inkling of doubt as Blanka blocks them all with powerful forearms.

Her leg blazes across the target to no avail, and as anger fuels her continued assault, Blanka's fanged mouth stretches to let out a tiny chuckle.

His goal is to gain the approval of Bison to become a new Lord of Shadowlaw and the energy it gives him is electrifying!

1200 volts super-charge the air and send Chun-Li jolting away from the buzzing body of Blanka as he unleashes a technique learned from observing electric eels!

He presses the advantage, reaching out with lightning fast punches Chun-Li can just barely block.

Blood begins to obscure her sight as Blanka closes in for a knockout blow that launches Chun-Li into the air!

She drifts between the reality of the fight and a fantasy of fighting crime side by side with her father. The vision urges her to stay strong. Cutting through the twilight is the voice of Ryu, who beckons from the crowd, "Concentrate on who you're fighting! Don't fight your memories! Your enemy is right in front of you!"

Her eyes widen with steely resolve as she fully awakens in freefall before her opponent -- and reaches for the ground with tensing wrists.

Blanka is baffled as Chun-Li's hands brace against the floor and she twists her body from a handstand press into a devastating whirlwind kick!

Her feet collide repeatedly against Blanka's face as her legs spin overhead!

Fanged teeth crack and break as Blanka falls to his back.

Chun-Li closes in quickly, delivering a furious punch to an already tenderized face, and as she reloads for another -- a friendly hand catches her wrist. It's Ryu. The fight is over. The crowd goes wild. Chun-Li is on track to make the Grand Fight.

The Hammer...

Even in 1994 you could tell the details were just a little bit off...

Parsing video game storylines sometimes took a bit of extra study back in those days. Obtaining information from fighting games, in particular, required playing multiple times to see character quotes and ending sequences, and sifting through various resources, such as magazines and trading cards, to find official sources describing additional details, biographies, and important backstory.

Street Fighter II came to arcades in 1991 rich with implied subtext in everything from sprite animation to backgrounds, and the subtleties of how characters moved and fought in gameplay.

Returning boss fighter, Sagat, implied an entire story with his fresh chest scar and the addition of the Tiger Uppercut move, which quickly became enduring pillars of the Street Fighter mythos, and storied rivalry between Sagat and Ryu.

Yet Street Fighter II was lacking in the basic forthcoming details of the following year's Mortal Kombat, which boasted immediately available in-game character bios, in addition to more informative character endings that fleshed out the world.

This meant 1994 would be a crash course in the good, bad, and ugly of multimedia adaptations, with Street Fighter receiving a dubious live-action movie, more beloved animated feature, and collected comic book series from Tokuma Shoten's American branch.

Malibu Comics had already attempted a truly awful American adaptation in late 1993, famed for its bizarre murder and scalping of Ken. Tokuma's Street Fighter II comics had the rub of being authentically Japanese, originally serialized in issues of Family Computer Magazine, but the translated & localized issues that rearrange, censor, and colour the artwork carry with them their own peculiarities inherent to one of the earliest serious adaptations of the game.

Writer/artist Masaomi Kanzaki makes an admirable attempt to consolidate details from the games into the unique world of the fictional island state of Shad -- one of the biggest apparent changes from the games to manga.

This crime-riddled modern Asian capital, reminiscent of Marvel's Madripoor and modern Hong Kong, serves as a practical means to anchor the action to a single location, but immediately strips the series of some of its globe-trotting appeal.

The name "Shad" appears to draw reference from recently identified primary antagonist -- Bison's international crime syndicate Shadaloo, frequently localized as "Shadowlaw" for English translations of the time. I find that name conceptually appropriate, but prefer the authentic originality of Shadaloo.

The complete "Shadaloo" name remained intact for the live-action movie, which may have adapted its war-torn South-East Asian country from the city-state of the manga, but it's difficult to be sure exactly how much the manga is an influence on subsequent aspects of games & adaptations, and how much it is itself a living document of what was intended to be fabric of the games' canon.

Shad is described as having been "built by an international consortium", which belies the difficulty Interpol's had in gaining traction to oppose the underground trafficking of Shadowlaw's synthetic drug - "Doll".

