All six issues of Boom Studios' Mega Man: Fully Charged series are now available in one handy-dandy trade paperback. You can grab it from Amazon or wherever comics are sold for a cool $14.
For the uninitiated, the comic acted as a "spiritual second season". Taking place after the events of "The Gauntlet", the series focused on Mega Man (aka Aki Light) coming to terms with forgotten memories of The Hard Age. After Dr. Light is kidnapped by Dr. Wily (the *real* Dr. Wily, might I add), Mega Man sets off on a journey that tests his metal -- quite literally.
Even if you're not a fan of Fully Charged, I think you might enjoy the comic's strikingly dark, "grounded" take on the mythology. It's an interesting read, to say the least. No knowledge of the show is required. I mean, really, you can pretty much jump right in. It's fun to compare the two Fully Charged iterations, that's for sure, but you aren't missing any essential story beats.
Also, for those interested, we not only reviewed each issue but also had the opportunity to interview artist Stefano Simeone! Enjoy!
KILL IT WITH FIRE, RISING FIRE!!!
ReplyDeleteburn, burn to the ground, whoooooooo!
DeletePrometheus: BUUUUURRRRNNN!!!
Delete(he only says that when losing to him and pandora in zxa btw)
I thought the comic was actually worse than the cartoon. I've seen every episode and read every issue, and while the comic introduces a bunch of legitimately neat ideas, it quickly fumbles every last one of them. It tries to tell a dramatic story of lies, secrets, and betrayal, but Fully Charged is consistently at its worst whenever it tries to do something dramatic. The lies told by the characters get lost among all the lies and contradictions that form the canon’s foundation, it only further confuses mysteries left behind by the cartoon instead of clearing them up, and the specter of Sgt. Night haunts the canon to its very end. It's like the comics are the point where the canon starts to dig past rock bottom, so the bad writing ends up penetrating all the way to the canon's core, making it impossible to tell what is and isn't supposed to be real in its world. The art style is actually nice in how it lacks the distinct plainness of the cartoon, but it’s also, alas, consistent with this canon’s bull-headed determination to fail at intricate and emotional plots.
ReplyDeleteFully Charged is such a poorly thought-out spinoff that it needs a reboot if it’s going to realize its potential, but instead the comic is a continuation. The cartoon was at its best when it focused hardcore on being a stereotypical kid's show with Sgt. Night nowhere to be found. Since the comic is so focused on drama though, it seems deliberately designed to remove what little was good about the cartoon, so the canon squanders its opportunity to start fresh, instead repeating the same mistakes right out of the gate.
I might pick this up anyway though since it'll be a neat bit of memorabilia in a decade. It'll probably end up like Mega Man for the Game Gear; obviously bad, but also ridiculously rare and fetching a high price among collectors.
unfortunately its a megaman im going to pass on. Couldn't get into this comic sadly :(
ReplyDeleteI don't like his appearance. Japan version is so much better.
ReplyDeleteYeah, my opinions on FC aside, the sample pages looked like absolute trash. I have absolutely no desire to read something like that.
DeleteI'll stick to my Archie GN's. Someone needs to get on finishing THAT run. At least finish releasing the GN's.
And i will keep reading the fan translated Zero manga. (WHICH I DO ENJOY AND WHOLE-HEARTEDLY RECCOMEND BTW)
DeleteI never saw the cartoon, but knew enough about it to go "Ok, yeah, for little boys, got it, cool". I really don't know what or who the comic was supposed to be catering to. The art was TERRIBLE for a Megaman comic, though I think the general STYLE was fine... if it had been ANYTHING else. And for someone who never saw the TV show? I had no idea the context of who anyone was or why I should care about any of the characters.
ReplyDeleteI know right, that art was crap, or at least the artstyle did not fit the character designs and aescthetic, imo.
DeleteAlso i like your sonic oc* pfp, im not kidding it looks cool.:)
*(if it is an oc, i dont know all sonic characters, despite my knowledge on the franchise)
Oh. Thanks. Yeah. n_n; Old OC (like 1996 old).. not really Sonic related now since I fell out of the series long ago, just kind of stuck, lol
DeletePersonally I'm not sure it's fair to criticize the art style. It's one of a number of problems that wouldn't have been a problem in any other comic, because there's something fundamentally wrong about Bad Box Art Mega Man being Aki Light instead of Man Man.
