Wing Commander Information Center
Register
Advertisement

Super Wing Commander contains the memoirs of Jason Armstrong a pilot of the TCS Tiger's Claw (who flew in missions alongside the war's top twenty aces including Christopher Blair, Carl T. LaFong, and Todd Marshall).[1]

Super Wing Commander is a remake of Wing Commander I with additional events/new cutcenes added (an additional side plot and Missions concerning an early Kilrathi prototype cloaked fighter), and a new and different additional campaign: Secret Missions 1.5 involving the destruction of the shipyards where the Sivar was built.

Behind the scenes[]

"missile rack" - The unspoken sentiment being that the Super Wing Commander Dralthi, which used the same 3D model as the Dralthi Mk. VII, *did* have the rack -- so is the Drakhri a pre-WC1 ship? Also, over-cockpit missiles (sans rack) are seen in Wing Commander Academy. 
"Etienne 'Doomsday' Montclair - Doomsday was introduced way back in Secret Missions 2 (that's his actual picture from Wing Commander II). The bio refers to his main character point (which he lost in False Colors - no one noticed that) and touches on a bit of a problem. Because of his already-awkward Super Wing Commander/SegaCD bio, Doomsday would be 81 in 2701. I basically had to choose between having some familiar second-tier faces who were really really old for some reason or making up entirely new characters, and I went with the former. I'll point out how I try to explain this later.
"Armstrong and LaFong" - I love this joke and I get the feeling everyone else hates it. Armstrong and LaFong were alternate names for Blair, used in Super Wing Commander and the Wing Commander I & II Ultimate Strategy Guide respectively. This is actually addressing a real book, since the conceit of that latter guide is that now-octogenerian LaFong has written his memoirs and you're reading them. Sorta contradicts Blair's death, too, if they're the same character...
"Ranger" - Originally Mike "Ranger" Unknown from the Super Wing Commander introduction
"Kur 'Human-Killer' nar Tr'k H'hra" - I chose to do a bio on Kur because I always wanted to know more about the Kilrathi aces in Wing Commander II. Three of them play a major role in the plot (Thrakhath, Khasra and Jazz)... but the other two are only mentioned after they show up (because WC2 had no Claw Marks-style manual) and then only briefly. His clan is new, my parallel to the Super Wing Commander manual - it's taken from one of the otherwise unmentioned systems on the Wing Commander Universe map. His picture is the Wing Commander II 'Drakhai/ace' VDU.
"Ja'targk clan" - This clan was introduced in the Super Wing Commander version of Claw Marks, where Khajja the Fang's full name was listed for the first time.
Beyond that - I'm a Wing Commander fan and not a graphic artist, so one sort of tribute I wanted to include was to seamlessly (which is to say while ignoring the elephant in the room) include multiple Wing Commander styles in the manual. I wanted live actors and drawings and talking heads coexisting and for the booklet to act like there was absolutely no problem with them all appearing together. I think this section was especially well accepted by casual fans, since it's neat to see the talking heads again... (ahh! I'm hitting myself for not including a Super Wing Commander shot right now.)
CONCEPT: These pages were planned early on, as a maneuvers page was integral to Claw Marks... and Wing Commander Arena relies even more on 'special' maneuvers which are somewhat akin to those found in a fighting game. As you can see we're using original Scimitar line art positioned in different ways -- that's because several games (including Super Wing Commander!) reuse the classic 'Scim as the example fighter for these articles. Other elements (arrows and such) are taken from the SWC manual.
  1. Star*Soldier, pg 7, 26
Advertisement