Sonic The Hedgehog Maker

'Mega Man' delivers readers a good time in latest issue

As video game franchises go, "Mega Man" is one that has been frequently tarnished in the past. From a ridiculously bad animated series to spin-offs that don't properly capture the series' original spirit, it was hard to take the blue bomber seriously.

Now, Archie Comics is doing some work to restore the series' honor with their new monthly comic book, "Mega Man."

Written by Ian Flynn and drawn by Patrick Spaziante, both the longtime creative team on Archie's "Sonic the Hedgehog" comic book, this new series works hard to tell a compelling story using the game's long history.

The first arc, "Let the Games Begin," focuses on the creation of eight robots by the brilliant Dr. Thomas Light with some help from his jaded assistant Dr. Albert Wily.

The robots are Rock, Roll and the six robot masters, each of which were designed to do a job to make mankind's lives easier and given names such as Elec Man and Cut Man.

On the day of Dr. Light's big unveiling of his new creations, things take a turn for the worst as Dr. Wily reprograms each robot master to do his evil bidding and ruin Dr. Light's name.

Although built to be a simple lab assistant, Rock decides to help his maker by becoming Mega Man, humanity's best bet to survive this attack. Along the way, Rock must deal with becoming a weapon of war, fighting his former friends and deciding if this is the life for him.

It is surprisingly deep for a comic based on a children's video game.

The best part of this entire series is Spaziante's art, which captures each character perfectly. It is definitely a credit to any artist who can take bulky, nose-less robots and make them fully-fleshed out characters.

Flynn's story also captures the spirit of Mega Man very well, especially with his portrayal as being unwilling to hurt his robotic brothers. It appears that he isn't giving the robot masters as much screen time as they deserve, but by the look of things after the first arc's end, they'll be playing supporting roles in the issues to come.

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