Metroid (Manga) / YMMV

Alternate Character Interpretation: Ridley seems to show a bit of empathy toward the three-year-old Samus before trying to kill her. This has been viewed as him faking it to catch her off guard, or a genuine moment of empathy that he ignored and/or him attacking her for making him seem weak. Alternately, he's utterly baffled at how stupid the kid is for trying to befriend him.
Common Knowledge: Ridley being the one who killed Samus's parents. While he was responsible for leading the attack, he only directly killed Samus's mother while her father died in a Heroic Sacrifice against Ridley's forces without the two ever meeting.
Complete Monster:
- Ridley, Arch-Enemy of Samus Aran, is the monstrous, dragon-like military commander and security chief of the Space Pirates, and is the most brutal, vicious and monstrous member of the organization. He is introduced attacking Samus's home colony, and immediately gave orders to his men to slaughter everything in sight and enjoy it to the fullest. When the three-year-old Samus tried to befriend him, Ridley attempted to murder her, killing her mother when she tried to save her daughter. After Samus's father sacrificed himself to destroy Ridley's ship, nearly killing him, Ridley survived by eating the corpse of Samus's mother to heal himself, a fact he later uses to mock Samus. A veteran raider, Ridley has slaughtered dozens of innocent colonies and was the one responsible for annihilating the last of the benevolent Chozo race who had rescued and raised the child Samus. Driven by a relentless and mutual hatred of Samus and his desire to destroy and kill whatever he can sink his claws into, Ridley is one of the most feared beings in the universe and a sadist of the highest order.
- Mother Brain was an advanced A.I. who was initially created with peaceful intentions by the dying race known as Chozo, but grew a god complex from her role. In order to take the universe for herself, she trained an orphan named Samus to become her own personal Tyke-Bomb and then allies herself with the vicious Space Pirates while letting them attack the Chozo planet, Zebes, as she felt that she already surpassed the Chozo in terms of intelligence. After Samus discovers Mother Brain's plans in horror, she attempts to manipulate her into joining her side, and when one of the Chozo rebelled against her, she uses the leader of the Space Pirates to kill him. After Samus returned to Planet Zebes during the "Zero Mission" incident, it was revealed that Mother Brain intends to use a dangerous substance known as Metroid and pit the Space Pirates and the Galactic Force members against each other in order to reshape the universe in her own vision.
Fanon Discontinuity: The canonicity of this manga is a frequent topic of debate among the Metroid fandom because it doesn't entirely mesh well with or even outright contradicts certain details found in the games. As a result, those who don't like it refuse to acknowledge its existence, while those who enjoy it, but nonetheless acknowledge the continuity errors, treat it as Broad Strokes so they don't get too worked up about the details.
First Installment Wins: The manga fleshes out Samus Aran's character and Backstory eight years before Metroid: Other M did likewise. Even some of the manga's critics view it as the superior story, avoiding and/or justifying what would be controversial about Other M.
Love to Hate: Ridley's character (the first canon time he displayed characterization) was easily the manga's show stealer, and has been widely embraced by the fandom even as opinions towards the rest of the manga remained mixed. His combination of viciousness, sadism, cunning and badassery, plus showing why Samus opposes him, has made destroying him nearly once per game (already the games' highlights) even more satisfying. Telling is that around this time Ridley started supplanting the Metroids as the leading foe of the series, if for nothing else, having more reason to root against him.
Moral Event Horizon: While Ridley was always a villain and was expected to be one in this manga, his Establishing Character Moment where he invades K-2L with the pure intent to kill everyone, tries to kill Samus after putting her guard down, and ends up murdering Samus' mother and indirectly her father as well, firmly shows that the Space Pirate Commander is far much worse than just a boss character. Given that this is clearly not even his first raid, it can be inferred that Ridley already crossed this long ago.
Nausea Fuel: Ridley eating the corpse of Samus' mother to heal himself, a fact he taunts her with later.
Never Live It Down: Ridley being the one who killed Samus' parents. For many, it is the defining facet of his character, frequently receiving mentions in fanworks and discussions of him. Yet the Metroid series as a whole has only mentioned it twice; first in this manga adaptation, and then a brief allusion to it in Metroid Fusion.
Older Than They Think: It's widely assumed that this manga was the origin for Samus Aran's backstory. While it is the origin of her personal connections with Ridley and Mother Brain, as the killer of her mother and a Chozo creation that helped train her as a teenager (respectively), pretty much everything else about her childhood was already established by other sources. Her entire childhood as the sole survivor of a Space Pirate raid on Earth colony K-2L when she was a toddler, who was then rescued and raised by the Chozo, who genetically altered her with their DNA so she could survive on the planet Zebes, and was later gifted the Power Suit and trained as a warrior, was first established in 1994, eight years earlier by both the Super Metroid comic and the official Japanese strategy guide. Samus serving in the Federation Police before leaving and becoming a bounty hunter is even older than that, first being mentioned in Nintendo Comics System No. 2 from March 1991 in the short story "The Coming of a Hero."
Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: An odd example, since the manga was written well before Other M, but only discovered by most Western fans after Other M's release. People who hated Adam Malkovich's character and relationship with Samus in that game greatly preferred and appreciated his portrayal in the manga, where he is much more of a Reasonable Authority Figure and presents little to no sexist tones.
Vindicated by History: The manga was once obscure and generally disliked among the few people who read it. After the release of Metroid Other M, it began getting much more positive attention, and would strangely even become ammo used by both fans and detractors of Other M in debates over the game. Fans used the manga to justify plot and character developments that detractors complained about, while detractors also sourced the manga as evidence the plot and character developments they didn't like had been handled better previously.

YMMV / Metroid (Manga)

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