Character Analysis: Classic Mega Man (Remix/Megamix/Gigamix)

(Warning: This blog will contain spoilers on this continuity of Classic Mega Man. If you do not want to be spoiled, do not read this blog)

Mega Man (Classic)

General Information


  • Known aliases: Rock, DLN. 001
  • Species: Robot Master
  • Sex/Gender: Male
  • Age: Unknown physically, A.I. age should be as old as his Canon self (11 years old)
  • Weight: 125 kg (Same as Canon self)
  • Height: 1.32 meters (Same as Canon self)
  • Occupation: Household Robot, Combat Robot

Background

In the year 20XX, with the advancement of science, humanity was able to create industrial humanoid robots for all sorts of purposes. This was all thanks to a breakthrough in the field of robotics by its leading and foremost authority in the field, Dr. Thomas Light (also known as the Father of Modern Robotics). Dr. Light, despite having won countless titles, honors and being a top class student in the Robot Institute of Technology, would constantly encounter failure and rejection to one of his ultimate goals: create robots with spirits just to give humanity another race to coexist with. Through countless research and countless failures, Dr. Light would succeed in building the first proper robot with a spirit: Doctor Light Number 001, Rock.

Rock is the first of the Dr. Light Number line of Robots (actually second, but that’s a digression) and could be seen as an elderly brother to all of the other subsequent Light Robots Roll, Cut Man, Guts Man, Ice Man, Bomb Man, Fire Man and Elec Man. Not only was he like a brother to them, but also would be like a son to Dr. Light, having the body and mind modelled to be that of a 11 year old. Family aside, Rock was firstly and most importantly a lab assistant and housekeeping robot, assisting Dr. Light in all sorts of lab-related work at home and helping Roll with housekeeping chores. It would seem like the world was slowly and safely accepting the coexistence of robots and humans in an era of peace. However, this would all change for not just Rock, but the whole world on one fateful day…

On that day, Dr. Light had received some news out of the blue: his own industrial robots had run amok wreaking havoc across different sectors of the world. As it turns out, they had been hijacked and reprogrammed by someone with a face all too familiar to Light: Dr. Albert Wily, former college rival and fellow robot engineer renowned for his talents in Robotics. It would seem like Dr. Wily finally had enough of living in Dr. Light’s shadow for too long and became hellbent on ruling the whole world. Rock, due to possessing a strong heart and a stout sense of justice despite his pacifist nature, would muster up their determination to fight and bring back his brothers from Dr. Wily's control. However, Dr. Light knew all too well that Rock in his current state would not stand a chance against his younger siblings. Therefore, at Rock’s request and a rampant sense of urgency, Dr. Light decided to upgrade Rock into the super fighting robot we all know and love: Mega Man.

From this day on, Mega Man would take up on the job as the protector of Earth and its peace where he would repel many different attempts at taking over the world and even alien invasions that would threaten the existence of said planet itself & even the greater cosmos itself. Though in some cases he’d be in a constant uphill battle, he would never give up trying to be a symbol of hope for both humans and robots. For he... is Mega Man.

Abilities and Equipment

Mega Buster


The Mega Buster, Mega Man's most iconic weapon, is a weapon that is built into both of his arms. This weapon compresses Mega Man's solar energy that his Light Ceramic Titanium (hereinafter called Ceratanium) body  collects and fires it as solar bullets. In other words, the ammunition of his buster shots is virtually unlimited. It can fire normal buster bullet shots, but if Rock charges his shot, he can fire a much bigger shot that Mega Man calls 'the Super Mega Buster'. He can even fire shots that look like lasers as well. But the most notable feature of the Mega Buster by far is the Variable Weapon System.

Variable Weapon System


The Variable Weapon System is Mega Man's greatest asset in combat. It is a system that allows Rock to analyze, copy the weapons of other robots and use them for himself. It is even shown that he does not need to defeat the Robot Masters to copy their abilities. This system in particular was noted to be one of Dr. Light's greatest achievements and is so advanced robot engineers of the 22nd Century would still not be able to replicate this system for common purposes. This combat system carries countless possibilities, allowing him to copy the following weapons from the Robot Masters:

Color Code per type of weapon: Cutter/Boomerang, Earth/Metal/Mineral, Ice, Explosive, Fire/Heat, Electricity, Air, Water, Light/Laser, Space-Time/Gravity, Homing, Bioinspired, Other

Doctor Light Numbers (First Set)

  • Rolling Cutter: A cutter made of ceratanium that boasts high resistance to corrosion and extreme temperatures.
  • Super Arm: An ability that augments the user's strength to be able to lift heavy objects and easily withstand the strain of constantly lugging said heavy objects around. It can even be used to break free from being grabbed by foes bigger than himself.
  • Ice Slasher: 3 slashes of ice that can freeze enemies it hits and rapidly cool down hot surfaces.
  • Hyper Bomb: A bomb mainly used for terrain demolition. The area of effect of this bomb can be controlled by many micro-explosives that detonate after the detonation of the main bomb. The micro-explosions cancel out the big explosive's shockwave with their own small shockwaves.
  • Fire Storm: A flamethrower that shoots out flames with temperatures ranging between 7000-8000 degrees Celsius, allowing the user to burn anything.
  • Thunder Beam: A high-frequency discharge of electromagnetic energy that can ionize other electromagnetic fields and give enemies a very damaging shock.
  • Time Slow: An ability that can slow down the flow of time in the vicinity of the user by directly manipulating the speed of light within the same vicinity. (See FAQ for more info on this)
  • Oil Slider: Oil that is shaped and can be ridden like a board. This is due to the oil consisting of 2 layers with both having different viscosities. The layer where the user stands on has high viscosity so the user won't slip off the Oil Slider, while the layer making contact with the floor has low viscosity so it can keep on sliding.

