I was asked this, and felt I should answer as a post rather than as a simple (non-rebloggable) answer… because it’s a bit long.

“Are there any stories or concepts in the Transformers franchise that you consider almost as bad as Novas Aventuras de Megaman? ~RADIX”

Even with the “almost” there, which does actually make a huge difference…. to be honest? No.

That’s not to say that Transformers hasn’t given us some absolutely shitty pieces of fiction. Pat Lee’s original 6-issue opener is abysmal on almost every level. The Beast Within takes everything that was horrible about the Dreamwave era and concentrates it into a super-powerful slurry of suck. ”B.O.T.” remains -to me- the stupidest episode of any TF cartoon ever, yes, even more stupid than anything in Energon, which is a nigh-total waste of a series. And the first half of Kiss Players is something that… wugh.

BUT. The reason none of these offend me on the level Novas Aventuras does is not really because of the storytelling or art or anything, but because of the nature of Transformers versus classic Mega Man as a fictional setting, and their intended audiences.

It was established pretty early on that Transformers could be a goofball adventure as it was in the cartoon… but could also go dark and serious, if not outright grim. Hell, this is the series that ended its original 4-part comic story (which was originally going to be the last issue of the entire series!) with a powerful new villain coming in and effectively killing all the good guys save one, and the next issue we see he’s strung their corpses up on the ceiling and decapitated Optimus Prime. And it more or less remained a much more serious and occasionally depressing take on the franchise, moments of goofy aside (and honestly? I enjoy “Buster Witwicky and the Car Wash of Doom”). Transformers: The Movie had a severe tonal shift from the preceding cartoon, putting out something excessively violent and bleak, and the third season of the cartoon followed up on that… while it was never as dark as The Movie (thank goodness), it still had a much more serious tone overall and a lot less goofball “wacky kids adventure toon” stuff.

Transformers, as a franchise, is amazingly versatile, and that includes its fictional tone. Thanks to the early variance, it can really work as a wacky adventure for kids, a whiz-bang special-effects extravaganza, a horror story, a tale of gods (or god-like beings) determining the fate of all of reality, etc. The only thing I ever found that didn’t “fit” was the sheer level of rape imagery in Kiss Players… but you could remove that from the narrative and the underlying story and events, while still amazingly dark, actually pretty well fit into the TF tonal rainbow. There’s a world of difference between the preschool-aimed Rescue Bots cartoon (which his great, by the way) and IDW’s adult-aimed output, which has included some great stories that simply aren’t kid-aimed on any level, like atrocity-laden bloodbaths (Last Stand of the Wreckers) and socio-political tales (the current Robots in Disguise series). Yet both manage to feel “right”. And even when Transformers is awful… rarely, if ever, does it not FEEL like Transformers.

Classic Mega Man doesn’t have that flexibility. This is not inherently a bad thing at all. But it is a big thing, and it’s a thing we have concrete proof of. In the R20/Official Complete Works book, series guru Keji Inafune pretty explicitly lays out one of the “rules” of classic Mega Man, when he apologizes for the existence of Super Adventure Rockman, in part due to its level of violence:

“The ultimate unspoken rule about making a game that is geared towards children is that you simply cannot kill anyone, but here you have military helicopters falling out of the sky and people dying in droves… If we, as developers, start getting confused about what ‘safe for children’ means, we’d not only be betraying our players, but I’d feel like I was betraying every single creator that ever put time into the series.”

It’s pretty blatant that classic Mega Man is a series aimed at little kids even without Inafune laying it out like that. That’s not to say you can’t tell “kids” story that can be serious and appeals to older sensibilities; the Archie comic is currently doing a great job of that very thing (this is also one of the big strengths of Rescue Bots and My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic). Even Ariga’s more violent and adult-aimed Megamix/Gigamix series lacks a human bodycount.

Novas Aventuras de Megaman, however… we are explicitly shown numerous human deaths, carried out by classic characters. Christ, the (thankfully) final issue has a voodoo doctor excavating a heart from a just-murdered girls’ ribcage. And let us not forget that Roll spends numerous episodes running around in little more than robo-pasties and a metal strapless bikini-bottom. It is an orgy of brainless violence. It would never have gotten Capcom of Japan or Capcom of America’s approval, and I’m fairly convinced the only reason it got any level of approval is because nobody at Capcom of Brazil or wherever actually looked at it before saying “yeah sure that’s fine”.

