Man, it really has been difficult being a Mega Man fan over the last six years. He's hardly had anything in the way of new games and what releases he does get are re-releases of his old titles. Mega Man's monthly adventures in Archie's comic book series was absolutely enthralling and it breaks my heart to see it coming to an end. Yes, they say all good things come to an end but this is a premature ending if ever there was one.
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| The comic had some pretty amazing covers. |
Mega Man had some truly wonderful characterization. Dr. Wily is a bitter man, fueled by his jealousy of Dr. Light's overshadowing success and this drives him to be recognized as the superior in the field of robotics. He wants to humiliate Dr. Light, not kill him and that alone paints in a different shade from a villain like Dr. Eggman. Blues feels that Dr. Light replaced him with Mega Man and sides with Wily, only to decline coming back to Light Labs to be with his family due to his past transgressions. Xander Payne has a pretty good reason to despise robots with a passion seeing as how it was Elec Man (under Wily's programming) took out his left eye. In this comic series, Xander is actually Mr. X and he urges Wily to cause as my chaos and destruction with his robots so humanity to see robots for the same menace that he does. Even Mega Man himself is a complicated individual, wanting to save anyone he can and questioning why he feels joy in the destruction of something as sinister as Ra Moon.
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| Anything I could write here to describe this wouldn't even come close to doing it justice. |
Speaking of Ra Moon, what a story line, that was! Super Adventure Rockman is not a high point for the classic Mega Man series but the adaptation of it here was superb! Ra Moon caused a planet wide blackout. When it occurs we see all of the robots of the world shut down, planes going down, an entire hospital blackout during surgery among other things. Its a pretty grim scenario and one of the darkest turns the comic has taken.
The exploration of robots and their programming is something I loved so much about this series, When Dr. Wily is thought dead after the conclusion of the Mega Man 3 story arc, the Robot Masters from Mega Man 2 and 3 are all given new purposes. Not all of them are fine with this, however, as it clashes with what they were programmed for. Quick Man was designed to be a weapon and he'd rather be shut down than be a speedy mail man because he wouldn't be himself, much to Mega Man's dismay. Earlier in the series this even one point where Elec Man gets fed up with the mistreatment he receives from a few humans to the point to where he wishes he had Wily's coding in him. I am going to miss this stuff so much.
Mega Man was a well written, thought provoking comic with some colorful characters and it pains me to see it go. Yes, they said "hiatus" but they also said "indefinite"so for all we know, Archie's Mega Man could be gone for good. I don't want to torture myself with false hope. Goodbye, Mega Man. The last four plus year have been an unforgettable ride.
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