I gave this a shot at a friend's suggestion and it's really odd. There's a couple fun issues, but a lot of it is repetitive brand acknowledgement. I don't know how anyone but a hardcore fan is supposed to enjoy it.
Archie Mega Man
I gave this a shot at a friend's suggestion and it's really odd. There's a couple fun issues, but a lot of it is repetitive brand acknowledgement. I don't know how anyone but a hardcore fan is supposed to enjoy it.
The times it’s not focusing on the repetitive nature of the games and when it focuses on characters is when it’s at its best.
This. It did a really good job of fleshing out the Robot Masters. Most of the OCs were good too.
Yeah, I can agree with that. The stuff focused on Proto Man was almost all good. My problem is when it's doing a game (and sometimes even when it's not), most of what's going on and being said is just fanservice. I like Mega Man, but it's really boring to flip through a bunch of stuff I assume are internet memes while nothing is really happening.
>It did a really good job of fleshing out the Robot Masters.
I liked them when they were in the shorter little stories. In the bigger stuff or their intros it's all really monotonous.
>Most of the OCs were good too.
No... The girl Mega Man is really boring and her mom feels like a writer insert. The terrorists are awful; I thought it was going to be interesting at first but then they start pulling out guns. The detectives just have nothing to say. Stern argues with Light but it's the same exact argument like three times? I'm wondering why they kept repeating it. Krantz doesn't do ANYTHING. They added Kamen Rider people near the end and idk what the frick that's about.
The X stuff was probably the worst content, which was really disappointing. I liked Proto Man's backstory and the issue where the evil robots decide to be shut down, even if it's a bit melodrama. Really liked the issue after Ra Moon with the baddie robots in the forest, the art was extra good and the interactions were nice.
Aside from a lot of brand wank I think the biggest problem was the comic took itself WAAAAY too seriously. The couple extra short stories that are meant to be cute weren't very funny, but some of the drama tried too hard. Felt like it'd be better if it found a good middle ground.
Also why the frick is Ice Man trying to bang Roll, that's like your sister or cousin.
I almost forgot, Plant Man's creator is a disabled Brazilian guy but he's super pale even for a white guy and just doesn't do anything at all. What was his deal?
To give the eventual adaptation of 6 more context instead of "here's eight robots from around the world, we didn't bother creating new scientists for them".
Ok, but that doesn't mean anything if they just stand around not doing anything. It's the same, but you spent page space acknowledging it was gonna happen. They kinda used Cossack ok but not really.
They used Cossack enough that his appearance in 4 wouldn't be completely out of the blue, I'd say.
I mean sure, but it didn't contribute much to the stories or let us really know him better. Stuff coming out of nowhere isn't always a bad thing.
As much as I think the brand acknowledgement was cringe, the OC stuff was also bad and way too bloated
They spent way too much time setting things up that didn't need to and it felt like certain plots like Proto Man's just went on too long to the point that it's basically unresolved now that the book is over because they wasted too much time on Quake Woman, Vesper and their boring ass mom
And I get why they wanted to explain the Mr. X/Wily plothole from MM6 but did we really need ALL THIS SHIT to happen to justify it? I feel like instead of whatever the frick Xander was, they could've just had an older man go through the same "has a grudge against robots because past incident" backstory but just have him be some important guy that could fund stuff like a Robot Tournament to begin with
Just feels like half the comic got too complacent trying to give the world "depth" to the point it bored readers enough that the Sonic crossover did better than the actual book
The Proto Man stuff wasn't a lot of page time, it was just sandwiched between a ton of nothing.
I suppose that's why it felt like it went on too long
It was the one plotline I wanted to see resolved but it got tiring having it be the same "Proto Man is mad about Dr. Light/Mega Man again but doesn't know what he wants" sort of scenes
And then Tempo usurped him from his own story arc.
He got closure in issue 54. Enough to lead into MM4, anyway.
That's not closure, just postponement to prepare for the next game adaptation. Odds are he wouldn't see anything resembling major development until they got to MM5 when Wily frames him.
If Xander hadn't been involved in Worlds Unite, his arc would worked better. Introduce in one comic as a mook, upgrade to crazy mook when he's used to break into a Light tech vault, and then have the twist kick in and he's 'the real Mr X.'
