YMMV / Mega Man (Archie Comics)

• Anti-Climax Boss: Whenever a game gets adapted, the Robot Masters and assorted major enemy robots really don't come across as major threats since Rock can defeat most of them within two pages, though this is something of a necessary evil due to having to compress six/eight Robot Masters and Dr. Wily's fortress of the week (with all the major enemies located within) within the span of four issues. It can be justified with the first arc, though, since Mega Man was made for combat while the Robot Masters were made for industrial use.
• Arc Fatigue: The arc adapting Mega Man 2 ended at issue 12. The arc adapting Mega Man 3 started at issue 41. In between all of that was the introductory arc for the Emerald Spears, Proto Man's backstory, the Ra Moon arc based off of Super Adventure Rockman, the crossover with Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics) interrupting it, the conclusion of the Ra Moon arc, a set-up for the story of Mega Man 3 that got interrupted with a story arc involving Mega Man X, and then finally the story of Mega Man 3. With yet another crossover in between the 3 adaptation and the final few issues before the hiatus, you'd swear Ian Flynn was trying to hold off on writing the story for Mega Man 4 if not for the fact that said final issues set it up.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Xander Payne, with some viewing him as a breath of fresh air while others think that he's an annoying Creator's Pet. The fact that he's the one who became Mr. X does not help.
  • Dr. Lalinde. Some see her as an interesting foil to Dr. Light and want to see more of her, while others think her erasing Tempo's emotions is horrible and agree with Blues when he says it's unforgivable.
  • Dr. Light became this in later arcs, with some seeing him as a good, if flawed, parent to Mega Man and Roll while others see him as dangerously naive and self-righteous in how he treats the Robot Masters.
  • Tempo/Quake Woman is either seen as an interesting character who adds depth to the series and has a good design, or a boring OC whose design clashes with other humanoid robots. Her Emotionless Girl personality also tainted initial fan reactions, and when her personality was semi-restored debates sprang up over which one was better for her as a character.
• Complete Monster:
  • Ra Moon is a sinister AI who crash-landed on Earth centuries ago with aspirations of control. Manipulating an ancient civilization into worshipping it—and even establishing bloody ritual sacrifice in its name—Ra Moon eventually tires of its slaves and decimates the entire civilization whilst sealing itself underground. Upon returning from dormancy in the present day and being found by Dr. Wily, Ra Moon placidly provides for Wily's conquests before betraying the doctor and revealing its intention to scour the planet of both humans and robots alike, unleashing a global EMP wave and causing worldwide catastrophe. Intending on powering up its wave to boil out the brains of any humans it hasn't already killed, Ra Moon's response to resistance is to turn Wily's own creation against him and order it to start maiming Dr. Wily before murdering him, and brainwashing every Robot Master that stands against it.
  • Vol. 9's "Dawn of X" & Worlds Unite crossover with Sonic the Hedgehog: Sigma was previously a hero and the leader of the Maverick Hunters. However, after fighting for a while, Sigma would start to see Reploids as superior to humans and start a rebellion. Sigma would stage an attack on Arcadia City, bombing the city and having his forces kill off various Maverick Hunters who refused to join Sigma. Sigma returns as a computer virus and travels to the Sonic universe, where he forces Dr. Eggman, Dr. Wily, and the Deadly Six to help him in his plans, mostly with the Unity Engines with which Sigma intends to harness the power of entire worlds and conquer the multiverse. Sigma continues abusing the Genesis Portals—threatening to tear apart reality—all in his plan to become a god.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Agents Stern and Krantz, two badass Original Character police detectives (a grumpy Cool Old Guy and a quick-on-her-feet Reasonable Authority Figure respectively), have become rather popular with fans.
• Franchise Original Sin: Worlds Unite is very obviously trying to run off of the popularity of Worlds Collide, but Unite fails at doing so a lot more miserably. The main "wow factor" of Collide was seeing the two franchises, well, collide, but the story was still being driven forwards by the characters and a plot was still happening. Unite had to raise the bar and massively up the ante on how many properties were included, as just Sonic and Mega Man crossing over was already done — but the pacing greatly suffers as a result. So many pages are dedicated to Pandering and showing off Sega/Capcom characters doing something irrelevant to the plot. Even Ian Flynn sees it this way.
