Hornet Man

Hornet Man (ホーネットマン) is one of the Robot Masters from Mega Man 9 whose period of use had expired and was scheduled to be scrapped. Hornet Man was designed to manage a flower park. It was his job to pollinate the flowers using his vast knowledge of flowers from around the world, and he loves gardening. He attacks by releasing robot hornets from the honeycomb in his chest.

Strategy
He walks to one side of the arena, flies up and shoots three Hornet Chasers, which follow the player; he then drops to the floor, runs to the other side, and repeats.

His weakness is the Magma Bazooka. Its diagonal fire blasts will destroy all the bees when the center shot hits the center Hornet Chaser. When charged, it will also blast through them toward Hornet Man. Another viable weapon is the Black Hole Bomb which, when positioned properly, will suck in all three Hornet Chasers as they move towards Mega Man, and will then damage Hornet Man as he runs through it to the other side of the room.

Damage Data Chart
Displays the amount of damage in units that Hornet Man will receive from each Special Weapon in Mega Man 9.


 * *For Proto Buster and Magma Bazooka, the first digit is the damage done when the weapon is fired normally; the second digit is damage done when the weapon is charged up.

Stage enemies

 * Sub-boss: Hanabiran
 * Big Stomper
 * Bokazurah
 * Caricarry
 * Flower Presenter
 * Scissascissor

Manga
Hornet Man appears in the short Mega Man Megamix manga story "For Whose Sake?" included in the booklet of Rockman 9 Arrange Soundtrack and in Rockman Maniax.

Mega Man (Archie Comics)
Some time prior to Mega Man 9 being adapted as a comic arc, Hornet Man appeared in Sonic the Hedgehog Issue 250 as part of the Worlds Collide crossover arc. In it, he fought Charmy Bee, causing the latter to panic and claim they're technically relatives.

Trivia

 * Mega Man 9's producer Hironobu Takeshita, revealed that early in the game's development, Hornet Man was originally intended to be a female robot named "Honey Woman" (ハニーウーマン). But, when Keiji Inafune presented his idea of placing a female robot in the ocean as a mermaid (thus creating Splash Woman), Hornet Man's design went through many revisions, including being changed to a male. More earlier artworks of Hornet Man show a slimmer male robot with wings, antennae, and a stinger-like buster on his right arm. This design was called Sting Man (スティングマン).
 * Another reason behind the change of gender is because Honey Woman's design looked too much like a cosplay character.
 * The Honey Woman design was later reused for the Archie Comics series, becoming a new character named Vesper Woman who was created by Dr. Noele Lalinde. In a nod to her origin as a prototype design for Hornet Man, she was created from an unused design concept of Dr. Light's.


 * The name Hornet Man was formerly used for a boss submission for Mega Man 2.


 * In the credits of Mega Man 9, he is watering a flower field with a few bees and Beat.


 * Hornet Man's attack pattern is somewhat similar to Blast Hornet's, as both move to the far sides of the room to fire their weapons.