COMIC BOOK ARCADE FLYERS

Comic book superheroes, huh? They’re not just for kids and dorks any more! Okay, so maybe that’s a bit harsh, but superheroes are now one hundred percent mainstream, and as someone who spent a lot of their youth enjoying superhero fiction (although not necessarily comics) it’s an interesting time for the concept of costumed weirdos punching each other. There have been plenty of mis-steps – I knew Suicide Squad was going to be bad but I was definitely not prepared for just how bad – but there’s a lot of enjoyable live-action superhero stuff out there these days. It’s bizarre to me that I can be watching a superhero TV show and think to myself “oh cool, Captain Cold’s in this episode, nice,” but that’s the world we live in these days. It was all different when I was a kid, though. I didn’t have any comic book stores nearby or the financial resources to keep up with monthly series (except the Real Ghostbusters comic, thanks mum) so most of my superhero exposure came from movies, cartoons and, of course, videogames. This is all a roundabout way of saying here, let’s look at some arcade flyers from comic book videogames!

X-Men, Konami, 1992

(images from The Arcade Flyer Archive, click for bigger)

Let’s begin with a prime slab of comic book art that fuses the powerful nostalgia streams of nineties Marvel and arcade beat-em-ups with Konami’s much-loved X-Men. The game itself might not be quite as much fun to play these days as you remember, but that’s a minor consideration because hearing Magneto croak “Welcome to die!” could transform any game into a masterpiece. Just looking at this artwork means I’ll have “Here Comes the Hero” stuck in my head for hours to come. As for the artwork itself, there’s not much to say about it, honestly. It’s just a nice, large image of all your favourite X-Men characters, plus Dazzler. The most striking thing about it is that I don’t remember Wolverine wearing a huge red belt, but apparently his brown suit did indeed feature a huge red belt. Funny how memory works, huh? And what’s that belt supposed to be holding up, his skin-tight lycra suit? Wolverine’s the best there is at what he does, and what he does is promote the importance of adequate lumbar support.

The Japanese flyer feature the same heroic X-Men in a different pose, overshadowed by the leering face of Magneto. The Master of Magnet looks like he’s just seen someone drop a twenty pound note and he’s about to stand on it until they walk away and then pinch it. As for the rest of the characters, they look good and dynamic, although poor Nightcrawler has to suffer the indignity of having text obscuring his face. If you’re thinking that the art looks like an animation cell, that’s probably because X-Men: The Arcade Game was famously based on the semi-failed cartoon pilot Pryde of the X-Men.

There’s also this flyer, which really gets across the grandeur of the full six-player X-Men cabinet. “Play X-Men today at an arcade near you! No excuses!” it says, and yeah, sure, unless the arcade bought the six-player cabinet and then had to close down because the floor collapsed.
If you’ve ever been lucky enough to enjoy the full six-player X-Men experience - sorry, "eXperience" -  please don’t tell me, because I’d just be jealous.

Spider-Man: The Videogame, Sega, 1991

It’s your friendly neighbourhood wall-crawler, and he’s got his own arcade videogame! That’s right, Spider-Man : The Videogame, the game all about Spider-Man starring Spider-Man and three other people Spider-Man knows. Let’s face it, neither Black Cat, Sub-Mariner nor Hawkeye are in the same league as Spider-Man, are they? I’m sure they all have their fans, and I bet Black Cat has plenty of fan “art,” but Spidey’s definitely the star here. Maybe it’s just me, but doesn’t the artwork  on this flyer look a bit old-fashioned for a game released in 1991? That’s not a complaint, it’s a classic look for the characters featured here, even if Namor’s raw sexual magnetism is making me a little uncomfortable.
There’s some interesting text down there on the bottom-right. Describing the characters as “three heroes and a heroine” seems like an unnecessary distinction, but I do like Dr. Doom being called “an incarnation of evil.” An incarnation of good common sense and benevolent leadership who is forever being slandered by the accursed Reed Richards might be more accurate, but this description is much less cumbersome.

