The Megas



"Since the year 200X (4), The Megas have strived to bring a message from Dr. Light to the people. They have chosen to transmit that message, the tale of a small blue robot named Mega Man, directly into the eardrums of the general populace through the power of rock."

- The Megas' mission statement.

The Megas are a Los Angeles-based band well-known for making vocal rock remixes of music from the Mega Man video game series. Unlike The Protomen, a similarly dedicated band, they directly remix songs from the games. The resulting songs generally have a closer feeling to the original work, giving each of the Robot Masters their own personalities as they sing about their lives as Mega Man breaches their defenses, and eventually defeats them.

Its members currently consist of "Reverend" Josh Breeding, Eric "E" Von Doymi, Greg "Gregatron" Schneider (formerly of punk-rock act Agent 51), Mike "Mikey Hell" Levinson (also of Agent 51), and Brian "The Double D" DiDomenico. Their debut album, "Get Equipped", which covers nearly every song in the Mega Man 2 soundtrack, was released January 2008. It's available for purchase on their website.

On August 24, 2009, the band, in conjunction with Entertainment System, released a 4-track EP called Megatainment, based on Mega Man 1.

On February 5th, 2010, they released "Get Acoustic", a largely acoustic version of Get Equipped, with the "Monsteropolis Orchestra" they created. Most of the songs are slightly slower and more somber, although this is not true universally.

On July 19th, 2010, they released the Sparked A War single, which contained the studio release of You've Sparked A War/Spark Man, a instrumental variation, an acoustic remix, and covers of both Sunglasses At Night by Corey Hart and the Mega Man cartoon theme song, dubbed Super Fighting Robot.

Not to be confused with either Megas XLR or The Protomen, a completely unrelated band who, while similar in their base inspiration, have no relation to the Megas and are not in any kind of so-called "rivalry" with them, no matter what some of the bands' respective fans would lead you to believe.

The work of The Megas contain examples of:
"I'm swimming in this bright blue ocean / (I'm drowning in the darkest emotion) / They call me useless, they call me weak / (They call me a flipper and snorkel geek) Out of the eight robots, of all of us / (My power is so ridiculous) / I realize something, as I stand here waiting / (That I'm the one who I'm really hating)"
 * Arrogant Kung Fu Guy: Metal Man spends his entire song ranting about how unstoppable he is.
 * Avenging The Villains: In Carved From Mighty Oak, Wood Man states he will avenge the other Robot Masters. Heat Man's voices seem to push him to this too.
 * There are a few; The Quick and the Blue for example.
 * Battle in the Rain: Mega Man vs. Crash Man.
 * Black Sheep: Bubble Man.

"My circuits slow / I'm not scared anymore / This is the moment that we have been created for!"
 * Blood Knight: The Quick and The Blue portrays Quick Man as having a bit of this in him.

""I hope, history is kind to us all / I know they'll blame me for the fall / I wish there was a better way out, / But there's no better way out.""
 * Bomb Throwing Anarchist: Bombman.
 * Boss Banter

"Quick on the draw! / In this town, I am the law! / Is what they say true? / Does Death wear blue? / Can he fall?"
 * Card-Carrying Villain: Heat Man.
 * Combat Pragmatist: Mega Man, who (supposedly) cheats in his duel with Quick Man by using the Flash Stopper (My circuits slow...), presumably to overcome Quick Man's superior speed. This is the only time he seems to use a Robot Master's weakness in the songs.
 * Companion Cube: Tourball.
 * Continuity Nod: Spark Man's song, You've Sparked a War, presents him as a revolutionary against human tyranny, just like his counterpart Electric Man's earlier song.
 * Dance Battler: Metal Man's song, appropriately titled Metal Dance.
 * Top Man's song, as he considers the fight between Mega Man and himself a "legendary dance fight."
 * Darker and Edgier: Nothing close to the level of horror seen in The Protomen's songs, but a good number of the songs paint a decidedly darker picture of the Mega Man games. Roughly half of the Robot Masters are given sympathetic views, or at least a Freudian Excuse or two, and there are three seperate songs discussing the questionable moral ground that Mega Man stands on; Light, Wily, and Mega Man himself are all too aware that Mega Man is himself a robot built to kill, just like the robot masters that he defeats.
 * The Megatainment album in general has a darker, more cynical feel than Get Equipped, if only because of Beneath the Steel and Look What You've Done. It may take several listenings a back-to-back comparison to even recognize Bomb Man's theme (originally a rather cheerful song) in the former.
 * Dark Reprise / Ironic Echo: The Quick and The Blue. The ordinary chorus is:

"You're too quick on the draw. / Burn this town, there is no law. / What they say's true. / Death does wear blue. / He can't... fall..."
 * And at the end, the final lines of the song are:

