Mega Man’s infamously awful NES box art has since taken on a life of its own.
Theres that time when Dennis Hopper played Bowser as a politician with silly hair ina dinosaur dystopia.
The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles once went on tour as a rock band.
The animated seriesCaptain N: The Game Masteronce introduced Alucard as a radical skateboarding teenager with sunglasses.
That isnt the most infamous version of the Blue Bomber…even if he wasnt even blue.
No, that honor goes to the character on the cover of the firstMega Mangame.
Oh, no, no, no.
ThatsRock Manfor the Famicom.
Totally different in that it looks like a good rendition of the hero and his enemies.
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Its not just the accuracy of the design.
That background laser grid is doing some heavy lifting.
Who is the artist behind this infamous box art?
What the hell even is that?
of this cover may be a mystery, but we do know a little more about the How?
Briefly, Chris Beiniek ofTips & Trickswent into the story behind the box art.
The box art for the firstMega Mangame in the US was done very quickly.
The reason it was so bad was because we had literally 24 hours to turn it around.
Nintendo said, We need your artwork by tomorrow.
What that means is that failed Capcom mascot Captain Commando appears on the back cover and in the manual.
It was basically just fancy branding for any and all Capcom NES games released during its early years.
The damage done by this box was more than superficial.Mega Manwas not a best seller for Capcom.
Luckily, the game had good word of mouth and didnt die on the vine.
He was confused by what he was firing out of.
He was also typically portrayed as being incredibly jacked for…reasons.
That isnt the end of the road for the original Mega Man art style, though.
Granted, this time they were intentional artistic misunderstandings of the source material.
Actually, there was a bit of a renaissance of that classic Mega Man art style throughout the 2010s.
Box Art Mega Man made a stinger cameo, revealing that he would be playable.
Around that same time,Street Fighter X Tekkenwas announced.
Not justanyMega Man, though, but a fat, gun-toting human designed to looklike Box Art Mega Man.
The problem was that all three of those games were eventually canceled.
Fans were not happy.
More recently, he appeared as a poster and action figure in theResident Evil 3 Remake.
Just because something was dumb at the time doesnt mean it needs to be hidden away forever.
Such things should be flaunted as part of a greater whole.
Have Deadpool make regular references to how silly his mouthless Baraka design was inX-Men Origins: Wolverine.
HaveStar Warscharacters bring up Life Day and Jaxxon the Rabbit like its a normal thing.
Make the ugly Sonic the Hedgehog design from the first movie trailerhis own character.
And you know what?
At the end of the day, we as a society are better for it.