The US flyer goes with a daft pun, which makes sense to me because there are two things I associate with Spider-Man: radioactive spider blood and bad jokes. The pun is then re-used at the end of the blurb, because if a joke was lame in the first place it can only get better with repetition. In fact, you could say there’s so much value in that pun that it’s really got legs, oh no, I’ve fallen into some kind of meta void.
Speaking of voids, I spent far too long looking at the background thinking it was some kind of abstracted Spider-Man mask before realising the magenta part is the silhouette of an arcade cabinet and the blue bits are supposed to be the trails of the swooshing screenshots. I was looking for depth where there was only ugly graphic design.

Superman: The Video Game, Taito, 1988

The Man of Steel gets a pretty boring flyer for his eponymous arcade adventure, but then I suppose Superman is so iconic that all you need to sell the idea of a Superman game is an image of Superman bursting though a paper sheet like a winning contestant on Gladiators.

The European flyer is a bit more engaging. Superman hurls a meatball into the depths of space, which at least gets a flicker from the needle of the interesting-o-meter because now I’m thinking of the phrase “intergalactic bolognese.” He also breaks apart some chains with a smile on his face. You see, he’s happy because some villain was dumb enough to attack Superman with regular metal chains and not a kryptonite-powered death machine.

Batman, Data East, 1990

After Superman, logically the next superhero to check up on is Batman, and of course he also got his own arcade game. It’s not that great, from what I remember. As you can see, it’s based on Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman movie, which means this flyer contains little more than Michael Keaton doing a kissy face. Seriously, what is with that expression? Batman looks like he’s just seen the kid in front of him buy the last scoop of chocolate ice cream and while he’ll settle for raspberry ripple he’s not happy about it.

Batman Forever, Iguana Entertainment, 1996

The streets of Gotham City are paved with gold, plus cobblestones and fondant-coated cakes shaped like the Bat-Symbol that act as impromptu manhole covers. You know, if Gotham’s streets were paved with gold it’d explain why so many criminals are obsessed with the bloody place. As much as I like Batman, I was something of an over-analytical kid and it always bothered me that all these crimes took place in the city that’s home to the World’s Greatest Detective. Like, c’mon, man: Akron, Ohio has banks too.

Batman, Raw Thrills, 2013

Here’s a surprisingly modern Batman arcade game, a racing-combat title where you hare through the streets of Gotham – thankfully not paved in gold, because that’d play havoc with the Batmobile’s traction – and chase down some of Batman’s famous foes. I’ve seen this game in action, and the strange thing about it is that it still has the same feel as an arcade game from the late nineties / early two thousands. It’s something to do with the way the action is framed, punchy and hyper-kinetic in a manner that you don’t see in console games. Presumably it’s designed that way to grab the attention of potential customers, as though the enormous glowing Bat-Symbol wouldn’t do that on its own.
I’m especially interested in the claim that you can control “every Batmobile ever” in this game. Now, I know that’s not strictly true, but you can play as the Batmobiles from the sixties TV series and Batman: The Animated Series and frankly why would you want to drive any other Batmobiles? So, I’ll let them off.

Justice League Heroes United, Global VR, 2009

Now this one just feels like a cruel practical joke. An arcade beat-em-up starring the likes of Batman, Wonder Woman and the Joker with cel-shaded graphics, supposedly co-developed by Konami? In another universe this is my favourite videogame ever, but from what I’ve seen of the version we received on this Earth Justice League Heroes United is an incredibly simplistic and remarkably ugly brawler with poor hit detection and combat that’s got as much depth as two junior school kids having a thumb war. Just looking at this flyer is disappointing me and, in the case of the Joker’s face, kinda creeping me out. I know the Joker is supposed to be creepy, but in a “sinister and unhinged” way rather than a Tippexed corpse. Throw in Wonder Woman staring at her own hands with an expression of utter bemusement, and I think we can all be glad that this one never got a home release.

