What's the point of near-direct adaptations and constant references in franchise comics...

What's the point of near-direct adaptations and constant references in franchise comics? I get why you might want to adapt some classic literature or movie, but licensed comics for franchises tend to just copy things readers already saw in the original media and lean on "remember x?" Wouldn't these comics do better by making new material using characters the audience cares about?

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Got a mega for Mega?

>Already saw in the original media
>Uses Mega Man's Archie Run as a reference

Motherfucker what are you talking about?

This is adapting fucking NES games with no cutscenes and vague lore based on poorly translated instruction manuals.

And that's the point my friend, seeing elements of a story we like, expanded in a format that allows for it, directed by someone who, hopefully, has an appreciation for the content.

That said... What other licensed books are you thinking of exactly? Because I'm drawing a blank here.

Man, Archie's Mega Man was super quality, it was a shame the rights got pulled.

Archie Mega Man mostly reads like a glorified Let's Play, pointing at the highlights of a level, contextualizing wiki factoids into dialogue, and generally failing to adapt so much as pointlessly copy. It has a few original stories that are okay, but the bulk of it is regurgitation and build up for stories the target audience is already familiar with.

>examples
Christ, pick a licensed comic in the last 20 years, maybe half of them are like this. From cartoons to games to tv. Comics like Transformers and Star Wars get it to a lesser extent, where they get to tell new stories but are constantly walking minor elements from the source material. And the ones that aren't like this tend to be random nonsense with the title slapped on (like Nier, or Dark Souls, or even Dreamwave's Mega Man).

I tried getting into the Mega man Archie comics, but it was after reading Megamix, which is better on every level from character dynamics and balance between adapting source material, but not to the "remember this wink wink" territory. Archie's format was designed for longevity rather than telling a concise yet crisp story, which is unsuited for Mega Man, which is why it died.

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I remember reading the comic adaptation for Killer Instinct years ago.

I had no fucking clue what was going on.

The Megamix manga did everything the Archie book did only 10 times better. Read that instead.

Ya know they did another one last year? Dead after six issues.

A big part of Megamix was original stories though, very few parts were actual direct adaptations of the games.

I tried getting into Megamix but damn near every character felt completely out-of-character based on what little they had from the games.
Archie felt more like a direct expansion, which I appreciated more.

>Birth of Rockman (Adaption of Mega Man 1)
>R Destruction Order (Mega Man 2)
>Asteroid Blues (Mega Man 3)
>Metal Heart (Original)
>Grim Reaper of Destruction (Original)
>Warrior's Day Off (Original)
>Power Battle (Loose adaption of Power Battle)
>Strongest Enemy to Date (Mostly Original)
>Burning Wheel (Mega Man 7 and Battle and Chase Adaption with a piece of 5 thrown in)
>Stardroids Arc (Mega Man V)
Overall it's around 50/50. Nonetheless a direct adaption wouldn't really allow fleshing out characters like Bass or Cossack. That's another difference. Whenever Ariga takes liberty, it directly benefits the story. Flynn's is just for world-building that goes nowhere.

How? None of the Robot Masters up until Mega Man 8 even had character, outside of cosmetics.

Flynn's entire Mega Man run barely did any adaptations at all. It rushed the first two games out the door fast to get the Robot Masters established as supporting cast, then wasted all its time on stupid OCs like Tempo and Xander instead of actually developing the canon characters. By the time it actually got to adapting Mega Man 3, the book was already dead.

And of course, this being Flynn, he has to shoehorn memes and references into every fucking page, such as that badly-forced "Green Biker Dude" joke when Proto Man fights off a gang of street punks.

Wily being some weird robot rights kind of guy for example.

>Flynn's entire Mega Man run barely did any adaptations at all.
24 out of 48 non-crossover issues, 25 if you count the terrible final issue.

Beyond the MM1 and MM2 arcs, I barely recall any outright adaptations that weren't shanghaied by sub-plots involving Flynn's annoying OCs. Maybe the Ra Moon arc, but most folks don't really count Superadventure Rockman for anything to begin with. And things like the last issue weren't adapting anything, but merely more references as per Flynn's standard.

I was told they were actually mandated to do this with the Mega Man comic. Sorry I don't have a source or anything, but might be worth looking into.

The adaptions wouldn't be so bad if not for everything going "two pages of setup for enemy, mega man defeats them in a single blow, moves on" over and over and over again. It even happens with Docrobot after like four issues of buildup.

But the two fucking crossovers that required you to buy three comics every month to understand a big, pointless mess was what really killed it. Well, first crossover was fun, but fuck the second one happens almost right away.

You forgot the Powered Up Adaptation and the 8 issue Mega Man 3 adaptation.
And while it's not a direct adaptation, 4 issues were spent shilling Mega Man X.
There's actually not a lot of original content.

The only "mandate" was that the editor wanted trade paperbacks consisting of exactly four issues. We don't know of any specific requests from Capcom to stick to that formula, and given other Mega Man media doesn't do that shit and the other stories in the book didn't either, it's probably just the writer being a moron and trying to pander to fans of a series he doesn't understand.

"Powered Up" was a wholly-original story, not an adaptation. Time Man and Oil Man being involved was the only connection it had to that game.

It was also half of the Wily Castle adaptation with the Water bot and another crack at the robot master rematch.