Over the years, Metroid star Samus Aran has been the focus of many people operating within the cosplay arena, and it's easy to see why – she's a powerful individual who happens to wear a seriously amazing suit of armour, so there's scope for some really impressive cosplay creations.
However, we should spare a thought for those pioneers who laid down the foundations of Metroid cosplay, like Andy Mitchell of Phoenix, Arizona. Back in the '80s, he created his own Samus cosplay and submitted it to Nintendo Power magazine, making history in the process:
We at Nintendo Life salute you, whatever you're doing now. You really did break new ground so that others could follow in your footsteps, and you'll never be forgotten.
Thanks to @therealundamned for bringing this to our attention!
Comments 64
What a hero.
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Back in the 90s.
When you had to make do with ***** and improvise.
Kids have no idea, how hard it was to create something, or research something without the Internet.
If you wanted to make something, you were on your own.
I remember making a ship out of some planks of wood and a hammer and nails.
And carving that sob, with a knife.
It looked like absolute trash. But it was my trash and i made it.
So much information now, free and available for everyone to research and enjoy.
We truly live on a golden era in terms of that.
I tried to make judge dredds helmet out of paper machete.
Again looked awful, but when your 8 and your going off comics instead of Internet videos.
You made do.
Haha! Thats the kind of story I needed today. Thanks. I don't think he did too bad when this is your only frame of reference.
@Losermagnet lol touché
I remember seeing that at the time.
Back in the 80s, cosplay choices were severely limited. It's totally not like today when you can throw money at someone on Etsy or eBay
Would be great if we could track this guy down.
Sort of like that fat kid who was at all the WWF live shows in the audience.
That pudding bowl hair cut is eternal.
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I was reading through some old Mean Machines magazines the other day and thoroughly enjoyed the sections where people sent in pictures of themselves dressed as game characters. I remember as a child being surprised to see two boys from my school in a magazine dressed as Spy vs Spy.
@Losermagnet
Oh I'm sure back then they had Nintendo Power magazines to reference.
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I think he did a good job. As a teenager in the 90s - it was not as easy to do stuff as it is today. This guy is a hero and a pioneer I doth by cap to him
Could've sworn this was in Nintendo Fun Club first
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@BionicDodo
It is a kids thing. The adults who dress up are the weird ones
This is amazing. It is good enough for me to recognize the character.
@RupeeClock yeah probably. Either way, he didnt give Metroid a big green smiley face and a lobster claw for a left hand so I think it's a decent job. Back in the 80s lobster claw hands made you awesome.
What happened in this comment section? I mean I can assume what happened when you put all the puzzle pieces together seeing what character was cosplayed. But still…
@darkswabber Not much, some offensive comments have been removed. If they keep getting posted then bans will be the next step.
@RupeeClock Not much in the way of visual advertising for modern Samus until 1991 December issue of Nintendo Power (that featured Metroid II for GB). There was the original Metroid NES manual, however. A bit cartoony but some good details. https://www.nintendo.co.jp/clv/manuals/en/pdf/CLV-P-NAAQE.pdf
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Thats what Samus would have looked in a N64 Version, Low Poly at its best ;D
Oh man, now that is funny. The caption almost sounds like it's mocking him.
I think we've found the final character to be added to Smash.
@Damo good to hear. Fun article btw, the cosplay was fun to see.
@Respawn He was responding to the previous comments which were clearly designed to generate a hostile reaction. I've removed the comment, however.
Oh dear that’s both awful and absolutely brilliant! Not bad considering the point of reference though 😂
The comment section is kicking off! Wooooo.
Great cosplay, still better than anything I could do!
Wow! If you'd asked me yesterday what kind of article would lead to a comment section like this then "Kid in Samus costume" would not have been on my list
All I can see is Juggernaut from X-Men, with that helmet.
Looks distinctly like he's copied the Japanese/European box art rather than the US version.
I really admire cardbox cosplays. It feels so imaginative and have a rustic charm to it!
Kudos to that kid! I'm proud of him.
Essentially the world's best cosplay, ever. Even did a gender bender! Hahah, I'm impressed!
SAMUS 4EVR NINJA APPROVED
Looking at the comment section, only seeing glowing positive remarks, guess the new "policies" are working as intended.
Anyway: It's horrible. Wonder if the dude still has it, though. Like a relic of the old world of technology.
same energy
Ok that's awful xD but funny. He has points for trying
@Madder128 80's not 90's. But yup, pretty much.