Captain America and The Avengers, Data East, 1991

Ah, that’s better, back to some artwork you might actually want to look at. Well, as long as you ignore Vision’s massive hand / tiny head combo. Other than that, it’s pretty good. Captain America takes centre stage, as well he might, with all the most famous features of his design on display: his mighty shield, his red-white-and-blue suit, the two small tufts of grey hair at his temples that remind you hey, Cap fought in World War Two, he’s an old man now.
These days, it’s kinda weird to see Iron Man shuffled into the background of a superhero team-up, huh? Just bide your time, Tony. One day you’ll be Robert Downey Junior and you’ll never have to lurk behind Hawkeye again. And hey, I could have sworn the Red Skull doesn’t usually have ears. Skulls don’t have ears. Then again, skulls don’t have eyes, either, so I suppose it’s down to artistic interpretation. At least if you draw him with ears you know his Nazi hat won’t keep slipping off his head.

The American flyer for Captain America and The Avengers is… less compelling. Ha ha, “super hero foursome.” Where was I? Oh yeah, you might think Cap’s climbing out of that arcade cabinet, but take a look at the way the monitor glass is broken around his leg. There’s no way his bulging, justice-packed torso would fit through that gap, so clearly he’s just kicked a hole in the cabinet’s screen to get your attention. Now that he has your attention, he can tell you some marvel-ous facts. Go on, read that speech bubble and then admit it, the voice inside your head sounded like a kid giving a class presentation on the exports of Slovakia or something. At least those facts are believable – over on the left there’s the claim that in some arcades, Avengers is out-earning Street Fighter II at a rate of two-to-one. I must conclude those arcades did not contain a Street Fighter II cabinet.

Avengers in Galactic Storm, Data East, 1995

Captain America once more takes the starring role in Avengers in Galactic Storm, and he’s really carrying the whole thing because the other playable characters are… well, they’re down the Marvel Comics pecking order, let’s put it that way. Apart from Cap we’ve got the medieval-themed Black Knight, the element-manipulating Crystal and kinda-Thor-but-not-really Thunderstrike. Crystal has already appeared in the Inhumans TV show, and I’m sure that by 2025 Black Knight and Thunderstrike will have their own movies, movies beamed directly into the population’s brains by the now-sentient Disney-Marvel-Fox Mandatory Entertainment Droids.
Until then, we’ll have to settle for looking at these CG graphics which have not aged well at all. Early low-poly PS1-type stuff can have a lot of charm, but this is a shiny, plasticky nightmare, action figures come to life in a horror-movie version of Toy Story. Cap’s bulbous, over-inflated pectorals are dominating my focus. I can’t look away from them, and I can’t stop imagining the sounds of a clown making a balloon animal when Cap throws his shield.

The US flyer looks a little better. Not good, but better. The nineties really were the heyday of the brown leather jacket, huh? He doesn’t have one in this image but even Thunderstrike wears a brown leather jacket in the comics. I just feel sorry for the baseball pitcher that’s just out of view in the image above, because Thunderstrike has clearly smashed a home run outta the park.

Spawn: In The Demon’s Hand, Capcom, 1999

Oh hey, it’s Spawn! I’d kinda forgotten Spawn was a thing, but here he is in all his gothic, flappy-capes, not-nearly-as-cool-as-Link-Soul-Calibur-guest-character glory. The flyer is a big ol’ picture of Spawn himself, and there’s not much you can say about that. However, the tagline “access the cool and dark mysterious world of SPAWN” is rather glorious, don’t you think? You can access this world, but you are a mere visitor, child: you can never be as cool and dark mysterious as Spawn, emissary of hell and compulsive spike polisher.”

Also, Spawn will strike here. Apparently. Not a believer in the element of surprise, that Spawn.

X-Men: Children of the Atom, Capcom, 1994

To finish, let’s have some palette cleansers with the flyers for Capcom’s Marvel fighting games. I’m not going to cover the “versus Capcom” crossovers in an effort to keep this article comic-book centric, but Children of the Atom is X-Men all the way down and so here it is. Wolverine’s grimacing harder than any Canadian has ever grimaced before, and as someone who was recently told that they grind their teeth in their sleep it’s making me uncomfortable thinking about what this is doing to his teeth. I know Wolverine’s healing factor means he can grow them back, but still, tooth trauma isn’t fun to think about. Luckily Storm’s nearby, and she can calm Wolverine down by electrocuting his hand.
Relatedly, I’m sure I had a Marvel trading card of some sort with this very artwork on it. In this case, I would be happy for the comments to tell me if that was a real thing or something my brain has made up to distract me from the mental image of Wolverine’s teeth shattering under the pressure of his relentless fury.

