MS Paint Masterpieces

Not really like this. But still entertaining.

A Sprite Comic on the Bob and George Web site that retells the Mega Man storyline, incorporating obscure characters from the Game Boy, PC and Wonder Swan games as well as original characters. It starts from the beginning collaboration between Wily and Light, details the creation of two prototypes (only one of which is Super) and Mega Man's battles to bring down Wily.

It features various flash forwards to possible futures, and Polka Reset Man, the un-super prototype's Split Personality may be a Stardroid from one such future. The series is memorable for showing an Alternate Alternate Character Interpretation of Mega Man as a rapidly learning robot, rather than an ice cream loving dumb-bot. It's also notable for showing all sides in the conflict as having a rather good learning curve. The second storyline likewise has a more worldly feel as various factions of Red Shirts and world governments try to take steps to reverse engineer and use the robot technology, all while Wily gains some impressive technological advantages of his own and Mega Man and Dr. Light struggle to keep pace.

The humor is based on the character's idiosyncrasies: be it Heat Man's laziness, Ice Man's playful ditziness, or the Redshirt Army's utter (and Genre Blind) expendability. It also lapses into author commentary by Disgruntled Ferret, and POV pieces of minor bit characters like "Brave Core", an awakened Sniper Joe who thinks he's Brave Heart... for robots!

Has absolutely no relation to MS Paint Adventures.

Can be found Here

The character sheet can be found here.

Tropes used in MS Paint Masterpieces include:

Electric Man: Yeah, turned out I couldn't use the Thunder Beam to escape, so I just punched the glass.

Reader: Excited when we lose, grumpy when we win. That's Quick Man.

    • Allegro, the eponymous Greatest Killer, also falls into this.
  • Brainwashed and Crazy: Wily snuck in virus type programming into all the original robot master's to get them to defect. The POV comics with Cut Man's desperate struggles to remain himself are... disturbing and heartbreaking. Then you have the likes of Ice Man jumping headfirst into it and helping to spread the Mind Control.
    • Also, anyone under Quintet's Mind Control or using one of his support units.
  • Buffy-Speak: Disgruntled Ferret likes to play around with grammar and tenses. The page pic is an example.
  • Butt Monkey: Polka Reset Man.
  • Call Forward: Dr. Wily utilises custom microchips to reprogram robots and bring them under his control, warping their personalities along the way; this is a precursor to his eventual Maverick Virus as seen in the X series.
    • A few future Lightbots showed the ability to "Dark Morph" and gain the abilities/appearance of other Robot Master models; some have speculated this to be a reference to the Doc Robot (of Mega Man 3) and Dark Man (of Mega Man 5).
  • Characterization Marches On: One tends to forget that the wise and badass Dr. Light started the comic as somewhat incompetent, inattentive and alcoholic.
  • Chekhov's Gunman: Guts Man was stated, several hundred comics ago, to have been kidnapped with Electric Man and Fire Man, and hasn't been seen since he was destroyed several years before that. He finally shows up in comic #1001.
  • The Chew Toy: Metal Man. He deserves it, though, considering he trash talks everyone.
  • Cloning Blues: Copy-Mega Man becomes quite violent when others imply he's not the "real" Mega Man. He was assembled from field data acquired by Enker, so he possesses some combat skill. He lacks the drive of the original, though.
    • He also doesn't know that Mega Man is the battle mode of Rock, likely due to Wily's ignorance of that fact.
  • Cloudcuckoolander: Ice Man, most definitely. Bubble Man, too.
    • Harmony-infected robots are rather like this as well. Metal Man Blade Man is like this in spades, as he will alternate between Hot-Blooded and Non Sequitur at the drop of a hat.
    • This seems to be true of Harmonized robots in general. As observed in the comic:

Heat Man, regarding Harmonized Fire Man: Wow. On the retard scale of 1 to 10, this guy's a J.

    • Disgruntled Ferret himself offers this little insight into Harmony's effect on robots:

I like to think of the Harmonized robots' attitude as around the same range as someone that donates corpses to charity. Sure it's technically for a good cause, but you're being stupid and terrifying.

Disgruntled Ferret: Reset Man looks so happy that the creepy robot is getting what's coming to him. I don't like Reset Man being happy.

    • Mega Man, too.

Disgruntled Ferret: It's kind of irritating that at this point I can blow off Mega Man's arm and he's barely even annoyed. I like torturing characters, and he's taking away my fun here.

Cut Man: Pointless? That's some bad choice, log guy. I, Cut Man, am never ever ever ever ever EVER pointless!

