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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 (Nintendo Power 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 its 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's relation with Adam. In the games Samus is under Adam's command for several missions, while in the manga, she serves under him only for a few minutes. Additionally, at the end of the manga, Samus seemingly triumphs over her posttraumatic stress disorder and fear of Ridley, which is often believed to contradict the events of Metroid: Other M, where she is seen to be still afraid of him. However, it should be noted that Samus' strong reaction to encountering Ridley in Other M is taken to be a result of seeing her old foe alive again after a seemingly long time of believing him to be truly dead, a shock strong enough to trigger her PTSD.
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 never speaking in-game, but doing so in all of his manga appearances. In the Manga, Bombs and Missiles were uploaded to the Power Suit by Commander Adam Malkovich instead of being found on planet Zebes.
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 (However, it should be noted that this also contradicted other games that depicted the Space Pirates being quite capable of working intelligently as a sentient species even after Mother Brain and Ridley's destructions, such as the Prime games and even Zero Mission). It could be possible that there were actually a few Space Pirates that are actually smart enough to strategize on their own (such as the High Command in the Prime series) that lead the Space Pirates in the Manga as well.