The Japanese flyer is cool. I have nothing much to add, it just looks really good. Classic X-Men artwork, a strong design, Magneto looking much more menacing than he did on Konami’s X-Men flyer. Good work all around.

Marvel Super Heroes, Capcom, 1995

Finally for today, it’s Marvel Super Heroes and in what has been a running theme, the American flyer is kinda okay but not nearly as interesting as its Japanese counterpart. You’ve got some famous heroes, the game’s title, what more do you really need? Sure, the lighting on Psylocke makes her look very yellow and thus easily mistaken for some kind of wasp monster, especially with her leg(?) looking like a stinger, but aside from that? Perfectly acceptable.

This flyer, though? Get it printed out and hang it on your wall. That way you can live your life under the baleful gaze of Shuma-Gorath, and who wouldn’t want that?

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SONIC THE COMIC COVERS

Today, I thought I'd write about some covers from Sonic the Comic. I'm not sure why. Maybe I had a half-remembered dream about it. Maybe the internet's unending thirst for weird Sonic the Hedgehog fanart finally tipped me over the edge. Who knows?

If you're too young or not British enough to remember Sonic the Comic, it was "the UK's Official Sega Comic." I'm not sure if it ever had much penetration outside these sceptered isles, but for British kids it meant a fortnightly slice of cartoonish Sega action. Most of the strips focused on Sonic, naturally, but other Sega franchises were represented, including (somewhat surprisingly) a ton based on Decap Attack. I was never really into Sonic the Comic as a kid, mostly because I was never really a fan of Sonic, but I had a few issues here and there and I remember it being mostly enjoyable kid's comic stuff that really stretched out the premise of Sonic the Hedgehog, Well, there's not much plot in the original games beyond "run around a loop-the-loop, jump on a fat man," is there? Still, Sonic the Comic is fondly remembered by some, and to those people I issue an apology - I'm sorry if you think I'm being too harsh on StC, but just know that I only lash out at others to hide my own insecurities.

To establish a baseline, let's start at the start with Sonic the Comic issue one. It's pretty typical of the series' covers: a big picture of Sonic, bright colours and exclamation marks up the wazoo. It's all as you'd expect for a 1993 publication called Sonic the Comic. Two things stand out to me - okay, three things because the idea of a comic costing less than a pound is making me feel really old. The other two are the banner at the top that references Sega's "Cyber Razor Cut" advertising campaign - a set of commercials that imply you need to go to a barber / cybernetic enhancement clinic to be strong enough to handle the raw power of the Megadrive. There's an accompanying song with one of the worst forced rhymes I've ever heard, I wrote about it years ago. The other thing is the proud declaration that Sonic is "the world's most famous blue hedgehog!" Well, of course he is, he's the world's only blue hedgehog. I'm the most famous person currently writing a stupid article about old videogame comics, but that's a meaningless statement because I'm the only person doing that. At least I bloody well hope I am.

By the third issue this bold claim has been changed to "the world's fastest blue hedgehog!" See, that tagline suffers from the same problem, doesn't it?
The shark-piranha hybrid robots are admittedly quite cool, although I only bring them up so I can complain about the Sharkticons in Transformers being called Sharkticons despite being neither sharks nor Decepticons.

Sonic's default facial expression on these covers is "knowing smugness," even when he's failed to notice a squadron of robot eagle-planes swooping in behind him. Tails has spotted them, though, unless the artist captured him looking behind himself for the first time ever and realising he's a two-tailed mutant freak. As I say, I never really read Sonic the Comic as a kid but I'd be surprised if this very scene didn't play out many times, with Sonic not registering danger from inside his impervious bubble of self-satisfaction while Tails performs the usual sidekick role.