It's not a one-two punch if you do a fricking pirouette in the middle.
The mishandling of Xander Payne is once again all Kaminski's fault. He pushed for him to be important and used so much as well as him being the savior of Worlds Unite. It makes Tommy Turtle look good in comparison.
Blues is such a stubborn emo baby. I love him. Has a father and siblings that love him regardless of the shit he pulled and he still never FRICKING WENT HOME. GO HOME BLUES WHAT THE FRICK IS YOUR PROBLEM AAAAA
Daddy issues can do a number. And with Daddy issues, comes pride
And yet the daddy issues are entirely because Blues misunderstood Light when he was eavesdropping and then continued to misunderstand and refused to actually talk. He's the kid that runs away when he finds out his parents are expecting another kid because he thinks he'll get replaced except he ran away before that happened. And he takes his anger out by attacking his family and blowing up their home.
>Also why the frick is Ice Man trying to bang Roll, that's like your sister or cousin
>He doesn't know
Roll wants to frick Rock
It's one of those things more pronounced in Japan
>Roll wants to frick Rock
No, Dr Wily's facsimile of Roll wants to frick Rock.
A New Hope moment
This.
Xander Payne unironically ended up being one of my favorite villains to date. And as moronic as it may sound, his point of view on AI is VERY relevant in the real world. In this world, we don’t have cool shit like Mega Man. We have AI being trained by all manners of human behavior, by people who are only in it for the money, glory, and the dick-measuring context of “how far can we push this before this blows up”
>repetitive brand acknowledgement
That's Ian Flynn in a nutshell, yeah.
I don't know or care. I usually don't read video game comics. Is this the norm with them? Like, some superhero comics do this, and bad issues of stuff like the Simpsons comics do this, but I'm not used to whole books worth of it.
Yeah, it is the norm with them. I was pissed when they first announced the Mega Man comics that the Sonic the Hedgehog guy was going to be the writer.
You know any good video game comics?
I know bad video game comics. The Nicer and Dark Souls tie in books are legendary and hilarious.
At least Flynn has some knowledge of video games, unlike a certain putz who tries to dump his failed Superman/Star Trek fanfic into a series he knew frick all about.
Honestly, no one who wrote Sonic before Ian really cared about video games. It was just a paycheck to them.
Maaaaybe Gallagher.
>Is this the norm with them?
I dunno, it's not a big enough genre to say for sure. But it's absolutely an Ian Flynn thing. He even wrote for Frontiers that way.
And then you get the other extreme where the writers are just using the license to realise their failed pitches because the standarts are so low almost anyone can get in.
If you wanted a good megaman comic read Megamix and Gigamix.
This looks more like manga but sure, I'll try it.
It is manga.
Ian clearly wanted to write for Mega Man X and resented being saddled with Classic.
God I hope not, the X content was awful. The little mini stories explain unnecessary stuff and the weird simultaneous past/future arc was just tedious.
Ian cares more about the lore than the story and Classic just didn't have enough for his liking, which was why so much of the book was more about the OCs than the Light/Wily conflict.
The writer really wanted to get an X series off the ground, you can tell, he practically begged for it.
Speaking as a hardcore fan- the exact target audience, really, I also found a lot of it really...empty, for lack of a better word. Like I know the games don't have the most elaborate plots, but geez. I'd get super excited to see an obscure favorite character show up only for their appearance to be nothing more than "hey, remember that guy??" World Collide/Unite- ESPECIALLY Unite- was by far the worst offender of this attribute. I'd been waiting for forever for a Mega Man/Sonic crossover and it just...felt kinda hollow.
I'm still sad about how it ended, though 🙁
How does Ariga's work like Megamix and Gigamix succeed where Flynn's work with Archie fails?
Ariga rarely introduces OCs, and when he does they're very much not a focus. Ian also focuses too much on melodrama when there really isn't enough time to use it effectively while Ariga only uses it sparingly while focusing on actually progressing the plot.
Because he knew people wanted to see the robots, not the boring fleshbag humans. Light, Wily, and maybe Cossack and Kalinka are the only humans the setting needs.
No Kaminski to ruin everything.