If you finished the game with Chun-Li, you already knew she was out to avenge the murder of her father by stopping Bison's drug trade. Subsequent editions, starting with Super Street Fighter II in late '93, modified her "life of a young, single girl" ending with two post-script options, one of which established the more familiar characterization of a committed Interpol detective.

The Tokuma manga, contemporaneous to the amended game, reflects both the shojo-tinged youthful heroine, and the aspiring Interpol agent, presenting her as a little inexperienced, but generally capable and determined. It isn't the definitive Chun-Li, but it's an understandable presentation within its place in time.

New, and ultimately unique to unofficial media, is Blanka's status as an enforcer for Shadowlaw. The SFII games never establish any connection between Blanka and the group, but various adaptations will take the convenience of the vast criminal organization to incorporate loose characters into their feature story.

It's honestly not a terrible way for Blanka to be better integrated into the main plot, but the implication of making him the one who murdered Chun-Li's father is a change that's just too dramatic. It alters both characters and their positions within the series wildly, and as a dyed in the wool fan, it's the kind of thing I hate.

The ensemble of fighting games is one of my favourite aspects, and storytelling within this genre is at its best when it's focused on the motivations and rivalries of individual characters, rather than connecting them all via a conventional narrative, and central villain. This is sometimes misunderstood as being insubstantial, but should be a familiar conceit to superhero comic book readers.

Blanka is difficult to justify in a lot of contexts, but I would generally rather see him drift to the periphery, as in the Street Fighter II animated movie, than occupy a misplaced position.

Details like this unravel the authenticity of the Street Fighter II manga, but I accept there wasn't a lot of opportunity to tell a story about a bizarre, bestial survivor of a plane crash, who is reconnected with his mother after competing in a world martial arts tournament. Not in this eight issue format at least, despite the characters' unusual popularity amongst young gamers at the time.

This is our first time documenting Blanka, who is now appearing with Chun-Li in the latest installment in the long-running fighting game franchise: Street Fighter 6. As a tenured fan, and gamer, I am incredibly excited about the way its honoring the past, while taking steps to intuitively go into a bold new future.

If you'd like to find more Street Fighter battles you can follow links throughout this post, or dive into the Secret Archive for a complete index of featured fights in order of publisher, series, and issue number. Just search for Street Fighter, or scroll through towards the bottom to find independent publishers & series.

Secret Wars on Infinite Earths has documented more than 700 battles and ranked well over 1,000 iconic characters! I'd love to get through all the Street Fighter comics & more and if you become a supporter on Patreon maybe I'll be able to! In addition to becoming a Tier 1 supporter you can sponsor featured content at higher levels, including the famous Rank & File Top 10!

Get free daily links to fights inspired by the topics of the day by subscribing to Twitter and Facebook, or by becoming a freebie follower on Patreon. Don't forget to smash that like, fave, and share -- and keep your eyes peeled for the week's top trending battles every Sunday on Twitter, Patreon & Discord!

Winner: Chun-Li
#74 (+52) Chun-Li
#1007 (new) Blanka

QUICK FIX DOUBLE FEATURE: Training Mode!
RYU versus DHALSIM
(UDON)
Where: Street Fighter II #3 When: February 2006
Why: Ken Siu-Chong How: Alvin Lee

Quick Fix...
Well, I, hmmm... It's funny how things can get away from you a bit, isn't it? I thought I had this week's SF entry all planned out, but things kinda went awry when I realised my memory of the Ryu/Akuma credits scene in Alpha was substantially more involving than the actual scene.

Y'know, I'd been thinking about stretching our Street Fighting out to accomodate more excitement in the lead up to the fourth core installment to the [game] series, but I think this delay has given me a good bit of perspective.

September marked the beginning of what will, come the end of the year, be a four month stint of Street Fighter indulgence. Regular War Mongers would be forgiven for forgetting that original mandate; the desire to see if regular weekend features could sponsor a Street Fighter into the top five rankings before the end of the year. As you'll already know from the Punch-Up, no one's reached that achievement, but I think if anyone is going to, we all know who it'll be.

