Before Capcom Cracked The Code, Data East Brought Marvel’s Mightiest Heroes To Fighting Games

It’s 2017, and Capcom has released Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite.

The fallout is almost immediate, as the game’s art direction and overhauled mechanics are met with tepid reactions from critics, ire from professional players, and apathy from underwhelmed consumers. A mediocre and overpriced item from the collector’s edition, meant to replicate the Infinity Stones, becomes a meme for its uncanny resemblance to Easter eggs. Ultimately the game falls far short of Capcom’s year-end sales projection of 2 million copies, instead barely eking out one; this effectively kills the series on its 21st birthday.

In 2025, this is partly why so much weight of expectation rests on Arc System Works’ upcoming tag team fighter, Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls. Another reason is the reputation of Arc themselves, as a studio renowned for using popular IPs and accessible mechanics to make fighters less overwhelming to newcomers. This was a quintessential appeal of Marvel Vs. Capcom once upon a time ago, and if Arc can recapture that in a post-MCU world, it has potential to do big things for the genre as a whole.

But while Capcom might be the company that made the “House of Ideas” famous to fighter fans, it wasn’t the first to bat. And while 1995’s Avengers in Galactic Storm might not be the standard-bearing title that its successors would be, this scrappy tie-in is more important than you might think.

Eye of the “Storm”

Galactic Storm has roots in Marvel Comics’ 19-part crossover event “Operation: Galactic Storm.” The story arc ran from March to May of 1992 across the family of Avengers-related series, including both the east and west coast varieties of Avengers comics, Iron Man, and Captain America, among several others.

The Avengers—along with intergalactic heroes Quasar and Captain Marvel—are roused into action when Earth is caught in the crossfire in a war between the alien Kree and Shi’ar races. Though they initially intend to broker peace, negotiations fall apart quickly; Cap’s team is taken prisoner by the Kree as Captain Marvel clashes with roving Shi’ar patrols. During these encounters, Marvel learns about the existence of the Nega-Bomb—a Shi’ar WMD that can destroy the Kree Empire in a single detonation.

Unfortunately, the Skrulls—once devastated by war with the Kree—steal this device and successfully detonate it. In an instant, millions of Kree perish. The Avengers regroup to Hala, the Kree homeworld. Here they make a heinous discovery: the events of “Operation: Galactic Storm” thus far have been manipulated by the necrotic Kree AI Supreme Intelligence. It was an abortive attempt to accelerate Kree evolution, which the Supreme Intelligence had determined was at a standstill. This forces the Avengers into a moral quandary, as the team decides how to punish the rogue entity.

Though little-remembered as an event outside of its further reaching canon implications, elements of “Operation: Galactic Storm” have resurfaced through the MCU in recent years. A version of Quasar’s Quantum Bands are a major plot point of the Ms. Marvel Disney+ show, while supporting stalwart Rick Jones’s body-swapping with Mar-Vell early on in the event was transposed onto Kamala Khan and Carol Danvers in The Marvels. Further cementing this are the introductions of Sersi and Photon in Eternals and WandaVision. Combine that with Captain Marvel’s Kree and Skrull-centric plot, along with the drip-fed arrival of X-Men into the MCU, and it seems Disney may lean on “Galactic Storm” for a major arc in their upcoming slate of films.

But is the comic itself worth reading? For completists, sure. But in terms of cohesive, well-told storytelling for the average reader, “Operation: Galactic Storm” suffers from all the symptoms of a multi-book crossover event. It’s an unwieldy read, punctuated by long diatribes laced with proper nouns and jargon from talking heads floating in space. Action sequences are cluttered across most books, as the outer space settings suck gravity out of each combat sequence. What could be a cogent commentary on politicized misinformation and its role in genocide is, instead, a flat and overlong checklist of canned, costumed heroics.

This is largely a symptom of how these events are designed, however. “Galactic Storm” writer Mark Gruenwald—who also worked on the beloved “Infinity War” event and had a legendary 10-year run writing Captain America—detailed the process on his Geocities:

In a crossover, there’s usually one editor who’s in charge of the whole magilla, and that’s the person who’s the regular editor of the main title character around whom the crossover revolves. The editor in charge, of course, has a supervisor (one of the executive editors) to look over everything in an advisory capacity, but the editor in charge has to do all the hands-on work: distributing the rough outline to everyone involved, answering continuity questions, and reviewing all the tie-in plots to make sure they conform to the details of the overall storyline.

Sound complicated? I’m not done yet. All the participating editors of the crossover must also submit their book’s plots to the other participating editors if there’s so much as a cameo of a given editor’s character in their story. And once the art is done, photocopies of the artboards must also be distributed to fellow editors in the crossover so they can make certain that costume details and so forth are consistent. We’re talking major league coordination here, folks, and it’s never any wonder to me that try as hard as we might, there is always a detail that is a little off in one title or another.

Yet the fact is that crossovers sold—and still do.

“When it comes to character crossovers,” said Gruenwald, “the comics medium in the champion, Marvel is the champion’s champion, and there’s no end in sight as long as you readers demand we keep doing them.”

