| This article is about the original Skull Man. For information on his other counterparts, see Skull Man (disambiguation). |
- "Now! Let's get ready to rumble!"
- —Skull Man, Mega Man & Bass database
Skull Man (スカルマン Sukaruman) is a Wily Number created specially for combat by Dr. Cossack while he was being blackmailed by Dr. Wily in Mega Man 4. Unlike Cossack's other robots, only him and Ring Man were made specifically for combat with the purpose to defeat Mega Man. He has balanced offense and defense, as he can fire shots from his arm cannon and generate a skull-shaped energy shield called the Skull Barrier for protection. Skull Man only moves or attacks when Mega Man does the same.
Appearance[]
Skull Man is a humanoid robot with green eyes. He has a black body, a white helmet based on a skull, skull-shaped pauldron on each of his shoulders, a white armor with a large red gem on the front center, a yellow area on the center of his torso, a white buster on his left arm, black right hand, a bracer on his right arm and white boots with a yellow on each of them.
Personality[]
Much like Ring Man before him, Skull Man was made solely for the purpose of fighting. With this in mind, he is a good strategist, and is meticulous in his attention to detail, particularly with planning his combat methods. However, having only been taught to fight, he lacks skills in other areas and tends to be socially awkward, often alienating others by acting in bad taste. Befitting his morbid theme, Skull Man is also a huge fan of horror movies.
Video game appearances[]
Mega Man 4[]
Skull Man is one of the eight bosses in the Stage Select Screen. Defeating him will reward the player with Skull Barrier.
Attack pattern[]
Skull Man's attack pattern is entirely dictated by the player's actions, meaning that he will stand in place and do nothing until the player performs a certain action. If the player moves left or right while he is stationary (jumping and sliding do not trigger this), Skull Man will aim his buster and fire 3 shots in a row, all of which are aimed at the player's position. If the player shoots while he is stationary, Skull Man will high jump or low jump (depending on the distance in between them) in the player's general direction (though Skull Man can also occasionally jump straight up). Once he lands, he will put up a Skull Barrier. The Skull Barrier does no damage, but completely protects Skull Man from the buster, even if they shoot through the shield. Once the barrier disappears, Skull Man will run towards the player's position and stop in place upon getting there. If he performs the same attack pattern twice in a row, he will instead do the other attack pattern, thus preventing the player from cheesing his pattern.[1]
Weaknesses[]
Skull Man's weakness is Dust Crusher, which can defeat him in 7 hits. Alternatively, he takes 2 damage from Rain Flush. While not enough to defeat him, it can hit him through his shield due to being a full screen attack. As with most other bosses, Skull Man takes 3 damage from a fully-charged buster shot, though he is immune to Pharaoh Shot completely.
Mega Man III[]
Skull Man is one of the four bosses in the second Stage Select Screen inside the Wily Castle, which all come from Mega Man 4.
Attack pattern[]
Skull Man has been modified slightly, but is slightly easier. Tippy-toeing does not trigger Skull Man to shoot, and his shots move slower and are harder to dodge. Skull Man's jump is also a bit more floaty, and he puts up Skull Barrier (which actually damages Mega Man now) immediately once he lands. Skull Man also will jump if the player is holding a charge, and can be baited into jumping this way. Skull Man doesn't automatically switch to his next pattern if one pattern is used too many times, meaning he can easily be tricked into doing the same pattern forever. Skull Man's running is timed so that if Mega Man jumps straight up, Skull Man will stop running right after Mega Man instead of below him, so jumping straight up is good enough to dodge it.
Weakness[]
Skull Man is weak to Dust Crusher, which does 3 damage. As with most other bosses, Skull Man takes 3 damage from a fully-charged buster shot. It is best to charge while his Skull Barrier is up.
Mega Man's Soccer[]
Skull Man is a balanced player. A team of eight Skull Mans is one of the eight team bosses in the Capcom Championship mode, and one Skull Man joins Mega Man's team after his defeat. Skull Man's team in Tournament mode is formed by three Skull Mans, Ice Man, Bomb Man, Air Man, Bubble Man, and Gemini Man. In League mode his team has three Skull Mans, two Bomb Mans, two Flash Mans, and one Proto Man.