@CharlieGirl Accurate.
When taking the fact that this was back in the 80's into consideration, this was a pretty cool cosplay, I think it turned out pretty good considering the times, kudos to him! 😁👍🏻
Yea, considering the time (which you have to do), this is frickin' awesome!!
this is all true art.
Haha, I love this! (Has an air of Maximillian from Disney's The Black Hole.) Just fab.
@Madder128 as a kid, a friend and I hand drew out the original zelda overworld, on multiple pieces of paper, taped together to make a huge map that we needed to beat the game.
Today, I YouTube how to fix my own joy cons and replace disc drives on my Wii U amongst other thing. Something I never would try with a video right there.
I relate to this kid on a spiritual level
That’s a pretty good job, even more impressive by being in the 80s. Cosplay is harder than most people think, and in the 80s there were no reference sheets, or artwork from video games books, hell there wasn’t even internet to look them up, or look for tutorials to know which materials to use, and of course make everything for your size.
I’ll always applaud cosplay, it’s a lot of work to create it, and it takes some serious guts to show it to the world and know that it could be very well received or they can jump at you with all their toxicity.
@JeanPaul My friend was insanely talented when it came to cosplay, crafting realistic looking armor out of cereal boxes and special paints/finishes, making his Fire Emblem cosplays look realistic with the worst possible materials. He did variations of Sora from Kingdom Hearts that were stunning, I wish I had pictures to show. We all thought he should get into costume design because it was truly amazing work to behold, but he just was interested in the hobby!
It’s so beautiful
Yeah, it looks great considering there weren't that many references to do a Samus costume and what there was were mostly bad.
I'm sorry to say this, but back in the 80s most images of videogames characters were from promotions, items, cartoons and things like that. That's why we have characters like childish Pit (erroneously called Kid Icarus), aviator Simon Belmont, green Mega Man, mutant King Hippo, non-brain Mother Brain and, my absolute favorite, Mario kidnapping child Peach (see below). It's like there was no quality control to make sure the characters at least resembled their videogames counterparts.
Growing up in the 80s and 90s, this is soooo cool. I loved being a kid and trying to make my own costumes out of cardboard. (Never as good as this though!!) It was a lot of fun, and this really brings me back to a good time.
Thanks for this @Damo !. Really brought a smile to my face.
I find this quite endearing, actually. And it looks pretty good, considering the materials he used to make this costume.
Gaming companies liked it so much, they based early 3D games on this design Also, its cosplay folks, if people can dress up as aliens, monsters, and robots, a little bit of gender swapping is more than fine.
Let's face it: we all wished we could've made Samus' armor out of cardboard and wear it, back in the 80-90's
I made my own Boba Fett costume out of felt and poster board when I was about twelve. Jet pack and everything. I was so proud of it at the time.
Better job than I ever could have done at that age! Good for him! That's fun!
Man what the heck happened in this comment thread.
What a guy, bravo!
He totally looks like the hero of "Nintendo's video hit Metroid"!
@Madder128 There have been so many times when I'm like "I wonder how I can ___" and then I look it up and I think "it's so easy! Why didn't I do this when I was a kid??? Oh right... no internet back then."
@Donutman but didn't the original Legend of Zelda come with a map you were meant to draw on anyway? Like it was in the manual? And it had a few screens already drawn out but mostly had empty boxes and you were supposed to fill those in yourself. So you wouldn't need paper. But yeah it's still pretty cool. Kids play the original Zelda these days don't understand the full experience. Cos they just have to Google "legend or Zelda nes map" or something and find one in seconds that way. And they probably follow walkthroughs instead of spending hours and hours finding every secret they can by themselves. The game is such an utterly different experience these days because of that. It's almost like a whole different game. And when you follow a walkthrough, you discover that it's a very very short game. If you played it the proper way, you could spend dozens or even hundreds of hours on it.
@BloodNinja it’s amazing how they are able to create some costumes out of simple boxes. There is a pages called the rpf, in that page you can see tutorials of how they make amazing props and costumes from the most common materials. They are pretty awesome.
@JeanPaul Definitely a lot of talented people on the cosplay scene, for sure!
@AnorakJimi if there was such map, it was lost way before I ever knew it.
This would fit in perfectly with Roblox and Minecraft Cosplay.. So he was just a little to ahead of time
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