>Drowns Archie in licensing fees for Worlds Unite and its many Sega/Capcom cameos, then quits and takes a new job at DC while they're left to pay the bill, ultimately resulting in Mega Man's premature end and the final cancellation of Sonic
It really was all that guy's fault.
In the end it was the best for Sonic and Mega Man.
He also forced all the classic pandering. He pushed Genesis on Ian to coincide with Sonic Generations.
Wasn't he ironically the guy who was hoping the legal mess with Penders would blow over and they could go back to the normal Archie canon, hence the early reboot sub-plot of Sonic restoring everybody's memories from before the SGW that ultimately went nowhere?
Yes that was his decision as well.
Yes, yes he was.
Funnily enough, it would have blown over had Archie’s legal team not fricked up every step of the way. Had they realized right up front that everything by technicality was owned by Sega, it would have been an open and closed done deal. But by the time the later legal team figured that out, Sega absolutely wanted nothing to do with it under any circumstances, much more than before.
Meanwhile Bioware and EA properly beat Penders in court and he exhausted all chances to sue. And yet Sega wants nothing to do with Chronicles, even though they own the rights since Bioware was contracted to make the game for them.
I just don’t get Sega’s stance. They should have just BTFO of him right off the bat but instead they have allowed Ken to linger and potentially bring bad attention to the brand in the future.
Which judging by how Sega wants Echidna stuff to be expanded on again, Ken might get stirred up.
I believe that a new lawsuit is on the horizon, Ken will go forward with it out of his arrogance and narcissism.
If he does, Paramount and Sega will rape him this time.
Exactly. Which is why I’m banking on his arrogance. He will not win because Paramount is Viacom and the lawsuit could simply just pick up right from where the Archie one left off with Sega confirming ownership.
Sega also won’t leave Paramount to take flack like they did with Archie, either. As much as they likely wont like it, they will have to rip the band aid off if Ken sues Paramount. Way too much money, connections, and appearances at stake. This is a whole different ballpark.
Also, I will note that I don’t expect anything to be done with the Archie stuff if or when Sega gets ownership. It will be locked away forever. But at the very least, Ken won’t get what he wants either, that’s good enough for me.
Archie is already locked away. Even trying to put in cameos from it makes Sega angry.
Sega does have ownership of the Archie stuff. It's why Ian keeps trying to get the FF back because of the Spinball game. The deal with Penders is that he can he use the characters he created but they can't look like Sonic characters. Sega has a long history of having the rights to characters but never using them.
Sega of Japan is very distant and even antagonistic when it comes to the west. I don't know why Sega of America didn't do anything. And Penders shouldn't try to start anything because Paramount will frick him over in court. He got lucky with Archie being incompetent and forced to fend for themselves.
>I don't know why Sega of America didn't do anything.
They just didn't want to get involved.
>I just don’t get Sega’s stance.
SEGA doesn't care since all that Archie original stuff wasn't made to work for their Sonic.
I wouldn't be surprised if they even welcomed an excuse to make Archie dump a bunch of OCs.
Sure, that’s valid. But this is about brand integrity. The best move would have been to claim ownership over everything at stake, and then just liken away forever what didn’t fit the brand. All they had to do was literally say “Yes, we own all of these affected characters and stories” and that would have been the end of it. They were lazy and that decision has left the brand vulnerable to further potential damage in the future.
>that decision has left the brand vulnerable to further potential damage in the future.
Not really. Archie's stuff is locked away for good, Ken will never be successful with his "echydnas", and no one else cares enough to bring it up again.
>But this is about brand integrity.
Penders is like Number 3 on that list if we go by threats to brand integrity. After Sonic Team and the Sonic Fanbase itself.
Penders is only so confident because he's as relevant to SEGA as all those Sonic Fancomices online.
Lawsuits cause problems. It causes old skeletons that have been left to be forgotten to be brought up again by an even more scrutinizing media.
If or when Ken sues Paramount, there may be a ripple that will go across the film industry. People in favor of workers rights and unions who don’t know Ken’s history will initially give him attention and support. The media will put Paramount and Sega in the spotlight, and then Ken’s history with his handling of Sonic comics will have to be brought out again for more people to see.
Sega thought that they could bury all of this but then they moved on to a boss level with the franchise, one that garners much more media attention and puts a strain on connections if they are disturbed.