Doctor Wily Numbers (First Set)

  • Metal Blade: A buzz saw composed of ceratanium, granting it high resistance to corrosion and extreme temperatures.
  • Air Shooter: An attack that converts highly compressed air into a devastating tornado by using its shockwaves from the highly compressed air and building its energy from their superposition to further amplify the power of the tornado. This can be used to deflect projectiles and can act as a shield.
  • Bubble Lead: A weapon that generates bubbles by manipulating electromagnetic fields to induce extensive hydrogen bonding among many water molecules. The bubbles contain sulfuric acid which is harmful for the target and makes the bubble harder to pop by increasing its pliancy. When popped, the liquid in the bubble goes into a superfluid state allowing it to seep into small openings in machinery/armors to do further internal damage.
  • Quick Boomerang: Miniature boomerangs that move at high speeds and hit the target with sharp cuts.
  • Crash Bomber: A heat-sensing bomb that can attach itself to any surface by piercing it with its protruding tip. If it senses a certain amount of heat in its tip, it instantly detonates. Otherwise, it sets itself to detonate after a certain period of time.
  • Time Stopper: Another ability that can outright stop time for awhile by manipulating the speed of light in the vicinity. (See FAQ for more information on this)
  • Atomic Fire: Another flamethrower capable of launching plasma as hot as 12,000 degrees Celsius by manipulating the plasma's own magnetic field.
  • Leaf Shield: A shield weapon that can generate a shield composed of leaf-shaped ceratanium bits orbiting the user by means of an electromagnetic field.

Doctors Light/Wily Numbers

  • Needle Cannon: A small railgun that fires large conical needles at a rate of 16 shots per second. Due to the firing mechanism being via electromagnetic induction, the recoil on the buster is minimal. Most of the momentum is packed on the tip of the needle, therefore its piercing ability is lethal, allowing a shot from it to pierce even bedrock.
  • Magnet Missile: A homing missile that uses a magnetic sensor to detect the position of targets and change direction. When close, the alternating magnetic field causes the missile to adhere to the target making it impossible to dodge.
  • Gemini Laser: A particle-beam weapon that uses the principle of Wave-Particle Duality to be able to hit targets that have thoughts. Thoughts have a certain wavelength, and the elementary particles within the laser react to those thoughts, damaging the target. The laser bounces off of anything else that doesn't have thoughts as it assumes it contains infinite potential energy.
  • Hard Knuckle: Knuckle-shaped missiles whose trajectories can be controlled by the user's thoughts.
  • Top Spin: An ability that allows the user to spin in place rapidly, not only allowing the user to attack effectively, but also be resistant to most attacks.
  • Search Snake: Miniature snake-shaped robots that have multiple active & passive sensors (lasers, ultrasonic waves, EM waves, infrared sensors, etc.) all for the purpose of investigating all sorts of terrains and sending back information to the user on the terrain. Best suited for stealth & information warfare.
  • Spark Shock: A discharge of electricity capable of short-circuiting robots.
  • Shadow Blade: A large shuriken made of extraterrestrial metal. Exact details of it are unknown.

Doctor Cossack Numbers

  • Flash Stopper: A light-emitting ability that emits up to 1 million watts of light, causing blindness on the enemy and paralyse them. In other words, it gives the enemy a seizure.
  • Rain Flush: An ability that can create localized acid rains. The ability works by sending a capsule flying into the sky, detonating so the chemicals within the bomb react to the sky to create an acid rain cloud, and then it produces the rain.
  • Drill Bomb: A bomb that is capable of drilling into bedrock, produce 'stress singularities' and then detonating to hit them. The user can even detonate the bomb before hitting the enemy.
  • Pharaoh Shot: A shot of concentrated energy. The energy is obtained from the surrounding light, whether it's in the infrared or ultraviolet end of the spectrum. Even in dark places, if there's a heat source, the user can extract its infrared light and turn it into an energy shot. This also applies to the internal heat of the Earth itself.
  • Ring Boomerang: A ring-shaped boomerang that's easy to use and mainly used for inflicting blunt trauma and even restraining enemies.
  • Dust Crusher: A burst of compressed waste (even metal particles) that is shot by compressing air and using it to cause the compressed waste to explode after being fired.
  • Dive Missile: A homing missile that works both underwater with ultrasonic sensors and on land with a laser tracking system.
  • Skull Barrier: A barrier that the user employs by creating an electromagnetic field around themselves to spread the Skull Barrier bits. The mobility of the user is limited when this is employed.

Doctor Wily Numbers (Second Set)

  • Gravity Hold: The ability to manipulate gravity based on the theory that gravitational fields are essentially spatial distortions. It allows the user to abuse the fact that gravity directs itself towards gravitational singularities by spawning them in. The creation of these gravitational singularities requires an object with mass, and the user can spawn a singularity inside of an opponent as well.
  • Water Wave: A water wave that comes out of the ground by injecting a high-pressure stream of water into it. It acts in accordance to Pascal's Law that under pressure, a liquid doesn't compress in volume, and that the pressure is equally distributed to all surfaces the liquid touches.
  • Power Stone: A pair of extremely dense stones that orbit around the user. This orbit happens due to the stones being so dense they have a gravitational pull strong enough for the 2 stones to attract to one another.
  • Gyro Attack: A remote controlled propeller that can hit the target from afar and at different elevations.
  • Star Crash: A barrier that the user employs by creating a gravitational field around themselves and spreading star bits around it. This is a barrier that can be weaponized by inverting the gravitational field away from the user toward the target.
  • Charge Kick: A tackle that generates a lot of thermal heat further increasing the damage output of the tackle and making the user briefly invulnerable to attacks due to the heat nullifying incoming attacks.
  • Napalm Bomb: A powerful bomb that weaponizes napalm. Miniature bombs stored inside of the Napalm Bomb help spread the area of effect of the ensuing 'fire storm' (not to be confused by Fire Man's Fire Storm).
  • Crystal Eye: A large crystalline ball that contains several smaller crystalline balls which scatter on impact. These crystals are made through hydrothermal processing (a processing method involving high pressures & temperatures with water to induce chemical reactions).

