Triptych: Fat, Old Mega Man

"Haters Gonna Hate (Bad Box Art Mega Man Edition)" by Brother Brain

"I Heart Mega Man" by Ian Wilding

"The Mega Man Blues" by Grieg Rapson

Did you guys hear that Bad Box Art Mega Man is going to be a bonus character (along with Pac-Man piloting a gigantic wooden training dummy) in Street Fighter x Tekken? There's been a fair bit of controversy over this: the Mega Man included here is middle-aged and paunchy, and carries a hand-held blaster gun rather than the traditional arm cannon, so not exactly the tiny powerhouse we all fondly remember from our NES days.

Here's the thing, though - this is Bad Box Art Mega Man. Bad Box Art Mega Man is distinctly different from "classic" Mega Man, and until now existed purely as a poorly-rendered drawing on the original NES box cover. THIS version of Mega Man has a blue-and-yellow suit, a gun in his hand, and a paunch (not to mention a somewhat lopsided physiology). This Mega Man has long been a joke in the annals of Capcom's history, and Street Fighter x Tekken is his very first videogame appearance. In the video below, you can almost hear Bad Box Art Mega Man grinning and saying, "Finally, it's BAD BOX ART MEGA MAN'S time to shine! Look out, haters!"

And that's why I applaud Capcom for going the less obvious route here. Everyone loves the underdog in a fight; and man, you cannot get more underdog than Bad Box Art Mega Man.