Rockman Strategy[]
Skull Man is featured in Rockman Strategy as an antagonist, appearing twice over the course of the game. He first appears as an ally of Luna, and then later protecting the Wily Capsule.
Other appearances[]
- Skull Man has a cameo appearance in the museum stage from Mega Man 7, in the background of the room that Mash appears.
- Skull Man appears in the opening scene from Mega Man 8.
- Skull Man appears in the CD database from Mega Man & Bass.
- Skull Man appeared in an event from Otoranger.
Data[]
Mega Man & Bass CD data[]
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Rockman Complete Works data[]
戦うためにつくられたセントウ用ロボット。攻撃のタイミングがいやらしいので弱点武器はかならず使おう！
Mega Man Legacy Collection text: A battle robot made just for fighting. It's hard to time your normal attacks against him, so be sure to use the weapon that plays on his weakness!
Stage[]
Damage data chart[]
Amount of damage in units that Skull Man receives from each Special Weapon in Mega Man 4.
| Mega Man 4 | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mega Buster | Flash Stopper | Rain Flush | Drill Bomb | Pharaoh Shot | Ring Boomerang | Dust Crusher | Dive Missile | Skull Barrier | Wire Adaptor | ||
| 1:3 | 0 | 2 | 1:1 | 0:0 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 1 | ||
*For the Mega Buster and Pharaoh Shot, the first digit is when the weapon is fired normally and the second is when it is fully charged.
Other media[]
Mega Man Megamix[]
Skull Man in Mega Man Megamix.
In the manga, Skull Man was created by Dr. Cossack specially to fight against Mega Man after Kalinka was kidnapped. His Skull Barrier is a set of six skull-like discs that appear from the mouth of his shoulders and creates an electromagnetic field around himself. With the Skull Barrier active, Skull Man can attack foes without worrying about avoiding attacks and taking damage, but a drawback is that his mobility is restricted while the barrier is in effect. In terms of additional weaponry, Skull Man also has a buster in each radius, and sixteen shotguns hidden in his ribs. Though Skull Man represents the culmination of Dr. Cossack's skills, he was purposely created to look like the complete opposite of Cossack's ideals, and thus his existence is more like a nightmare than anything else.
The story of The Grim Reaper of Resurrection arc is centered on Skull Man and his relationship with Dr. Cossack. Due to him creating Skull Man for Dr. Wily when he was blackmailing him by holding his daughter hostage, Dr. Cossack was disgusted by the fact that he created a robot who was nothing more than a war machine, and he struggled to accept him. After the events of Mega Man 4, he was deactivates by his creator, but is later reactivated by Dr. Wily. Angry for being deactivated, Skull Man goes to Dr. Cossack's lab equipped with a scythe and disguised with a robe to resemble a Grim Reaper, and proceeds to destroy it with the aid of Reggae and a group of Skeleton Joes, capturing Dust Man, Pharaoh Man and Drill Man in the process. He later locates Dr. Cossack while he was giving a TV interview, and captures him during the broadcast. Mega Man saw this on TV and goes after Skull Man to rescue Cossack, receiving some help along the way, but Skull Man also captures Kalinka and Roll. Mega Man later locates Skull Man and fights against him with the help of the other seven robots Cossack created.
Dr. Cossack figures that Skull Man's feelings were hurt from being deactivated, and treated like he was just a weapon without emotions. However, Skull Man tries to kill his creator, but Mega Man is faster and shoots Skull Man at the legs to save Dr. Cossack, splitting him in two and killing him. Dr. Cossack then reconciles with Skull Man, who makes him promise to never create any fighting machines like him again before running out of energy. Skull Man also has a small appearance in The Greatest Enemy in History when Dive Man compares Copy Mega Man's situation with Skull Man's.
In the Mega Man Gigamix story To a Shining Morrow, in the final battle against the Stardroids in space, Skull Man's ghost appears to scare Pluto and talk with the injured Ring Man. Pluto refers to Skull Man as a "monster", which angers Ring Man, and gives the robot the motivation to destroy the Stardroid.
