Wave Race Raiders
A rare non-Mario comic from the official German Nintendo magazine, Club Nintendo, in 1997 issue 3. I did the translation and editing for this one myself.
This comic posits that the four playables in Wave Race 64 are in some kind of crime-fighting jet ski club together. It can’t decide whether they’re called Wave Racers or Wave Raiders, so I think the title is a good de facto team name. They have to save the duaghter of their fictional town’s mayor. Our heroes are not named at all, though (except Ayumi), so I’ll tell you here that Ayumi Stewart is an American, the young black-haired guy is Japanese Ryota Hayami, the older black-haired guy with the prominent chin is a Canadian called Miles Jeter, and the portly gentleman is the American Dave Mariner.
The comic is ultimately a little anticlimactic, but it’s amusing to think that similar to Captain Falcon, when the characters in the jet ski game aren’t racing they’re fighting for justice off the coast of their hometown. The comic is also much less silly and funny than the usual, although there’s a few humorous touches. I like that they felt able to change up the genre and the franchise every now and then.
By the way, the original German uses the phrase “Water Bike” to describe our Raiders’ vehicle of choice. I assume they were trying to avoid saying “jet ski” because that phrase is actually trademarked by Kawasaki but has become the de facto standard name for that type of craft, much like Band-Aid or Zamboni. However, Kawasaki actually sponsored the game and so it was probably fine. I went with “jet ski” anyway in the spirit of the game.