With the "shock" announcement of Street Fighter IV's surprise release, came quick confirmation that iconic characters, Ken and Ryu, would be among those returning for this new beginning. This not only highlights the star duo's staying power, but also the liklihood of their rise to the top of our ranks.
I think we can all safely rest assured that if any Street Fighter can take it to the superheroes, it'll be Ryu.

When UDON relaunched the franchised series, they did more than change the title to the more familiar Street Fighter II. At the core of their creative decision making, the desire to brign the story back from the periphery, to refocus on the spine of Ryu's journey of discovery, and combat.

In combining elements from the various games, they dance around the learning curve for the young fighter. Layered beneath his quest to avenge his dead master is elements that invariably connect to his struggles with the killing urges of the Dark Hadou, and his desire to harness the greater philosophy of combat.

Question, if you will, the handling of the various secondary characters, but impossible is it to deny the success this arc has brought to the Dhalsim character. Despite essentially being characterized as a shamanic pacifist, Dhalsim has been one of the most enduring characters to be included in the games. As noted in a previous entry [Fantastic Four #361], he is among the relative few Street Fighters to have been included in the Marvel vs Capcom series of games.

While it may not necessarily led greater credence to his role as a regular battler, his prevelance in the series is at least complimented by the idea that Dhalsim's yoga teachings can help one master the darkness all of these characters risk facing. There may be a gaming reference for this, but as far as I'm aware Dhalsim's story usually revolved around fighting to raise money for his village; thus making this among the many vague references to other Street Fighter sources, perhaps inspired by a 1995 episode of the V animé, which also connected Sagat to Dhalsim before Ryu would seek training [noted; Street Fighter II V Ep. 9].

Having already trained Sagat in UDON-time [Street Fighter II #2]; the mysterious Yoga master helps Ryu come to terms with his inner darkness, and desire to seek revenge against the murderer of his master -- Akuma!

Dhalsim notes Ryu's impressive strength, speculating that he may even be more powerful than Sagat, when he first sought his training. Even so, Dhalsim floats and weaves around Ryu's attacks with a gawky grace, noting that Ryu's ingrained training may in fact be a greater obstacle on his path.

The master leaps over his student's sliding low kick, decrying rage in one's fist and victory as the ultimate goal, demonstrating it's weaknesses as he thunders down upon Ryu with a twisting yoga spear. Dhalsim keeps Ryu on the defensive, throwing two extended fists, before unleashing the legendary yoga flame!

Ryu blocks the flame attack, but finds his defenses penetrated as Dhalsim makes the claim that, as he is, he will never hope to defeat Akuma. A sensitive issue for Ryu, he explodes with rage, launching into a hurricane kick attack.

Dhalsim ducks Ryu's furious attack, and snatches him up for a humiliating head-pound grapple. Relinquishing the hold, Dhalsim says with a smile, "Are you ready to begin unlearning?" Humbled, Ryu replies sheepishly, "Heh... I think I might be."

Thus, Ryu finds himself on the path to purity of spirit.
With his training just begun, we move onward, to the latter half of the issue.

The Fix: 4 The Issue: 4
Winner: Dhalsim

Despite a mandate to bring the story back to it's core, don't be fooled into thinking Street Fighter II is the Ryu show! Central characters from the games like Chun-Li and Cammy continue to feature, while the likes of Bison, T.Hawk and Gen factor in, also.

---

RYU versus AKUMA
(UDON)
Where: Street Fighter II #3 When: February 2006
Why: Ken Siu-Chong How: Alvin Lee

Quick Fix...
We've touched upon the Dark Hadou at length in previous entries [Ken v Ryu; Akuma v Gouken; Shun v Zangief], and by now you should be well familiar with it in a context not unlike 'the force' as described in Star Wars.

As a metatextual facet to the mastery of Hadou and the Ansatsuken style used by the "shotos", it represents the evils of hatred and revenge in combat. Ryu's training with Dhalsim reaffirms these values, and steers him toward a path devoid of emotion, but conscious of the life of those around him. Dhalsim specifically refers to fighting with the well-being of an opponent in mind, which can largely be boiled down to terms familiar to any sportsman who finds themselves striking the ball, or hitting the shots, frustratingly well in the relaxed condition of recreation.

