Today in twisted masks of agony:

So remember back in the early 90's when Nintendo positioned itself as the kid-friendly video game company? You don't? Well, they did, even going so far as to throw Sega under the bus during the-wait, I can do better than that...uh...even going so far as to blue turtle shell Sega during the 1993 Congressional Hearings on Video Game Violence.

"Lookit this bullshit. This is Sega's Night Trap, and you will never,
ever see violent fucking garbage like this on one of our consoles.
We here at Nintendo are lookin' out for your goddamn kids, ok?"

-Howard Lincoln, Senior VP

of Nintendo (actual quote)*

Pictured: Sega mascot Sonic the
Hedgehog, exhibiting what was
referred to at the time as 'tude.

Yes. Congressional hearings. Back in the 90's, all the cool members of Congress were courting the 'ignorant parent' vote. Anyway, for the most part, Nintendo enforced some strict rules about what could and could not appear in games on their systems. No graphic violence and blood, no swearing or nudity and no religious imagery. Nintendo was the squeaky clean alternative to Sega's x-treme edginess. At least until this bit them in the ass when Mortal Kombat came to home systems and they insisted that Midway (the game's publisher) take out the fatalities and turn the blood into grey 'sweat.' The version released on the Sega Genesis had the gore intact (ABACABB) and sold way the hell more copies so Nintendo loosened up a bit. But even today Nintendo still seems to aim at a more all-ages crowd, especially when it comes to their own game characters. 

Which is why today's Nintendo Direct, in which we watched in horror as Luigi was brutally murdered (at about the 1:02 mark), was a little surprising.

Here, let this haunt your dreams.

Above: The Grim Reaper. The middle
ages had fairly low res graphics.

I should probably explain what we're looking at here. That's Luigi, the Mario Brother you played as when someone else hogged the player 1 controller, having his soul torn from his body by Death himself. It's from a character reveal trailer for Smash Bros. Ultimate, and-yeah, that probably requires more explanation, but don't worry about it. Smash Bros. is a series of fighting games featuring charters from other games and today's trailer introduced Simon and Richter from Castlevania. The Grim Reaper is a recurring character from that series as well. And also, I suppose, a character from Medieval superstition. So in the trailer, Luigi, who's also a ghost buster, wanders into Dracula's Castle where his spirit is harvested leaving his cold body on the floor, his face twisted into a terrifying mask of agony. 

Mama mia, right? At the end of the trailer, we see ghost Luigi try and re-enter his corpse only to again be frightened by Carmilla, another nightmare-fuel Castlevania monster. 

Pictured: unsettling evidence that even in
 death there is no escape from a level boss.

First the sickening sound of vertebrae
cracking, then the equally sickening
calypso tune heralding a 'game over.'

So is Luigi really dead? Of course not, he's a video games character and besides, that would be kind of a turn for a game series about plumbers who do mushrooms and battle fire breathing turtle wizards. Reassuringly, or not depending on your feelings about British accents, Nintendo UK's Twitter account assures us he's ok. But coming just a month after his brother Mario's neck was snapped by Ridley, the space pterodactyl from Metroid, in another character reveal trailer (30 seconds in), it does signal an interestingly dark sense of humor on the part of Nintendo's marketing people.

"Wookies have been known
to do that you know..."

And that's fine, I appreciate Nintendo being a little less uptight when it comes to their games, but still. It's probably not a great analogy, but I've always thought of Nintendo as video gaming's Disney. It's been influential in the industry, has a kind of shady past and they're known for a large stable of likable characters. So you can understand my uneasiness about watching them slaughter one another, even if it's in a Smash Bros. game. It'd be like Disney making a crossover movie where Chewbacca tears the arms off Goofy. It's just weird, you know?

But I guess that's just the Smash Bros. games. Part of the appeal is the toy box approach where they just throw a bunch of characters and settings together regardless of tone or art style. Part of me really digs it, but part of me, the obsessive 10-year old who would never mix his G.I. Joe's with his Star Trek TNG action figures, is driven up the wall by the canon-smoothy it makes out of separate narrative universes.

"What-the...what? Spider-Man and Batman in
the same box? This...this is anarchy."

-Me, age 10...and now, 

if I'm being honest

*mostly