This is on top of all its other many many many problems as a narrative. It’s not telling a classic Mega Man or Mega Man X story in any capacity, it is merely (and barely) using those names and images for its own idiotic ends, and doing so poorly.

It is, in pretty much every sense, a betrayal of Mega Man, and nothing Transformers has put out has hit such a level.

An old photo of an old toy display.

You know what? I think it’s coming. Seriously.

And it’s NOT going to be because of the release of any game. Nope.

It’s going to come from a successful, long-running comic, a series of manga and art books, and a steady stream of merchandise both low-end (keychains, nostalgic t-shirts, etc) and high-end (really damn nice model kits and collectible figures).

Because THAT is the stuff that grows the brand beyond a video game and keeps it going. You think Batman or Spider-Man are huge now based solely on their media of genesis, comic books? Hell no. It’s all the stuff around it.

The merchandise, the books, all this stuff we have now isn’t “extra”. It’s VITAL. It fuels the whole thing. It drums up interest in those who may have lost interest. It makes money which can then be funneled into… more games!

Mega Man needs to be more than games. It need to be a piece of IP people want to make NOT-GAME THINGS out of. Seriously, I envy the Sonic fans at the moment. At least they can buy action figures of at least some of their characters at Target.

Sure, be sad we didn’t get two games. I’ll even allow a little anger, provided it’s not followed by months of barfing all over every dimly-releated-to-MM-thread about Capcom’s jihad against their own property that you made up in your head.

But holy crap, look and recognize that what we are getting is the kind of stuff a strong franchise needs.

And that’s pretty awesome.

Hah ha. But seriously. Shut up.

It galls me, the depths of whining immaturity I’ve seen from the Mega Man fandom in the last several months. It’s at the point where even simple, positive, fun stuff is greeted with FUCK YOU CAPCOM YOU GET NO MONEY UNTIL YOU MAKE THE GAME I HAVE DECIDED I DESERVE YOU ARE KICKING THE FANDOM IUN THE NUTS BWARRRGH, Veruca-Salt-like solipsistic temper-tantrums. Every single news item is greeted with a slurry of people’s bitter confirmation bias, as they have determined that Capcom is personally pissing on their cornflakes out of sheer spite.

They’re not. I’m ready to, though.

It’s okay to be disappointed that they’re not making Mega Man Legends 3. I am.

It’s okay to be disappointed that so far, the classic Mega isn’t part of the fighting roster in Ultimate Marvel Vs. Capcom 3. I kinda am, but I recognize the gameplay issues that make him a bit redundant.

It’s NOT okay to scream like a howler monkey with its nuts slammed in a car door over any of it.

It’s NOT okay to piss all over every thread concerning MM cameos in current Capcom projects because it’s not a full MM game.

It’s downright STUPID to constantly claim that Capcom hates Mega Man and is attempting to kill the franchise. That flies in the face of facts, recent history, and logic.

All that does is make you look like a self-absorbed, spoiled ass.

If Capcom wanted to kill Mega Man, why would they okay the sheer amount of books and merchandise for the franchise? There’s been quite the flood of that stuff lately, an amount we haven’t had since the early 90’s. Why would they okay a new comic series? Why are you people complaining about this? The success of the non-game merchandise can only help get more games made in the future! Why would they make MM references and cameos to it in current product if they wanted to kill the franchise? What, exactly, is the Evil Plot there?

And the claim betrays people’s short-sightedness and selective memory. It wasn’t so long ago that we got two new MM games, and MM playable characters in another one of Capcom’s big crossover fighters (admittedly, it was a way bigger deal in Japan than in the US, but still). Never mind the steady stream of re-released older MM games on the Virtual Console and DS download services, bringing the joys of the old games to new audiences.

People, it’s not the 90’s anymore, thank Pesci. The gaming landscape has changed, and with it, many of the faces of it. Ever Street Fighter, the franchise that TRULY put Capcom on the map, has taken a step back from prominence in favor of other franchises that have risen up. Look at the SF presence in UMVC3. You have the two characters who are pretty much givens in any Capcom crossover fighter, one villain (because the Capcom roster is shy of villains), and then one from SF’s newest iteration. And that jives with Marvel’s roster too; not so many X-Men, a much broader range of characters, including numerous faces new to the fighter scene. (Hell, has Iron Fist even been in a video game before? And why doesn’t Phoenix Wright deserve his time in the spotlight? I think he’s a great choice, especially since he sure doesn’t play like anyone else… and is hilarious to boot.) Franchises ebb and flow constantly, not just Capcom’s, but for virtually all companies with big “mascots”. But legacy franchises like MM and SF will continue on. Just not all at once.

