Mega Man (Ruby-Spears character)

"I'm as good or better than you Proto Man!"

- Mega Man taunts Proto Man as he fights him.

Mega Man, also known by his civilian name Rock, is the main titular character of the 1994 animated TV series Mega Man. The robotic son of Dr. Thomas Light and brother to Roll, Mega Man fights against his nemesis Dr. Wily, who fights him with his army of Robot Masters and vast array of vehicles.

Overview
Mega Man is a robot built to resemble a tall muscular teenage male with a can-do attitude, sharp wit, and strong sense of justice. He has brown wavy hair and blue eyes. Despite having brown hair, he has black eyebrows. In his civilian clothes, Mega often wears a light blue t-shirt, cyan shorts, long socks, and brown shoes. As Mega Man, he wears a blue and cyan combat suit with a helmet, boots, and gauntlets that let him form his Mega Buster.

He is a kind robot willing to put himself at risk for others and tries his best to not cause harm or destruction to anyone or anything that is innocent or not necessary to win, such as when Mega Man X was willing to destroy anything in the way to take down Vile and Spark Mandrill and Mega Man attempted to get him to stop doing unnecessary damage to the area around them. He is also tactful, and can often outsmart the Robot Masters or Proto Man even when they think they have him beat. Unlike other robots, Rock possesses the ability to lie, an abnormally human trait.

Mega Man, like his older brother Proto Man, possesses the ability to copy the abilities of other Robot Masters as long as he can make contact with their weapon and download their schematics, and often uses this ability to gain the upper-hand in a fight. This ability also expands into copying the physical traits of a Robot Master, and at one point he copied Gyro Man’s helicopter blades and Spark Man’s spike and physically formed them onto his body.

Before the Series
Rock was created three months after Dr. Light and Dr. Wily parted ways. Dr. Light helps him understand his human traits and introduces him to his new robotic sister, Roll, as well as Cut Man, Guts Man, and Ice Man. Wily attempts to steal the three industrial robots that night and Rock tries to stop him in vein. Wily reprograms them and kidnaps him and Roll, but by using his ability to lie, which other robots are incapable of, Rock and Roll escape and upon returning to Light’s lab, Rock was turned into Mega Man and given Rush.

Season 1
Mega Man debuts as he rushes out to stop another of Dr. Wily’s plots as he and his Robot Masters attack an airport, telling Roll he doesn’t “want any girl robots gettin’ in [his] way”. Taking off with Rush, Mega Man attacks the invading Robot Masters before being confronted by Proto Man. The two fight for a bit before Roll, who joined Mega Man anyway, is attacked by Guts Man, forcing Mega Man to save her. He is crushed by a rail car as a consequence but is saved by Roll, Rush, and Doc and brought back to Dr. Light. Light operates on Mega Man as his brain brings shorting out and he dreams of his past before he became Mega Man. His repairs finished, he, Rush, and Roll return to the airport and stop Dr. Wily and the Robot Masters.

Season 2
TBA

Trivia

 * Mega Man’s civilian name, Rock, is a reference to the fact that Mega Man is known as Rockman in Japan. This has translated onto other incarnations since then, such as the Archie Comics version of him.
 * During both mid-episode bumpers of the first episode, Mega Man isn’t wearing any gloves.
 * Unlike in the video games, Mega Man does not need to defeat a Robot Master to copy their weapons, he merely needs to make contact with their weapon or weapon mechanism to copy it.
 * Despite changing colors when using different weapons in the video games, Mega Man doesn’t change color when he copies them in the show. This is because the color change effect would have been too confusing during animation. Instead, when Mega Man copied a weapon, a schematic of the Robot Master’s weapon in the color of the robot (i.e. Snake Man’s weapons schematics were green) would appear on Mega Man’s forehead briefly to the audience to show he copied them shortly before he used them.
 * Unlike in the video game series where Mega Man is portrayed as a young boy, in the show Mega Man is portrayed as a tall muscular teen. This was to appeal to American audiences, as the producers felt a teenager would resonate better than a child.
 * While Mega Man has the Rush Adapter in the video games, he has a wide variety of armors in the show. This was done to sell more toys.