Mega Man (Archie Comics)[]
Skull Man also appears in the Mega Man series from Archie Comics, appearing some time before the Mega Man 4 adaptation in the Worlds Collide crossover. Like many of the Robot Masters, he appeared near the Wily Egg as part of a time-cloned army to oppose the small force led by Mega Man and Sonic the Hedgehog. During the course of the battle, he had the misfortune of being attacked by Rush, undoubtedly due to his bone motif.
Mega Man (Free Comic Book Day 2025)[]
Skull Man works alongside Wind Man and Cold Man at Boing-Boing Amusement Park as food truck vendors, Skull Man running a shady shop called Skelicatessen, which has a negative review. After closing their shops, the three started remembering how their battles against Mega Man changed their life, and about a time they almost got him. After accidentally setting his shop on fire, Skull Man asks Cold Man to extinguish it while he shares his story of how he almost got Mega Man. Skull Man had kidnapped Roll during her birthday party and sent some Skeleton Joes to attack Mega Man. He lectures Mega Man on his actions causing his family pain, and tells him to accept defeat, but before he attacks, Roll breaks free and smacks Skull Man with the arm of one of the defeated Skeleton Joes, knocking him into a ball pit as she and Mega Man leave, with Skull Man angrily calling them back as he tries to leave the ball pit. In the present, Cold Man completely froze Skull Man's truck to his frustration. While the three robots continued chatting about Mega Man, Mega Man crashed down near them, and they defend him from the robot he was fighting, Bounce Man.
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Rockman 4[]
Skull Man was the sixth of Dr. Cossack's eight robots defeated by Rockman.
Rockman World 3[]
Skull Man was the first of the top four robots inside Wily Castle faced by Rockman.
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Other appearances[]
Skull Man appeared in some of the shorts from Rockman 4Koma Dai Koushin. He also had a cameo appearance in the comic Novas Aventuras de Megaman with his "Grim Reaper" appearance from Mega Man Megamix.
Gallery[]
Behind the scenes[]
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Toshiyuki Miyachi's original design of Skull Man.
Skull Man was initially designed and submitted by Toshiyuki Miyachi for the Mega Man 4 boss character contest. Capcom's designers were so impressed by this fan-submitted design that they scrapped a stage design that was in progress and restarted from scratch to do it justice.[2]
Trivia[]
- Skull Man is the only of the eight bosses from Mega Man 4 to not appear in the 1994 animated Mega Man series.
- Interestingly, Skull Man's boss AI is not programmed to act until the player moves horizontally or shoots. This means the player can stand still at the beginning of the battle for an eternal stand-off.
- Skull Man's bad taste and dislike of feelings may stem from the fact that he is based on the living dead. Reanimated creatures, such as skeletons and zombies, tend to lack any sense of emotion.
- Skull Man's name is derived from a shonen manga of the same name, created by Shotaro Ishinomori, which inspired his more well-known Kamen Rider series.[Citation needed]
References[]
| Rockman Strategy | |
|---|---|
| Characters | |
| Mega Man • Beat • Rush • Dr. Light • Roll Proto Man • Duo • Auto • Eddie • Fan • Dr. Wily | |
| Bosses | |
| Aries • Taurus • Gemini • Cancer • Leo • Virgo Libra • Scorpio • Sagittarius • Capricorn • Aquarius • Pisces Bass • Treble • Apollo • Luna • Wily Machine α • Wily Capsule α | |
| Robot Masters | |
| Fire Man • Cut Man• Bomb Man • Flame Man • Ice Man • Frost Man Guts Man • Metal Man • Elec Man • Spark Man • Cloud Man • Heat Man Napalm Man • Bubble Man • Freeze Man • Hard Man • Yamato Man • Tomahawk Man Pharaoh Man • Burst Man • Dive Man • Aqua Man • Stone Man • Astro Man Knight Man •Sword Man •Skull Man | |
| Miscellaneous | |
| Characters and Enemies • Screws • Dr. Light's Laboratory • Items • Script | |