Making yet another potential reference to Star Wars, Ryu finds himself mastering the powers of focused ki, when a dark voice questions him confrontingly about his deep-seeded loathing for the death of the master Gouken.

Seemingly confronted by the dark master; Ryu fulfills this grim prophecy, responding to the charging of ki energies with a furious cry, "Akuma!!!"

Ryu comes under the looming Akuma with an uppercut to the gut, before blocking an overhanded chop from his master's killer. Akuma provokes Ryu with taunts of his weakness and inability to avenge Gouken, prompting the young fighter to flow through the block into a devestating throw.

With Akuma on his back, Ryu unleashes a barrage of mounted punches that crush at his enemy's nose. Blood sprays as bones begin to crunch and crack beneath Ryu's gloved fist. His ki crackles around him, gathering into a storm of energies as the fighter is seduced by the prospect of vengeance.

The haze of anger clears as Dhalsim lifts the veil of illusion from the Japanese fighter's mind.

Squat in a crater of his own making, Ryu realises that he has failed Dhalsim's telling test. The master poses a question of Ryu's true motivations, asking him to find within himself the truth of whether he fights for justice, or i motivated by his own deep desire for revenge.

This illusion is reminiscent of the familiar Empire Strikes Back battle that seemingly sees Luke Skywalker come face-to-face with Darth Vader. When Luke succeeds in striking Vader down, he is faced with a dark vision of himself, very similar on a metaphorical note to this scene, where Ryu is turned inward by his master's deceit.

Though Dhalsim fears for Ryu's philosophical future, he reveals to him the identity of a fighter who long ago defeated Akuma - the only known fighter to have done so other than his brother, Gouken. Thus, Ryu's wandering travels begin anew, taking him to the Genhattan Restaurant in Hong Kong - home to the assassin -- Gen!

Ryu's adventures will no doubt feature again, but for now this overdue entry finally comes to a close. If you've noted the absence of the now regular Amazon purchasing links, be informed that Street Fighter II has not yet been collected.
You'll probably be able to retroactively find the appropriate links in the future.

The Fix: 4 The Issue: 4
Winner: Non Applicable

Though one might argue the illusion was cast by Dhalsim, we're going to call this one an internal struggle. No results will be derived from this battle, which leaves only four more entries for a Street Fighter to step up to the top five rankings! Will it happen? Stay tuned for more Sunday Street Fights in December!

QUICK FIX DOUBLE FEATURE: Triumph or Die!
AKUMA versus GOUKEN
(UDON)
Where: Street Fighter II #1 When: November 2005
Why: Ken Siu-Chong How: Arn

Quick Fix...
Well, that didn't work terribly well, did it?
If you missed out, I thought I'd throw up a twenty-four hour poll to narrow down the selections for this week's Street Fighter entry. The results were... non-existent, to put it politely, which might just be a commentary about the Infintie Wars regular readers, and SF.
If you've got feelings on Street Fighter - good or bad - I encourage you to drop a comment and let us know!

In the meanwhile, we roll on to take a look at two significant historical points in the Street Figher history, each important to the shaping of destiny for the franchise mascot -- Ryu.

As significant as Ryu [and Ken] have been to identifying the series, another character has managed to follow on the tradition of the "shotos" to, for some, overshadow them. That character, as even many casual gamers will know, is Akuma; better known in Japan as Gouki.

Akuma is said to be the brother of the martial arts master who schooled Ken and Ryu in their ansatsuken style of karate. Gouken and Akuma each trained under the master Goutetsu in this style, but Akuma would become seduced by the dark power of the Hadou-ki harnessed in their style. His compulsion for fighting would see him swallowed by the dark hadou, and he would eventually kill Goutestu, perfecting his shun goku satsu attack -- the raging demon.

