It's been 30 years since Dr. Wily took over the world, or at least Brazil, and most of the population is either dead or enslaved. Mega Man and Roll were unable to prevent this since they spent those years in power-up capsules. Dr. Light is deceased; the two must fend for themselves in this hostile place.
Thankfully, they quickly make an ally in X, their younger brother who has retired for unknown reasons, and soon the three of them are officially back in action. Unfortunately, things are only going to get worse from there...
That was the easy part. Unfortunately, the comic had so many retcons and continuity issues that sorting everything out is a bit of a chore. There's also plenty of artwork gaffes, since few of the artists chosen to draw for this comic retained many details from the past issues. NAdM was produced a bit differently than most other comics - the writers would produce a script, then have fan artists draw it; whoever's was the best would be selected for that issue. (It should be noted that only one artist, Rogerio Hanata, illustrated more than a single issue; also, artists would eventually write the scripts as well.)
Unfortunately, the publisher folded before the comic (and another series detailing events post-X4, before X5 was released) was completed, leaving many story threads dangling.
Detailed summaries and scans of this series can be found at O Ácido Cinza,
provided by one Rodrigo Shin. An overall summary of the convoluted plot and characters can be found here, at the Mechanical Maniacs. A translation of the series by the Optical Internet Translation Gang is available here.
Not to be confused with the Archie Comics Mega Man comic book, nor the the short-lived comic from Dreamwave, and definitely shouldn't be confused with the Manga Mega Man Megamix.
This series provides examples of:
- Adaptational Nice Guy: Slasher (Bass) is much more calm and melancholy than his Classic self, and even his abrasiveness in his debut comes off more as him being aloof than outright antagonistic. Even when his status as a double agent is revealed to the others, Slasher is desperately trying to talk them down so that they won't have to fight each other, a notion that Classic!Bass would find ridiculous.
- Adaptational Villainy: Subverted with Kalinka Cossack - her first appearances in the comic show her and Nastenka attempting to open an interdimensional portal to "invade parallel dimensions and spread the word of Communism". After being betrayed by Princess, they join the good guys and none of this is ever mentioned again.
- After the End: Takes place after Dr. Wily takes over the world.
- Alternate Continuity: One of many.
- Animation Bump: Issue #4 has some of the best art in the comic, particularly with Roll and Dr. Light.
- Animesque: Depending on the artist.
- Armed with Canon: What the whole deal with Princess boils down to - one writer explicitly stated that he planned to use her to literally take over the comic, as a result, he was fired and the character was written out.
- Art Shift: Every issue suffered from this. Sometimes multiple times within a single issue - the second one alone changes artists and styles twice!
- Artificial Human: "Project Lazarus", initiated years before the main events of the comic, involved kidnapping homeless girls from all over Brazil and turning them into robots for a variety of horrible purposes. Roll was among them. Kalinka was implied to be one as well, since she witnessed her father's death 30 years ago, yet her age didn’t match this claim. Presumably, this would've been brought up again later had the comic lasted long enough.
- Ax-Crazy: Princess, at least in the one issue in which she has any prominence (which is the one in which she is written out of the comic). The reason she crossed over into the series' universe was, essentially, to kill everything that wasn't her and her robotic pet.
- Big Bad: Dr. Wily, who is oppressing the world the heroes live in.
- Bloodier and Gorier: Even the Japanese versions of the Mega Man Zero games were tamer with this than this series' instances of this trope.
- Brain Uploading: Early on, Roll's body is temporarily destroyed, and her brothers are forced to move what is left of her to a washing machine. She's most displeased, but at least she's not totally helpless in this state.
- Broad Strokes: All the Mega Man (Classic) games up to Mega Man 8 happened in some form before the comic's events. Considering all the continuity differences in the comic, however, the events of the games can't have happened without at least a fair number of differences.
