Remembering Mega Man Figures Growing Up

Last week at San Diego Comic-Con, Jada Toys revealed the first in their upcoming line of new Mega Man toys, which are based on the Classic series and due for a release in the Spring of next year. For more details, our friendly neighborhood Protodude has the story.

Alternatively, our man, Pixel Dan, was on the scene for a video chat with the folks at the Jada booth as well:

Why choose one? Collect them all!

These are looking really good, and looking at them has made me nostalgic, and so I got to thinking about the Mega Man toys I had growing up.

Well, I say that like I had Mega Man toys growing up. It’s less that they didn’t exist, but… well, things were kind of complicated on that front.

I was a Mega Man from a young age, and practically since the beginning. At that point, there simply weren’t any Mega Man figures. Heck, there really weren’t any video game action figures of any kind at that point in time, not even Nintendo! You could find figurines, little unposeable mini-statues from Applause featuring Mario and a few other Nintendo characters, but something that came anywhere close to approaching the likes of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in the toy aisle? Nothing. And even then, you rarely saw third-party properties get even that much.

So I made my own.

I guess calling it an “action figure” of any real calibre would be glorifying it, though. I had some of this clay that I’d gotten some way or another, probably Christmas or something, and I used that. I think the only actual colors available that I needed were dark blue, black, and white; the rest, I had to mix myself. Mixing white and dark blue, I got a lighter blue, but it was hardly a smooth consistency. The result… wasn’t pretty, but it would do. It would have to.

Unfortunately, sculpting things has never been my strong suit. And approximating how big things would need to be apparently wasn’t one then, either, as the resulting figure was probably two inches tall, at best (he might have been closer to an inch and a half).

Proportion-wise, he was probably somewhere between Mega Man’s NES sprite and Cartman from South Park. I actually made a picture like that once, so to give you an idea, here’s sort of what the figure looked like:

Eh, we can do better than that. I wish I had an actual picture of the figure (I’m sure it’s still around somewhere… in another country…), but let’s tweak this one. The pupils were bigger, and he had a more prominent mouth. Oh, and since my chief frame of reference at the time was the Mega Man 2 pictures in Nintendo Power, the crest on his helmet was yellow.

Yeah, that’s more like it.

Oh, and he had one accessory. Since the only thing outside of Captain N: The Game Master and the game manuals that provided any lore was the Worlds of Power novelization of Mega Man 2, I took inspiration from that and gave him a backpack to keep his weapons in. You know, as he did in the book.

In fact, it was this very backpack that G.I. Joe‘s Roadblock is carrying:

Via YoJoe.com.

So he only came up to maybe the knee of my Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles figures, he wasn’t very good looking, and heck, he was barely even poseable, but at least I had a Mega Man figure to go on adventures.

A few years later, I would have a new glimmer of hope.

In Volume 46 of Nintendo Power, an article was featured about Capcom, including a special part about Mega Man:

Via The Reploid Research Lavatory.

Do you see what I see? Hint: It’s right there in the middle. Enhance… enh– oh, screw it, MMKB has a better picture anyway:

Via Mega Man Knowledge Base

As you can imagine, I was over the moon to see that Mega Man — or, well, Rockman, close enough — action figures actually existed somewhere. And they made Proto Man, too!

For the longest time, I thought the figures were called “Shvdoom,” based on the large English on the packaging that was the only readable part besides the Rockman logo. And I really, really wanted them so badly, but… well, this was in 1993, well before the internet was commonplace enough for me to even consider touching it, never mind eBay or anything that would let me get a toy from halfway around the world.

But they existed. I knew that now. So maybe someday…

(Spoiler: It’s 2022, and I haven’t gotten either one yet.)

Fortunately, a more homegrown solution would soon be at hand. Unfortunately, that would have its own complications.

In 1994, Ruby-Spears debuted its Mega Man cartoon series to the world. And alongside it, an entire line of Mega Man action figures and unposeable mini-figures would appear at retail.

Mega Man! Proto Man! Guts Man and Rush and Cut Man and more! Multiple points of articulation! Action features with interchangeable weapons! A vehicle (that I actually wouldn’t learn the existence of until years later)! And had the line not been cancelled, even a playset! It was everything I could have ever wanted to have my own Blue Bomber adventures!

…at least, it would have been, had it come out a few years earlier. At this point in my life, I was in my mid-teens, and there was still a particular stigma around the idea of still collecting toys at a certain age, one that I found myself constantly at odds with. Not only that, but I was at a point where I was earning my own money, and decisions had to be made… decisions like “do I buy these figures, or do I buy this video game, which is considerably less stigmatized, instead?”

In hindsight, I probably should have passed on a game, said “to Hell with what anyone else thinks,” and loaded up on Mega Man figures while the getting was good. Alas, and perhaps ironically, my maturity was not yet at the level where I felt comfortable buying toys.

These are the lamentations of a misspent youth.

The Ruby-Spears line would come and go, but my torture was not to end there. Rather, it would persist a few years later, almost every time I opened a new issue of Diehard GameFan magazine, as there was a particular ad that seemed like it was always waiting for me in the back…

A company known as Game Cave would take out several pages of ad space in the back of each issue of Diehard GameFan, offering all sorts of imports and other goodies. Goodies such as the assortment of Rockman 8 and Rockman X3 model kits you see before you.

