Metroid (Magazine Z manga)

Metroid is the name of a short manga series that takes place from Samus's childhood up to the story of Metroid: Zero Mission (which was released after the manga). The manga elaborates on Samus's past before she became a bounty hunter and describes a few events in Metroid: Zero Mission. The series was first printed in Magazine Z and later adapted into Metroid: Volume 1 (7 chapters), Metroid: Volume 2 (9 chapters), and an E-Manga remake of the first two chapters with color, sound, and animation. The story re-introduces many characters from Super Metroid (comic), and expands on elements leading to the (currently) last game in the canon, Metroid Fusion. While only in Japanese, the Metroid Database has made an unnoficial fan translation of it.

Inconsistencies
While the content of the manga would be acceptable on it's own, there are several inconsistencies between it and the main story of the Metroid games which hurts its standing as a canon source, such as Samus' relation with Adam, as in the games Samus is under his command for several missions while in the manga, she is only under him for a few minutes. At the end of the manga, Samus seemingly triumphs over her PTSD and fear of Ridley, which directly contradicts Metroid: Other M, where she is still afraid of him (Although it should be noted that the scene in question also directly contradicts Samus' conflicts with Ridley in all the games he appears in where she seemed to fight him without fear overwhelming her).

There are also several scenes which take place in the manga that never happen in Metroid: Zero Mission and vice versa; an example is the manga portraying the Federation launching its assault on Zebes during Samus' mission, whereas the games state that the organization attacked Zebes multiple times prior to sending the lone bounty hunter. One of the more obvious differences would be Ridley being able to speak.

Another notable contradiction is Other M stating that Zebesian Pirates being incapable of working intelligently as a sentient species unless led by Mother Brain despite the manga featuring them actively and strategically attacking Galactic Federation-controlled planets long before they met the Chozo's central computer.