- Brother–Sister Incest: Played horribly straight in the first few issues between Mega and Roll, who consider each other siblings but are very strongly implied (if not outright stated) to have an attraction to each other; X also lusts after Roll despite also being considered her brother. One hopes that this was only because there were no other female main characters before Kalinka and Nastenka appear, as this is dumped as soon as those two join the protagonists.
- Canon Foreigner: A lot of it. Most notable are Nastenka (Kalinka’s robot bodyguard and friend), Princess, the rebels, Holzenbein and its forces, and the various robots that impede Mega Man and friends' progress.
- Cerebus Syndrome: The early issues are relatively lighthearted (with
the exception of Issue #4), but later on... well... - Chivalrous Pervert: For all of X's questionable behavior around Roll and Nastenka, he is not a bastard. The same can be said of Mega.
- Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Towards the end, Kalinka disappeared without any mentions. Considering that most of the last issues were one big fight, it might not be unreasonable to assume that she just stayed out of it.
- Cliffhanger: The ending.
- Clothing Damage: Roll suffers this quite a bit, except for the last few issues where she is almost completely naked.
- Crapsack World: Some of the darker issues show it like this. For example, it deals with underage sex slavery.
- Comic-Book Adaptation: Of the Mega Man series.
- Cultural Posturing: While everyone in the comic love Brazil something fierce, Princess is the most egregious example - her introduction (on a fake talk show) includes a rant about how there need to be more comics about Brazilian characters.
- Cultural Translation: Did you know that the first eight Classic-series games took place in Brazil? And that everyone in the cast's always lived there?
- Cut Short: Sure would've been nice to see how this thing would've concluded.
- Darker and Edgier: The comic is even darker than the series it is based on.
- Defector from Decadence
- Dr. Light was one of the scientists involved with Project Lazarus. He wanted no part of it.
- Protoman was part of "The Six", the original replacements for all of the world's robots and Wily's present allies, but abandoned them at some undetermined point. Oddly, he was allowed in the group despite not being one of the said replacements, the "Neo-Mavericks".
- Depending on the Artist: Taken to ludicrous extremes. To put this into perspective; multiple artists were used for various issues, they never maintained much, if any consistency with each other, and out of those artists, only one managed to make more than one issue.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: And late-installment weirdness. Early issues were more lighthearted, though.
- Establishing Character Moment: Princess' first appearance at the end of Issue #2 is her going on a tirade about the Brazilian comic industry and American influence and so forth - in essence, an Establishing Author Moment (see also Hostile Show Takeover).
- Everyone Calls Them The Six: Because none of them except Proto have actual names.
- Everyone Is Related: Okay, Mega Man, Roll, Protoman, and X were a given, but Slasher/Bass and Zero?
- Exactly What I Aimed At: During the fight with Princess, Mega and X launch a buster attack that seems to miss, but really hit the large pillar behind that swung into her.
- Fake Ultimate Hero: Zero. Hyped up as the most powerful of the main characters, double-wielding Z-Sabers, getting Oh, Crap! reactions from every villain as soon as he appears. Then, he freaks out when on the receiving end of an attack by the Neo-Mavericks (being called Big Ice Cream by Bass while being saved) and goes down in one hit in the final battle. This may be a reference to his Glass Cannon status in the games, but still. He was extremely disappointing as a character.
- Fan Disservice: Most of Issue #4, and for good reason - all of the Project Lazarus victims were underage.
- Roll is rendered almost completely naked in Issue #12. This is made scary by the circumstances in which it happened, and that she's missing half her face due to a buster shot.
- For the Evulz: At one point, Mr. Holzenbein sacrifices some poor girl in a Voodoo ceremony(?) for no reason. (At least the comic admits this.)
- Four Is Death: Mega Man's group is attacked by four powerful robots in Issue #10.
- Gainax Ending: Aliens interrupt the final fight scene in the last issue.
