mysteriousmre's Reviews (1.22k)

Lots of new characters introduced, but none of them are terribly interesting. Stern and Krantz (2 of the few human characters in this series) are just a generic good cop/bad cop duo with Stern being a stereotypical old fogey who hates technology. Time Man and Oil Man are more fun to read by comparison because of their conflicting personalities, but neither of them are fleshed out enough to be interesting individually. The story is pretty run of the mill too, existing solely to explain how Wily escaped before this series adapts the plot of Mega Man 2.

Regarding the art, Matt Herms continues to rock on coloring and Chad Thomas' art isn't as bad as I remembered. His characters are very expressive, and the panels all flow nicely together, but it does look flat compared to Spaziante's pencils in the previous volume. In short, Mega Man Vol. 2 is a very noticeable step down. Skip this one, go straight to volume 3.

Adapts the plot of the NES game Mega Man 2 while adding a couple fun twists of its own. Good pacing, great art. Ben Bates' pencils look far more 3-dimensional than Thomas' in the previous volume, with more interesting compositions and kinetic action sequences. It's not ground-breaking by any means, but it's a fun all-ages blockbuster and my favorite in the series so far.

A nice reminder for the western Church that we should not focus solely on our actions as a way to define who we are, but look to how God sees us. Not suited for all denominations, and I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone who identifies with the LGBT community, but still highly recommended for those struggling with/recovering from addiction, perfectionism, or Christian Legalism.

2.5 really. Enjoyed the world building, but the story was pretty meh and I had a lot of trouble taking the antagonists seriously as threats in this book. The series starts introducing some rather heavy philosophies in this volume regarding the the creation of artificial intelligence and free will that are actually kinda intriguing.

Example: Is it moral for man to create such an intelligence and is it emotionally healthy for us to become attached to those creations when their purpose is ultimately to be used as slaves and disposed of like trash?

The book doesn't explore those philosophies quiet as much as I'd have liked it to in this volume (it kinda just dumps them there to be explored later), but based on this series' reputation I know I'll get that exploration later on in the series.

Bottom line: if you've enjoyed the series thus far, pick it up. Otherwise, I'd give it a pass. I don't think this volume on its own will change you're mind.

A collection of short stories and one shots. The 1rst story detailing the origins of Blues/Proto Man is more than enough to justify the purchase, but the rest of the stories don't leave much of an impression. Only recommended if you're a Mega Man fan.

The book feels like a step down for a couple reasons. For starters, this book markets itself as the beginning of the story by calling itself Volume 1, and it REALLY isn't (that would be Ant-Man: Second-Chance Man and I really recommend it). Second of all this volume is very unfocused. It's a bunch of one-and-done stories of varying quality that exist either to address previous continuity (see Ms. Thing) or cater to one of the many events that were going on at Marvel at the time (see the "death" of Hank Pym and the Last Days before Secret Wars). There's lots of set-up for future reckonings towards the end and the overarching background plot with the Hench app (a hilarious concept) helps tie everything together a bit, but this volume still feels very disjointed. If you didn't like the previous volume this isn't going to change your mind.

I loved Second-Chance Man, but the next volume is really gonna determine whether I can recommend this series as a whole because it won't have the excuse of mandated events it needs to address.