""A man stands above the city he will destroy. Built from airplane parts, his propeller spins as he thinks to himself 'I will destroy these people.'""
 * What's the name of the MM 3 Wily song? I Want To Be The One... To Watch You Die.
 * Death From Above: The Annihilation of Monsteropolis. "I will fly high above Monsteropolis / And I will rain terror down on the general populace..."
 * "Lives on this earth I grow tired of/ Death from above/ The annihilation of everyone you know and love..."
 * Death Seeker / Redemption Equals Death: 'An interesting example in Programmed to Fight.
 * Crash Man does not agree with Wily's ideals and wants to give his power to Mega Man, but he is "Programmed to fight to the very end" and must do battle with him. However, at the end of the song: "Victory was at hand, but in the end, his will overcame the program." Presumably, he blew himself up so that Mega Man could use his power.
 * Alternatively, he stopped himself from killing Mega Man long enough for the other to make than last shot. One of the interesting parts of the Megas' music is that most of the songs can have Alternate Character Interpretation within the music itself, not just between the game and the songs.
 * Demoted To Nothing / Wasted Song: Cut Man and Guts Man, despite being two of the more well known Robot Masters, don't show up at all in the Megatainment album. There's been talk of making a Megatainment Pt. 2, but The Megas have expressed a desire to finish the Mega Man 3 album before they get to work on that, and there's the issue of how they're going to fill it with more than just the songs for those two.
 * Department of Redundancy Department: The NESsage From Dr. Light. An 8-bit track, remixed as a full fledged song, remixed as an 8-bit track.
 * Also, from The Annihilation of Monsteropolis:

""I've finally learned what torture means/ You sent my first born back to me/ And put a gun in his dead hand/ Time to take an eye for mine old friend." "The things I hope, the fading dream,/ Has finally got the best of me/ I wish that I could be there/ I want to be the one to watch you die""
 * Despair Event Horizon: If Dr. Light is singing it, then he seems to have crossed this by I Want To Be The One To Watch You Die after seeing Proto Man fighting for Dr. Wily.

""Wait, now, there's too much at stake now,/ a cold wind blows/He looked to the crowd and he cried/'The moment of truth has arrived!'""
 * Dramatic Wind: In The Quick And The Blue, just before the Showdown At High Noon.

"Hey Mega Man, join my side/And let me stop this moment in time/You'll be mine, forever."
 * Driven to Suicide: The ending of Programmed to Fight seems to imply that Crash Man killed himself (via self-detonation?) so Mega Man could finish his quest for justice.
 * The last part of the song ("Down falls Crashman... Down falls Crashman... Doooooooown"), along with the sudden bass boom which ends the song and the fact that Crashman's stage requires Mega Man to travel mostly vertically by climbing ladders, implies Crashman jumped or fell off the edge after refusing or failing to kill Mega Man.
 * The brass boom could also be a crash bomb (self?) explosion, or thunder (the end of the stage is in a storm). But again, "No-one will know the truth to this story."
 * Fire and Brimstone Hell - Heat Man's depraved ranting in "Man On Fire" has him potraying his stage as this. He's not far off, actually.
 * Foe Yay: Blue Like You. Oh dear God where do we begin...
 * How about the chorus?

"What Mega Man and my brothers don't know / Is this flash is all for show ('cause inside) / there's nothing there, and there's nothing to me / I'm empty and I'm hollow! This flashy suit and this flashy stage / I use only to hide (the fact that)/ I am lonely, and I need somebody / Like Mega Man, by my side!"
 * However, it doesn't appear to be a random choice to give him the Foe Yay. He does seem to have a Freudian Excuse for this rather... Freudian goal:

"Is what they say true?/Does Death wear blue?/Can he fall?"
 * For the Evulz: Heat Man, unlike Air Man, doesn't actually seem to have a reason for why he wants to cause death and destruction.
 * That is one way to look at it.
 * Foregone Conclusion: Any of the songs that focus on a fight itself will obviously end with the Robot Master's defeat.
 * Freudian Excuse: A few of the robots, Air Man, Bubble Man, Heat Man and Flash Man in particular. See their respective entries on this page for more info.
 * Fridge Brilliance: In The Quick and The Blue, Quickman asks "Does Death wear blue?" throughout the song. This gets an added meaning when you remember that Quickman is weak to Flashman's weapon, whose song is Blue Like You.
 * In I'm Not The Breakman the line "What am I supposed to be?" is immediately followed by the Weapon Get theme.
 * Also in the same song, Protoman/Breakman mentions that the creator "is a liar." Recall the plot of the third game...
 * Fun with Acronyms: According to their mission statement, The Megas are Mike Eric Greg And Josh.
 * Gray and Gray Morality: Mega Man sees himself as a hero. Wiley's robots see him as a menace who is slaughtering their brothers. "Lamentations of a Warmachine" has Mega Man tormented by doubts over whether or not what he has done was right.
 * Hailfire Peaks: Considering that Fire Man and Ice Man were working together, and that their song is called Hell Has Frozen Over, it's not unreasonable to think their level was like this.
 * Hearing Voices: Possible Heatman, given the line "In my mind, I hear the voices cry/I've made them a promise that Mega Man dies!"
 * Heel Face Turn: Crash Man wanted to do one of these, but his programming wouldn't let him. Well, until the end at least.
 * Ho Yay: Listen to Hell Has Frozen Over and tell this troper that it doesn't smack of a love declaration between Fireman and Iceman.
 * Hypocrite: Dr Wily lambastes Light for having his robot destroy his own kind, even though he's the one sending robots out to create murder and mayhem amongst humans despite being one himself.
 * Also, his song Look What You've Done implies that he's fighting to free robots from human tyranny (as do Evolution of Circuitry and You've Sparked A War.) Now compare this to Programmed to Fight, which reveals that Crash Man is still a slave to his programming...
 * History Repeats: History Repeating
 * I Cannot Self-Terminate: In Programmed To Fight, Crashman wants to let Mega Man win and kill him so Doctor Wily will fall, but, as the title suggests, his programming will not allow it.
 * I Let You Win: Listening closely to the Crashman song lyrics, the end suggests Crashman was actually winning before he finally was able to throw the fight.
 * Implacable Man: Quick Man's song has him wondering if Mega Man's one of these.

"No one in this world can understand/Who I am./That is why I'm my own biggest fan!"
 * Loners Are Evil: In Annihilation of Monsteropolis, Air Man is portrayed as a loner tortured by the fact his only power is "to push others away", and goes as far as outright stating: "For if I can't walk among them/Then I will walk the world alone".
 * Although in this case, perhaps it should be "Freaks Are Loners", as it's implied that the fact that humans rejected his abnormal appearance might be a major factor for his hatred of humanity.

"If it were up to me I'd rewrite history And change my destiny One last time."
 * Lyrical Dissonance: The cheerful ending theme from Mega Man 1 is set to Dr. Wily vowing to return and destroy the people's future. And he won't stop.
 * Mood Whiplash: Evolution of Circuitry, Elec Man's song, is quite possibly one of the most cheerful and optimistic songs by The Megas, despite the reasons for the optimism. Beneath the Steel, Bomb Man's theme, is one of the darkest, rivaled only by Look What You've Done. They're right next to each other on the album.
 * The Mega Man 1 album is full of mood whiplash in general. The first song is Evolution of Circuitry, followed by Beneath The Steel as mentioned. That is followed by Hell Has Frozen Over, a much lighter song focusing on the teamwork of Ice Man and Fire Man, and then you get hit by Look What You've Done.
 * Speaking of Bomb Man, anyone who remembers how cheerful his theme was in the game will probably get hit by this.
 * By that token, compare Crash Man's theme to Programmed to Fight, and then, of course, there is the fact that the cheerful ending theme to Mega Man 1 is overlaid with Dr. Wily promising a never-ending war for Mega Man and Dr. Light.
 * Fly on a Dog is one of their darkest songs, involving Mega Man grimly contemplating his purpose. It also features a chorus about how awesome a flying dog is.
 * Mook Horror Show - Quick Man's song increasingly becomes this as it progresses.
 * Wily's song has shades of this, specifically when he starts begging Dr. Light to call Mega Man off.
 * Moral Myopia - So, it's okay for Wily to program destructive machines and set them loose to kill and maim, but if Light sends his robot out to stop him, Light is a coward and Mega Man is a murderer?
 * My God, What Have I Done?: By Lamentations of a War Machine, Mega Man's enthusiasm for the fight has given way to the realization that he, too, was built to kill. He's reduced to begging Doctor Light to tell him why he fought, why all this had to happen.
 * If I've a heart made of steel / Then does that mean I cannot feel? /Remorse for everything I've done / My hand's a smoking gun!
 * The intro to the Mega Man 3 album implies that he's still not over it.