  • Determinator: Crash Man is able to continue fighting without his head or arm.
    • Atlas can shrug off being buried under tons of rubble and take Crash Man's weapon barrage until his energy shield is broken.
    • Subverted with Mega Man's first fight against Metal Man and Quick Man.

Mega Man: Yahoo! I died and I still won!

"If I were any classier I'd need a monocle."

  • Hot-Blooded: A side effect of using Quintet's support units.
  • Humongous Mecha: Daidigger D, of course.
    • The Mecha Dragon of Mega Man 2 fame has recently arrived on the scene.
  • Indy Ploy: Mega Man's plan for everything. The fact that one robot decimated his armies with this tactic is the final nail in the coffin for Wily's Villainous Breakdown.
  • Informed Ability: Reader states that Quick Man is the strongest of Wily's 8, but we only ever see him fight Mega Man (not counting the soldiers he massacres, as well as the last member of the Fodder Force). We do, however, see Crash Man leveling entire military bases and buildings due to the sheer volume of his firepower, not to mention the fact that he manages to defeat Atlas twice.
  • Insane Troll Logic

Mega Man: When I fight, the ones who take damage are me and the enemy. If I've already taken damage, that means the enemy has to take more for things to balance out.
Dr. Light: I... that... ...Just go back to the lab, Mega Man.

"A job where I do nothing all day long? I approve."

Heat Man: It's just too much work to do stuff for Quintet's personal agenda.

Wily: Everything will be Mined. All Mined.

    • Also counts as Incredibly Lame Pun, considering he was fooling Light at first by passing off his original plans as mining robots. Even the Wily Machine.
  • Noodle Implements: Did you know you could build a Death Ray with little more than a cell phone and a paper clip?
  • Non-Action Guy: Polka Reset Man
  • No Name Given: The fourth member of The Fodder Force: Uber Squad
  • No Plans, No Prototype, No Backup: Completely averted. After the first major arc, several other organizations are reverse engineering their own robots, including their own Robot Masters.
  • Not Worth Killing: Quick Man lets a deactivated Mega Man live under these reasons. Of course, when he finds out the Blue Bomber is worth killing, his reaction is quite positive.
  • Nuking The Fourth Wall: The Atomic Dragon's attack in this comic is so powerful it vaporizes the comic's boundary frame between the third and fourth panel.
  • Off with His Head: Crash Man in "Live and Learn"[1], and more fatally, Roll in "Too Serious".
  • One-Man Army: Mega Man fits this until the second game kicks in. Crash Man is a definite example, reminding Wood Man that he had enough ammunition to level the city in a blind and deaf rage. Blind and deaf due to missing his head at the time.
  • Only Mostly Dead: When a robots is destroyed, it can be rebuilt without much trouble, so long as the memory chip is intact.
  • Paper-Thin Disguise: When sending robots into the field, the military just gives them a hat for disguise. Or in Atlas' case, a hat and a Badass Longcoat.
  • Pet the Dog: Wood Man's guilt over killing humans, and Quintet coming to Enker's defense.
  • Psycho for Hire: Allegro.
  • Psycho Serum: The Harmony support units.
  • Recurring Character: A somewhat Hot-Blooded Sniper Joe that Mega Man reprogrammed with Thunder Beam by the nickname of "Bravecore" occasionally shows up.
  • Reed Richards Is Useless: Averted. Early "Ferret-vision" comics aside, Dr. Light's genius and affinity with robotics is very obvious and beneficial to the heroes. He first helped out the US army during the first major finale (the siege on Skull Castle), which would later come round to bite him in the arse. Since then he's been an even bigger asset to Mega Man, re-building him more than once, inventing his new Support Unit, revamping and bringing in a good-old giant mecha into battle and even rewinding time.
  • Resistance Is Futile: Said by Quintet here.
  • Retcon: In Ferret vision, there was Polka. Now that Disgruntled Ferret is paying attention, there is Reset Man. Proto Man also no longer goes by the name Blues anymore.
    • More generally, everything involving Light and Wily from the early, silly strips was seemingly dropped from canon once the comic got serious and flashbacks now reveal rising tensions between the two (and Light's idiocy is completely dropped).
      • Interestingly, Dr. Wily mentions that Light made Wily Machine 1 for him in strip number 972.
  • The Reveal: Reader is Future Roll.
  • Ridiculously-Human Robots: General Spearcarrier initially mistakes Roll for a human girl, much as Lieutenant Gunnady mistakes Mega Man for a little boy. Also, the robots bleed. In Electric Man's case, they bleed a lot.
  • Rule of Cool: Another favorite of Disgruntled Ferret. Quote from commentary below:

Disgruntled Ferret: (Regarding this comic) In the Game Boy game where Mega Man uses it, I think Mirror Buster is just a shield that can bounce shots, but instead I made it this thing that absorbs attacks and fires them back as some kind of converted blast. Why? Because explosions.
Disgruntled Ferret: These things are not about practicality. I daresay it might be exactly the opposite.

