Street Fighter II #7

Mar 1995. Cover price 95p.
40 pages. Full colour.
Manga Publishing Ltd.

Edited by Cefn Ridout.

Cover by Masaomi Kanzaki, finished art by Lea Hernandez, colouring by Koto Color.
r: UNKNOWN.

Contents:

 2 A New Breed of Heroes for the Nineties! in-house advertisement for Appleseed.

 3 Street Fighter II Battle 09 w: Masaomi Kanzaki, translated by William Flanagan; a: Masaomi Kanzaki, lettering and finished art by Lea Hernandez, colouring by Koto Color. / Indicia

r: UNKNOWN.

 4 Ryu (one fifth page) fact file.

 6 Ken (one fifth page) fact file.

 8 Guile (one fifth page) fact file.

10 Zangief (one fifth page) fact file.

12 Dhalsim (one fifth page) fact file.

14 Blanka (one fifth page) fact file.

16 E. Honda (one fifth page) fact file.

18 Chun-Li (one fifth page) fact file.

20 Street Fighter II poster 7 (of 8); a: Masaomi Kanzaki, finished art by Lea Hernandez, colouring by Koto Color.

r: UNKNOWN.

23 Street Fighter II Battle 10: Final w: Masaomi Kanzaki, translated by William Flanagan; a: Masaomi Kanzaki, lettering and finished art by Lea Hernandez, colouring by Koto Color. / Indicia

r: UNKNOWN.

24 Balrog (one fifth page) fact file.

26 Vega (one fifth page) fact file.

28 Sagat (one fifth page) fact file.

30 M. Bison (one fifth page) fact file.

32 Po-Lin (one fifth page) fact file.

34 Wong-Mei (one fifth page) fact file.

36 Gouken (one fifth page) fact file.

38 Get ready for the next issue of Street Fighter II!! (one fifth page)

39 Street Fighter Hits the Big Screen competition to win one of 25 pairs of tickets for a Street Fighter preview screening.

40 New Strip - Silent Mobius in-house advertisement for Manga Mania #20.

Chun-Li withdraws from the championship, despite winning the second match, due to her extensive injuries, leaving either Ken or Sagat to face the greatest fighter in the world - M. Bison. The cage is removed for Ken and Sagat's fight, and Ken sets out to get revenge for Ryu and Master Gouken. It is a close fight, but Ken succeeds in progressing through to the final fight, destroying the ring in the process.

Recovering from her injuries in hospital, Chun-Li's life is threatened, but Ryu steps in to save her.

Ken approaches Bison, demanding a fight immediately, even though their scheduled fight is for the next day. Ryu steps in to stop Ken, telling him that the master wouldn't approve of taking a life. M. Bison gets Ken to fight Ryu in order to determine who will be the more worthy combatant. Ryu desperately attempts to get Ken to snap out of his altered mental state, but Bison's strength of control has Ken completely at his will.

Ken concedes the fight by punching a wall and damaging his hand, leaving Ryu to face Bison.

We finally get an answer as to why such a seemingly destructive drug is being peddled on the streets of Shad - its secret isn't that Doll can control a person's mind after an overdose, they can be ordered to follow commands by someone with enormous psychic powers, with only M. Bison able to weild such power. Having used his followers and soldiers to experiment on, M. Bison hopes to create the world's largest organisation of assassins in order to conquer the world from its underside.

While the villainous plot may not hold up to scrutiny, at least there's an internal logic at play. It is interesting to see some, if not all, of the threads begin to come together for a climactic battle, though this still feels as if it is a very flimsy read. Despite running to forty pages, this is a remarkably quick read, with a great deal of space given over to reprinting the small fact files.

#06

Street Fighter II

#08