Ken, get off Cinemaphile.
Ken would not be suing a comic book company with less prestige than Marvel and DC this time around. He will be going up against Viacom, one of the most relevant multi-billion dollar corporations in the world, of course there’s going to be more hoopla about it this time around.
Not to mention all of the YouTubers that would be covering it as well.
Sega will need to rip the band off this time around. It’s not like they can just simply ignore Viacom like they did with Archie, that would put their contracts and future profits at stake and would leave a bad mark on Sega throughout the multimedia industry.
>”You are blowing this out of proportion”
Said everyone during the Archie lawsuit.
nta but I think the issue here is that we know Archie and Sega are incompetent morons from a legal and business standpoint
Viacom despite all their frick-ups is still a multi-billion dollar company that probably has the best legal teams that can immediately destroy whatever dumbass arguments Ken has
And even if you want to say "Oh well it's a bigger deal because it's a bigger company therefore more people will know" Ken being a massive lolcow has also been well documented that even people who only have a passing knowledge of Sonic autism know him
So it'll be less
>"Ken Penders is an underdog fighting against the corpos!"
and more
>"Wow this fricking moron thought he stood a chance?"
and then everyone will forget about it in a week, only ever bringing it up every once in a to make fun of Ken further
that's what sega Wanted and demanded, they did claim ownership and their original contract with Archie was supposed to enforce that, but Archie fricked up. They couldn't produce the original documents proving the characters made by Penders would automatically be owned by Sega. They didn't have proof to back themselves up, and Penders did. The fact that that didn't happen is a large reason why the comic ended.
The court case boiled down to Archie’s legal team admitting to the judge that Sega would be the true owners of the characters, not themselves. This was going to resolve the matter, the photocopies were accepted and Ken was caught lying about certain details. The problem is, Sega refused to just show up and say yes. Archie fricked up but the court case was in the bag, Sega could’ve won but they just couldn’t be bothered
Interesting, can you point me to a video or article detailing Sega not showing up?
This goes over what was in the court documents:
It really was an infuriating tard fest.
Chronicles 2 didn't happen because Chronicles 1 didn't review/sell well enough.
So wait, how many of the game adaptations were actually Sega’s doing then? This is the first I’ve heard of this
Before the Pendering? Sega would just tell Archie and say "do something to promote it or whatever". Archie would usually just do a quick non canon back up strip that sums up the game and ends with "Wanna find out more? Play the game!" Its Ian who went to extra lengths to actually work the newest games into the plot.
At least Sonic Adventure 1 and 2. But Archie spent so much time on the first that doing the second was going to ruin pacing for the stories they started up at the time so they half assed it and told you to play SA2 even though there was no way the game would be the same story as it would be in the comics. After that Archie didn't do any game adaptations except backup stories in issues. It only got bad again in the reboot with entire issues for Mario & Sonic at the Olympics and Sonic All-Stars Transformed. That could've been a Sega forced thing.
Didn't Archie not even adapt Sonic Adventure 2? I remember Shadow's entire introduction was just glossed over because his game origin was completely incompatible with Archie's pre-existing lore.
Sorta. They just said "something like it happened, use your imagination". They had to flesh it out later.
It got an issue that covered the beginning of it. It gets fleshed out more a couple times over the years. One of the first Sonic Universe issues actually show some of the stuff that happened through flashbacks. It was just Sonic, Eggman, Shadow, and Rouge saving the world. Tails was currently kidnapped and his double didn't show up until Sonic was coming back from the SA2 story.
Penders went ape shit over being forced to adapt Sonic Adventure and that Sonic Team's Echidna canon was superior to his.
Penders retaliated by turning Sega's echidnas into a bunch of exiles from his own Not!Krypton civilization who went feral and moronic.
damage was still done
Originally, Archie would be told by Sega to adapt the newest game and all they'd have to do is tack on a few vague elements from it while otherwise churning out a bog-standard SatAM-based Sonic story. Then Archie had to adapt Sonic Adventure, and not only were they given absolutely no references from it to work with (they had to rely on their only guy who knew Japanese playing the game and relaying the plot as they wrote it), but Sega was demanding that characters and storylines be altered to match their new "international canon". Needless to say, by the time SA2 came out, Archie had sworn off game adaptations and only just made up a shitty story about GUN mobilizing after Shadow's escape and ending with "Just frick off and play the damn game".
same reaction Penders had after seeing the SA1 storyline.
