Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Blast From The Past: Official Mega Man Costumes

2003 to '04 marked a time when the Mega Man brand was everywhere. The franchise's fifteenth anniversary induced the release of a slew of officially licensed Mega Man products.  Capcom partner with the likes of Jazwares and Artbox, to Dreamwave and Disguise Costumes to ensure the franchise was branching outwards to as many markets as possible.



One of the more interesting products released in that period were the Mega Man costumes. In the summer of 2004, Disguise was awarded the rights to produce official Mega Man halloween costumes and party favors (which never surfaced).

Later that fall, two child-sized costumes shipped out: Zero (X series) and Mega Man.EXE (Battle Network/NT Warrior). Helping to raise awareness for the costumes, a series of advertisements were inserted in the backs of a number of Mega Man game manuals from the era. Seriously; check out the back flaps of your X7 or Command Mission's manuals.

The costumes were, to my knowledge, not a huge success, but remained mostly sold out during the season. Nowadays, they're collector's items.

A quick Ebay search reveals both costumes are up for grabs, each priced at a "buy it now" at around $29.99. I doubt you'll be wearing 'em, but if you're looking to add a little more obscurity to your collection, you can't go wrong with these guys. Check them out if you're interested: Zero here; Mega Man here.

12 comments:

  1. Ha! I just saw these today too. =P

    Ever since I saw the Zero costume in comics and instruction booklets I've wanted to buy it just for the helmet. XD

    I also find it funny that they chose a black child for Zero. Not being racist or anything, it just looks kinda funny. The costume itself is missing the arm and leg parts...oh well, at least the EXE costume can use the Buster toy that came out. =)

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  2. Oh and as for party favors, I see Mega Man birthday balloons appear on eBay every now and then. Same company?

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  3. Yeah, uh... Yeah. That marketing era, man.

    Note to self: Never look at the images before reading the article. I thought, "That looks shopped."

    *shot*

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  4. Black Zero.

    TrollFace.jpg

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  5. Those have got to be some of the worst-looking costumes I've ever seen.

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  6. "Megaman Zero", eh?

    I think I would have preferred the Zero Zero. Those hideous boob lights.

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  7. Zero got a haircut? Also, in the costume Zero looks like he is using diaper instead of briefs. But isn't Zero a woman? ;)
    Maybe the Neutered Armor X from X8 can answer this.

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  8. I remember the Zero one. :)

    (There was also an RS-MM costume released back in the day; it's at about the same level of accuracy as the ones here)

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  9. I remember these... we all had a good laugh (and I still do when I want to horribly bother people ;p)

    Strangely enough I never noticed the Zero costume doesn't have the arm pieces.

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  10. I still stand by and say that I actually enjoyed the DreamWave comic they did for Megaman back in the day.


    Really hope that the new Archie Comics is just as good, or better.

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  11. hey! I saw the exe costume at a halloween store last october!

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