Geese Howard, the martial arts crime boss with the funny name, makes his triumphant return to counter any and every attack.
We’re just over a month away from the new King of Fighters installment and we’re still only a little bit over halfway into getting to see all the team profiles. I’m all about this week’s installment, as we get to see Team South Town, the criminal team of Geese Howard, Billy Kane, and new character Hein.
Ignore his silly name. Geese is in fact completely awesome.
Watch the countering action right here.
Geese Howard and Billy Kane first appeared in 1991’s Fatal Fury: King of Fighters with Geese as the final boss and Billy as the penultimate boss. Geese is the Wilson Fisk of South Town (hence the team name) and has been ruling his criminal empire for years. Long enough that he showed up in the Art of Fighting games, which take place over a decade earlier.
Geese ran afoul (or "a-fowl?" Eh? Geese?) of Jeffrey Bogard, a fellow martial artist he trained with for years. Geese had Jeff killed and due to his crime lord clout, the whole thing was swept under the rug. Jeff’s two adopted children Terry and Andy were sent off to go train and return years later to get revenge.
A grown-up Terry Bogard entered Geese’s one-on-one King of Fighters tournament and came out on top, seemingly killing Geese in the end. Geese survived and returned to vex South Town and the Bogards again. In a rematch on top of Geese’s tower, Terry knocked Geese onto the ledge and reached his hand out to save him. Geese looked at the hand in disgust, smacked it away, and fell to his death while laughing maniacally.
Luckily, Fatal Fury and King of Fighters don’t exactly share the same continuity. Geese is alive and well in King of Fighters canon and entered King of Fighters ’96 as part of the Boss Team with his half-brother Wolfgang Krauser and fellow South Town criminal Mr. Big. Since then, Geese has remained on the sidelines.
Despite his villainous nature, Geese isn’t 100% despicable as shown by his familial relationship with Billy Kane. Billy is Geese’s loyal bodyguard, a cockney thug with a segmented staff. Billy is a regular in the King of Fighters tournament and usually works under Geese’s orders. He doesn’t have any go-to partners, but he does share a kinship with former partner Eiji Kisaragi over their mutual hatred for their third partner Iori Yagami, who kicked the shit out of them at the end of King of Fighters ’95.
Interestingly enough, this will be the first time Geese and Billy will be on the same team.
Speaking of Geese, one of the new pre-order DLC offerings is an alternate skin where you play as “Nightmare Geese,” his final boss form from some of the old Fatal Fury games.
Also of note, this Tuesday will give us a free demo of King of Fighters XIV, featuring seven playable characters. The full version will arrive on August 23.
Gavin Jasper is cool with the suave butler, but would rather have seen Yamazaki as the third guy. Follow Gavin on Twitter!
