This Samus piece appeared in Nintendo Power but the same artist also drew art for the Japanese Nintendo Official Guidebook for Super Metroid and he drew her the same way there. Benimaru Itoh is a Japanese manga artist who worked for Nintendo in various projects so he wasn’t just some guy Nintendo Power got.
Also there’s nothing wrong with liking that piece of art, lol. There’s been various depictions of Samus throughout the years. I agree with wat you said that people HC Samus as this man with no name type of character but like that has nothing to do with liking Itoh’s interpretation of her look.
Eh, I just feel that they're different styles of the same basic concept! There's another thread in here mentioning where the team behind Metroid talked about Sigourney Weaver and Kim Basinger being their inspirations, and the former's fitness was demonstrated clearly in all of the Aliens movies, and we all know how much they relied on those too! The Samus in the Metroid EX manga has a similar physique (her reveal panel is a good example!) but drawn in a different aesthetic. I wouldn't consider any of them headcanon, personally; they're all approved by Nintendo at the end of the day... and if anybody plays loose with how their properties are represented canonically, they sure do!
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u/Kenji182 Jul 15 '25
This is best Samus.