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This pic means a bit more to me than some others I've done in the past because it's actually FROM the past, sorta. This is a remake of a picture I drew waaaay back in 2004/5, when I just started playing Megaman (but drifted off for a while because the games were so difficult) and wanted to draw stuff for it, but had very little knowledge of the series.

First, the pic itself. Bass, for whatever reason and by whatever means, has Megaman under his control. What he does with the Blue Bomber is his own business--or so he thinks, for even Bass seems to be influenced by some shadowy figure lurking in the background; a figure that only watches with sick satisfaction, knowing full well that Bass has no idea what he's gotten himself--or even Megaman--into.


That "figure" is actually the Evil Energy manifestation/robot that Duo battled in MM8's first cutscene. Since Duo has been typoed to the Italian word for "god", Dio, I've decided to name this bad boy the opposite--Abaddon. Whether or not he is the "carrier" of all Evil Energy (or at least the most powerful version) or if he is the EE himself is negligible--he's extremely dangerous either way. His actions and motives are clear--to himself, anyway.


As for the changes made to the original pic--originally, Bass was smiling like a sick bastard (and was badly drawn); Megaman's eyes were pupil-less and he had a feral snarl on his face. Here, what Bass is doing is unappealing even to himself, and it shows. On the other hand, the only thing that could be noted as "different" with Mega is the change of eye colour--something that wouldn't be apparent until it was too late. [I chose brown because, simply put, no third-party product has given him brown eyes before.] Yes, I realize that Abaddon's arm vanishes behind Bass's head, but he isn't really supposed to be there in the first place...just kind of watching from afar.

Some details from the original I kept, such as the way the two robots are highlighted, the posing, and Bass's gauntlets. Megaman's armour is just as plain as Capcom draws it--in MM9, it's a mix of Ariga, MM7 [boxart], and Nintendo Power. The original was drawn LONG before I knew there was anything but a comic and cartoon made for the MM series. Abaddon is the only totally new thing added (besides a colour background).

Back then, my Internet access was fairly limited (not the service, but how far I "surfed"), and so was my knowledge of MM. That, and I couldn't complete the games, so I had no idea why Cossack (the bad momma-jamma of MM4) was helping Mega in MM5, or why Protoman had gone berserk in that same game and still be helping Megaman in later installments, or even who created Bass. On the plus side, that era was when I conceptualized Sydney/Baroque, T. Bile, Inspector Damien and Wheel. They're old gits. XD Other concepts (ex: Bass/Roll, the basis for the MM9 story) took root there.

What little I "knew" of Megaman came from visiting *lizsama's gallery of awesome and going to Sprites Inc. Wasn't much, but 'twas a start. My rendition of the Megaman world at that time would have made the poor experts (like the godly Zan Sidera ) vomit.

The original is taped to my dresser and I'm not sure I want to scan it in just yet. This'll have to do. [And no, this is not how Abaddon will reveal himself. I'm workin' on it.]