The Reploid Research Lavatory

Punk, Rockman Killer No. 2, is one bad mutha. He has an interesting design that breaks the mold of your average Mega Man boss while also staying true to the series’ style. His unconventional construction has been one of designer Keiji Inafune’s personal favorites (which you can read about in Mega Man Official Complete Works and Mega Man Battle Network Official Complete Works books). In one of his trademark moves, Punk’s unique body can compact itself into a ball that fits between his large shoulder armor plates to perform a powerful flying spin attack. A pretty bad ass transformation to be sure, but that’s nothing compared to the some of the interesting transformations he underwent across different regions back in the nineties.

As a character appearing on the small and mold-shaded screen of the Game Boy, there was no way to discern what colors or even what tiny body details Punk might have. In the 44th issue of Nintendo Power (January 1993), artists did the next best thing by basing their image of Punk on a sprite from a game screen shot (pose on the right), and giving hims body a light green paint to rival the Game Boy’s own. It lacks some of the official accessories like the spiked wrist gauntlets and sharply painted eyebrows, since those things look like light and shadows. It’s quite impressive how meticulously the sprite is recreated, even matching the smooth plate edge on the far shoulder plate and the sharper angles on the near shoulder. The only other major difference is that the arm is in front of instead of to the side of the knee.

When a trading card frenzy hit China in ’95-96, it wasn’t long before a series of cards was created based on the Rockman manga works of Shigeto Ikehara. With this new adaptation came yet another change. Though the Rockman World 3 manga was drawn referencing official character art, the company had only the black and white images themselves to go by. And so once again Punk took on a new color scheme.

I’m a little disappointed I haven’t come across some variation with a pink mohawk yet, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t one out there somewhere. Punk, he’s a colorful fellow.