Mega Man #54 & #55

[shirubie]

The final two issues (for now?) of Archie Comics's Mega Man series.





Issue #54, Red Shift, starts with Blues/Breakman minding his own business and pondering the meaning of his existence when he's ambushed by Shadow Man, who reveals that Wily is still alive and wants to speak to him. They teleport to Wily's secret lab.





If anyone had any doubts that Wily was a complete asshole...

Blues has no choice and kidnaps Kalinka, but he's not going to be Wily's errand boy anymore. He goes to see one of the few people he considers a friend, Tempo/Quake Woman, who convinces him to let Dr. Lalinde check his system to see if something can be done.






And so my favorite character of the whole Mega Man franchise is born!

Now on to Issue #55.




What follows is a series of splash pages representing the storylines of the following Mega Man games, giving us hints of what we could've seen if the series had continued (or that we will see after the hiatus). We get glimpses of the rest of the classic series, the game boy games (it seems the origin of Quint from MMII was going to be a major storyline and the Stardroids from MMV have some connection to Ra Moon) and the X, Zero, ZX and Legends series.

I decided to post the Mega Man 9 page in particular because this storyline has been foreshadowed in the comics before, with some of it's Robot Masters appearing in previous issues.






And that's all (for now?), folks! Thanks to all the creative team who worked on this great comic, we hope to see you again soon!

Comments

[lonewolf23k]

Dangit, I wanted this series to continue!

[sindra]

There's the possibility it might....we just don't know *when*. Best anyone can do is get ahold of Archie and let them know how much you want it back.

[sindra]

Really disappointed they didn't at least close out this storyline before putting the series on ice, especially with Blue's redemption. They had a really strong thing going here and it's put in stasis on a cliffhanger.

I only partially understand why they're even putting the series on ice, too.

[q99]

I've heard it has something to do with the franchise holders, but really it's just rumors.

[thezmage]

They do have a cartoon coming out soon

[q99]

Which is speculated to be the reason.

[q99]

It's too bad this is the end, there was clearly a lot more planned- even with the short term stories.


Tempo/Quake Woman was the best part of the comic :)

[silverzeo]

Sad to say, I am kinda sad they couldn't work in anything from Starforce or Battle Network (my personal favorite and intro into the franchise),

[mrstatham]

Thing is, because that's an entirely different AU rather than being a straight line through Megaman/X/Zero/ZX, I think they'd have to do a lot of work in justifying the crossover elements. If anything, Battle Network deserved it's own series, IMO, but then the anime was quite good in that respect.

[lbd_nytetrayn]

Not just a different timeline, but a different license as well.

[mrstatham]

Both come from Capcom, though.

[lbd_nytetrayn]

So do Street Fighter and Resident Evil, but doing a Mega Man comic doesn't automatically allow Archie to make comics with them.

Licensing for MMBN is a different beast, and mostly goes through Viz. If you look at the Short Circuits for the last issue of MM, you can see how Archie had to tip-toe to include the BN and SF MMs in some way.

[glprime]

So... only knowing the video games, at what point does Light stop considering them robots and start considering them androids? Or does the world just not allow for that?

[q99]

Well, he's considered Rock/Roll/Blues to be his 'children' since they came on line and treats them basically as people, but he does say there's still a gap.

X and his generation are the next step, fully as mentally flexible and capable of learning as human (like, Megaman was given combat programming in order to fight, which he built upon. X just decided to learn how to fight).

[thezmage]

I just wish they hadn't wasted 8 issues on Sonic crossovers that ultimately had no effect on anything.

[q99]

I agree. I think they helped sales some, and had some good moments, but were pretty straightforward and didn't have the meat of the storylines.

[ozaline]

I really enjoyed them just for the fun factor, but putting the first one in the middle of the set-up of the Ra Moon arc was silly. Perhaps it should have just been told in a stand-alone mini.

[q99]

Right, the timing wasn't ideal, and happened then in large part due to the needs of the Sonic comic- they had some legal issues with a prior writer.

[lbd_nytetrayn]

Actually, the timing was just a happy coincidence as far as Sonic's issues go.

[q99]

Huh, then I wonder why they set it then...

[lbd_nytetrayn]

If I remember right, it was a matter of editorial. I think Capcom said "hey, wanna do this?" and Archie was like "hell yeah!" and they asked SEGA, who were like "sounds fun."

At that point, you probably don't want to give anyone time to get cold feet or change their mind.

[q99]

That'd make sense ^^

Then Worlds Collide, same thing but more so.

[lbd_nytetrayn]

Worlds Unite, but yes. =)

[q99]

Which was a great cameo fest, but IMO didn't have the character moments of the first one.

[lbd_nytetrayn]

If they hadn't done the first one, the book might not have lasted this long.

[lbd_nytetrayn]

The Stardroids/Ra Moon connection was established with Shadow Man's part of the "Legends of the Blue Bomber" portion of the Mega Man 3 adaptation.

Here are the preview pages for that issue, if you want a peek for yourself.