Blimey, that took a dark turn: Dr. Robotnik has decapitated Sonic and Tails and he's using their severed heads as Christmas decorations. And here you thought Robotnik was the "harmless buffoon" type of villain, not the "decorate his lair with the skulls of his fallen enemies" kind.
You might be wondering how Dr. Robotnik managed to cross over into the world of Looney Tunes and murder Porky Pig too, but that's not Porky Pig. It's an original Sonic the Comic character called Porker Lewis, which sounds like the nickname you end up with if you're a fat kid at Eton. Porker Lewis wears a leather jacket in the comics, and given that the world of Sonic the Hedgehog is filled with sentient animal-men Porker is in for an extremely awkward conversation when he eventually meets a cow-person.

You know, before the proliferation of the internet, "Sonic the Human" might well have been the strangest Sonic story ever told. Now it's not even a blip on the weird-o-meter. Also, for a character built around the concept of being cool I find it hard to believe that Sonic would dress in a crop-top and fingerless gloves, even during the mid-nineties. Maybe the bare midriff was intended to distract from his grotesquely oversized head, Newsflash, Sonic - it does not.

Speaking of clothes, Amy Rose features heavily in Sonic the Comic and she is always fully dressed, which only serves to highlight Sonic's nakedness. Thankfully Sonic put on some clothes to attend his wedding - you can see he's wearing a little bow tie to go with his gloves. I do hope he's also wearing a suit or something, otherwise he'll look like a Chippendale.

One thing you notice if you look at a lot of Sonic the Comic covers is that Sonic looks weird when viewed straight-on, his spines being rather difficult to illustrate from that viewpoint. Now you know why Sonic is blue - because if he was green, he'd look like a Christmas tree.

See? He just looks like he's got a bizarrely-shaped skull. Actually, the first time I saw this cover I though Sonic had sprouted wings and Knuckles was climbing out of a toilet. That'd be a much stranger Sonic story that Sonic the Human.

I would dearly love to believe that somewhere out there was a child who occupied the tiny overlap at the centre of a "Sonic the Comic reader / Wings fan" Venn diagram, and that said child laughed heartily at the "Bandage on the Run" pun.

No, it's fine, Sonic. Nobody else wanted to use that log bridge, you go right ahead and destroy it, you thoughtless jackass. What if Tails wanted to follow you across? Oh, right, he can fly. Well, what about Knuckles? Right, he can glide. Okay, maybe Amy Rose wanted to use it... but you want her to stay as far away from you as possible, of course. I give up, you've beaten me. Destroy as many log bridges as you like.

Note to self: start using "Welcome to the Pleasure Zone" as a chat-up line. Further study will be required to determine whether it's more effective if I point at my crotch while doing so.

Sonic is imprisoned, guilty of being the coolest hedgehog on the planet, a crime that I can't help but feel was forced onto the statute books solely to harass Sonic. It's not even necessary, either: surely there must be laws in place that mean Sonic can be arrested, if not summarily executed, simply for appearing in Sonic Underground?

"Yeah, I punched the floor so hard that it shattered. No big deal, it's just a cool thing I can do. No, it's not a dress, it's a poncho!"

More seasonal punishment from Dr. Robotnik, living up to his Eggman alter-ego by trapping Sonic and friends in a transparent Easter egg. It's a wonderful image, although I can't decide what I like best about it: that Robotnik shoved a bunny and a chick in there with Sonic to really hammer home the Easter theme, or that he took the time to pretty the whole thing up with a ribbon. Hang on, those gems on Robotnik's glove... is he wearing the Infinity Gauntlet? I demand that the next Avengers movie opens with Robotnik trapping Thanos in an Easter egg, stealing the Infinity Gauntlet and bellowing "I HATE THOSE HEROOOOES!"

"Hi folks, I'm Sonic the Hedgehog, the world's most famous blue hedgehog. Look at these idiots behind me. They're protesting at a statue. I think they think it's the real Dr. Robotnik. What a bunch of idiots. Chilli dogs, you're too slow, etcetera."

Look at Robotnik's forehead and eyes. Now look at them again. Looks like the underside of a human nose, doesn't it? Creepy.

"Mobius is afraid of me... I have seen its true face. The Zones are extended gutters and the gutters are full of blood and when the drains finally scab over, all the vermin will drown. The accumulated filth of all their sex and murder will foam up about their waists and all the badniks and Eggmen will look up and shout "Save us!"... and I'll look down and whisper "erm, I'll get Sonic, he's much better at that kind of thing."

