I Fixed The Zelda Timeline For You, mark 7.

I can’t believe I missed what was staring me in the face. Even after translating many comics from the official German Nintendo magazine, Club Nintendo, I never thought to include Link’s appearances on the Fixed Timeline. True, I included the special OoT one which illustrates the game’s immediate backstory, but it doesn’t stop there.

The regular issues of the magazine always had a comic; most focused on Mario, naturally, but Link popped up from time to time. Tracking his movements is not easy though, as Mario seems to jump between living in the Mushroom Kingdom, an apartment in his native Brooklyn, or a house in the countryside near Brooklyn, and the lines can blur between these, especially when other video game characters get involved. We get either the magical realism of video game characters in a fictionalised version of our world, or a Mushroom Kingdom with frequent visitors or dimensional immigrants. But let’s deep dive on this.

Identifying the Link in question is simple. For the majority of the magazine’s run, 1991-1997, the last console game to be released in the series was Link to the Past. The cameo appearances in the comic reflect that with a design clearly based on how that Link was portrayed in official artwork. In 1998, there were two regular issue comics and a special edition comic directly based on Ocarina of Time (these were previously already on the timeline). In 1999 and 2000 the magazine’s comic was rebooted as N-Gang, and designs from OoT and Majora’s Mask formed the basis of cameo appearances.

Link first appears at Mario’s Christmas party in the 6th bimonthly issue of 1992 (1992-6). The previous comic featured Mario’ Brooklyn apartment, but the house in this one resembles one seen in the 1991 run, which is likely in the Mushroom Kingdom based on designs and events in the previous comics. However, there is ambiguity so it could also be considered to be in the countryside near New York. Link does not show up again until 1995-6, in Wario’s Christmas Tale, about Wario taking on the Scrooge role in a story based on “A Christmas Carol”. This story is stated to take place in “the video game world”, which I identify with a Mushroom Kingdom setting but with additional residents from other game worlds (which is not unprecedented). In this story he is a spirit who appears to Wario; however, so is Toad who Wario has certainly met. Perhaps his conscience or transcendent spirits are taking forms familiar to him? Either way, although I do not believe this to be Link it is evidence that he coexists with Wario in this setting.

In 1996-2 and 1996-3 Mariozilla has Mario made gigantic by Kamek’s magic. He and Princess Toadstool live in suburbia here, and he makes his way easily to New York. He visits Dr. Light who works there, and Link (the same one from LttP) is seen consulting a map with him. It’s not explained what they were doing. He may just be visiting, but The Night of Horror in 1996-5 and 1997-5 shows Link living in a Brooklyn apartment building along with Mario, Kirby, Toadstool, Wario, Donkey Kong, and Diddy. Complicating this is a story published between the two parts of The Night of Horror, Ruckus in the Cosmos from 1997-2. Luigi in this comic states that they are going to Earth from space, but an island looking very similar to Yoshi’s Island is seen. An explanation for this is that the Mushroom World is a parallel Earth from a separate dimension (much like in the SMB movie), which occupies the same point in space but in a different timeline. This story therefore takes place in the Mushroom World/video game world. Anyway, Link is there at the end, along with other characters who previously were living in Brooklyn.

All that to say that it seems the Link from LttP, along with other Nintendo (and non-Nintendo) characters, at least visited the Mushroom Kingdom for the holidays, or may have lived there for a time. Later he (and others) moved to our world, and lived in New York for a time. He then briefly returned to Mushroom World to celebrate with Mario and Luigi on finding a giant Nintendo 64-shaped spaceship, or perhaps had moved back. His only significant adventure in this time was fighting the monsters in his Brooklyn apartment with Mario and Kirby in The Night of Horror. I am pleased that his appearances in these comics correspond to some of his game appearances; the Mushroom Kingdom in SMRPG and (arguably) a fictionalised version of our Earth in DKC2, as you can already see on this Fixed Timeline. He travels elsewhere though, as I argue by his unused appearance in Golden Sun 2; we don’t know whether that’s before or after this, but I like to think that he did return to Hyrule in the end; in fact, a character in A Link Between Worlds is hinted to be him.

After this we have the three OoT comics I mentioned. Two are unquestionably canon; the third a bit odd and meta but acceptable. The Hero of Time is now the “current” Link for the remaining years of the magazine. When the Mario-centric comic was replaced by N-Gang, which features a group of teens in Germany who use fantastical technology to bring video game characters to life, we get a few instances of OoT and MM elements being brought to the real world. My take is that these characters and their consciousnesses do experience this; for them it’s a real event that happens, no matter their digital origins.

Unfortunately an additional factor in the first Zelda-related story, Freeze Frame in 1999-6, is that the events are part of a dream sequence. Adult Link appears in another Christmas party, but although such things are plausible in the comic, it’s shown to be a dream. However, the following Christmas in 2000-6’s The Witch Laughs at Midnight, a similar party is shown without that conceit. Adult Link celebrates Christmas with Mario and Kirby, as well as Banjo, Samus, and others. Jumping back though, the Ocarina of Time itself and (adult) Epona are summoned in 2000-4’s Gods of Olympus. The transformation masks from Majora’s Mask then show up in 2000-5’s Halloween Trouble Mix (for simplicity I say in the timeline that the masks are summoned by the N-Gang but I don’t think there is actually an explanation for their presence in the story). None of these are very consequential, but they happened so they’re in the timeline.

TL;DR: Link from LttP travels to Earth and the Mushroom Kingdom, which we already knew. He hangs out with Mario and friends and fights some monsters. The Hero of Time is summoned by German teens to celebrate Christmas. They also summon Epona to get them out of trouble and use the Goron, Zora, and Deku transformation masks to get into trouble.

Incidentally, to find out more about these official comics which were originally available in German, check out my handy spreadsheet. Many of them have been translated into English by fans of weird stuff. And as always check the zelda timeline tag to see the past and future of this project.