As it turned out, that would soon be true of superhero video games.

From The Courtroom To Captain America

Before Galactic Storm, Data East’s most notable fighting games were the pair of Fighter’s History titles. Both the first game and second are thinly veiled riffs on popular fighters of the day; the first is a transparent take on Street Fighter II, while the more inspired sequel draws from Fatal Fury and Art of Fighting.

Fighter’s History is most notable today for provoking a lawsuit from Capcom, who claimed the title infringed on their massively popular series with many of its characters, settings, and mechanics. This was a bit ironic, as Data East had actually sued Epyx over similarities between their Karate Champ and the latter’s International Karate in 1988. That suit was lost on the grounds that a game company could not claim copyright dominion over a sport.

This ruling would come back into play in 1994—only this time, the odds were in Data East’s favor. This is despite an arguably defensible case from Capcom, as it was revealed Data East’s own design documents for Fighter’s History referenced Street Fighter II multiple times.

Consider this 2014 quote from Claude Stern, Data East’s defense attorney at the time:

There was some terrible evidence. I mean, the fact of the matter is the Data East artists were copying Street Fighter. The ultimate work wasn’t a slavish copy—a pixel-by-pixel copy—but they had evidence that we were copying things.

And our response was, well, what we were copying wasn’t protectable. So for example, we might make a copy of one of their images, but then we’d change the image, change the background, change the fighter’s stance, change the type of kick. But even then, there was a lot of similarity in the kicks and the moves.

But presiding judge William H. Orrick, Jr. ruled against the gaming giant, on grounds that elements of both games are scènes à faire, or aspects that are obligate to a work within its genre. Said Stern:

Our position was well no, actually … Capcom, look, two fighters, they’re in a ring. That’s a convention. … We need to be able to look at the work not as a unique artistic work, but rather as an embodiment of a variety of conventions that had been adopted over time.

Ultimately, that’s what the court found. If you look at these works and you remove the conventional features, there’s not a hell of a lot left.

It’s interesting to consider that the modern landscape of fighting games is owed—partly—to two court cases involving Data East. The first made interactive martial arts fair play; the second allowed for genre trappings to germinate and evolve over time. Combined, these lawsuits were instrumental in where fighters could—and would—go in terms of aesthetics and mechanics.

This lawsuit is also important to understanding why Avengers in Galactic Storm might have come about in the first place.

Rappin’ With Cap (Again)

Marvel was a sensible bet for the ailing Data East.

While direct documentation on Galactic Storm’s development is hard to pin down, there is a timeline here that could partly explain its inception. In 1993, Data East releases a highly derivative fighting game. The following year, they’re sued for said game—albeit unsuccessfully. Then their pinball division is acquired that same year. With it, planned Mortal Kombat competitor Tattoo Assassins is canceled and its cabinets destroyed under new owner Sega.

Finally, in 1995, Data East is set to roll out its Mother Less Cassette (MLC) arcade boards amid dire financial straits. To cement a win for the still-thriving fighting genre, they would need to make something Capcom couldn’t possibly challenge—without resorting to the flashy 3D of Virtua Fighter. As a sort-of compromise, the developers settle on pre-rendered 3D art with fast-paced 2D. However, that landscape is also already cluttered by titles like Killer Instinct, Primal Rage, and Rise of the Robots.

This is where Marvel comes into play. Both companies had collaborated prior on Captain America and The Avengers. At this time, too, superhero tie-in games were a hot commodity for both arcades and home consoles—and Marvel had some of the most in-demand properties. Despite suffering mid-‘90s financial woes of their own, tie-ins like the X-Men cartoon and Spider-Man home console games were as lucrative licensing ventures as they are today.

With a deliberate collaboration from the get-go, Data East could avoid any potential legal issues with a new fighting game. The Marvel IP allowed for complete protection from any copyright-related suit, so long as the game itself was mechanically distinct enough from the competition. And while the game itself lifts both elements and inputs from King of Fighters—among others—one unique addition would be so innovative that Capcom couldn’t help but to borrow it for themselves.

Howdy, Partner

In terms of raw mechanics, Avengers in Galactic Storm is a standard 3-round, 4-button fighter. Light or heavy punches and kicks can be combined with directional inputs for a bevy of special moves. Many characters riff on the same input—Captain America, for example, shares a shield throw with Crystal’s fire blast. This makes learning the eight characters—four Avengers, four Kree—relatively simple once the player picks up a few prompts, especially as all follow the same basic loop: string together specials, build up meter, then use the universal input for ultimate moves.

Where Galactic Storm innovates are in eight bonus players on the roster. These partner characters—also called “assists” or “strikers”—are a heretofore unheard of concept in fighting games until this game. Players charge up a tiered special meter, and with one block of meter, they can summon a fighter into battle. Iron Man swoops in and fires off a ferocious Repulsor volley; Giant Man lends a hand (and forearm) that takes up the entire screen. The animations are dramatic, and as satisfying to watch as they are to pull off at the right moment.