(Another aside: for my money, the deluge of MM games in the mid-90’s was one of the big problems with the franchise. We’d get like three games a year, and they were all pretty samey on the whole. That doesn’t help things at all.)

But above and beyond all that… for the life of me, I cannot fathom why people are getting so frothingly angry over what is simply a small ebb for the franchise… at least, not without calling into question their general emotional and mental health. It’s a GAME. Moreover, it’s a game series intended primarily for CHILDREN. That doesn’t mean you need to act like one when you don’t get your way. You do not deserve the game, you are not entitled to the game. The only valid reason to be genuinely angry about this would be if Capcom actually sold the game to you, with an exchange of currency, and then took it away and issued no refund. Hell, you wouldn’t have even known the game existed were it not for the unusual circumstances surrounding its development. It’s NOT that important. Your life will go on.

Or maybe it’s just John Gabriel’s Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory in action.

Either way, it’s really obnoxious, and it should stop.

Okay, a little backdrop first. A few years ago, Matt Karpowich (of the Obscure Transformers Website, among other projects) got in touch with Joe Ruby of Ruby-Spears Productions for some interview stuff. Knowing I was a Mega Man fan, I got the chance to do a dedicated set of questions based on the MM cartoon. Some interesting tidbits came from it, but for one reason or another, neither interview got published.

Until now.

So here we go. Here’s one of the big boys of animation, co-creator of Scooby-Doo, answering a few questions (and debunking a few rumors!) on the American Mega Man cartoon. Enjoy!

*****

When did the cartoon series first begin early production?

JR: 1994

Capcom had said that the series was originally to follow the Japanese character designs from the games. But at the time, test audiences didn’t care for the look, so the character designer was tasked with coming up with several different looks for the main characters. Can you elaborate on this process, and what other styles were tested?

JR: As I recall, the only designs we saw were of the original MegaMan. We felt he was too young for our audience, so we made him a teenager and proportioned him as a well-built athlete type.

Had you started this project, say, a year later, do you think that Japanese animation’s growing stylistic acceptance would have changed the way the series was made?

JR: Not necessarily. The concept was not hard adventure, but a lighter action series with some comedy, done in a retro 1980’s style.

What reference material was used when developing the series? Were you given any of the Japanese comics to look at, or simply the US games and artwork?

JR: There were no comics, but written material about the game and its characters, both present and future. Also, we were given all the character artwork that appeared in the games, and copies of the U.S. games.

MegaMan’s trademark is his ability to use the weapons of his beaten opponents. One aspect of this ability is that he changes color when he uses one of his enemy’s weapons in the games. Was this dropped from the cartoon simply for the sake of the animators?

JR: Yes. Especially with so many characters colored red, black and yellow, it would get visually confusing in animation. What we did is have an animated effect as MM absorbed the enemy’s power into his “power arm.”

What prompted the decision to make ProtoMan a villain? Even though he was painted as one in the MegaMan 5 game (which would have been the most recent game when the project was started), it was revealed to be a frame-job by Dr. Wily, the series’ perennial villain.

JR: I don’t recall exactly. But it had to come from Capcom to make him that way, either directly, or from the materials we were given.

You guys developed the most widely recognized canine cartoon star in the world, Scooby-Doo… I have to ask, how much of Scooby is in MegaMan’s robo-pooch Rush?

JR: Well, he didn’t eat Scooby Snacks. Actually, we tried to keep his character as different as possible. But a goofy dog that talks will always be likened to Scooby. Especially if we do it.

A semi-major character from the game series, Dr. Cossack, never appeared in the cartoon. Was this simply to keep the series from getting too complicated, cast-wise?

JR: That sounds right.

One of the things that really struck me about the cartoon was its portrayal of MegaMan’s sister, Roll. Her role prior had been little more than stay home, worry about MegaMan, and occasionally get kidnapped. The US Roll, however, jumps right into the action, and does her fair share of dismantling Wily’s robots armed with little more than souped-up versions of common tools. What brought on this change to a more gutsy Roll?

