As Fandom mentions, Volume 41 (October 1992) is the first Nintendo Power issue with "Super Power Cards". We'll get to the cards later in detail later, but the magazine opens with how subscribing has evolved into a full "Super Power Club", which includes a Player's Guide (the new Top Secret Passwords Player's Guide, basically a repackaging of Classified Information sections that have appeared over the years, a free system cleaning at authorized retailers, the promise of a "Super Power Issue", Super Power Club cards (trading cards with games on them), and coupons.

After Player's Pulse and the winner of the American Gladiators contest, the NES games this month are Adventure Island 3 (Hudson Soft), which was scored last month and got a tiny blurb in Now Playing and got full coverage this month, Power Blade 2 (Taito), and LJN's Spider-Man: Return of the Sinister Six (LJN). It looks like the Spider-Man game promised in the poster last month was more for different games. Game Boy would get The Amazing Spider-Man 2 before the end of the year and the Super NES would get Spider-Man and the X-Men in Arcade's Revenge.

Classified Information this month is Tiny Toon Adventures (NES), American Gladiators (NES), Contra III: The Alien Wars (Super NES), and Super Smash T.V. (Super NES). The Zelda comic is at its 10th part as Link's adventure begins to draw to a close and we begin the Game Boy games covered this issue, starting with Bionic Commando (Capcom), a port of the better-known NES title, continuing with Tom & Jerry (Hi-Tech Expressions), and Double Dragon 3: The Arcade Game (Acclaim). It should be noted that much like Felix the Cat last issue, Tom & Jerry isn't based on the film that premiered around this time. Super Mario Adventures (also nearing the end) and Counselor's Corner follow the Game Boy games with the questions this month being on Super Castlevania IV (Super NES), Battle of Olympus (NES), and Kirby's Dream Land (Game Boy).

The Super NES games this month are Super Play Action Football (Nintendo), The Simpsons: Bart's Nightmare (Acclaim) with the poster for Road Runner's Death Valley Rally, Super Mario Kart (Nintendo—the cover feature as you might have noticed at the top of the page), and Out of this World, the Western localized name of Delphine Software's Another World (which first appeared as an Amiga title before the port to Super NES and others).

Player's Poll Contest is a Clue-themed trip to Seasons Resort in Great Gorge (actually Vernon), New Jersey, with the runner-ups getting Clue for the Super NES and and a new spin-off Clue board game, Clue: The Great Museum Caper. Once again, the jerseys are now "Nintendo Power T's" and then it's Nester's Adventures (Prince of Persia) and Power Players before Now Playing. I guess it being out of order in Volume 40 was just a fluke but the jerseys being not-jerseys (despite still not changing) still holds.

I was curious about the resort, turns out it originally opened as The Great Gorge Playboy Club Hotel under Hugh Hefner's Playboy Enterprises. The hotel was renamed again in 1998 but has remained mostly defunct since around 2000. Vernon, New Jersey should be familiar to you as it's where the infamous Action Park was (and the resort wasn't too far away). They'd probably keep the winner on the premises rather than having the winner risk breaking something at the waterpark...

George & Rob's Now Playing covers the games covered this month elsewhere in the magazine (as usual) and a bunch of others that are listed. Under the NES games these are The Legend of the Ghost Lion (Kemco), Overlord (Virgin Games), and WWF WrestleMania: Steel Cage Challenge (LJN). The Game Boy games include Roger Clemens' MVP Baseball (LJN), Track & Field (Konami), and World Ice Hockey (IGS). The Super NES games include Amazing Tennis (Absolute), Axelay (Konami), King of the Monsters (Takara), Robocop 3 (Ocean), Super Double Dragon (Tradewest), and TKO Super Championship Boxing (Sofel).