It appears there were several attempts to make Tails look tough. None of them worked. This one is undermined by the fact that it looks like the sword is saying "Grrrr!" and not Tails. Tails looks like he doesn't have a bloody clue what's going on.

Again, I'm not buying Tails as a tough guy. He wasn't even in Sonic Underground, so he's innocent of that heinous crime. So what is he wanted for? Aggravated cuteness? Sidekicking with intent to quip? I suppose I could read the issue in question to find out, but that would feel like I had been defeated, somehow. Instead I'll just assume Tails is wanted for burning down an orphanage.

To finish, here is a collection of Tails' goofy facial expressions.

Tails did not come out of this article with much dignity, did he? And if those weren't goofy enough for you, I've got one left.

Hey Miles, maybe you should lay off the caffeine for a while? You look kinda wired. Jaunty, but wired.

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BATMAN RETURNS (SNES)

I have a lot in common with the hero of today's game, you know. We both tend to only go out at night, have wardrobes consisting entirely of black clothes, possess keen analytical minds and are forever being harassed by evil clowns. Sadly, while I languish alone and unloved, Batman is one of the most famous fictional people on the planet. It seems unfair at first, but then you have to think of the positives: I didn't see my parents killed in front of me, and I was never played by George Clooney in Batman & Robin. Small mercies, I guess. Anyway, today's game is Konami's 1993 I-Am-The-Night-em-up Batman Returns.

If you're reading this, the chances of you not knowing who Batman is are roughly zero percent and therefore I'll skip the introductions. Batman's probably more famous now than he's ever been, but he's been appearing in videogames of wildly-varying quality since the mid-eighties, so the chances are you've played a Batman title at some point.

Batman Returns is specifically based on the Tim Burton-directed movie of the same name. Not the one with the Joker, the other one. Michael Keaton plays Batman (superpowers: vast wealth, emotional trauma, good at fighting) as he battles against the Penguin (superpowers: caustic fish breath, nose biting) and Catwoman (superpowers: sex appeal, handy with a whip). Oh, and there's an evil businessman called Max Shreck (superpowers: being Christopher Walken) pulling the strings.

Not pictured: Christopher Walken. Disappointing, I know.
As this is a 16-bit game based on a comic book franchise, the Laws of Gaming dictate that it must be either an action platformer or a side-scrolling beat-em-up. So which did Konami decide would better suit their unique vision of a large man in tights punching people? Actually, they sort of went with both.

Batman Returns starts off as a standard Final Fight clone. Despite his mastery of hundreds of martial arts ranging from karate to full-contact pillow fighting, Batman comes equipped with the usual array of beat-em-up attacks. Pressing the attack button will execute a punch combo. You can perform jumping attacks, as well as grabbing enemies and either hitting them or throwing them into the scenery. Pressing attack and jump together will unleash the standard health-draining special attack - in this case, Batman twirls his cape around like a catwalk model, causing enemies to become so overwhelmed by his grace and panache that they take damage. Bafflingly, it also hurts Batman himself. He should have used his detective skills to detect himself a cape light enough to swing around without causing severe neck and shoulder damage.

Batman's also known for his gadgets, and while he neglected to bring his Clown-Repellant Bat-Spray he can at least throw batarangs at the bad guys, stunning them momentarily. There's also a grappling hook that lets you performs a swinging kick, but more on that later.

Once you've reached Batman's clown-punching quota, a skull-headed harlequin rides a motorcycle out of a giant Christmas present and suddenly you're playing a different game.
The gameplay is now restricted to a single plane, and pressing attack makes the Dark Knight throw a batarang. Yes, we've swapped genres and Batman Returns is now an action-platformer. If you've read VGJUNK before you'll probably know how much I love belt-scrolling beat-em-ups, so this sudden change of tack is rather aggravating. It's not just my preference for beat-em-ups, either: these rigidly two-dimensional sections simply aren't as much fun

Very festive, in a gothic sort of way, but less fun. For a soaring avenger of the night, Batman is slow and cumbersome - not really a problem in the brawling sections, but it rapidly becomes an issue here. Combine this with the large size of the sprites and it becomes far more difficult to avoid enemies and traps than it should be and you start wishing you were controlling someone more manoeuvrable, like Alfred or even the bloody Oracle.

