BW Media Spotlight

Mega Man’s first appearance outside of video games was in NBC’s Captain N: The Game Master, and wasn’t the best interpretation. Granted there was only one game at the time and none of the other NES characters were all that accurate, especially in the first season. I think it gets too much hate but the show clearly had flaws.

In 1994 a Mega Man solo cartoon was created for syndication, a co-production of Asahi Productions in Japan and Ruby-Spears Productions in the US, with Canadian voiceover company Ocean Group providing the English voices. So you’ll recognize some of the voices. It does take liberties with the lore, but as far as Proto Man being evil in this version, I remember speculation that it was because the character appeared to be evil in Mega Man IV, the most recent NES game to have come out. Unless you played the game you didn’t know why he supposedly kidnapped Dr. Light and started acting like Wily. The characters personalities could work, though they went for an older take on Rock and Roll versus the designs we usually see.

In Mega Man we get a more superhero approach to the character. Rather than reliving the game it’s the scheme of the week approach. That worked for two seasons and I even used a show-only character called Brain Bot from the first season as a character in my failed sprite comic, Tales From The Spriteverse, as a sort of guide for my original character do not steal. Tonight, however, we look at the first episode, explaining the origin of the battle between the Blue Bomber and Dr. Wily in this continuity, through flashback after Mega Man is damaged while Wily and some of his bots (oddly from the first game despite the bad Proto Man being from the fourth) take over the airport. Enjoy.

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