Mr. X Numbers

  • Blizzard Attack: An attack that gathers all of the moisture in the surrounding air into the user's body and chills it to then release it towards the opponent. The result is a blizzard that freezes the opponent to the core.
  • Centaur Arrow: An energy arrow with long range.
  • Centaur Flash: An ability that gives the user pseudo-teleportation. This is done by the manipulation of space within the vicinity, effectively compressing it in the direction of travel. The reason this is pseudo-teleportation is because the user's actually moving at speeds faster than light (hereinafter acronym'd FTL) and this FTL movement is usually perceived by the opponent as warping.
  • Flame Blast: A shot of solid fuel that has been compressed under an oxygen-free and 4000 degree Celsius environment. When it hits the ground, it reacts to the oxygen in the air, causing the flames to erupt into a column of fire.
  • Knight Crush: A spiked ball flail that packs a punch. The spikes on the mace cause the target's Modulus of Elasticity to decrease, effectively allowing for the power to more efficiently transfer.
  • Plant Barrier: Another barrier that the user employs by creating an electromagnetic field around themselves to spread the Plant Barrier bits.
  • Silver Tomahawk: An extra light tomahawk that is easy to use while moving around due to the center of gravity and axis of rotation being at the hilt. When thrown, it moves in a convex, parabolic curve. This unfortunately gives the weapon a blind spot that can be exploited.
  • Wind Storm: An attack that weaponizes hot air into a vortex that can damage enemies through convection (the transfer of heat energy via movement of a fluid).
  • Yamato Spear: A spear that can be used to attack. The tip of this spear can also be used as a long range projectile.

Doctor Wily Numbers (Third Set)

  • Freeze Cracker: A shot of ice that shatters into multiple pieces when it hits the target. This triggers a thermosiphon phenomenon via an endothermic reaction between 2 layers of frozen water vapour -both of which contain different chemical compounds- which causes the target to freeze.
  • Junk Shield: Another barrier that the user employs by creating an electromagnetic field that holds any junk in the vicinity as bits.
  • Danger Wrap: A small bomb that is wrapped in a rubber-like bubble. The rubber-like property allows the bubble to maintain their shape on the ground. Inside of the bubble, there is also flammable gas which amplifies the force and area of effect of the explosion.
  • Thunder Bolt: A shot of electrostatic energy that takes in the form of a lightning strike.
  • Wild Coil: A couple of springs that boast high offensive and defensive capabilities due to their ability to store energy and reflect it back. If any current flows through the springs, the springs become electromagnets due to the generated magnetic flux.
  • Slash Claw: A miniaturized asteroid cutter that emits a short-range shockwave. This shockwave is an ultra-hot plasma that is generated by the air being compressed adiabatically around the claw. If any target comes in contact with this plasma, the target is broken down at the molecular level and disintegrated.
  • Noise Crush: An ability that allows the user to shoot ultrasonic waves by converting their electrical energy into it. With this weapon equipped, one can even absorb previously shot ultrasonic waves to convert it into surplus electrical energy allowing the next shot to be far more powerful.
  • Scorch Wheel: A wheel of hot fire that rolls across the ground.

Doctor Wily Numbers (Fourth Set)

  • Tornado Hold: A large fan that weaponizes the power of an artificial typhoon. It generates a strong updraft with strong directivity effectively sucking in nearby objects.
  • Astro Crush: A rain of meteorite-shaped interdimensional energy. This is achieved by generating a four-dimensional space around the user, and the energy builds up in the discontinuity between the higher-dimensional 4D space and the lower-dimensional 3D space. At a certain threshold, it rains down from what the target can only assume to be out of nowhere.
  • Flame Sword: A flaming sword that weaponizes the heat of the user.
  • Thunder Claw: A claw that the user weaponizes to latch onto the target and transfer electrical energy into it causing damage.
  • Homing Sniper: A homing weapon that has multiple sensors to reduce flight speed in order to increase accuracy.
  • Ice Wave: A wave-shaped sequence of blades of ice that is created by summoning a small machine that sucks in the surrounding air, liquifies it and expels it back out resulting in heat vaporization causing the low-pressurized air to solidify.
  • Flash Bomb: A multi-warhead weapon that combines both a flash grenade with a conventional bomb. It achieves a perfect balance between illumination & destructive power by detonating them one after the other with a time delay.
  • Water Balloon: A shot of water that possesses highly oxidizing power capable of dissolving most materials. The diffusion capabilities of this supercritical fluid are comparable to that of a gas, therefore any direct hit would make it more difficult to mitigate further damage.

Doctors Light Numbers (Second Set)

  • Tornado Blow: A tornado attack that has enough area & power to counteract early-stage typhoons.
  • Concrete Shot: A shot of liquified concrete that hardens when exposed to air or water.
  • Laser Trident: A laser shot shaped like a trident head.
  • Plug Ball: High-energy, ultra-high frequency electrical pulses that run along the ground.
  • Jewel Satellite: A shield composed of silicon carbide that encapsulates control and power circuits covered with synthetic diamond. This shield possesses high hardness and impact resistances, and can even deflect light rays and energy projectiles.
  • Hornet Chaser: An ability that summons small Bee Mechs that have limited targeting capabilities, but become autonomous to determine what course of action to take on the target.
  • Magma Bazooka: A bazooka of magma that is used to cause small eruptions in volcanic areas.
  • Black Hole Bomb: A small-scale black hole that sucks in all enemies in. It obeys the theory of Hawking Radiation, which means as its mass evaporates, it emits a lot of radiation.

Mega Man Killer Numbers

  • Mirror Buster: A small barrier that converts incoming projectile’s mass and kinetic energy into supplementary energy.
  • Screw Crusher: A high-speed rotation projectile that consists of blades along its circumference and a high-speed motor in the axis of rotation. Adjusting the speed, angle and direction of rotation, this projectile can go in a desired trajectory.
  • Ballade Cracker: A bomb that can be shot out like a grenade or placed like a trap. It has multiple sensors, and the outer shell weakens in response to the readings of the sensor to give the explosions directionality.

