Monday, March 22, 2021

COMIC REVIEW - Mega Man #1-4 (Dreamwave)

Written by Bryan Augustus
Art by Mic Fong (issues 1-3) and Patrick Spaziante (issues 4)

The short-lived Mega Man comic book from now-defunct publisher Dreamwave is an oddity of sorts. Based on the popular video game series, the comic repurposes Mega Man as a boy robot going to school and keeping his identity as the super fighting robot a secret like a traditional superhero yarn. On occasion, there are superheroics and robot battles, but these seem secondary in comparison to the school life (though things pick up as the series progresses and eventually ends abruptly.)

My issues with this series is numerous, but probably the biggest one being that this never truly felt like a Mega Man series, but rather a series of a boy robot and his adventures in school who took the form of Mega Man and associated side characters because they couldn't be bothered to create their own heroes... despite the fact that they had no problem creating their own robot masters and steel devil villains for Mega Man to fight.

The art isn't too bad; if anything, it keeps the character designs largely consistent with official sources and they didn't detract too far off the beaten path in that regard when it came to creating some of the original humans for this series. The overall style maintains the anime feel you'd associate with Mega Man, but can be a bit messy at times.

In the final issue, a crossover was teased between the classic series and the Mega Man X series, further teasing an X series that never materialized due to Dreamwave shutting its doors. Mega Man would see new life in a long-running comic series from Archie Comics, which did a better job of staying true to the source material than this series ever did. Mega Man's stint at Dreamwave was short and sweet, but nothing about warranted return trips any time soon.

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