In 2009, Archie Comics pitched a comic book series based on the Super Mario game series. The deal didn't go through, but Nintendo offered to work with the publisher to release comics for its other franchises- Metroid, Fossil Fighters, and Kirby.
As time went on, work on comics for the three series began to coincide with the release of games about them. Metroid: Other M was supposed to be released in 2010, and there was also a Japanese release of Fossil Fighters: Champions in late 2010, followed by Kirby's Return to Dream Land and an American release of Fossil Fighters: Champions in late 2011.
Thus Archie Comics worked on a short comic book series based on the Metroid game series, one of the Nintendo franchises and the game series that created the Metroidvania genre. No interesting material on the Fossil Fighters and Kirby franchises has been found. The Metroid comic was written by Ian Flynn. He spoke about three options for the development of the project for the comic on his Twitter.
In the first version, each issue would have its own unique story. Samus would have been chasing the weapons vendor, who would have been defeated at the end of the first issue. The second pitch told a very different story, Samus had to investigate strange mega-fauna, mad scientists were mutating animals and Samus had to stop them. In the third draft, the comic would have adapted the plot of the first Metroid game, but this pitch is the least known of the details.
The concept art for all three pitches survives, with the first three drawings by artist Tracey Yardley and the last three by Steven Butler.
