Title: Mega Man #0
Author: Travis Maiden, Chamba, Kenny Ruiz, Edwin Huang, Andrew Dickman
Publisher: Udon Entertainment
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Pages: 32
Final Thoughts
The story for the first installment of the Mega Man Timelines series (although this one wasn’t officially branded as timelines) is pretty simple. The fair is going on, and Wind Man, Cold Man, and Skull Man are all offering their services; however, they recall how they ended up working the fair after they had battled Mega Man. Appropriately titled, “Almost Got ‘im,” we witness each one’s attempts to overcome the blue bomber.
At the end, there is a bit of a fire happening, and Skull Man asks Cold Man to help put it out. After he does so, we see that Mega Man has been laid out. They wonder who would do something like that to him when Bounce Man (or Rubber Man in Japan) appears! With Mega Man down and out, Skull Man, Cold Man, and Wind Man stand at the ready to defend their fallen friend!
And we get hit with the To Be Continued in Mega Man Timelines page to wrap things up!
Overall, this was pretty decent! I didn’t know how to structure this review since I’m used to reviewing manga spanning way longer than 32 pages, but for what we were given, it was a pretty nice introduction. Having the robot master recall their days of fighting Mega Man, realizing that he was only fighting to help them, and then turning to help him against Bounce Man was a pretty nice story. After all, a lot of the games (especially Mega Man 9) saw our defeated robot masters return to the side of good, so this issue played into that theme nicely.
Cold Man’s fight stood out as far as entertainment value was concerned. His ability to concentrate because he kept thinking about ice cream, and then just stopped fighting when Mega Man offered to buy him some, was quite hilarious. However, my only slight disappointment was that this didn’t have the hallmark of Dr. Wily in it. The battles didn’t seem malicious and seemed to take place after they were freed from Dr. Wily’s control. They felt like fun spars more than actual battles to save the world.
This gives this a campy and more relaxed feeling to it while keeping the action intact that we would expect from a battle between robot masters. This story felt more like a “what happened after the fall of Dr. Wily,” more so than anything else. There’s nothing wrong with that, but just stating it in case Mega Man fans were expecting something grittier or more in line with the games.
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This item was purchased for review.