Naturally, these were the best looking ones I’d seen to date, and there was X and Vile and others, too! The translucent orange one in particular intrigued me (and would later inspire my first-ever fan character). Alas, the whole “too old for toys” thing was still sticking with me… plus, you needed a credit card to order, and lacking one of those meant that even if I wanted one (and deep down, I really did), it was seemingly beyond my reach.

That wouldn’t last, however. I eventually realized that I wasn’t really impressing anyone by not buying toys. I was out of school, and anyone I thought might have cared was long out of my life.

I think the realization might have hit when a friend purported to have seen some Mega Man figures, Japanese stuff, at a local convention, HeroesCon. Somehow, having them that close must have pushed me over the edge, triggered something in me — I was tired of wanting Mega Man figures, I wanted some Mega Man figures!

I’d hoped that the comic shop which ran the convention, Heroes Aren’t Hard to Find, might have had some at their sizable shop. No dice, sadly.

However…

Next door to this comic shop was a video game shop, Microplay, which carried all sorts of import games and stuff, for sale and for rent. Maybe they carried the figures which I sought?

No. No, they did not.

However…

They did have a certain game for rent…

Via MMKB.

The special limited pack of Rockman X4 for the SEGA Saturn.

I had no way of playing SEGA Saturn games, much less imported SEGA Saturn games, but that didn’t matter. I already had the US PlayStation release, so I was good on that front. No, what mattered to me was the prize inside which made it a special limited pack…

Via Alex Bickmore’s Super Toy Archive.

The Bandai Mega Armor model kit of Ultimate Armor X.

It had already been assembled and the stickers applied, but that didn’t matter to me. With its associated game out on the rental shelf, it stood on display by itself in the shop.

For whatever reason, perhaps the price, I did not snatch it up right away. However, that would not last, as I couldn’t stop thinking about it. The next available opportunity, I was headed back out of town to that store to go for it.

Some stories would say that “he who hesitates is lost,” and that the Ultimate X figure was long gone by the time I returned… but not this one. No, it was there, waiting for me. I asked about it, ready to purchase. I don’t even remember how much it was — I want to say about $40 USD for just the model, no box or game or anything — but it didn’t matter. It was coming home with me.

Even if I overpaid, it was worth every penny to me. Sure, it didn’t hold together especially well, but at this point, it was more for display and fiddling with — posing, swapping between the armor’s two modes, stuff like that. Plus, it was quite possibly my favorite X armor before or since (though I do have a soft spot for the First Armor from the original game), so having it as my first real Mega Man figure made it extra sweet.

While Ultimate Armor X was the first, it wouldn’t be the last. A year or two later, a new western release was revealed:

Via MMKB.

In 1999, Marvel vs. Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes would herald a whole line of action figures from Toy Biz based on the, well, super heroes from… uh, Marvel… and, er, Capcom. Obviously.

Anyway, only one of the four figure two-packs featured any Mega Man characters, Mega Man himself, who came packaged with War Machine and clip-on Hyper Armor and extending legs to approximate his Hyper Mega Man move. Despite the awkward posability and the… very elated smile, I had to make sure this one was a part of my collection. Was I trying to make up for lost opportunities past? I won’t deny it, but I think I’d probably have gotten it, anyway.

Via Figures.com, ASMZine, respectively.

From that point on, things only got easier. eBay and PayPal made getting international goods easier than ever, and I was able to get more of the Bandai Mega Armor model kits. Jazwares would release a line of figures from around 2003-2006 that I got to have some input on in exchange for some product (not everything, but it was still helpful due to how hard they were to find here in Canada). Meanwhile, around the same time, Mattel was releasing MegaMan NT Warrior figures, based on Viz’s adaptations of the Rockman.EXE/Mega Man Battle Network anime and manga.

After that, we’d see more domestic product, while Japanese models and figures were easier to get than ever, sometimes even with localized releases. (Side note: I don’t own all of them; in fact, I don’t think I even have a single complete line. Maybe I’ll talk about that some other time…)

Oh, and I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that before the Jazwares stuff started, I was fortunate enough to befriend a fellow by the name of Ben “Maelgrim” Roberts. I was (and still am) an absolutely huge fan of his fan fiction, “Rockman: The Robot War,” enough that he would send me a printed and spiral bound version of the story… along with a well-worn Mega Man figure he had from the original Bandai Ruby-Spears line. Its paint was a little scuffed, and it didn’t have the Mega Buster or the plasma shot missile, but I still have it, and it remains one of my most cherished Mega Man possessions.

Via Jada Toys on Facebook.

All of which is to say that it’s been a long road to get here, and based on the pictures we’ve seen, I’m excited to see what Jada Toys brings to us. And I’m also excited for those who might want to be able to get a brand new Mega Man figure, and won’t have to create crude clay fabrications in order to have one.

(That said, who do I need to speak to about getting Mega Man Legends a little more western toy love over here?)

Thanks for reading!