Cold Steel

What's crazy ol' Doctor Light up to today? Why, showing the public a recreation of the laboratory where he designed his first robot, of course. Mega Man is signing autographs, and he sets to signing a book for Mary, a hearing-impaired girl who can read lips and "feel the music". Mary's mother confirms she loves all kinds of music, so Roll produces our plot by showing tickets to a concert by Cold Steel, and naturally they all want to go. And they do!
 

Sadly, despite Cold Steel being a metal band, we aren't treated to a highly stereotyped audience of people with funky hairdos and piercings. After some close-ups of the band members to rub in the fact they're robots but everyone being oblivious, suddenly everyone pulls zombie faces and chant "go to Mount Shasta". Everyone but the robots and Mary walk away, and everyone knows something is up, so Rush starts sniffing about. He hears a voice from the amp (SPOILER IT'S DR. WILY) say what the audience are chanting, and proceeds to bite into it and rocket into the sky for some reason, and come crashing down into the drum kit. The guitarist mutters "whoa, this show is going to the dogs" (lolarity), and the band proceed to run away. Mega Man, being a mastermind, is suspicious and goes to converse with the band, but is interrupted by ...
 

Spark Man! The silliest looking of the Mega Man 3 Robot Masters (although a close contender with Needle Man) challenges the Blue Bomber, but in typical cartoon fashion, Mega Man's shots that miss him by a mile end up destroying the floor beneath him. Gemini Man pops up with a one-liner that makes no sense, fires a laser, which is deflected off a cymbal and hits the roof, causing a slab to come off and crush Mega Man. Instead of believing him to be dead and walking away, Gyro Man spouts a one-liner that does make sense but isn't funny at all, and sends a gyro blade heading straight for Mega. He slows it down with some buster shots, and the bad guys do a runner. Roll pops up and tells him about what happened to the audience, but refuses to share Mega Man's opinion on Cold Steel having something to do with all this.
 

And here they are now! The guitarist thanks "Mega Dude" for his "gnarly move" in "getting rid of those party-crashing digit brains". As appreciation, they give them a CD of their latest song, and then walk away with a promise to "chill with ya later". Roll is reunited with Mary, and had no luck finding her mother. Elsewhere, Proto Man expresses his opinion, and Dr. Wily overrides the local radio station with the mind control music, causing lazy builders and fishmongers to become zombies. He's using the victims as human robots to build a transmitter tower, but after informing Guts Man of the incoming slaves, he's told progress is hindered by lack of building materials. Then he looks out the window and has the very idea.
 

Mega Man relays the events at the concert to Dr. Light, who sees that whatever it was that made everyone into zombies totally overloaded Rush's circuits. Roll and Mary enter, and Roll tells Light to listen to the song she was given, describing it as "totally twitchin'", but Light declines; Roll, ever persistent, claims he'll like it when he hears it, and sticks it in a CD player. Light discovers what the problem is in Rush, fixes it, and says it was caused by ultra high frequency waves, and agrees with Mega Man on blaming Cold Steel for it. Suddenly, emergency! A navy destroyer is attacking the Golden Gate Bridge! The Mega Man and his dog went to mow a meadow go to take care of the problem, meanwhile Light goes to stick on some of his favourite Beethoven music, but thanks to Roll being stupid, is brainwashed by Cold Steel. Roll's attempt at stopping him fails, so she just sets out to tell Mega Man about it.
 

At the Golden Gate Bridge, Mega Man quickly takes care of the threat by melting the turrets of the navy destroyer, and land on the bridge to shout at Wily's ship. Guts Man and Cut Man won't stand for this, so they jam Rush in a barrel, roll that barrel at Mega Man, smack him into a wall, and with the help of a suspension cable and Proto Man, tie him up and throw him over the side. Only when he lands at the bottom of the sea does he feel the need to tell himself he has to cut his way out and escape, and fast.
 