Stardroids (Space Rulers/Destroyers of the Universe)

  • Spark Chaser: A wired laser that is connected to the user via invisible energy. Its trajectory can be manipulated and it can act as a sensory organ for the user allowing for more accurate manipulation of the laser. It’s possible to even snipe someone in the eye from across the planet with accuracy, and it is with this range that the user can connect and manipulate the mind of someone across the planet albeit to a limited extent if the intensity of the laser’s adjusted accordingly.
  • Grab Buster: A weapon that can suck the life energy out of the target without causing any physical damage to them.
  • Bubble Bomb: A large explosive bubble that has enough area to even hurt the user if not careful.
  • Photon Missile: A super fast missile that is set to not detonate anywhere within 2 meters of the user’s radius.
  • Electric Shock: A powerful discharge of electric current. With the help of a Hyper Crystal, the shape and form of this current can be manipulated into that of an electric blade. (See Hyper Energy Crystal for more information)
  • Black Hole: A weapon that sucks in all projectiles and can even connect 2 points in space. Enemies from afar can be brought to near the user’s location with this.
  • Claws: Masses of highly compressed energy capable of tearing through any and all things like paper.
  • Salt Water: A shot of water that contains microbes capable of eating anything.
NOTE: See Q&A for more info on this weapon list and the References section for translated list of Robot Master Bios.

Item Series


Items 1, 2 and 3 all exist in this manga and Rock has access to these transportation units. However, the only one seen in action is Item 2, which is a board that flies at high speeds. However, it can be presumed that they do the same thing as their Canon counterparts. All of these were developed by Dr. Light to help in Rock's adventures.

Support Units

Rush


Mega Man's main companion and member of the Dr. Light family that was built during the trip to Asteroid Alpha to investigate and retrieve the Hyper Crystals. Rush has a number of support options that Mega Man can make use of:

  • Rush Coil: Rush turns into a large jump coil so Mega Man can boost his jumping height.
  • Rush Jet: Rush turns into an aerial jet so Mega Man can travel in the air similarly to Item 2.
  • Rush Marine: Rush turns into a submarine so Mega Man can travel underwater.
  • Rush Roadster: By fusing with Item 2, Rush can turn into a racing car that Mega Man can use.
  • Rush Bike: By fusing with Item 2, Rush can turn into a bike that Mega Man can use.
  • Super Adaptor: By fusing with Item 2 and Mega Man, Rush can transform Mega Man into a Super Adaptor form which allows Mega Man to fly and shoot his fists as homing attacks for further damage.

Beat


Another member of the Dr. Light family that was built by Russian Robot Engineer, Dr. Mikhail Sergeyevich Cossack. A sturdy bird-type support robot. He has a strong ability to search people & enemies not easily visible, and even strong ramming power. He is also seemingly faster than Item-2. However, he consumes a lot of energy and has poor fuel economy, making Beat's stamina not so great.

Tango


A cat-type robot that supports Mega Man by making use of his cat-like high mobility to distract enemies and scratch them. Unfortunately, he also has a tendency to go missing for days without notice.

Eddie


An item-carrying robot that was developed by Dr. Light during the 4th battle with Dr. Wily. During that episode, the item-carrying ability was incomplete due to emergency. It is also capable of playing video footage recorded by Tango.

Energy Tanks


An energy tank is a small canister that contains pseudo-solar energy. Mega Man mainly uses this to replenish his stamina & energy to continue battling long battles... Whenever he has them at his disposal.

Hyper Energy Crystal

This is one of Megamix/Gigamix's more original elements and is a key element of the Gigamix half of the entire story. Originally with the intention to be used to solve Earth's incoming energy crisis, these crystals were found in some mysterious ruins of an ancient civilization in an interstellar asteroid called 'Alpha'. Dr. Wily theorized after the invasion of the Stardroids and countless experiments that these crystals are metaphorical 'gates' to another world outside of the one humanity lives in and that the mind of the user controls the flow of energy this crystal supplies. Hyper Crystal users or those amped by them indirectly, if they truly believe they can, can also resist or outright nullify the abilities of other Hyper Crystal users. These crystals can give some of the following abilities:
NOTE: For more information on the Hyper Crystal lore, see the Q&A section of this blog and this page's translation.

Resistances


Due to Mega Man having fought a lot of enemies in his run, he would've had to fight and deal with many kinds of enemies and their abilities. Down below is a list of things Mega Man has resisted in his shown battles and due to his build:
However, due to the events of some of the MM games (1-8 mainly) being implied to have happened similarly but offscreen (See Q&A for more information), Rock potentially resists the following:
Consistent with the previous section of willpower allowing resistances, Hyper Crystals can allow for the following resistances:

Weaknesses


Mega Man is predominantly a household robot, and it is made clear that his Rock form has no combat abilities and is far weaker and slower. Therefore in the case he reverts back in the heat of battle, he's in big trouble. Due to his pacifist nature, he's naïve and tends to dislike violence. He does not seem to keep the abilities copied from the Robot Masters. Despite being a robot, he needs to sleep and eat (not in the conventional sense, though).

Feats & Statistics


SUPER IMPORTANT NOTE: Due to the fact that Mega Man's stats will vary due to the possession of the Hyper Crystal, the list of feats and scaling displayed for each category (except for Overall) will be split into 2 sub-categories: Base feats and Hyper Crystal feats.

Overall

Strength

Base

Speed

Base

Durability


Base

Scaling and Calculation

Base

Light Numbers and other Light Equipment


Mega Man in his first adventure, the Birth of Mega Man, defeated them all in one-on-one battles, meaning he can scale to the feats they have performed.