JR: It (excuse the non-intended pun) broadened the show, gave more interplay and gags, and hopefully would attract some girl audience. (Also, it showed were not male chauvinistic pigs as our wives think)

Scott McNeil, who voiced Wily, ProtoMan, and probably a few dozen other characters, had mentioned that originally, Wily was meant to have a British accent rather than the more stereotypical (yet far more fun) faux-German-Slavic accent. Also that ProtoMan was also to be voiced by MegaMan’s actor, Ian Corlett, to play up their “same plans” origins. Are there any other pre-production changes that you can recall in regards to the character portrayal?

JR: Wiley’s voice characterization came out of a Japanese MM educational film in which they portrayed him speaking Japanese with a German accent. We had been asked to recast and re-record the film into English and that’s how some of the voices came to be, or followed that theme.

How much say-so did Bandai have in the development of the series? The second season seemed to heavily feature the Wily Robots who had been made into action figures, as well as repeated appearances of MegaMan’s new armors and vehicles, which were slated to be produced for the toy line as well (but never released, sadly).

JR: As I recall, they had an exec that would go over the scripts to insure that the toy villains were being used. The second season, we had meetings with the execs regarding the look, selection, and use of the new toys in the scripts.

Outside of that, what say did Capcom have in which Wily Robots showed up in any given episode?

JR: I believe they went along with the toy company.

The Mega Man cartoon apparently scored big ratings in syndication. Why was the series ended after this second season? Did it have anything to do with the Bandai-made toy line being cut short (a fate it shared with other licenses like The Tick, Sailor Moon, and -for a time- Dragon Ball)? Or was it ultimately Capcom’s decision?

JR: Probably all the above and more, which we were not privy to. Obviously, we were looking forward to continuing the series, which was fun to do, and, had great ratings.

Had the series continued, would we have seen characters from more recent games, or even the Mega Man games that were exclusive to the Nintendo Game Boy?

JR: We were planning on integrating the new Mega X character and game materials into the new shows.

THE RUMOR MILL

Here, there aren’t so much questions, but nuggets of info we had picked up and have always wanted official verification/debunking of. Any of these you can comment on would be VERY appreciated.

Some of the most persistent rumors concerning the cartoon series are about the third season that never happened. According to rumor, the season was cut after only one episode was finished (“Crime of the Century”, in which Wily uses remote-controlled toys to pull off heists), but was planned as a full 13-episode run.

JR: Nothing was cut short. It was decided just to make the one additional episode. And that completed the package.

Another big rumor is that this third season would have introduced Bass, MegaMan’s new rival from the game series, who would replace ProtoMan as Wily’s Number Two in order to tie into the current game setup. And following that, Proto would become more the Racer-X to Mega’s Speed Racer, as is the setup in the games.

JR: Guess it was just a rumor. That thinking never reached us if that was true.

Of course, there’s the second-season episode “Mega X”, which featured the debut of Capcom’s related Mega Man X series to animation. Again, the rumor mill has it that Mega Man X was to get his own spin-off cartoon (and accompanying toy line), but that too never came to be.

JR: Yes, that was true, as far as I can recall.

Thank you for your time, and thank you for giving us the cartoon!

- Greg Sepelak

Hey! You’re very welcome.

- Joe Ruby

*****

Be sure to check out the other part of the interview at ASM, which also includes several pieces of production art for the MM toon, like character models and storyboards!

I’ve been fucking around playing old Capcom arcade games on the PSP most of the non-work day. I should really be more productive.

But Magic Sword won’t play itself.

Seriously, am I the only Mega Man fan who’s just a weeeee bit tired of the caterwauling?

Mega Man Universe looked like lukewarm crap at best. I’m actually kind of glad it was killed. I can’t disagree with the character roster for Ultimate Marvel Vs. Capcom 3, especially since I’m thinking about more than “just throw some guy I like in there” and looking at “how would they play and would that make them too redundant?” (PROTIP: That makes character selection a LOT harder.)

And yes, I’m disappointed in the cancellation of Legends 3. And yeah, I’m a bit suspicious as to why, but then again, we also would barely have known about this game at all if they hadn’t opened the development up to fan-votes. I’m sure more games than we ever know about die around the same point in the development cycle.

Despite my personal disappointment, I’m not about to sit here and wail like a wounded gibbon that Capcom is intentionally killing Mega Man. That idea is just dumb, people.

So they showed us the 12 new fighters for Ultimate Marvel Vs Capcom 3 today.

Firebrand. Phoenix Wright. ROCKET RACCOON.

Oh man. Wow.