G Agency

In case you haven’t seen it yet, take a look at this upcoming cover for issue 2 of Udon Comics’ Street Fighter 6.

This has been one of the most intriguing comic covers I’ve seen in a while, especially considering that Udon has stated that it’s an official tie-in with the story of Street Fighter 6. Usually, Udon’s canon is separate from the game’s, but in this instance, at least, there seems to be canon crossover. So the question is “what are we looking at here?”

Chun-Li and Li-Fen are involved in some way, but the person in the bird mask is completely unknown at this point. This could be A.K.I, F.A.N.G’s apprentice who appeared in the Shadaloo C.R.I. side reader “Toxicity”. However, there’s one thing that bothers me about this: the person’s yellow eyes. If you’ve been a follower of this blog for some time, you’d know that I’ve associated yellow eyes with G and Q.

G, Q, Necalli, Decapre, and Karin all have some shade of yellow eyes, though G’s eye color changes based on his mood while Karin’s is more golden-colored, which ties in with G’s gold motif. Because of this singular defining feature amongst these characters, it’s relatively safe to assume the person in the bird mask is a follower of G.

Also, in case you haven’t seen my articles on Karin potentially being a villain, here they are:

The Gilded Eyes of Evil

The True Villain of Street Fighter 6?

If the person in the bird mask is indeed part of G’s cult, then what is their tie with Chun-Li and Li-Fen? The answer is probably nothing. Li-Fen would simply be involved because she’s a master programmer and the person in the bird mask is a hacker of some sort who just happened to manage their way into their computer. As much as I would love to believe the bird-masked person is specifically targeting Chun-Li, Li-Fen, or both as a way for Udon and Capcom to involve them in the main plot, I think this is just a case of the person sending out a global message ala Anonymous. I want to be wrong about this and have it be that they really are after Chun-Li and Li-Fen, but I just don’t see it from this cover.

What I do see with the person in the bird mask is someone who is part of a collective. While they could certainly be Shadaloo, Illuminati, or even working with JP, along with their yellow eyes, the fact they’re wearing a mask tells me this person could be a type of Q, though they may be someone who is more willing to follow G’s agenda. Both Shadaloo and the Illuminati work in the open without the need for disguises, whereas G’s followers tend to always wear masks. The Illuminati does have robed figures who obscure their faces with hoods, but there hasn’t been a character revealed from the Illuminati who wears a mask straight up (Ibuki perhaps being the one exception if my research holds true). It should also be pointed out that the two mask-wearers from Shadaloo, Vega and Decapre, wear theirs specifically because of their faces, with Vega wearing it to protect his and Decapre wearing it to hide her disfigurement. The person in the bird mask is wearing one that seems more ritualistic, which is completely out of Bison’s wheelhouse.

This just leaves G’s cult, and if we take the garishment of the mask into consideration and G’s potential New Orleans roots, it could be that this person is of a higher-rank than any other Q. Quite simply, your mask looks more like a Mardi Gras mask the more you follow G’s will. Don’t comply, and you’re given a solid gray mask like Q wears.

Why doesn’t G wear a more garish mask? Who’s to say he doesn’t? The black mask he wears when fighting could simply be more practical in a fight. He could already have a bird mask very similar to the one the person on the cover wears. We could go even further and say the person on the cover IS G himself, but this isn’t very likely considering G lets his Qs do the technical work for him.

So, what’s this person on the cover’s agenda? Simple: spreading a message. They’re taking over people’s computers to make the world aware of their presence, and Li-Fen is trying to take back control of hers. What’s the message exactly? Probably the typical “we’re taking over the world, ‘your world’ is a dystopian wasteland, follow us for paradise, blah blah blah”. It’s a standard cyberpunk trope, but one that could mean a lot for the plot of Street Fighter moving forward. The biggest thing here, though, is the second concept above – “‘your world’ is a dystopian wasteland.” If what some people are saying is true, this would mean something incredibly big.

Normally, this would be a metaphor. A lot of cyberpunk stories have an activist or cult group who compares two worlds: the world as it is and the world as it could be if they had it their way. The Illuminati is already doing this.

However, if this character or any character associated with G offers a more direct quotation, a message that literally begins with the words “your world”, this would imply something else: that the person is not from this planet. In other words, if G is the leader of a hive mind and utilizes people under his control to spread his word, it would actually be him saying this. This opens up the possibility that G is a space alien.

We have some evidence in G’s mannerisms, speaking to people in substanceless phrases. He repeats the idea of “becoming one with the earth” over and over again and calling people “Earthlings” and “citizens”. He also has his Ring of Galaxy satellite hovering ominously over the earth, meaning he has a fascination with the planet as well as space. Perhaps the biggest clue, however, comes from the developers themselves.

Twitter user @Scotia834 took the time to translate all of the character entries in the new Japan-only Street Fighter V: Climax Arts artbook. Each entry briefly went over what the developers were thinking when creating the characters. https://twitter.com/Scotia834/status/1629945002108280836?s=20

This was G’s:

There were several keywords they used for G’s design, but the one that resonates the strongest is the term “unidentifiable”. Usually, this would mean a person who was mysterious or an unknown factor. However, what makes this term so pointed for G is that, in English, “unidentifiable” correlates to the term “unidentified flying object”, or UFO. A quick Google search reveals the term is known in Japan, although to how prevalent it is there is unclear. Still, if the developers knew of the term and used it as an intentional double meaning, the use of this keyword could be the most solid evidence we have that G is an entity who came from the outer limits.

Moreso, if G is an alien, it would explain why he was “mimicking the appearance of Uncle Sam who he happened to see an image of”. This would be his version of trying to fit in among the human race while slowly draining the earth and its people of their energy. Despite how strange his appearance is, it’s working for him. People are intrigued and want to know more about him, both in the Street Fighter universe and in the real world.

If we want to know more about him, perhaps we should take his advice: “Feel the earth and look to the stars.”