Wily Numbers


Given Wily's countless attempts at taking over the world, it's only natural for not only Wily to have countless Robot Masters but also for Mega Man to have defeated them. In his adventures, Mega Man has defeated/destroyed: 

Light/Wily Numbers


Mega Man has also fought the Light/Wily Numbers on numerous occasions. With him going toe to toe with them, he can scale to:

Hyper Crystal

Jupiter, one of the Stardroids (Destroyers of the Universe)


Given Rock directly defeats Jupiter, he gets access to all of Jupiter's feats and scaling. They are the following:

Terra, the Femboy Shrine Maiden of the Stardroids

While Rock doesn't kill Terra himself, he still soundly dominates him in battle, meaning he gets Terra's feats and scaling which are as follows:

Duo, the White Giant & Sealer


While Mega Man doesn't defeat him legitimately in Base, the Hyper Crystals are parts of his armor and as such scales to him. This version of Duo:

Sunstar, the God of Destruction


Sunstar in this manga is the final big enemy Mega Man faces to determine the fate of the entire world. A lot of them is still surrounded in mystery, but below is all that's known of this entity:

Questions and Answers

With the discovery of new content and new arguments being formed as a result, in addition to this manga usually being used in DEATH BATTLE! circles as a soft composite for Classic Mega Man as well as feats from it also being used for Zero in Metal Sonic vs. Zero, many new questions will arise with regards to this manga such as clarification with some of the feats, canon, character appearances, lore, etc. This section contains different questions that have been asked in the times I have discussed this continuity as well as self-imposed but relevant questions with answers made to the best of my ability. 

This section in particular will be an extremely spoiler heavy (if not, by far the most spoiler heavy) section as it discusses the mangas in far more depth than the other sections, so you have been warned.

Without further ado, let us begin!

How different is the world of Remix/Megamix/Gigamix itself from the games?

Well, the Earth itself is the exact same: the 7 continents portrayed the same with America and Japan existing too. The Moon is the same as well. And just like in the game continuity, alien civilizations exist or existed out in deep space, as showcased with Shadow Man. Also, interstellar objects that harbor ruins of ancient civilizations are also present in this world. These features essentially ground the manga’s world in Mega Man’s established setting, making it feel like a more authentic adaptation. Of course, there are a couple of elements you've read in the previous sections that seem like they're notably out there when it comes to this Mega Man universe at a first glance, so let's discuss them. 

To not beat around the bush, Maniax (supplemental material for Megamix/Gigamix) explicitly poses the existence of the ‘otherworld’/'spirit world’, a world of the supernatural. If you recall back to the lore of the Hyper Crystals, Dr. Wily speculates that the Hyper Crystals siphon energy from a world that is outside of our universe. Part of this speculation is actually confirmed in Sunstar’s bio, with its flames being the energy of the ‘spirit world’ itself. This makes sense along with the fact that Skull Man appeared as a spectral image in Ring Man’s fight against Pluto (reminder that this was long after Skull Man died), which points to the existence of spirits. With all these implications, the otherworld itself exists within this continuity as a sort of afterlife where Duo and Skull Man went after being destroyed. This all essentially means that this world of Mega Man has 'cosmic superstitious' elements to it.


But the most important thing is that there are definitely cosmic superstitious elements in Canon; see Evil Energy which absorbs evil itself to propagate across the cosmos, and Duo literally purifying Rock of this cosmic supernatural energy. The reason why it all feels so different is because the games don't focus on them too much and instead focus on the main game gist of "Big bad guy is at it again! Defeat them and their henchmen by jumping and shooting!". Also, the games deliberately keep these set pieces vague for mangakas to expand upon them in their mangas where they can be more focused on outside of gameplay restrictions. In essence, while the games introduce these seemingly 'out there' themes, they remain in the background deliberately allowing other material like Gigamix to explore them more deeply.

TL:DR; The world of Megamix/Gigamix introduces some new themes, particularly the idea of an explicit 'otherworld.' However, these concepts are not completely foreign to Mega Man’s universe—similar elements exist in the games, albeit in far more ambiguous forms. The manga simply expands on these ideas, rather than outright contradict them, making this all -for the most part- a natural extension of the Mega Man world.

Do higher dimensions exist in this manga?

They do! This is definitely one of the wildest elements of this manga. There are a couple of things that prove this: Cloud Man's bio of all things and Astro Man.


Given that the Mega Man verse is essentially science fiction, these sci-fi brainrotten expansions really aren't that out there and should in fact be expected - especially when we already have things like a lumberjack having the ability to cut space itself. This is especially considering that the franchise itself possibly has them with hyperspace/subspace existing, even if they seem ambiguous.

How different are Mega Man and the other characters in this manga?

For the former? He’s exactly the same: a household robot built by Dr. Thomas Light after Proto Man was built and left that asked Dr. Light to upgrade himself to take on the mantle of hero part-time. Pacifist by nature with the same Mega Buster that can charge his shots plus a Variable Weapons System installed into it, with Rush as his robot companion, with access to the Item Series, and having the Cossack-built Beat & Light-built Tango. Yeah, he’s the same. Curiously, both Canon and Megamix/Gigamix Mega Man have minds/spirits despite being robots with limits to their sentience. So in Rock’s side of things, he’s pretty much the same.

In fact, almost all of Earth’s robots are virtually the same with some minor differences -such as Proto Man being powered by a Hyper Crystal instead of a nuclear core after his faulty solar core was switched out- and more elaborate details on how the Robot Master weapons operate using our real life concepts of physics -like Gravity Man’s Gravity Hold operating the direction of gravity by manipulating the density of nearby objects and how Flash Man stops time by bringing the speed of light to a near complete halt for a few examples-. Nevertheless, their personalities aren’t all that different with some minor yet reasonable extrapolations, like Bass having a sense of honor, Proto Man being a jerk for the sake of helping Mega Man have a backbone and being capable of self-maintenance, Shadow Man having the mannerisms and demeanor of a literal ninja, etc. So in all, the Earth robots are almost the exact same as their Canon counterparts.

… But when we get to almost all the space robots (with exception to this being Shadow Man for reasons elaborated above), things start to have a different outlook. Duo and Sunstar are probably the most blatant examples where the characters are notably different to their canon counterparts. How different? Well, strap yourselves in because this leads to the other question.