Top 20 has some shakeups this month, though not so much in the NES section. Most of them didn't move. Super Mario Bros. 3 is #1 as it has been for almost two years now save for the one time where they got dethroned to #2, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: The Manhattan Project holds #2, Battletoads holding #3, The Legend of Zelda and Mega Man 4 switching places (pushing the Blue Bomber to #5), Tecmo Super Bowl still holding #6, Super Mario Bros. 2 jumping from #16 to #7, Dr. Mario still at #8, Mega Man moved from #12 back to #9, and Tetris is at #10, the second drop in two months (#9 last month, #8 before that). Final Fantasy is off the top 10 for the first time since 1991 (now at #11 from #7), and Mega Man 3 falling from #10 to #15. It's bested by the other Mega Man games, including Mega Man II at #13 and Yoshi at #12, which just showed up this month (they don't show newcomers in this version of the list). By the way, the text under the entry for The Legend of Zelda likely refers to the commercial for it (not the rap).

The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past still leads at #1 with 16,000 points but it's margin is now around 2.5:1 against Super Mario World, though the third place is now Street Fighter II: The World Warrior which made it on the Top 10 from jumping from #16, which forced F-Zero back to #4 again. Final Fantasy II holds #5, Contra III: The Alien Wars goes from #7 to #6, Super Castlevania IV holding #7, Final Fight dropping back to #8 (from #6), Super Mario Kart premiering at #9, and SimCity at #10. ActRaiser dropped from #9 to #16 (it's doomed) and WWF Super Wrestlemania continues its fast fall to #12 (from #8). It's also doomed. Mario Paint I thought would do better but it didn't chart (at least month).

The Game Boy games do see Kid Icarus: Of Myths and Monsters in #16 (like last month, guess things aren't quite over for it) but the Game Boy games have Super Mario Land taking back #1 from Metroid II: The Return of Samus yet again, with Dr. Mario back on top 3 (from #6). The Simpsons: Escape from Camp Deadly goes from #7 to #4, Battletoads drop from #3 to #5, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: Back from the Sewers improves slightly (#8 to #6), Final Fantasy Adventure drops from #4 to #7, Yoshi appears at #8, Mega Man: Dr. Wily's Revenge drops from #5 to #9, and Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins premiers at #10. At this point the game hasn't been released yet, but it will remain on the Top 10 for the next eight years, long after most of the other games become distant memories. Because of the appearance of two new games, it means that some of the games got pushed off the top ten. Batman: Return of the Joker fell from #9 to #11 and Castlevania II: Belmont's Revenge went from #10 to #18. Longtime list favorite Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Fall of the Foot Clan is at #19 now, so it may be gone soon.

Celebrity Player Profile covers Ken Griffey Jr., the Seattle Mariners centerfielder, who (through his namesake baseball games) would make the cover of Nintendo Power THREE TIMES, which is more than can be said for many of Nintendo's iconic characters. Pak Watch covers "Nintendo Classics" (re-releasing Metroid, The Legend of Zelda, Punch-Out!! featuring Mr. Dream, and Zelda II: The Adventure of Link.

The Super Power Club cards were a thing that Nintendo Power did around 1992-1994 and featured a number of games across all three systems. On the front, there was an adaptation of the game's box art with a colored border (consistent with the color scheme, red for NES, green for Super NES, and purple for Game Boy) and on the back there was a game description, a challenge for players (in three difficulty levels), and information (system, game type, player numbers, release date, and publisher), the same sort of stuff you can find on the Games List. A total of 170 cards (games) were released for the three systems and they had an odd mix of various games, some big names with others not so much. There were the big ones—Super Mario Bros. 3, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, and Super Metroid but also some obscure/bad games like Stop That Roach, Lester the Unlikely, and The Twisted Tales of Spike McFang. Meanwhile, they also dredged up older NES games Solar Jetman and Maniac Mansion but didn't have Super Mario World.

An eccentric selection, I suppose. The concept seemed kind of cool and I wish they had continued to do Virtual Boy and Nintendo 64 titles. Anyway, check out the next issue—Volume 42.

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