Akuma made his first appearance in the game series in Super Street Fighter II Turbo, leaping into the arena to defeat Bison if all sub-bosses are defeated without losing a round, before then challenging the player to final battle.
Akuma became the first hidden character in the Street Fighter series, following the now historical April Fools gag in a 1992 issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly, which described a non-existent secret character hidden within the game.

Becoming a stalwart of the series, Akuma would become fleshed out as a villain of murderous intent governed by a strict code. Only the strongest fighters would be worthy of his lethal intent, including Bison, whose reign as chief antagonist of the Street Fighter series would be brought to an end by the wandering fighter.

For Ken, and particularly Ryu, Akuma would remain the subject of unfinished business. Ryu's own mysterious origins would begin to intersect with Akuma's as he finds himself confronted by the same Dark Hadou that corrupted his master's killer. Fandom would begin to question whether Ryu and Akuma may be tied not only by blood spilled, but by that which flowed common in their veins.

Perhaps the only man who could have ever been trusted to deliver Ryu the truth was his adoptive father, Gouken. It was before Ryu's conquests as a Street Fighter that Gouken found himself face-to-face once more with his brother.

Confronted at his dojo, Gouken finds himself forced to fight to again prove the supremecy of his pure art over the zealous faults of the Dark Hadou.
He unleashes a mighty leaping strike on his brother, who makes the claim that Gouken should have killed him when the chance was his.

Denouncing Akuma's self-destructive path, Gouken explodes with the mastery of the unknown arts, delivering a swift kick which sets Akuma up for the rising fist of the sho ryu-ken!

The blow of the dragon fist isn't enough to rattle Akuma's cage. He charges a dark hadou-ken fireball, blasting his brother before attacking with a rising knee. He professes a the brilliance of his developed dark style, and makes threatening speculations about whether or not Gouken's students would be more receptive to his art.

Distracted by fear for Ryu, Gouken leaves himself wide open for the killing blow. Revealing to his brother the greatness of his Dark Hadou, Akuma utilizes his shun goku satsu -- raging demon attack -- murdering his own brother in his own dojo!

Leaving the symbol of his kanji smeared in the master Gouken's blood, Akuma leaves his brother dead, to be discovered by his greatest student, Ryu. So begins the inevitable clash between Ryu and Akuma. In the name of revenge, or justice?

This is the path it seems Ken Siu-Chong and UDON comics will eventually come to explore, in a far more confronting manner than that of the Alpha animated movie, which sees Akuma retaining his neutral qualities to an extreme unimaginable for a confrontation between murderer and student.

One would imagine this arc will coincide with the convergence represented by Bison's tournament, which has been alluded to as the purpose of the current incarnation of the Street Fighter II on-going series. At this point in time it's actually hard to tell if a tournament is quite literally the intentions of the writing, but I'm going to give it the benefit of the doubt.

Evil Ryu is a well known variant on the character depicted in the games, and as Ryu walks a nomadic path across the world, the series looks to poke and prod at how well prepared Ryu will be for both his confrontation with Akuma, and the possession of the Dark Hadou. The tempered change seen in Sagat [Street Fighter II #2] is a good indicator for hope for Ryu, which is a segue into...

The Fix: 4 The Issue: 5.5
Winner: Akuma

[I'm not generally a big fan of variant covers, but when it comes to an issue I'll take whatever's on the shelf. It just so happens this is a superb Ed McGuinness cover, which I'm very fond of! Arn provides a harsh digital painted style for the prologue feature here, reminiscent of Ted Wing III, who provides covers for The Kirby Martin Inquest!]

---

RYU versus SAGAT
Two Years Ago... (UDON)
Where: Street Fighter #1 When: September 2003
Why: Ken Siu-Chong How: Joe Madureira

Quick Fix...
... So, it's a bit of a Street Fighter history lesson in today's entry. Hopefully you're all paying attention, and taking notes, because there might be a make-up poll sometime in the future. (Actually, that seems highly unlikely...)

Before the eventual expansion of the [game] series with titles like Alpha, most fans were probably more familiar with Street Fighter II, whether they knew it, or not.