What's up with the Space Robots in this manga?

Oh, boy... The Space Robots. We're in for a dousey of a section. So, for the space robots, there are some noteworthy differences. I shall start off with the Stardroids.

In Canon, the Stardroids are pretty much a squadron of robots that originated from an alien ancient civilization that is long gone. Their purpose is to just take over the Universe and rule it, hence their Japanese name 'Space Rulers'. Simple as that. In this manga, they're still a squadron that were the remains of a long gone alien ancient civilization with their purpose still being cosmic in scale. They also have the same general weapons and fight in a very similar fashion to their Canon counterparts. In addition, their Japanese main name is still 'Space Rulers'.

Aaaaand this is where the differences begin between both: instead of ruling/conquering the Universe, they want to destroy it. Heck, the 'Rulers' in their name doesn't mean 'governor'; it means 'rule enforcer'. The rule in their case is the good old "entropy applies to the whole universe, therefore everything will end one day", hence their secondary Japanese name "Destroyers of the Universe". So there's a notable difference there as they embody the concept of entropy. In addition, Terra -their leader- is more unhinged in this manga since he does stuff like eat Saturn's eyeball; this isn't to say Canon Terra isn't unhinged though since he threatened to turn Mega Man into his slave and does just try & take over the Earth. All in all, the Stardroids are notably different, but also not different enough for them to be unrecognizable.


Next up is Duo. Duo in Canon is a mysterious figure with not a lot known about him. All that is known about him is that he's like a space cop going around the Universe to protect it from threats like the superstitious Evil Energy. He also seems to have mystical powers like purifying beings of evil implying themes of superstition, but this is kept vague. This air of mystery is still in tact in Gigamix, where all that is known is that he's some bulwark of justice that protects the Universe from evil. He also possesses mystical powers like telepathically talking to Hyper Crystal users long after his body is destroyed, seemingly screwing with the memories of others, etc. So the core is similar. But even with these core characteristics still present, there are certain implications behind his lore in this manga that start to significantly alter the image of this manga's Duo. 

To give an idea of the implications we are dealing with: Duo, Evil Robot and even the Stardroids to an extent, might be otherworldly beings with Ariga describing them as 'mystical existences' and Evil Robot's name being 'Black Sorcerer/Demon'. Even their visible appearances might not be their true appearance. Heck, the Hyper Crystals, which are shards of White Giant Duo's armor, have blatant superstitious elements as the alien ancient civilization that built the Stardroids -who are explicitly adept at magic and superstition- quickly figured out how they respond to the mind/spirit of someone. One can already see how drastically this changes the image of this Duo from a technological one to a far more superstitious one, even if the core of Canon Duo is still mostly present in this version. Because at the end of the day, the only thing vaguely superstitious about Canon Duo were some of his abilities, not his entire being.

The final character to be discussed is Sunstar. In the games, he's just an alien robot that acts as an ancient ultimate weapon of the Stardroids' ancient civilization where he was even revered to as a god (hence why he's referred to as a God of the Sun here). He even wanted to rampage the whole universe to rule it. Not a very deep character by any means with a simple enough core. How closely does this version of Sunstar adheres to this core? Well, this is the outlier among all Mega Man characters where their Megamix/Gigamix version is virtually completely different - to the point where the core is almost completely changed. To begin with, this Sunstar is explicitly not even a robot, let alone a living being; they are a literal God of Destruction. A god composed of many negative emotions like fear and despair, making them an abstract conceptual existence of sorts, and as a result of being a hive of negative emotions, they want to rampage and destroy everything in the universe. They are literally the Stardroid's ultimate weapon even though in Canon they are not a part of the same unit. As we can see, this is all blatantly and almost completely different to their Canon counterpart, with the only similarities being their name, design and them still possessing the desire to rampage the cosmos. This Sun god is literally stepping on the line of "too different".

To summarise with a TL;DR: The Space Robots differ significantly in Gigamix compared to their Canon counterparts. At best, they retain most of their core but massively expand upon vague implications provided in canon and making minor alterations to their goals - resulting in their image being significantly different but recognizable (Duo and the Stardroids). And at worst, they are almost completely reimagined in this manga with exception of design and name (Sunstar). The implications of these changes are discussed in another question below.

Do the Classic games happen in this manga's story?

Yes. Hitoshi Ariga explicitly says this in Maniax Volume 2, with said volume also adapting a summary of the games. All the way up to MM9 as showcased by "For Whom", and given the implications from the existence of bios for other RMs like the Genesis Unit and the Mega Man Killers? Even the spinoffs happened here.

Do X and Zero exist in this series of mangas?

This is definitely a question that has been asked a lot, and for awhile, I could not answer this question with confidence. But now after all the research I did? I think I can. To not beat around the bush, the short answer to the question is: yes, they do exist.

This continuity of Mega Man manga, which I will hereinafter refer to as ‘Hitoshi Ariga Mangas Continuity’, is composed of 3 titles main titles: Mega Man Remix, Mega Man Megamix, and Mega Man Gigamix. Remix being the first one to be released in 1998 as it had the original stories "Destruction Order" and "Metal Heart", with Megamix (being released in 2003) literally ripping the latter out from there without changes in addition to remastering the former. Megamix also creates stories before Remix's entries that tell the story of Mega Man 1 and even after like telling a side story after Mega Man 5. Gigamix (released in 2009) has one story that takes place between a Megamix and Remix story, in fact. This all sounds a bit confusing, but below is the order of the chapters to better illustrate the continuity of the Classic Mega Man stories:

"The Birth of Mega Man (Megamix)" ---> "(R) Destruction Order (Remix/Megamix)" ---> "Asteroid Blues (Gigamix)" ---> "Metal Heart (Remix)" ---> "Grim Reaper of Resurrection (Megamix)" ---> "Warrior's Day Off (Megamix)" ---> "Power Battle (Megamix)" ---> "The Greatest Enemy in History (Megamix)" ---> "Burning Wheel (Gigamix)" ---> "White Nightmare (Gigamix)" ---> "Dark Moon (Gigamix)" ---> "To a Shining Morrow (Gigamix)" ---> "For Whom (Megamix)"



These 3 being 1 continuity is very important because in Mega Man Remix, there exists a Mega Man X chapter that retells the story of the carddass entry: Mega Man X Mega Mission (the entry itself takes place between X2 and X3 for reference). Given that we know the Classic games happened in some shape or form offscreen, can't we say the same thing with the X games, and that this story takes place long after "For Whom"?

