In 1994 - with just three issues inked - Malibu Comics suddenly and shockingly canceled Capcom video game. Rather than deal with the cancelation by just fading into the comic wilderness, its creator offered an "up close and personal" view of how its ending came about.
Debuting in 1987, it wasn't long before Capcom's fighting video game Street Fighter captured the hearts and minds of casual and pro gamers everywhere. By the mid-1990s, it had become one of the most popular games in the world, prompting adaptations into other media, including comics. Beating out larger and more established comic publishers, in 1993 Mailbu Comics convinced Capcom that it was the comic house best positioned to bring Street Fighter to comics. In Street Fighter #1, Malibu's creative director Tom Mason wrote that "Capcom came to Malibu because we know how to do it."
Unfortunately, issue 3 - from Len Strazewski and Don Hillsman - ended the series with the complete opposite message, with an editorial message stating, "due to complications with Capcom and their dislike of our adaptation of the most popular game in the world, concluding with this issue, Street Fighter the comic book has officially been canceled." This was despite earlier messages suggesting the first six issues were already planned out, so what happened? The answer appears to be the surprising level of gore in the series, which took a bizarrely blood-soaked approach to the defeat of franchise mainstay Ken, having him beaten and scalped after being teamed-up on by the franchise's villains Balrog and Sagat.
Street Fighter Goes Too Far
The comic totally embraced the idea of brutal street fights, but it took things way further than the games, strongly implying that Ken had been brutalized and then killed, with buckets of blood splashed across the page. While the series actually intended to reveal Ken was alive and in hiding, training back to his full potential, it makes sense that Capcom didn't approve of fans seeing such a central character take such a disturbing loss. Despite the cancelation, Street Fighters' creative team at Mailbu clearly believed that they had a story to tell and were the best people to tell it. Accordingly, the comic's creative team used the last pages of the final issues to, in essence, finish what they had thought out for the comic, describing the plot of the next few issues.
Other than Capcom apparently having communicated specific dissatisfaction to Malibu Comics, it's impossible to guess the details of exactly why the R-rated adaptation was judged so harshly. It's worth noting however that the comic was a major departure from the Street Fighter brand almost solely in of the level of violence - something which may have been even more noteworthy following the 1992 release of Mortal Kombat, which quickly became hugely controversial (and successful). At a time when Senate hearings were being held over the property's gory kills, it makes sense that Capcom would have wanted Street Fighter to appear far less like its immediate competition, not more.