• Growing the Beard: The comic really starts coming into its own at the "Spiritus Ex Machina" story arc. The plot and pacing gets more nuanced, the comic starts exploring some darker themes, a more solid overall plot is set up, and several important characters are introduced.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Near the end of Issue #44, Mega Man comforts Spark Man by saying that Dr. Light will reprogram him and that he will be reunited with his brothers. Once he and his brothers do get reprogrammed five issues later, half of them choose to be decommissioned. Poor Spark Man.
  • Issue #53 has Guts Man mention how he'd like to be put up on display in the newly built Robot Museum once his time was up - a thought Mega Man finds distressing. Those who've played Mega Man 7 will know this will not only come to pass, but Mega Man will have to battle Guts Man again.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: In "The Return of Dr. Wily" Arc, the mad roboticist starts claiming he's using technology "From Beyond the Stars" and pretends to be an alien. Next arc, he discovers Ra Moon which is alien technology.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Ra Moon crosses it by activating his worldwide EMP, the effects of which are more devastating than in Super Adventure Rockman.
  • Doctor Wily has several moments that could be considered this in #45, but standout among them is his conversation with Light about Blues.
    Doctor Light: "Break Man." You think I don't recognize my own boy?
    Doctor Wily: He's mine now.
• Older Than They Think: The concept of an IC chip being the source of a Robot Master's personality may come off as a plot point invented by the comics, when in reality it was canon for the games as early as 1994. It was also referred to in the Japanese manual as a "central core", though not elaborated on, since the very first game.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Auto is less annoying here and actually has some funny moments.
• Tainted by the Preview: The unveiling of the first original story arc (Spiritus Ex Machina) attracted negative reception for Dr. Light apparently dating Dr. Lalinde and the presence of OC scientists and Robot Masters. Thankfully, this got better as the issues came out.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: An accidental case since the comic was abruptly canceled, but Vesper Woman added a cute, active little sister dynamic for Tempo and opened the door for more OC robots, but only appeared in the second-last issue.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Again, due to cancellation, the plotline for Mega Man 4 was shaping up to be a very interesting one as it likewise looked to be tying into the sixth game too (For one Mr. X isn't Wily but rather an aged Xander Payne that got thrown into the past following the Worlds Unite crossover who was forcing Wily to cooperate with him). But just as the story was getting off the ground, the "hiatus" order from Archie came down and pretty much nixed those plans. We're only just given a glimpse of the storyline in issue 20 (Rock of Ages) and final the issue in #55.
• Too Good to Last: A fantastic comic adaptation of the games while likewise giving some nice adaptational world building. Alas, this didn't translate to sales, the comic struggled with readership. Likely because, at the time, there wasn't any Mega Man games from Capcom in the interim to bring in new fans (unlike Sonic whose comic started at the height of his games' popularity and was kept afloat by a dedicated fanbase even during his slump after the 32X and Saturn failed in America). This likewise wasn't helped that this was during the era Capcom kept cancelling any potential Mega Man games that were being developed. Thus only dedicated fans really read it, but it wasn't enough for Archie to warrant keeping it going. Despite attempts to save the comic, it ultimately went "on hiatus" in 2015 and the fanbase have pretty much accepted it won't be coming back, barring some miraculous transfer of ownership. (Especially considering a plot point hinged on a certain character in the second crossover with Sonic. And since that series isn't with Archie anymore, welp...)
• Unexpected Character: Madam Y is a revamped version◊ of a character from an obscure, but official, one-off alternate universe piece◊.
• The Woobie:
  • Blues/Break Man/Proto Man. More so than most portrayals.
  • Needle Man falls into this in Issue #43.
  • Ditto with Spark Man in Issue #44.

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