This also isn't the only thing pointing to X's existence. There is also the fact that a Mega Buster exists in the year 21XX, and Cut Man mentions how Dr. Light is busy with his "Legacy to the Future" in Megamix's "Warrior's Day Off" (I can't think of anything else it would refer to other than X). With all these pieces put together, it can be reasonably concluded that X and Zero do exist in this continuity. How this will impact them is discussed in another question.

How many of the special weapons has Mega Man used?


We know he has used most of the Mega Man 1 Robot Master Weapons on-screen and on numerous occasions (except for Fire Storm). For the other Robot Masters, it's a little more ambiguous, but we know he has used the Time Stopper explicitly. A special weapon that was implied to have been used by Rock in his adventures was also Gravity Hold since the bio does mention how it works whenever Mega Man uses it. But aside from that, he wasn't shown copying the other weapons. Although given the games were stated to have happened offscreen, one could reasonably still make the argument he copied them since that's what he does in every game.

One curious thing that is never explained is why he has to copy the same weapons again in different chapters. Regardless, one can make the argument he should have them based on the games having happened as well. ...Well, all except the weapons of the Stardroids because he doesn't fight them all alone and never bothers copying their weapons.

How does time manipulation work in this manga?

The way time manipulation works in this manga is rather unique. Usually in other fictional works, the concept of time just exists and characters just directly tinker with it to get results like time slow and time stop. The games are no exceptions.

However, in this manga, as a result of it using our laws of physics to explain and justify how the powers work, you get some... interesting implications. In Special Relativity, the speed of light is the most important constant with one of the fundamentals being that the speed of light doesn't actually vary to any observer - and this is even stated in Flash Man's Bio. Only the perceived flow of time is relative. Special Relativity, and the laws of physics for that matter, are built upon this lightspeed invariance and also time's relativity.

So, how time manipulation works is by directly tampering with the speed of light itself. By decreasing the speed of light, you are 'slowing down time'. By increasing the speed of light, you are 'accelerating time'. In Quick Man's case, he is making 'his speed of light' 2-4x faster than his surroundings meaning he is 'accelerating his time'. And vice versa with Time Man where he 'reduces the speed of light of his surroundings' to 'slow down time around him'. Given the speed of light's importance in the laws of physics, just the act of changing its value is essentially manipulating the laws of physics.

In other words, time manipulation in this manga works by manipulating the laws of physics. More specifically, the speed of light. And as a result, to resist any of this manga's time manipulation, you would need to resist both Light Manipulation and Physics Manipulation.

Is Quick Man faster than light or lightning?

This is something that was very contentious many, many moons ago - even during the times of Mega Man vs. Astro Boy (which was almost a decade ago). It was mainly due to translations varying of the scene where Quick Man blitzes Elec Man, where the first fan translation said 'lightning' and the official UDON Entertainment translation said 'light'. So... Which of the 2 is it? Well, given we have access to the raws, let's take a look.


We can see the raws above and we see something very curious. We see the kanji 電光 (denkou) and right above it we see some furigana saying ひかり (hikari). Upon a cursory glance, we can see why the disparity of translations happened: The kanji is usually, but not always, translated to mean 'lightning', and the hiragana means 'light'. So... Which one do we take? The answer: the furigana.

Why? Because this is a common literary device that most Japanese writers use called Gikun. It is when you write words with an incorrect kanji and then annotate them using Furigana to instruct the reader of the actual reading of the word that was supposed to be in their place instead. It's one of those Japanese-only devices where you separate the form from the meaning. You can read here for more info on Gikun.

Quick Man being that fast doesn't contradict anything regarding his weakness because as we know, he increases the speed of light 2-4x that of his surroundings. So he could be going at exactly 300,000,000 m/s, which is FTL normally, but not for him where it would be 25% to 50% the speed of light. And given Elec Man's special weapon is an EMP which is lightspeed? Well, he should know how fast light is.

How does Flash Man stopping Quick Man get those high results?

It's pretty crazy how it gets high results, but this is a result of 2 systems clashing over control of 'time' and our friendly neighborhood "Special Relativity". Given Quick Man accelerates his light to be 2-4x normal light, the mere act of going at half his speed of light would be moving at FTL speeds for everyone else. So what happens when a system that brings the speed of light close to zero (aka. Flash Man's Time Stopper) clashes with Quick Man's systems? Well, the speed of light is brought to normal for Quick Man from this clash of systems (since gravitational pull is stated to be a problem for him), but he himself is still too close to it. So his 'mass' just increases infinitely - but not to actual infinity. However, one thing to consider is that this 'relativistic mass' isn't actual kilograms. Relativistic mass is just a way of saying 'total energy of the system'. So Quick Man has so much energy packed into his system he becomes a black hole thanks to Special Relativity.


Are the Hyper Crystals really quadrillions of times faster than light?

Maybe, maybe not. The feat is essentially an artifact that siphons energy from a realm outside of the Universe (probably the same size or larger since it has literally infinite energy). It applies to speed since this same Hyper Crystal that siphons the energy amps the speed of the user in addition to the control of this otherworldly energy being related to the mind's strength. So this being a scalable speed feat checks out in this regard. Also remember that the crystals being called 'gates' is figurative, meaning it doesn't actually open any actual holes in space or something like that.