"We are the chosen, we are the pure/They are the virus, we are the cure."
 * The first verse of The Message from Dr. Light. "My mistakes/And my sins; what have I done?"
 * Mythology Gag: Many of the songs have some sort of reference to the original game somewhere in them, sometimes alluding to a quirk in the character's behavior in game.
 * "Crash Man paces back and forth..."
 * "To break Wily's walls you will need my power." The Buebeam Trap. That is all.
 * "Take the first shot, Mega Man, let's put it to the test."
 * "My circuits slow..."
 * "The strongest of all of the other robots is me!"
 * "When the leaves fall, so will you"
 * Dr. Wily's speech near the end of Look What You've Done when the music transitions to the ending theme is taken word for word from the end of the first game.
 * "He removed his helmet, dropped it into the soft grass.." Figures the song based off the ending would include a reference to the last shot of the game.
 * "I dodge bullets when I'm spinning."
 * "My heart is gone, there's only fire."
 * The title of the song History Repeating may be taken from a line in the intro of Mega Man 4; "history repeats itself"
 * Obliviously Evil: Spark Man is clearly convinced that he's the good guy.

"Fire in once lifeless eyes/ motivated by their cries/ Obliteration/ The humans' chance has passed."
 * Omnicidal Maniac: Bombman's song paints him as one.

"No one in this world can understand/Who I am./That is why I'm my own biggest - - cue chorus overlapping the word "fan"."
 * Roaring Rampage of Revenge: If you don't attribute Heat Man's song to For the Evulz, and lean toward Hearing Voices. This goes hand in hand with the Ax Crazy. Also can be a Freudian Excuse.
 * Screw Destiny: Quick Man tries to do this. He fails.
 * Crash Man, however, succeeds in resisting his programming and losing to Mega Man.
 * Shout-Out: See Something Completely Different.
 * Showdown At High Noon: Quick Man's battle with Mega Man is framed as one of these.
 * Stealth Pun: A bit of this with The Annihilation of Monsteropolis:

"My sins, you'll fight / The wrongs that I made you will make right."
 * Something Completely Different: Super Fighting Robot and their cover of Sunglasses At Night have nothing to do with Mega Man 3 or Spark Man, but they're on the Sparked a War single anyway.
 * The inclusion of Sunglasses at Night is most likely an allusion to Protoman.
 * Spell My Name with an "S": One of the lines from History Repeating, I rock. Fire up.  I'm fired up. which has caused many a Flame War.
 * Spontaneous Crowd Formation: A crowd gathers to watch Mega Man and Quick Man fight.
 * The Atoner: Dr. Light builds Mega Man to make up for his mistake of working with Dr. Wily to build the Robot Masters.

"I made you in my image I built your heart I gave you eyes I gave you power A sense of justice beyond any compare I gave you hands, a child's face I gave you hair (ROBOTIC HAAAAIR)"
 * The Last of These Is Not Like the Others: The Message from Dr. Light:

"Call me wrong?/The future needs us/Your answer's death?/You end us, bleed us. ''Can you not feel / That we could have a life forged in steel. / I only ask that you see what I see. / This is the answer. / Why won't you believe."
 * The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized: Elec Man is portrayed as a radical revolutionary fighting against "human cruelty" in Evolution of Circuitry.
 * The Western: "The Quick and the Blue" has a feeling similar to this.
 * The Greatest Story Never Told: By Programmed to Fight, it seems that Crash Man may be the only one who knows his story.
 * It's explicitly evoked with the line "My end has come and I welcome glory/no one will know the truth to this story."
 * Turned Against Their Masters: Crash Man may have been more motivated by a hatred of his creator than by sort of sense of justice.
 * Then there's, you know, Elecman's entire song, calling out for robots to throw off human oppression and revolt.
 * Villain Song: Most of the songs are sung from the viewpoints of the Robot Masters the songs are associated with. Look What You've Done deserves special mention as it is sung from the perspective of Dr. Wily himself.
 * Well-Intentioned Extremist: Look What You've Done portrays Dr. Wily as one of these.

"And who is this that you send? One of them? While you cower, far from harm. He'll just disappoint you. ..."And how quick you had him dispatch his brothers. You call this murderer a savior." "I see his hands, covered in my children's blood...""
 * Elecman can qualify too, as he sees human control of robots as slavery.
 * What Could Have Been: The band originally went by the moniker The Message From Dr. Light, which was scrapped due to sounding "too religious". They also apparently went by The Rockmen "for all of one hour".
 * What Do You Mean It's Not Awesome?: "ROBOTIC HAIR!"
 * What the Hell, Hero?: Wily calls out Dr. Light many times in Look What You've Done.

"There's one thing for which I long And that is to prove them all wrong! I promise you I won't rest until I have defeated you They will all see The strongest of all of the other robots is me."
 * Who's Laughing Now?: Bubbleman wants this to make this happen by killing Mega Man:

"Do you know what it's like to be built this way? With only the power to push others away? ... I will destroy these people... For is I cannot walk among them... Then I will walk the world alone."
 * Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: The Annihilation of Monsteropolis presents Air Man this way:


 * Yandere: Flash Man could be one. It's definitely Foe Yay, but depending on how far one interprets the lyrics...