Don't forget making Xander solve everything.
And killing off Team Dark for "higher stakes".
Boco, frick off.
>ultimately resulting in Mega Man's premature end
Mega Man was selling like shit
So is IDW's Sonic by standard measures of successes, but it's still limping along.
It's hard to tell if Archie would've kept it going if they didn't want out of licensed comics but they did cancel Mega Man way before Sonic ended.
Sonic and TMNT seemed to be doing well for IDW. Shame that's the only thing working for the entire company.
Ariga is a great artist and understands the series from an emotional point of view via his own imagination and directly speaking with the developers behind Mega Man. He has a reverence for the work that is apparent even in his more joke-y stories that goes beyond reference spamming or meme material.
He focused on telling stories over lore. His comics skip around and are willing to be different from the games.
This was a really good move in hindsight
Was it though?
Has anyone ever heard of this thing? It was liscenced by capcom and made by a brazillian guy who knew nothing about the series
it gets storytimed once in a while, it sure is a trip
Oh yeah, thats well known. He later tried to kill off the MM cast so the comic could star his OC before Capcom found out and fired him.
What actual frick? I gotta give this a read lmao
Just so you know, in this comic Roll is a teenage girl who has her brain put in a robot body, and both Rock and X wanna frick her.
>Roll is a teenage girl who has her brain put in a robot body
and a washing machine.
What the actual frick???
Capcom really didn't care back then. See also: Malibu Comics Street Fighter, which killed off Ken and had his bloody scalped mailed to Ryu.
You know, it always kinda interested me that the translation change in Mega Man and Proto Man's relationship from Japanese to English was never retconned back.
>interested me that the translation change in Mega Man and Proto Man's relationship from Japanese to English was never retconned back
What?
I think he means that in Japan, Rock still has no idea Blues is his brother.
In the US version its common knowledge.
>I think he means that in Japan, Rock still has no idea Blues is his brother.
Eh, it was just a straight rip-off of the Speed Racer/Racer X dynamic.
Frankly I'm not sure what it would add in the vast spectrum of the series history to cut back on this. MM7 is the only time I recall it getting textual call outs it Protoman's spiel before his secret boss fight to "find out who father made stronger" isn't really more pertinent than just "Let's find out who's stronger'.
Hell after MM10 making the two team up for the sake of saving Roll it makes more sense to change it so Rock knows about Blues than it would to retcon Mega Man into not knowing about Protoman. Speed DOES find out about Racer X eventually.
I'm so glad this piece of shit comic didn't last long enough to adapt the X-series, it'd have been so bad.
I like that they lifted some of Proto Man's lines from the Megas, but I'm a bit bummed they didn't do that for any of the other robot masters.
Unless you count Air Man screaming "You can't defeat me!" over and over again.
He was the one I was probably the most bummed over, instead of getting decent characterization he was reduced to a single reference. No angst filled robot who can only push others away for me.
Air Man is the no nonsense robot. If you want angst there's a dozen other robots you can look to.
Like Crash Man and how he angsts over not being built with actual hands.
Or Magnet Man and his power messing with all electronics. Or fricking Needle Man. Everyone should be like Snake Man. A creep and loving it.
They should all be Hyadain level creeps in every canon storyline.
Ok. Your taste is shit btw.
It's technically Cinemaphile, but the Kawata Yushi is pretty fun. Isn't really adapting the "plot" of Megaman, though, more an exploration of the world after the games.
Penders still hasn't put out his dozen year delayed comic. Meanwhile Butler put out one book of his notSally comic and is working on the second one.
He claims its out this summer. He's planning on selling it at SDCC.
>I don't know how anyone but a hardcore fan is supposed to enjoy it.
I wasn't a hardcore fan, but I enjoyed it. It's been a while, but if by "repetitive brand acknowledgement" you mean "followed the plots and settings of the games", it was never really an issue for me. Other overarching plot threads and characterizations were still happening, like how Mega Man had sort of an ongoing crisis about the fact he was a robot programmed to kill other robots during the events of MM2.
I found my new husbando in this comic.
Wew!