Chris Sims

When it debuted in 2011, it didn't take long for Mega Man to become one of my favorite comics. The all-ages action of one of my favorite video game franchises was blended with storytelling that took the games' simple premise of a good robot battling against an evil scientist and used it to explore complicated questions of morality, forgiveness, and the nature of war. It never stopped being a fun, high action adventure, but it also never talked down to its audience, and that was a combination that made it great. Now, after almost five years, the series is coming to an end this week with Mega Man #55. To mark the occasion, ComicsAlliance spoke to writer Ian Flynn about how his version of Mega Man came to be, and the influences he drew on to create those stories.

I've identified with a lot of Dinosaur Comics strips, but I don't think any of them have ever spoken to me quite as much as the one where T-Rex talks about how Nintendo is the only corporation that he thinks of as a friend. As I've said before here at CA, I've spent more time with Mario than I have with most members of my own immediate family, and that's not a decision I regret. And if you have similar feelings and also love comics by amazingly talented young creators --- which I assume is why you're here in the first place --- then I've got something that you're probably going to want to check out. Zinetendo, a new full-color, 46-page zine devoted entirely to Nintendo's greatest hits, is available for pre-order now, and it's awesome. Check out some of my favorite pieces below!

If you're the kind of person who keeps up on a very specific kind of news, then you might remember that last year, the city of Yokohama, Japan was host to one of the greatest events in human history. For nine days, Yokohama played host to over a thousand Pikachus, marching through the streets and, one assumes, tempting Team Rocket into what would have been the biggest heist of their careers. Sadly, we do not live in a perfect world where this is happening literally all the time, but on August 8, the electric Pokemon will return to Yokohama for another nine-day celebration... and this time, they will be dancing. The event's official name is "Dancing? An Outbreak Of Pikachus," which is equal parts whimsical and terrifying, and thanks to an instructional video, you can learn to dance along!

The ongoing war between the Templar and Mages is about to get a whole lot bloodier with Dark Horse Comics' Dragon Age: Magekiller.

There are few things in the world of fiction that I love more than stories about dystopian futures where the corrupt and ruthless power structure can only be brought down by a very specific recreational activity. Car racing, breakdancing, even competitive cooking, these are the things that will pave the way for a brighter future. And in Mirror's Edge, as I understand it, that activity is parkour. Renegade parkour! Now, we finally have a chance to find out why that particular future society is so vulnerable to quickly traversing urban obstacles: Dark Horse has announced Mirror's Edge: Exordium, an upcoming miniseries serving as a prequel to the upcoming video game, written and drawn by the writers and artists who worked on the game.

Remember when you were a kid and you'd pit toys from different lines against each other, like, say, having the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fight the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation in a crossover that somehow never happened? Remember how this was something you definitely did as a kid and not, like, this weekend when you were bored and realized that you paid good money for all these toys and so you might as well get some use out of them? Well, Ubisoft, the video game publisher best known these days for the Assassin's Creed franchise, is certainly hoping you do, because that seems to be the premise of the upcoming Toy Soldiers: War Chest.

If you've been following Archie's adventure comics, then you might remember that a good chunk of 2013 was taken up with "Worlds Collide," a massive crossover between Sonic the Hedgehog and Mega Man. If you missed it, then trust me, it was a pretty big deal - so big, in fact, that it seems like Archie, Sonic and Capcom have decided to follow it up with an even bigger crossover: "Worlds Unite," a full-on mashup of Sega and Capcom characters, set to launch in May, finally bring us one step closer to my dream of Jughead showing up in a Street Fighter game. What? We're actually getting Archie vs. Predator, do you really think that couldn't happen?

Ah, Mario Kart. Nothing has provided more people with hours of enjoyable entertainment and friendship-ruining arguments over who threw that Blue Shell and why you had to wait until I was just about to cross the finish line you unbelievable dick, that's so cheap, you need to leave, no I'm not kidding, get out. Uh... sorry. Point is, Mario Kart rules, and now we have one more reason to love it: It inspired Tumblr user jetgreguar to kick off a fun project where artists drew self-portraits as Mario Kart racers! The results have been fantastic, so we've picked out a few of our favorites that we want to see battling it out on Rainbow Road.

Like a lot of kids who grew up in the '90s, I loved Nintendo's monthly magazine Nintendo Power with a passion, and one of my favorite things about it was reading the comic version of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. I loved that series largely because it made the weird adventure of the video game even weirder. It wasn't until I was an adult that I realized the story was written and drawn by legendary manga creator Shotaro Ishinomori -- you know, the guy who created Kamen Rider and the Super Sentai franchise, among other things -- and realized just why it was so good. Sadly, the story has been out of print for several years, but now it's coming back: Viz Media announced over Twitter today that they will publish a new collection of Ishinomori's Zelda comic, set for release on May 5.

I've always been fascinated by unfinished stories and pitches for comic books that never came out. There's always a level of mystery to them, trying to figure out how things might've been different if we actually got these stories that, for whatever reason, never actually made it to the shelves. This week, our pals over at Robot 6 unearthed one of the most interesting examples I've ever seen of a great comic that never happened: A Final Fantasy comic, based on the video game, by Kurt Busiek, Dell Barras and Mike Mignola. And here's the really interesting part: The book may have never happened, but it got close enough that, of the four-issue adaptation of Final Fantasy IV, all four issues were scripted, with covers my Mignola, and two were actually drawn.