One of my favorite comics is getting a rerelease.

[A Black Falcon]

From what I've seen, those 4 comics were Japanese comics written in both English and Japanese. The styles certainly seem different than any western comics too, especially at the time. Apparently the person who made the Zelda comics is also famous for some comic about cyborgs called Cyborg 009 or something. I think I saw the cartoon based on it on Cartoon Network back in the day. Seemed pretty good.

Did the Zelda comic ever actually get a release in Japan? I always thought it was made for the US market... but yeah, since it's by a Japanese author it definitely has a different style from an American comic. Beyond the obvious art style differences, that bittersweet ending probably wouldn't be like that in an American comic for example, I would guess.

The Metroid one is well known in Japan as well. It seems they weren't made JUST for Nintendo Power, that's just the only place they could publish them in the U.S. The Super Metroid and Starfox comics were made by this guy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benimaru_Itoh who apparently did a lot of comics for Nintendo games, but most of them only saw release in Japan.

It's a fair point that the Zelda comic had a lot of constraints that had to be worked within. I still like it, mind you. But if I'm going to compare it to the Mario comic, I gotta dock some points for that issue. (And yes, you're thinking of the right one, that is the one where at one point they fall in a nest of Yoshi eggs, and that Mario and Wario comic was a one-off side story (actually they did two of them) set in the same comic universe and made by the same person. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamakichi_Sakura

Ah, the Mario & Wario ones were spinoffs of the main Mario comic? Right. I remember that being amusing... though it surely helped that I actually had a Game Boy, unlike the NES or SNES, so Wario was a character I knew well. Wario Land 1 always has been one of my favorite Mario-related games ever!

Who is apparently known mostly for this specific comic.) There's a point where Mario turns into Dr. Mario to treat a ghost's depression with Carl Sagan style speeches about the grandness of the cosmos and our tiny insignificant position therein. There's another point where Princess Peach single handedly takes out most of the Koopalings and blows up a fortress. It is amazing.

... I definitely don't remember those parts. I might have to look this collection up.

That short story I described as a "Captain N prototype" wasn't technically about Captain N. However, the cartoon took ideas from that short story and turned it into Captain N. The story, I think, was actually called "Captain Nintendo", and it was... really really bad... Captain N itself was a work of genius compared to that initial short story. Yes, short story. Technically, it wasn't a comic, just a two part reader's digest style thing.

Ah. As we didn't own a TV in the '80s, much less a Nintendo, I did not exactly follow Captain N much, or read the early Nintendo Power or Nintendo newsletter stuff. Sure, I played the NES at friends' houses when I could, but that's different from having something yourself.