Also satisfying: Galactic Storm offers a story mode fairly unique to fighters at the time. Players take an Avenger through a truncated version of the “Operation: Galactic Storm” arc alone or with a local friend. They battle through a series of Kree foes aboard spacecrafts and on Hala, until they reach Earth and make one last stand. The fights are uncommon for the genre, in that they are not divided into normal rounds; enemy health bars are large, and persist between player lives. When players fall in battle and respawn, they jump in with a knock-back attack a la Streets of Rage or the like.

Tied together by endearing pre-rendered cutscenes, this mode offers more to single players (or co-op partners) than the average fighting game at the time—albeit for 15-20 minutes and at the cost of several credits against the absurd story mode AI. After a successful clear, the player is dumped into a gauntlet of previously-defeated foes, now piloted by the game’s computer at random; it’s akin to a traditional arcade mode.

Before this enemy rush, the player is warned that the “real challenge” starts here. This screen would turn out to be prophetic for Data East itself.

The Real Challenge

Avengers In Galactic Storm is not a bad fighting game—just a decent one released at a bad time.

It would be one of only four titles released for the MLC board, with its soundtrack being reused for 1996’s Skull Fang. As its soundtrack was being scrapped for parts, Galactic Storm would also suffer another indignity—the September 1996 release of X-Men vs. Street Fighter. Capcom’s sumptuous 2D hit combined the more popular Marvel team at the time with a roster Data East was sued over just two years prior. What’s more, the first installment in Capcom’s Versus series introduced a first for the publisher—tag team and partner mechanics. These were a vast improvement on the simple concepts found in Galactic Storm, and a blueprint for the genre to build off of.

The effect was devastating. What could have been a surefire hit and potential comeback for Data East was upstaged by a game that outpaced it on both a mechanical and aesthetic level. X-Men vs. Street Fighter had the full weight of Capcom’s veteran fighter staff behind it, and while the team at Data East were no slouches, their journeyman experience across predominately different genres made for a fairly safe title. Where Capcom re-imagined life meters and allowed hot-swapping to different characters on the fly, Data East had essentially redressed super moves and made them selectable. The roster in Galactic Storm is also made up of bit part players at the time compared to the likes of Wolverine, Chun-Li, and Rogue. What’s more, this was a legitimate crossover, not just an adaptation of a crossover event.

For Data East, the writing was on the wall. The company had wagered on the popularity of fighting games and comic books, only to be shown up by those very things within a single year. After one final attempt with the weapons-based Outlaws of the Lost Dynasty, Data East would give up on fighters altogether as it desperately tried to play to its strengths in its last days. But by the time an English version of Magical Drop III hit North American shores in early 1997, Data East USA’s offices had already closed. Its Japanese offices followed suit, and in 1999, the company ceased game development altogether; customer support for games ended the following year.

In 2003, after a few years of selling negative ion generators and licensing out its properties, Data East filed for bankruptcy. Within that same decade, the Avengers moved out from under the shadow of the X-Men for a generation of children thanks to a rebooted comic and successful movie series. But as their star continued to rise, their failed attempt at fighting stardom was all but forgotten.

After The Storm

To date, Avengers In Galactic Storm has never been released on a home video game console.

It’s hard to believe, considering the myriad Data East home ports and home console versions of Capcom’s fighters. But as of 2025, Galactic Storm has only been available to consumers once—as a bonus addition to Arcade1Up’s X-Men and Captain America cabinet. While the former saw a digital home release in 2010, and the latter numerous home console ports in the ‘90s, one of Data East’s final fighting games has never been available outside of arcades. One can only assume that a licensed tie-in from a dead company whose assets have been scattered to the wind isn’t a top priority for Disney.

Which is a shame for anyone interested in the genre’s history. Galactic Storm is the pioneer of partner characters, and a likely influence on Capcom’s Versus games. Its story mode is an early attempt at unique, tailored narrative content in the genre, and the ensemble nature of both the Avengers and “Operation: Galactic Storm” allow for players to duke it out as Marvel characters from multiple books. Because of this, though rudimentary by today’s roster standards, Avengers In Galactic Storm can be considered an early cross-over fighter—though King of Fighters ‘94 still gets ‘first’ to that claim. 

Sure, in an era where tried-and-true classics can be played against players from around the globe with rollback netcode, preserving a title like Avengers in Galactic Storm might seem trifling. But the reality is, no one genre is made by just its successes. Many games have to half-execute good ideas for other developers to pick up the torch and sprint it past the proverbial finish. These games, too, deserve preservation, discussion, and respect. Without them, tomorrow’s hits would have had no mistakes—or successes—to learn from.

So if it seems brazen for Arc System Works to angle in on Capcom’s tag-team Marvel fighter gimmick, just remember: Data East got there first—they just didn’t quite stick the superhero landing.

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Madeline Blondeau has been writing about games since 2010. She’s written for Paste, Anime Herald, Anime News Network, CGM, and Lock-On, among others. In addition, she has written, hosted, and recorded film criticism podcast Cinema Cauldron. Her published fiction debut is due out between 2026 and 2027. You can support her work on Patreon, and find her on BlueSky @mads.haus.