When Udon’s Mega Man Legends Timelines #1 dropped on shelves this week, fans were given a surprise… The CVR D variation of the book had its cover modified to feature MegaMan.EXE and Star Force Mega Man! What does this mean? They weren’t part of Udon’s reveal line-up for their new Mega Man comics.
As it happens, ShadowRockZX conducted a video interview with Udon staff, Matt Moylan, and asked about the inclusion. (Begins around 37:30 timestamp)
As per Matt Moylan’s words:
Originally the Legends cover, the Transformers homage cover, was supposed to be: it comes out and people, like, “Wait, why are these guys on the cover? Are they allowed to do that?” And yes, we are.
Capcom asked us last year, “Do you guys have any plans for Battle Network?” And we kind of told them, “We thought we weren’t allowed to do those.” They’re like, “No, you can do them now. That was just back in the day. So you can do those, too.” Battle Network and Star Force, so okay, great!
Regarding the cover and its sudden art change:
It (the cover) was drawn that way when Josh Perez drew it last spring (…) We drew that way back in the spring of 2025.
(…)
The story is really just like I said. We’re submitting comics and outlines and stuff, and Capcom just asked us, like, “Are we going to be seeing some Battle Network stuff?” Like I said, I didn’t think we were allowed! And they said, “No, no, no. We want to see you guys do some Battle Network stuff, too.” Like okay, awesome!
I think back in the day… So when we did the Mega Man Tribute book (…) We were told back then, specifically, we couldn’t use Battle Network and Star Force. That’s probably ‘cause the anime and manga people probably had merchandise rights built in. Like maybe they controlled that or partly controlled that. So we couldn’t include them back then, but it seems to be that’s a long time ago and it’s totally fine now. Capcom seems to have full control of it.
Moylan also states that the upcoming FCBD 2026 issue will be written by David Oxford and will be 8 pages. Also upcoming, a different future Mega Man Battle Network one-shot in the works by a “big name”. As for Mega Man Star Force, nothing else has been said regarding it.
The stated license issue has been said to prevent other publishers, such as Archie Comics, to use the characters in any way as well. As shown in their final issue of the comic, with EXE and Star Force cameos obscured completely in black. However, it seems enough time has elapsed where this is no longer a problem. A new era is upon us!
Source: Seibertron (cover image)