SDCC 2024: Udon Entertainment Announces Acquisition of Mega Man Comic Book License

San Diego Comic-Con is continuing its annual run throughout the weekend, and while Saturday is full of announcements and bits of information revealed throughout the day particularly into the evening as Marvel takes the stage for their Hall H panel, the gaming information for the day has been fairly scarce. One announcement of note occurred during a panel in which Udon Entertainment revealed they have acquired the master comic book license for Mega Man across the board, from the classic series to X, Legends, Zero and ZX. Battle Network and Star Force, however, will both not be included in any comic books published under the licensing agreement, as the developers and owners CAPCOM do not have the sole rights to those particular entries and the two titles take place in a separate universe from the main storyline and universe all featured in the previously noted titles.

Udon Entertainment also revealed that fans of Mega Man can start seeing new comic books for the series release in 2025, but beyond that there are a lot of details that will come at a later time including writers and artists, content, and of course release dates.

The original Mega Man, known as Rockman in Japan, was released in 1987 for the Nintendo Entertainment System, and in the more than three decades that have passed since then the science fiction game IP has seen more than fifty games release across many different systems. It noted a shift for CAPCOM as the company's first release developed for home console use, as they had previously worked with arcade games.

This is the second time a comics publisher will release Mega Man comics under, with Archie Comics previously releasing 55 issues from 2011 to 2015, not exactly replicating what had already been shown in the games but following closely. While Archie's series provided fairly successful and popular with its readers and even spawned a Mega Man and Sonic the Hedgehog crossover titled "Worlds Collide" in 2013, it was put on hiatus in 2015. With Udon Entertainment announcing their acquisition of the comic book license, the return of Archie Comics' particular series obviously is unlikelier than ever. There was also a manga series published in Japan from 1992-1996 that was written by Shigeto Ikehara and based on the original video game, which many fans would likely love to see translated under the new license at Udon.