The only thing that could be seen as contentious is the distance the energy needed to have travelled between both of these spaces. To reference VSBW's notes on these kinds of feats:

"Speed isn't defined by any number of spatial dimensions but simply distance over time. Meaning that it is possible for 1-dimensional characters to be faster than those who cover many dimensions. And the distance between two timelines is defined as the 5th dimension (Or a 4th spatial dimension) that separates two or more universes. Said distance is often unknown as it could be anywhere between much smaller than the Universal radius and infinite. But such details are only known to those who can travel through additional spatial dimensions. For that reason, crossing Universes is unquantifiable for speed unless details are specifically stated."

Basically, what VSBW says is that the distance the energy would've had to travel is typically unknown and inconsistently portrayed across different franchises. This is a more standardized approach to things admittedly as opposed to the good old reliable "case-by-case" approach. Heck, other circles beg to differ where these kinds of feats are accepted due to the simple premise of "it physically travelled from dimension A to dimension B, therefore it is fine". So at that point, it depends on one's standards for feats like these. And I wouldn't blame anyone that doesn't buy this.

Sunstar can harness the energy of the spirit world: What does this mean?

Well, it depends on framework I guess. I know there will be someone out there that will use the fact that the Universe has higher dimensions and that the 'spirit world that's infinite' is outside even those higher dimensions to argue some weird DT stuff. I don't use DT anymore so I tend to not think about those DT implications or whatever.

What I do know it means for sure is that this probably supports the fact that Sunstar could destroy the Universe over-time. How? Well, remember back to when Dr. Wily did all those experiments with the experimental machine that blew up that facility? That is mainly because the energy was flowing nonstop and building up to the point it was difficult to control. The more energy is built up, the more power something has naturally. And remember, Sunstar is described as a 'gate that is always open', meaning otherworldly energy flows into them nonstop. This points to them growing stronger over-time. Initially strong enough to destroy the Earth, but eventually far stronger to destroy everything else. So, yeah. It's some ridiculous implications that it supports.

What does everything in this blog mean in the context of Mega Man in VS?

It has several implications: compositing the cosmology (in the case someone were to do that for whatever reason) would buff it significantly with more extradimensional realms existing in addition to higher dimensions also existing in them. This normally isn't done in debates, so this isn't a big deal. (lol)

The Robot Masters, and consequently Mega Man, would end up being more haxed with their special weapons gaining more hax, most notably:
  • Thunder Beam: It is now an EMP.
  • Slash Claw: It can now disassemble matter at the molecular level.
  • Gemini Laser: It can negate durability by shooting elementary particles at targets.
  • Knight Crusher: It can weaken defenses and debuff durability by messing with the atomic structure of targets.
  • Drill Bomb: It can generate stress singularities, places of infinite stress on a target.
  • Black Hole Bomb: It can now be argued to be a real black hole with it emitting a lot of harmful radiation due to Hawking Radiation.
Well, I bring up weapons getting buffed through soft compositing them, but not all of the weapons could be soft-composited since some are drastically different from their Canon counterparts such as Time Stopper and Gravity Hold. Fortunately in both of the cases, Mega Man got both of these weapons anyway so he has a Physics Manipulation based Time Stopping ability and the ability to manipulate the density of targets to the point of generating gravitational singularities. So, Mega Man in particular gets nutty hax buffs. Mega Man also gets the Hyper Crystal and all of the crazy abilities listed in the Hyper Crystal section, especially since the crystal is as standard as his special weapons which people have no problems giving to him anyway.

Higher end AP arguments that existed for Canon can at bare minimum be solidified (Large Star level AP and MFTL+ speed), but they can also possibly be pushed further as shown in the Scaling section (At least both Solar System level and 200x wherever you have Classic at in speed with Hyper Crystals). And given X and Zero were proven to exist, they'd just upscale all stats here and resist all abilities (including Hyper Crystal ones) in this manga via lore.

Unfortunately, Sunstar, and maybe Duo & the Stardroids, can't benefit from these mangas due to being too different in them. But very few care about them having any MUs. But in all, this manga brings about some nice implications for those that benefit from it.

Last Question: Should this manga still be used for soft composites?

This is probably the most important question of this entire Q&A because whether or not this is used will impact the stats and abilities of the Classic Mega Man characters and to an extent the X-era characters significantly, ranging from significant stat buffs to making the characters far more haxed than before.

So, to answer the question: It depends. It depends on who this manga is being soft composited for. For someone like Shadow Man for example, one could soft composite him just fine due to being very close to being his Canon self with the only benefit being that he gets his Hyper Crystal and a katana, but one couldn't do it for Sunstar due to being borderline reinvented.

But I know everyone is more interested in the 4 most relevant Classic MM characters in VS: Mega Man, Proto Man, Bass, Dr. Wily, X and Zero. So I'll say: Yeah, it's okay to soft composite this manga into them. After all, the 6 are all the same characters as their Canon selves and are even explored in ways Canon could not (remember, the games make you focus on "JUMP AND SHOOT"). They feel like genuine expansions of their Canon selves and not reinventions of them - even Keiji Inafune himself too seems to think they're reasonable interpretations. For this reason, it is okay for them to get feats, scaling, abilities and equipment from this manga. At least, in my opinion.

Closing Remarks


Whew... It's been 2 years since I started working on this blog. After so many setbacks, so many delays, so much translation work, and so many days of just... lacking the motivation to work on the blog, it has been finally done! This blog is finally done, thank goodness! I hope you all enjoyed this blog and I apologize for the long wait. I poured my heart and soul into this blog so I really hope this receives positive feedback.

This manga is in my honest opinion the best adaptation of Mega Man, even better than Archie and only rivaled by Mr. Mega Man (Rockman-San). And given all this, if Mega Man ever returns to DEATH BATTLE!, I really wish for them to focus more on this Mega Man manga beyond just using Quick Man for a bit speed feat, but that's just me.

Now, what will be next? Well, you all will see in a few days after uploading this blog. But for now, I will let you all take in this blog and I will mentally relax for now. Believe me, I need to. Until next time, everyone!

References

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