- Genre Shift: The writers have admitted to changing the genre nearly every issue because they wanted to see which sort of storylines the readers liked best. As such, one comic could be a flashback to a horrifying backstory about Roll's mind being taken from a young girl whom an evil scientist murdered for his mad robotics experiment, while another could be an anything-goes Large Ham comedy with No Fourth Wall.
- Godiva Hair: Kalinka has this while naked. Roll...doesn't.
- Heel–Face Door-Slam: Two of them occur in rapid succession...sort of.
- The first, Proto Man forcing X and Slasher back onto his side is quite delayed (though Slasher was working more with Proto Man than with anyone else).
- The second is something of an odd case. Proto Man is offered the chance to rejoin the Six; Wily slams the door by kicking the Six to the curb.
- Heel–Face Turn: The circumstances of Proto's are vague at best - was he planning on overthrowing Wily, or did he really snap?
- Hostile Show Takeover: The other thing this comic is famous for (besides Roll spending a fourth of it stark naked) is Princess, a character whose creator
explicitly admitted was supposed to kill off everyone else and become the new main character. He got found out and fired, and in Issue #7 Princess is kicked out of the series unceremoniously. - Hotter and Sexier: For a comic based on Mega Man, there sure are a lot of naked women.
- Idiot Hero: Both Mega Man and X, to various degrees. To X's credit, he's the only one to wonder why Kalinka still looks like a teenager if she witnessed her father's death 30 years ago.
- In Name Only: After a certain point, the comic focuses so much on Roll that calling it "The New Adventures of Mega Man" isn't all that accurate. Could also qualify as an Artifact Title or Decoy Protagonist depending on the authors' plans.
- La Résistance: Some human rebels show up in Issue #11.
- Left Hanging: In franchise tradition. The publisher went out of business, so don't expect an official continuation.
- The Man Behind the Man: Apparently, the aliens.
- The Mole: X and Slasher were on Proto's side the entire time. To their credit, by the time they meet Mega Man and Roll, they're no longer willing to be on his side. Proto wasn't too happy about that.
- Mood Whiplash: All over the place.
- Ms. Fanservice: Roll, Kalinka, and Nastenka, particularly post-Issue 12.
- No Ending: Due to the publisher folding before it was over.
- Oddball in the Series: Even without the rampant blood and gore, weird continuity, and naked women running about, this comic has about as much to do with Mega Man as a history textbook. Needless to say, it tends to be ignored everywhere else in the franchise.
- Older Than They Look: Kalinka, possibly.
- Orcus on His Throne: Wily spends a lot of the issues just standing around, plotting. Until the finale.
- Poor Communication Kills: The best explanation for why Wily abandoned the Six to their fates. If they’d just told him that they weren’t trying to join Proto...
- Random Events Plot: Thanks to constant Genre Shifts.
- Series Continuity Error / Continuity Snarl: Plenty of smaller ones to go around, but the most notable one has to be Issue #12. The actual events - Roll fleeing from her pursuers, even though she was knocked out at the end of Issue #11 - isn't too bad, if you assume that she recovered between issues. However, her reflections during #12 directly contradict what she (and the reader) have learned only a few issues prior (for example, how Dr. Light died). You could almost assume that much of #12 was Roll dreaming, but at the point at which the "dream" ends one can see that X and “Slasher” are trussed up along with Mega Man, Roll, Kalinka, and Nastenka, even though not only are they free in #13, but they're revealed to be traitors.
- Spell My Name With An S: Kalinka’s name is rendered as "Karinka" here; Dr. Light/Right is Wright, and for a good chunk of time Wily is Willy.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Kalinka disappears after Issue #13.
- Wham Episode: Issue #4, which reveals Roll's backstory.
- You Didn't Ask: X knew much, much more than he let on, but never shared this info with his allies. There was a supposedly good reason for this that was never revealed, so it's probably safe to assume that the info - the exact details of Dr. Light's death - had traumatized him. Slasher, on the other hand, is forced to remain vague, as Proto doesn't want the others knowing of their plans just yet.