A clown holds a woman at gunpoint, to the surprise of absolutely no-one. Between rampaging gangs of circus folk and weekly Joker attacks, the people of Gotham City must see clowns the same way we'd view an invading force of Nazi paedophiles.
This particular jester is the first boss, and if I hadn't figured out that you can block by holding the shoulder buttons he'd have been a much sterner test than he eventually turned out to be. I know it's pointless attempting to decipher the mysterious mind of an evil clown but I can't help but wonder what made him think that the best way - perhaps the only way - to defeat Batman was to curl into a ball and roll at him. I can see it now: the Riddler watching the fight unfold on the evening news and thinking "Fuck! Why didn't I think of that!?", Bane incorporating rhythmic gymnastic into his training regimen. Beautiful.

And that's the first stage over. Two gameplay styles, one more fun than the other due to Batman's inappropriately stodgy movements. Get used to it, because that's the pattern for (most of) the rest of the game.
Between stages, you do get some nice little cutscenes recounting the plot of the film, although I have to take issue with them describing Max Shreck as "the most powerful businessman in Gotham City". What's Bruce Wayne, chopped liver? I like Christopher Walken and all but he doesn't have a life-size Tyrannosaurus model in a cave under his house, and if that's not the best way to judge a man's power then I don't know what is.

Stage two is more of the same - clowns need hurting, and Batman is just the man for the job. Batman Returns fits nicely with my previously-discussed idea that the names of the enemies are what the player character names them when he lays eyes on them for the first time - Batman gives them all very utilitarian titles like "Thin Clown" and "Fat Clown". He's not the most imaginative crimefighter ever, but at least he's not calling them "Pretty Boy".

There's a short platforming section through a burning building, notably mostly because you need to use the grappling hook to swing over obstacles, and then it's back to the usual fighting for the boss. It's Karnov! Oh alright, it's actually just a generic strongman. A strongman that needs to start being honest about his weight and buying clothes in the appropriate size: that jacket has been pushed beyond breaking point. Karnov here is a much more enjoyable (and much easier) battle than the first boss, simply because you can move around with more freedom.
Right, time for stage three. What's next?

Goddamn furries!

There's a lift scene. Of course there is, there's always a lift scene. This one has clowns.

For the rest of the stage, Batman travels across some rooftops. This is his natural habitat, so he should be alright here. There are more clowns. This game is a coulrophobe's nightmare, although it should perhaps be studied as a way to help people overcome their fear of clowns. They're a lot less scary when you're Batman and you can kick them off tall buildings.

The boss of the stage is Catwoman, and she does double duty as both a part of the game's story and as the beat-em-up's almost mandatory dominatrix enemy. PVC-clad women with whips are second only to eighties street punks in the vast sea of beat-em-up enemies, although fat guys who roll around and breath fire aren't far behind.
The sexual tension between the Cat and the Bat that is so prevalent in the Batman comics and movies is completely done away with here, which is sort of a shame because I'd have like to have seen how Konami would have approached it. Maybe after every punch combo, they could both stop for a second and give each other a meaningful glance while an animated heart-sprite pulses above their heads. Or perhaps there could be a "sexual tension" meter that fills faster the closer you stand to Catwoman. Once it's full Batman becomes momentarily paralysed, because there's not much room inside the bat-suit's codpiece for unexpected mid-battle tumescence.

Stage four begins, and the first thing to notice is this rather lovely lighting effect. The character sprites get lighter and darker as they move in and out of the shafts of light pouring into the level, and it's such a well-handled and extremely Batman-y effect that I wish they'd used it more.
In fact, I'd say that the presentation is Batman Returns' strongest feature. The graphics are excellent, particularly Batman's sprite and the stage backgrounds - Konami managed to capture the atmosphere of the movie rather well. The muted colour palette, not normally something you'd associate with Konami, is very effective at making the stages feel like Gotham City.
Also of note is the music, which consists of expanded, SNES-ified versions of Danny Elfman's movie score. Here's a personal favourite from Stage 2-2:

Again, it does an excellent job of marrying the feel of the movie with the qualities of the SNES.

