We’ve already completed looking at Atari Force and there’s one more (X)Quest comic left to go, but that’s not the only minicomics that came with the Atari 2600 games. Atari and DC Comics (at the time both owned by Warner Brothers) knew how to make a good minicomic story. We’ve seen it here with He-Man, Matt Trakker, and the Superfriends, as well as the aforementioned 2600 comics. Now we have one more.
Centipede is an Atari arcade game from 1981, and a rather popular one. My local Cumberland Farms had one for years, even when the local arcade was in operation. I miss that place. The arcade, I mean. Cumby just moved locations but they don’t have video games for the kids to play while the parents shopped or their friends bought afterschool snacks. Shame, really. It’s a no-brainer that when Atari broke into the new home gaming console market that the game came with it. Here’s how the game looked in the arcades (using MAME emulation of course).
And here’s how it looked on the Atari 2600 (using the Stella emulator and the poster stretching it to widescreen for some stupid reason).
I didn’t have a 2600 and I never got the game for the 800, which is fine because it was played with a trackball in the arcade and paddles on the home consoles, and I never had the paddles. I don’t think any of my cousins had the game despite having the paddles. So I know the one from the arcade/convenience store. It’s a fun game. Joining the 2600 version is a minicomic from DC Comics, which is what we’re going to look at today. How well did they translate the game?
An elf with a sonic screwdriver.
Centipede
Atari/DC Comics (1983)
PACKAGED WITH: I’m going to go out on a limb and say Centipede on the Atari 2600.
WRITERS: Howard Post & Andrew Gutelle
ARTIST: Howard Post & Roger Smith
DESIGN: Neil Pozner
COLORIST: Tom Ziuko
LETTERER: Gaspar Saladino
EDITOR: Andrew Hefler
[Read along with me at Atari Age]
Our hero for this story is Oliver, the smallest of tiny elves. You never really had a name in the game. You were just this…thing that shot at the invaders of the garden, but that makes for a boring protagonist. I’m not bothered with this being turned into a character, and he’s so whimsical. What is confusing is that the enemies of the game, the things you shoot at and destroy/kill or turn into mushrooms, are his friends. I guess nobody told them that the Centipede is the enemy of the game. They can’t even claim that they couldn’t think that the villain would be the name of the comic. The JOKER had his own comic book for awhile at DC.
After playing with his friends Centipede (clearly his bestie), Spider, and other bugs you shoot in the game, Oliver goes back to work gathering mushrooms for the winter. Elves in this story only eat mushrooms and berries, and while I can relate to a smaller food list even I have a longer one than that. So if the bugs aren’t the enemy, who is? Meet the wizard…evil wizard. Seriously, I’m reviewing as I read and this guy is not named. The narrator tells us he lives on Mt. Mushmore, he’s evil, and has a “frightening rod” that turns the mushrooms into stinky toadstools. Will we get a name? Will we get a motivation? Even Skeletor is evil with a purpose.
Oliver’s parents see what was done. Apparently, Evil Wizard uses the toadstools to make wicked potions and wants to chase all the elves away so he has room to plant. The elves decide to have a talk with the wizard…using their fists and weapons. Oliver is left behind to get rid of the toadstools because he’s too little and Evil Wizard hates tiny elves the most. Kind of like the internet and kids. This is actually to Oliver’s favor as the wizard turns all the elves into toadstools. There are two very dark things about that.
- If Evily makes toadstools into potions and makes the elves into toadstools…I think you can see where that’s heading.
- On the adaptation side, that means the blockers you shoot at in the game are your friends? No, I just checked with Wikipedia (admittedly, it’s Wikipedia, but Google still treats it as a legitimate source) and there are no toadstools, though the centipede enemy does get a boost if it reaches a poisoned mushroom. Also learned the “player character” is called a Bug Blaster. Of course, based on this story it means you shoot your best friend to turn him into a bunch more mushrooms, so we’re still in trouble were this an actual adaptation.
“Bye, friends. Sorry I have to murder you all later.”
Okay, but the whole “turn elves into my main potion ingredient” thing is still creepy. Seeing Oliver chopping down his toadstools, the wizard goes after him by using giant bat wings on his back, but his shadow alert Oliver to his appearance. Batman could have told him that was a mistake. Bat Fink could have told him that was a mistake and his wings aren’t that big. Just made of steel or something. He also isn’t very good at flying as he’s so busy trying to find Oliver he crashed into one of the houses, dropping his magic stick. Our villain, folks.
Oliver says the stick doesn’t look like much, and the stick shows its objection by flying Oliver all over the place until he finally orders it to stop. When it obeys, Oliver actually says nice things about the stick. Meanwhile the wizard goes to the bugs to get their help in getting the stick back, but the Enchanted Bugs Social Club are the same ones that are friends with Oliver and tell him to bug off. (Hey, they made the pun. I’m just reporting here.) So he hypnotizes the bugs into service. Yes, the game is actually you killing your mind controlled friends to stop an evil wizard from turning mushrooms into toadstools. Enjoy the game, kids!
One of the centipede’s segments that isn’t under control breaks off and goes to find Oliver. This actually is from the game as you saw above. Shoot one of the segments and the rest go off on their own. Shoot the head and the next segment becomes the new head. That is not how centipedes work, but at least it’s finally something that sort of matches the game. The hypnotized bugs find him, but as the rear end ‘pede guides and cheers him on, Oliver thinks good thoughts and turns his friends into mushrooms, even some of the other centipede pieces. Again, kind of happens in the game, but you can also destroy the mushrooms. So we’re back to that second dark part. Outnumbered, Oliver instead uses the wand to suspend the wizard in mid-air, forcing him to free the bugs from mind control and reunite him with his family and neighbors after restoring his bug friends. He also uses the wand to turn the wizard good, which bring up a bunch of other moral questions, and finally earns the respect of the other elves.
The story itself is fine as a fun little magic adventure for kids. Oliver is a good protagonist as he gains the confidence to free his people and friends. He earns their respect. Although the lesson that being small doesn’t matter if you’re brave and smart enough to overcome it doesn’t really apply to the centipede rear who is now the new head…leading to the kind of jokes I don’t make, because it’s not really established that he had a similar issue to Oliver. It’s mostly just a way for the title character and Oliver’s best friend to help him save everyone.
Where this fails is in the adaptation. While the final confrontation does utilize some of the gameplay mechanics and there wasn’t much of a backstory to this game, what we got feels off compared to the game. In making the title character a mind-controlled friend of Oliver’s instead of the enemy invading the Bug Blaster’s mushroom patch, it changes how you view the game when playing it. Rather than protecting your garden you’re shooting your friends and even some of your mushrooms that used to be your friends to stop some wizard that never appears because this is one of those old games, where the cycle never ends. It just gets tougher until you run out of quarters or time/urge to play. You don’t want to shoot the mushrooms not because they serve as obstacles to the enemy but because some of them used to be your friends. It’s a fun and whimsical adventure until Oliver goes all Identity Crisis Doctor Light on the wizard, but that’s meant to be just a happy ending.
I have one more of these Atari comics, and I think I’ll do that one next time. Let’s see if Yars has better luck getting his revenge adapted than the Centipede’s attack on the mushroom patch.
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