DeleteThe art style is fair game. Not a fan of that in ANY comic UNLESS they are in a disco for a few panels.
DeleteGuess I'm just too old school for these "modern" artists...
Get off my lawn, terrible artists! Bah!
Well i didnt like the artstyle because, it didnt fit the designs in the comic, if they had a different one, heck maybe even the cartoon artstyle it would have been better to at least look at, in my opinion anyway.
DeleteMan, I think I'm the only one who thought the comic was fine lol. I would've liked to see another six issues, after getting the boring Daini drama out of the way.
ReplyDeleteAnd thats okay to have a different opinion. M8
DeleteIt's mainly that Mega Man is comparable to Super Mario in how it has maintained a mid-to-high quality standard throughout multiple decades of existence and countless spinoffs, which makes its bad parts really stand out. Fully Charged in its entirety also seems aimed too narrowly at Mega Man fans, the audience least likely to appreciate it because they've already seen everything it's done before and even seen it done far better. The way almost no thought has gone into the world building of Fully Charged is also an insurmountable obstacle for people who habitually engage with media on a deep level.
ReplyDeleteI dont think it needed a japanese artstyle (yeah i read your post on twitter protodude), it needed a just plain better artstyle that actually fit with the character designs and world, but unfortunately this comic and show did not have said artstyle, also i didnt like the character designs either, with "mega overdesigned man", "swol light", "generic black recolor with Scar" "sgt. Breaker Night" (honestly worst villain ever), "haircut man" "yellow ice man" (his design was just ugly) "wily but also not wily" "clearlyyoudontownanairfryer man" "wood man", "hypno woman" (honestly cool concept, just weird design), "basicallyredmegamanbutwithanewhelmetandbladehandsbutwearejustgonnacallhimzero,causeshoehorningcharactersisfun, man" and all the characters trying to both look like the classic games but also not like the classic games (fireman, drill man, guts man, wave man, probably a few others)... now for positivity we have Suna who looks kinda cool tbh(is unfortunatley just roll, chacterwise tho), rush who also looks good and doesnt look overdesigned, wily(comic) looks alright, skull man(comic) looks cool and menacing. (i dont know all the characters as you can see). see i think the show would've looked better if they had used the 2d artstyle in that artwork protodude posted on twitter because in cgi it looked bland, mega man himself having way to much details compared to the other characters (which makes him look out of place), megahero city (did the people in town predict that megaman would exist, if not then why is it named after him?) looks like generic future city number 69420 but in cgi, (kinda like pac city from that one pac man show, said city also named after the protagonist, hmm), mega mini whom i forgot to mention earlier looking like he could be put in any other sci fi tv series and fit in (and is just a worthless character tbh), the random robots that don't look like mega man robots but just plain generic, one kinda reminding me of a lego hulkbuster i have, not saying they copied... but they copied(jk) etc.
ReplyDeleteNo really if they chose that 2d artsyle in the artwork that protodude showed off, it would have looked awesome, but they had to be a typical reboot-esk show and have cgi, of course.
Now in the comic, i just think the characters look way to organic(this coming from a person who's favorite artstyle is the Zero artstyle and who's second favorite is the ZX artstyle) and have really weird and all over the place, proportions (consistency be darned), and the faces looking kinda creepy.
Also you say that they had artists from different cultures on the show, protodude, well that explains why some designs(both characters and the world around them) look kinda anime like and others look more american (i like american artstyles a lot too btw), idk to me it did not look consistent.
I think they should have used 2d animation in the show with the artstyle from the artwork protodude showed on twitter (me have no link, sorry) then try to copy that artstyle into the comic and then BOOM it would've looked WAY BETTER but alas tgey did no such thing and now both the show and comic look bad and inconsistent.
(Yes, this was made as a somewhwt reply to something protodude said on twitter, without using twitter, because twitter sucks, sorry not sorry, lol)