Zero! ‘Nuff said.

Since it seems readily apparent that I’m not going to get what I had planned for today done with all these distractions, let’s do this instead. Zero’s been confirmed for MvC3! I think most of us were already expecting it, but hooray just the same! To celebrate, it’s time for some Carddas Zero action!

From Carddas’ Rockman X collection, X2 series:

Rear side:

ZERO
X’s Closest Ally
HP 1200
A Special A Class Hunter who belonged to the same 17th Battalion as X. He was X’s best friend, and the one who understood him the most. However, during the battle against Sigma, he was severely damaged after using a self-destructive attack in order to save X. Miraculously, his control chip remained intact, and was recovered to the Irregular Hunter Headquarters for safekeeping.


So the story goes, even though the Hunters had Zero’s control chip (essentially his electronic brain) available and in one piece, Zero’s body was too mysterious and complex to be rebuilt by Dr. Cain; Zero was as good as dead. It would take a shadowy character by the name of Sagesse (or Serges) to come forward and restore Zero’s body, with improved functionality.

Ready for more?

Rear side:

SIGMA & ZERO
The Confrontation! X VS ZERO!?
“Long time no see, X. How I’ve been looking forward to this day…… Allow me to introduce my new partner here. You two used to be comrades, back before he was liberated to fight as he desired.”
…At last Sigma had shown himself. And standing with him, appeared to be none other than Zero himself!! But why would Zero ever join forces with Sigma!?


This card is the very first officially published depiction of Black Zero. As you may recall from X2, when X recovers all of Zero’s parts, this dark colored copy will stand in for the real Zero, who arrives in the nick of time to wipe the floor with this impostor. If X failed to collect all the parts, Black Zero would still make an appearance at the end of the credits. The color of his armor gems in this image is a bit different from the in-game sprites.

Let’s do one more!

Rear side:

X & ZERO
Let’s crush Sigma’s evil ambition!!
HP x2
In the past, the repliroid Sigma was renown as the strongest warrior in history, and served as Commander of the 17th Battalion that X and Zero belonged to. Then, in order to create a world just for repliroids, he started a rebellion, but was driven back and defeated by X, his plans foiled… However, someone has managed to revive him, and now that insidious figure has appeared once again…!!


This card had more to do with Sigma than X and Zero. Still, we know that Sagesse and Sigma’s evil plan has backfired! X and Zero team up once more to send Sigma and his forces back to the grave. When these two combine their power, evil never stands a chance. Throughout the many changes to the X series, that’s one thing that’s always stayed the same.

Hope you enjoyed this brief look at but one chapter of Zero’s long history. We’ll see him kicking more booty next year in Marvel vs Capcom 3!

16 Comments to "Zero! ‘Nuff said."

  1. RADIX's Gravatar RADIX
    2010/11/15 Monday - 5:24 pm | Permalink

    Zero in MvC3? Cool. 🙂 (Though I still wish that MvC3-X pic wasn’t fake…)

    Didn’t realize that was the first non-game depiction of Copy-Zero. :/

  2. Red Draco's Gravatar Red Draco
    2010/11/15 Monday - 10:50 pm | Permalink

    I am always tail-waggingly happy to learn new stuff about Zero. It’s the 15-year-old inside of me.

  3. Flame's Gravatar Flame
    2010/11/17 Wednesday - 4:51 pm | Permalink

    Wow. Might be the first non game depiction, and yet still the only “official” depiction, as it were. Pretty cool.

  4. Flame's Gravatar Flame
    2010/11/17 Wednesday - 4:52 pm | Permalink

    Actually, do we know the artist who made those illustrations? because im going to assume it wasnt any of the X series artists (inafune included) who worked on the X-X3 art.

  5. Zan's Gravatar Zan
    2010/11/19 Friday - 5:09 pm | Permalink

    I´m a bit late seeing this blog post, but this reminds me that I´d really like some more information about X2. As you know, X2´s story was quite heavily altered during translation, not only in manual, but also in-game. We never got an actual translation of the manual, and we were largely left in the dark about many things such as Sagesse. The biggest questions on my mind are whether it was Sagesse or Sigma that produced the copy of Zero, and if Zero’s X2 design is the original Zero body recovered, or completely built from scratch. But any information about X2 would be much appreciated!

    • Flame's Gravatar Flame
      2010/11/20 Saturday - 10:44 am | Permalink

      Well, I think we have to be honest here, and think about that for a second- If it was Sagesse who made the copy, then I dont think it would have been so easily dispatched.

      Unless of course, he was just pissed that he didnt get his hands on Zero, and just made Sigma a shitty copy.

  6. Zan's Gravatar Zan
    2010/11/23 Tuesday - 1:45 pm | Permalink

    That’s very interesting. For reference I’d love to see some actual quotes on the subject as the game itself is more than vague on the matter of Zero’s revival. But, that’s all in due time. Right now, going by what you said, I have to ask… how did the Counter Hunters acquire Zero’s body, but not the Control Chip? And vice versa, how did the Hunters acquire only the Control Chip and not the body? Or did the Counter Hunters at some point steal the body, forgetting the Control Chip?

  7. 2010/11/27 Saturday - 2:07 pm | Permalink

    The thing that bothered me about X2’s weird sort of ‘grab the parts’ scenario was that it just didn’t make any damn sense in the first place. The thing that makes Zero -Zero- isn’t his body, it’s his spirit. Didn’t Rockman Zero prove that beyond the shadow of a doubt? Who cares if it’s not the body that Wily built? That body wasn’t all that special anyway – it doesn’t even look like it was properly finished until Serges got his hands on it and brought it up to Wily’s original spec as it was. All this fuss about ‘parts of Zero’ just never made any sense to me.

    I have to agree with another commenter that the whole US translation of the X series is a big, ugly mess. There really needs to be a do-over for all the games, since such radical liberties were taken throughout the scripting process. Words matter; the exact words are very important! It’s a big difference to say “now liberated to fight as he wishes” versus “it seems you let him die and he’s not happy about that”. Bleh.

    This is why I pulled way back out of the fandom; there’s just too many frustrating contradictions and plot problems with it…

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