Alpha, [called Zero in Japan], boasts one of the fullest rosters of characters come it's third incarnation; but is traditionally regarded as a prequel, begging the question: What happened to Street Fighter 1?

Perhaps naively, I thought UDON might have taken a slower burn to the Street Fighter franchise, particularly given the good will engendered by their association with CapcomUSA. As it stands, the series have mostly been dedicated to adding a linear condition to elements established in the Alpha and SFII games, with the spine of the story revolving around, we believe, events leading up to Bison's SFII tournament.

Largely skimmed over are the events of Street Fighter, which was a significantly less successful side-scrolling beat 'em up game, maligned for it's easily broken arcade punch-pads. It featured many characters popularized through revamps in the Alpha series, most prominently; Birdie, Adon, and Gen.

Street Fighter gave a second-player the option of playing as Ken, but featured Ryu in the main player's slot, and the occupying portion of retroactive story.
It was here that Sagat made his first appearance, acting as the final regional boss in his native Thailand, and for the entire game. The canonical significance of the first game can be distilled into this single fight.

In UDON's account, Sagat taunts Ryu as he throws a spinning kick into a block.
Fighting undercover with an audience gathered, Ryu attempts to block a charged tiger blast with his own ki attack, the hadou-ken!

Sagat's blast proves too powerful, throwing the Japanese fighter into the air!

Dust kicks up as Ryu digs his heels in to screech to a grinding halt. Sagat, aggressively seeking to maintain the advantage, charges and leaps into the air, his giant Muay Thai knee leading.

Sagat's airborne attack inadvertently puts him in the perfect defenseless position for Ryu's rising shoryu-ken!

The rising dragon fist rips through Sagat's chest, spraying a gush of blood from the wound that opens up in the arc of the punch!

The mountain of Muay Thai muscle comes to a harsh crash landing! Leaving his scarred opponent in a puddle of blood, Ryu leaves victorious.

The details of the fight have varied over it's many interpretations, but the retroactive significance is always the same: This is the moment Sagat becomes Shadaloo's pawn, as he inevitably begins a bitter quest for revenge on Ryu.
The strength of their rivalry diverges depending on individual characterization, but the bond between the characters remains in most translations.

Bison is seen in the UDON strip, fulfilling his retroactive role as secret financieer for the first street fighter tournament. He would emerge from the shadows for Street Fighter II, with a trio of fighters at his side; Vega, Balrog and Sagat!

That about wraps up our passing through the Street Fighter universe for another week. If you've just joined us, you might like to know that we're sponsoring a Street Fighter into our top five ranks through weekend reviews! Duh!
Tomorrow the statistical spectacular continues as we wrap up Marvel: Ultimate Alliance Mondays with our month of DOOM! Further emphasising that as much as this is a website dedicated to superhero comics, there's no denying that the video game is friend to the fanboy.

The Fix: 5 The Issue: 6
Winner: Ryu

[This was the first time I ran across Joe Madureira's pencils since his infamous withdrawl from comics work, to "play X-box." Regular readers will know Joe Mad for his role as upcoming penciller on Ultimates 3, being written by Jeph Loeb, who will reteam with collaborator Ed McGuinness for Ultimates 4. FULL CIRCLE, peeps!]

QUICK FIX DOUBLE FEATURE: The New Challengers!
THUNDERHAWK versus THUGS
(UDON)
Where: Street Fighter II #3 When: February 2006
Why: Ken Siu-Chong How: Alvin Lee

Quick Fix...
Okay, I'm going to start this entry way off on a tangent.
Earlier today I spent a disturbing amount of time sifting through google hits, conventional and blogsearch, looking for dates and issue numbers. I couldn't find them.

I do my best to make sure Secret Wars on Infinite Earths is a multi-layered and enjoyable reading experience, several times a week. If I might not always live up to that lofty expectation, I always find great pride in including explicit and relevant information for cross searching needs.

Now, let the minutes show that it is indeed Sunday, and therefore we must address today's pressing Street Fighter business. On today's agenda, two of the new warriors that made their debut in the revision title, Super Street Fighter II.