Catwoman returns for another boss battle, but we're fighting in the dark now - my Bat-Sonar should make this an easy fight. It's not like cats can see in the dark or anything.
The person tied up in the background is not, as I thought on first seeing her, some kind of terrifying Island of Dr. Moreau-style hybrid with the body of a woman and the head of lion. That's just what hair looked like in the early nineties. She's actually the Ice Princess, and if you've seen the film then you'll know things don't exactly end well for her.

At the end of the stage, Batman finally catches up to the Penguin. Driven mad by the pressure of her royal title, the Ice Princess has moved from her comfy chair to take up a precarious position on a snow-covered ledge. It's another 2D-style boss fight, and the Penguin has the advantage because he can use his umbrella to fly about the place like a deranged Mary Poppins. A fistful of batarangs makes the Penguin go down, in the least delightful way. Then the Ice Princess falls to her death, and Batman takes the blame. Whoops. Oh well, time to go and punch some more clowns, I guess.

Wait, what?

Yup, there's an OutRun-style driving section, although unlike Sega's classic arcade racer you can shoot what look like metal dog bowls from the front of your car. If Batman Returns is the Neapolitan ice cream of SNES games, then the driving stage is the vanilla bit. It's not bad, and the sprite scaling and parallax backgrounds look nice, but it feels a little clunky and tacked on.
The next stage is back to the standard punching antics, and there's not much to say about it, really. You're on top of a circus train for a while, and then you have to fight an Organ Grinder.

Played in the movie by the late Vincent Schiavelli, the Organ Grinder is... oh, who am I kidding? All I care about here is that little monkey in the background. Hello, little monkey! As you can see, Batman has adopted a prone position to get closer to this magical dancing chimp. Even the Dark Knight can't resist the strange allure of a monkey in human clothes.

The final stage takes place in the Penguin's icy lair, and you're treated to another nice graphical effect in the form of a watchful penguin army that fires rockets at you. Those rockets don't discriminate between caped champions of the night and psychotic clowns, so you can use them to your advantage - but still take all the credit. Nothing's going to tarnish your superhero reputation faster than admiting that it wasn't actually you that took out that warehouse full of goon, it was a flock of missile-toting aquatic birds.

Deeper into the lair we go, and there's a giant rubber duck waiting for us. I'm not surprised. On the list of "weird shit Batman has fought", an oversized bath toy is quite some distance from the peak. I mean, Batman sometimes fights a woman who turns into a killer whale, so the Penguin really needs to step up his game if he wants to make Batman rethink his life choices.

After the duck, it's time for the Penguin! He's the final boss, and yet again it's another videogame where the final boss is Danny DeVito. For God's sake, how many times must I battle the star of such classic movies Junior and Twins at the end of a videogame? His near-omnipresence as the villain of almost every 16-bit videogame is beginning to get tiresome.

I'm kidding, of course. The only other games I can think of with Danny DeVito in are Chrono Trigger (where he famously played Ozzie) and possibly NBA Jam.
Once the Penguin is defeated, Gotham City is safe and its citizens can once again enjoy the foggy gloom and gothic ambience of this great city with fear of being attacked by a fat man with flippers for hands.

Batman Returns - a licensed tie-in game from the nineties that isn't complete dreck! As shocking as any of Batman's tales, but true. It's actually a pretty good game which sadly suffers from spreading itself too thin. The Final Fight-style stages are by far the best - they control well, Batman has a nice selection of moves and everything feels satisfyingly meaty - and if they'd stuck with them for the whole game, that would have been great.

While the "2D" stages aren't terrible, they're just not as much fun to play. Still, Batman Returns has a lot going for it: the graphics and music are great, and overall it certainly feels like a Batman game. All in all, I'd say you should give it a go, particularly if you're a Bat-fan. I certainly don't regret playing it.

And remember, a vote for Oswald Cobblepot is a vote for an oily fish in every pot and a giant rubber duck in every garage.

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