Roll finally arrives, and sees a fight has occurred recently, but no sign of Mega Man. Roll realises Rush in the barrel, cuts him out, and asks him where Mega Man is, but of course, Rush is stupid and nobody understands him. Except Mary, who has the ability to fully understand this, and writes it down for Roll to realise: "Mega Man's hurt and is at the bottom of the sea!" So instead of going down herself, she just sends Eddie down to give him energy, and he does so in the most embarrassing way possible.
 

By putting a rubber teat on it, and having Mega Man make the appropriate sounds. He breaks free, they swim to the surface, and Mega Man suggests bringing a straw next time. Eddie just pulls that stupid grin he does.

Back at the lab, Roll repeats what happened before Light became a zombie, and Mega Man finally realises it contains a mind control signal which didn't affect Mary because she couldn't hear it, and that Cold Steel really were Wily's goons in disguise; but they don't know where Wily is taking them. Mary saves the day again by writing down what she read off Light's lips, and they fly off to Mount Shasta. Meanwhile, Wily is there, and the production of the transmitter tower is going strong; once the "power booster" is complete, he can make Cold Steel broadcast worldwide!

Since it's a big mountain, our heroes set down at a logging camp to ask if they've seen anything suspicious, but we're interrupted from that ten second intermission for another scene with Wily, where Light is under his control, they raise the transmitter, and use the power booster to brainwash people in China, France, and Kansas, telling them to destroy Mega Man on sight. That's surely going to be useful for people on the other side of the world.
 

Back to Mega Man, he and Roll ask a lumberjack if he's seen anything suspicious, and he answer no. Then the Cold Steel music pipes in, they're brainwashed, and the lumberjack gains the voice of Hank Hill. Rush is kicked away, they decide to flee, but are cornered by guys with pickaxes and chainsaws. After a close encounter with a falling tree, Mega Man is pushed off a cliff by a feller buncher. Nobody comes to his help, so he has to save his own skin by conveniently shooting a crane for it to lower the claw and climbing back up again. He picks up the feller buncher with the crane, and flings it around to chase away the brain washed loonies, and they jet off.
 

They arrive at the other side of the mountain, remind the viewer of what Wily's evil scheme is, and Roll distracts the mind controlled human robots so he can destroy the tower, but first, he's got a date with Cold Steel! Spark Man gets a wise crack in while blasting Rush out of the sky, but Gyro Man doesn't have as much luck, his blade cutting down a tree and squashing him. Spark Man, confident over shooting a robot dog, tries again at Mega Man, but misses, and our hero taunts him for losing his touch. Sparkster doesn't take this well, and runs at him, slips on some ice and crashes into Gemini Man who tries to stop him by shooting him. Mega Man steals all their weapons, and uses the gyro blades to fly to the transmitter.
 

Wily notices this, and sends Guts Man and Cut Man after him ... ON JETPACKS. They manage to strip him of his flight, and Guts Man tries whacking him with a girder, though that makes him ripe pickings for an electric shock from Spark Man's ability, somehow effecting Cut Man as well, and they fall all the way down. Despite Wily's pleas for someone to stop him, Mega Man destroys the transmitter in just a single blast, causing the whole tower to blow. Wily breaks down and cries, and Light, free of his mind control, lays the verbal smackdown and walks out. Way to miss the opportunity to drag him out and get him arrested.

Mega Man sets out to take care of Wily, leaving Proto Man up for a fight, but Wily insists not, as they still have the mind control device, they can escape and use it for another time. Then he throws that idea out the window when Mega Man starts chasing them, and fires huge lasers at him. With some cheap tactics, Mega Man destroys their ship and sends them packing. Mary is reunited with her mother, everyone calls each other heroes, and Light says he can jam the mind control device with some good ol' Beethoven. Rush then does a jig, slips, rolls down a hill and crashes into a tree. Laugh.

There's nothing necessarily awful about the episode, but nothing great either. It's nice to see Gemini, Spark and Gyro Man in action, at least.

3 out of 5 one-eyed lumberjacks.

After Wily has finished the transmitter and brainwashed the world, what would he do then? It's pointless mind controlling people if there's nothing to do with them.

When Mega Man and Roll arrive at Mount Shasta, the background fades from deep forest to a looping sky. Great editing.