Samus is REAL

March 05, 2026

In my head, there is this little family of video games that aren't officially connected, but spiritually they are siblings. Well, Portal and Half-Life are officially connected. But Mirror's Edge is spiritually sisters with Portal, and Perfect Dark is spiritually siblings with Half-Life, and Metroid is part of that family. A year ago, I beat Metroid 1, and I liked it a lot! I drew my own map and everything! I decided not to take any hints from the internet, though I broke that rule on one part that I was stuck on. The game still has a really cool atmosphere!

I beat the game in around 13 hours total, which gave me the helmeted ending. There's this one room, right before Kraid's lair, that looks like his face.

Since beating the game I've grown an interest in looking up concept art and comics and commercials specifically about the first game. It's so interesting to me to see how Samus and this world were depicted so early in the history of the series. I also just love the power suit's design from this game, it looks badass and it's super cool to see more art of it.

There are these concept arts for Samus, using an early version of the power suit that's slightly different than the final design. There's concept art of Mother Brain too. It's interesting that one of the first prominent woman game protagonists also had a female villain, and it sort of reminds me of the relationship between GLaDOS and Chell. The game manual has some cartoony drawings of her.

Look at this cover art for a Japanese strategy guide, it looks brilliant! Samus' design is so cool, and the colors really pop, and the composition is cool as hell.

There's also comics that tell the story of the first game. Samus is continuously referred to as a cyborg in these, so I assume there was some official info Nintendo gave out that said this. Though she's also usually referred to as a man, which might be to avoid spoilers.

In this one comic, she has a pet alien armadillo named Mari Yoshimura #2. I love himb.

This is what the Metroid series is missing these days. Mari Yoshimura, or Mari-Yo for short. They should've put him in Prime 4. Would've been a better companion character.

Mari-Yo unfortunately has to sacrifice his life to save Samus', and she vows revenge. It's like a proto-John-Wick scenario. She later sneaks into an alien cafeteria during their lunch break and listens to some hot alien goss.

They give her big cartoony eyes and exaggerated poses to make her more expressive. It's funny and cute!

There's another comic, which is like a strategy guide in the form of a comic. I really like this concept. It's a good way of adapting the experience of playing the game into an actual story. It feels like an adventure. And of course, we get so many cool drawings of Metroid 1 Samus!

Super Smash Bros. Melee has a trophy of this suit as well

There is no Metroid movie yet, but Samus has appeared in live-action for commercials in multiple occasions. Her first live-action appearance was to promote the first game, and the power suit looked like this:

It looks alright for a suit that appeared for 10 seconds in a TV commercial in 1986. The upper body is far too bulky, it looks disproportionate in comparison to the rest of the suit.

The next live-action suit for Samus would be seen in the Metroid Prime TV commercial. Unlike the previous ad, this one was actually shown in theatres, and the original film reel has been recovered and restored to 4K! Look at this!

Behind the Scenes of such things are always a fascination for me. I found some images released by IGN, and the company that made the suit itself has some BTS footage and photos on their website. And they look so cool!

It feels as though the character just decided to jump out of the screen and become a real person. That's her, that's Samus. The picture below, with her suiting up with parts of the suit laid out on the ground, makes it feel even more like she's a real person. The actress who portrays her here is Melanie Peyton-Smith, who was presumably also the stuntwoman.

Finally, I saw this cosplay video that I thought was really cool. For one, the suit itself looks really cool. The entire armor is lined with velcro on the inside, and the cosplayer is wearing an under-suit that has velcro sections on it, so the suit can easily attach. I thought that was really clever!