When a lot of casual fans think of Street Fighter, they're actually thinking of Street Fighter II. It was in this revamped sequel that the series left behind it's simpler side-scrolling to develop fleshed out characters, and the beat 'em up style that we all know and love. Characters like Ken, Ryu, and Sagat were all explicitly transplanted from the first Street Fighter into the sequel, but for the most part the game boasted a whole new cast of World Warriors.

Super Street Fighter II introduced a brand new quartet of characters from Greece, Jamaica, Mexico and Hong Kong. They were Cammy White, Dee Jay, T.Hawk and Fei Long respectively, and each would become stalwarts of the series.

It was Cammy who undeniably made the biggest splash, becoming an iconic instantly recognised pin-up in a similar fashion to predecssor Chun-Li; a contrast to cult additions like Dee Jay, and today's first subject, Thunderhawk.

T.Hawk's revenge story is ultimately one familiar to the genre.
He enters the Street Fighter tournament seeking revenge against Shadaloo mastermind and final boss, M. Bison, who harrassed the Thunderfoot tribe from their land, and ultimately murdered T.Hawk's rebellious father.

Like many of the most memorable supporting characters from the Street Fighter franchise; T.Hawk's model represents a two-dimensional quality to characterization. He presents much less martial arts style than other characters, instead erring for a strong ethnic charicature to strengthen his identity.

UDON maintain Thunderhawk's strong ethnic visuals, but extrapolate his role to incorporate the strong law enforcement representation to better initiate the character into the story. Chun-Li and Cammy White leave Guile behind to meet up with T.Hawk in his native Mexico, pursuing leads that involve Shadaloo's experiments with brainwashing -- a scenario Cammy herself escaped from.

Waiting for T.Hawk in a diner, Chun-Li and Cammy find themselves in the midst of an armed robbery. Their uniforms attract the attention of the gang's ring leader, prompting the two to debate combat honors, but it is ultimately the arriving Thunderhawk who takes control.

He makes light work of the two stragglers, making his dramatic first appearance with the collision of the would-be robber's heads.

Looming over the crooks, T.Hawk takes the surprised leader by the shoulder, using his turning motion to swiftly disarm him of his shotgun. With a look of distain, he removes the live cartridges.

Relieved of his weapon, the common thug doesn't stand a chance against the towering Thunder Foot warrior. T.Hawk ducks a punch and unleashes a powerful open-palm style, working the gut with a push before sealing the deal with a chop to the neck that leaves the gunman unconscious.

A gracious host, Thunderhawk apologises for the unsavory welcome, and makes a formal introduction to Chun-Li and Cammy.

UDON do well to incorporate elements of T.Hawk's Alpha storyline from the video games, building the sub-plot of Bison's brainwashed Dolls, which plays a significant part in Cammy White's mysterious history. As in the games, T.Hawk makes it his business to seek Little Eagle (Noviembre), along with Juli, who is attributed the backstory of being daughter to a German doctor who provided healthcare to those of the Thunderfoot reserve.

There's a question to be asked of UDON's preperation for longterm planning.
The inclusion of storylines like this, which do well to flesh out characters like T.Hawk, also collide with elements from various other installments in the game series, chronologically released prior to the Alpha expansion.

If one were to really look into the subtext of the situation, this might be an inadvertant glimmer of hope for fans of the games. Burning through storyline so quickly could be an indication that UDON's good will with Capcom and association with yet another revamp of the SFII port might be leading to a potential Street Fighter 4. On the other hand, it may yet be another example of short sighted writing from a studio of pencillers.

The Street Fighter license isn't UDON's to own, so the future may in fact be finite, but I can't help but raise the concern once again that this resembles a case of pencillers working as writers. Typical of a writer is longterm consideration, often absent in penciller's attempts to construct story.

I don't actually know Ken Siu-Chong's history, and I certainly don't mean to inflect negativity on his script work for the series, or pencillers in general.
From a position of interest in the future of the series, and a critical analysis, it's just very difficult to get away from these things. With a tournament allegedly the eventual target for Street Fighter II, one can't help but feel there are a lot of storyarcs building that suggest the logical conclusion of closure from such an event. That doesn't necessarily mean that is the case, but it's a theory.