"Targets sustain no damge from shot. Calculating..."
"Conclusion: cannot retreat. Keep firing out of spite."

Mega Man: Whoa. My hand is glowing with an awesome power.
Mega Man: Take this! Your ammo, your energy, and all of your stupid hate!

    • And the title of this comic.
    • Also, the comic titles for the "Too Serious" arc reference other fancomics set in 21XX from the Bob and George Forums.
      • This troper specifically noticed a few. 'Randomocity' is shouting out to Randomness. 'A Misadventure' is from Plauge's Misadventures.
    • A recurring filler character is the Author Avatar the Randomness's author, iX.
    • The resemblance is very loose, but Dr. Light's Humongous Mecha seems very drill happy...
      • That might not be, but this definitely is:

Air Man: Even if Heaven itself forgives your shenanigans, I, Air Man, will not!

    • Daidigger D is a Super Robot reference bonanza, like the Name Letter nomenclature on top of this commentary

With Daidigger D, you can become a god or a devil... of mining and construction.

    • Castlevania gets one, too:

Enker: What is Electric Man? A miserable pile of circuits.

Mega Man: I'm a super fighting robot. I'm here to super fight.

    • Heat Man being lazy? Yeah that's canon to the games.
    • Crash Man's Mega Man and Bass quote:

"I am the Destroyer!"

    • Quick Man's physique is a blatant reference to how Hitoshi Ariga drew the character, rather than the official MM2 art or sprite.
      • His status as Rock's rival (of sorts) harkens back to the character's original role as envisioned by Inafune:

Ariga: When I was playing 2, I always felt like Quick Man got some preferential treatment. On the stage select screen, his horns were allowed to go beyond the actual frame of the portrait and, when he appeared in-game, his horns would shine.
Inafune: All of those things were intentional. We were trying to give him a special role in the game, as Mega Man's main rival. I guess you could compare him to Bass and Proto Man in the more recent games.

  • Sliding Scale of Robot Intelligence: Played straight, and a major source of insults between robots and by their controllers.
  • Smug Snake: Metal Man. There's a reason he's the Chew Toy.
  • Smug Super: Electric Man and Air Man, which has made the battle between their ego's almost as fun to watch as their actual battle.
  • Sociopathic Hero: Captain Fodder.
  • Split Personality: Polka Reset Man.
  • Start of Darkness: Greatest Killer turns out to be one of these for Quintet.
  • Super-Powered Evil Side: Polka Reset Man's 'other' consciousness.
    • Sort of. While much more competent then Reset Man, he's so handicapped by his poorly-designed body that he struggles to beat a Sniper Joe.
      • Speaking of the "other" guy, what happened to him? Will we see him again? What about those scenes we saw while he was around?
      • If Ferret ever covers 8 or 5 GB, we will. This comic alone is proof of that. In it, you can see what is clearly supposed to be Sunstar talking to a dragon guy robot thing, who also makes a clear reference to Duo. Furthermore, said dragon guy is later seen in another flashback with what is clearly supposed to be Evil Energy. The real question is whether or not the comic will ever get to that point.
  • Super Powered Robot Meter Maid: Rock and Roll were created to help Dr. Light in the lab and clean the house, respectively.
  • Super Prototype: Averted with Polka Reset Man, who's barely able to defeat a Sniper Joe. Later played straight with Atlas.
  • Super Robot: More as tribute. Daidigger D is a remnant of Doctor Light's misspent well spent youth.
  • Surrounded by Idiots: Played straight in the first arc. Subverted in the second, where Wily's new minions are competent to the point of being Dangerously Genre Savvy, but Wily still treats them like this.
    • Showing that the abused always kick downwards, Enker treats his fellow Robot Masters like this.
    • In the fillers where he appears, X is definitely this. Zero, iX, and Harpuia all manage to be not all there in some way or other.

X: Oh hell, he raided the women's locker room for 'prizes' again. * Runs offscreen* You choose strange ways to die, Zero!

Quintet: It sounds like you(Dr. Light) know more about it than me, but how about a more convenient way to put it? "This is a robot with no past and no future."

Metal Man: Peace without fail, because we're justice! And therefore we are completely blind!

Disgrunted Ferret: You ever get the feeling Quintet's flying by the seat of his robotic pants?

  1. ↑ It doesn't stick
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