If you have any theories about the future of the series, be sure to drop a comment. I so rarely here from even our regular readers, and lord knows it's unusual to run afoul Street Fighter fans in the thick of the American superhero comics scene. So say hello, because it's lonely out here.

The Fix: 4 The Issue: 4
Winner: Thunderhawk

[Juggling multiple storylines and groups pays dividends in fan service, but the rush of characters and plot points seems too much, spread too thin. The shift to SFII to streamline was an admirable call, but as the issues unfold it again begins to feel as if the central concept is lost, and stories are meandering toward their conclusion.]

---

FEI LONG versus MOBSTERS
(UDON)
Where: Street Fighter #8 When: May 2004
Why: Ken Siu-Chong How: Alvin Lee

Quick Fix...
It worked for Guile in his first appearance in the series [Street Fighter #1], and we just saw a strong showing from Thunderhawk, so I guess it's hard to argue against the gang-fight introduction.

Liu Kang (Mortal Kombat), Marshall Law (Tekken), Jann Lee (Dead or Alive): all characters who may have existed without Street Fighter, but represent the same tradition that saw the creation of Fei Long. One of the very first and perhaps most instantly recognisable characters, Fei Long represents the none-too subtle homage to cinematic martial arts legend, Bruce Lee.

Since his inclusion in Super Street Fighter II in 1993, the Bruce Lee clone has become an archetype of beat 'em up gaming, represented in most major series in the genre. Fei Long represents perhaps the most literal representation of the character, sharing many explicity commonalities in appearance, style, phrase, and story.

Fei Long's character and story remain typically consistent across the many adaptations of Street Fighter into various mediums. When he isn't starring in the next action blockbuster, he's practising the philosophies and mastery of the martial arts, sometimes returning to the street fighting circuit to stay true.

As a young and exceptionally talented Hong Kong film star, Fei Long almost inevitably attracts the attentions of criminal interests in the business.
Invited to star in a picture by ladies Xiayu and Yanyu, Fei Long finds himself set upon by thugs in an alley outside the studio where he has spent the day filming.

Despite overwhelming odds, Fei Long defies the pack of mobsters, unleashing the martial arts skills that made him one of the most popular movie stars in Hong Kong. His kick proves so powerful, it sends Dai Loe, the gang leader, flying through the air to the windsheld of his expensive sports car.

Through a muzzle of blood, the mobster orders his gang to kill the movie star.
Quoting the infamous water philosophy of Bruce Lee, Fei Long unleashes the full extent of his skill. With lightning quick kicks and fists, he takes his undisciplined opponents apart.

Like a scene from one of his movies, Fei Long produces a pair of nunchaku, evening up the score against the mob of thugs, some armed with baseball bats and blades. Attacking with devestating precision, he renders the goons embarrassed and bruised, leaving only he and Dai Loe.

Still on the hood of his car, the mobster draws a knife on the stoic Fei Long. The martial arts superstar's wags his finger, prompting Dai Loe to opt for a clean getaway over a confrontation he will inevitably lose.

Despite the decisive victory, Dai Loe still promises death for Fei Long at the hands of his masters. A fate Fei Long will no doubt meet with confidence of fist.

And with that, we wrap up the last post of the month, and another fine double feature inclusion to our weekend sponsoring of the Street Fighter brand. The October Punch-Up will reveal more on the progress of the Street Fighters against their superhero contemporarys, via the regular super stock listing. The list will also include all the other September movers and shakers in the on-going rankings.

We'll also have another exciting Quick Fix for your consumption, and discussion aplenty about issues of varying importance. Until then, it's midnight and I'm gonna hit the sack. We'll talk more about Fei Long in the coming weekends.

The Fix: 5 The Issue: 5
Winner: Fei Long

[Though seamless from the previous issue, this marked the first of UDON's self-publishing efforts discussed in the previous entry. In a call back to the first half of today's post, it's worth noting that Xiayu and Yanyu are both Dolls from the Alpha video games, rather than Hong Kong gangsters.]