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MMLC Robot Master List: Dust Man

Aug 05, 2015 // GregaMan

Number: DWN-030

Weapon:  Dust Crusher

Weakness:  Ring Boomerang

Created as an automatic trash-gathering robot. He fires back the garbage that he sucks in. His attacks are easy to see coming, so he’s not too tough.

For us, it’s hard to even  fathom a world with robot vacuum cleaners, but Dr. Cossack dared to dream big, and so was born Dust Man. Unfortunately, where there are robots, there is the nefarious Dr. Wily, and where there is Dr. Wily, there is mayhem. Like Cossack’s other inventions, Dust Man was modified for combat with the aim of destroying Mega Man. 

Dust Man’s special weapon is the Dust Crusher, an explosive mass of scrap metal which he can fire at opponents from a range. Doubly effective if the target is a neat-freak! He can also use his powerful vacuum chute to pull opponents toward him, which presents a sizable threat when you consider his bad breath.

Luckily, the weapon is yours if you best him battle! To do so, try using the Ring Boomerang–a tactic which surely already occurred to anyone who’s ever lost their wedding ring only to accidentally run the vacuum cleaner over it, thereby ruining both the ring and the vacuum. 

Nadia Oxford , Co-Author of the Mega Man Robot Master Field Guide 

Dust Man is the epitome of the robot underdog (excepting Rush when he’s under water, I guess). For starters, I remember how people reacted when he was unveiled in Mega Man 4. “A vacuum robot?” they said. “This is the end of Mega Man. Capcom has run out of ideas.”

Oh, we were such sweet summer children.

A deluge of ridicule rained down on Dust Man since, with a generous peppering of comments about how Cossack’s sanitation robot “sucks” (insert Alf-style “HA!” here). And, well, Dust Man is kind of pathetic; you can avoid his shots by jumping straight up into the air, and if you know how to defend yourself against the deadly pull of Mega Man 3’s Magnet Man, then you know how to defend yourself against Dust Man’s suction (i.e. walk in the other direction).

But if you’re having a really bad day and you somehow find yourself overpowered by this Dustbuster given legs, the Ring Boomerang will rip him apart like a dust bunny under a kitten’s claws.

Maybe that’s why I feel warmly towards Dust Man; I know he can’t actually hurt me, try though he might. His stage also has a melancholy, echoing theme that’s unlike anything else on the NES. Sure, maybe Capcom didn’t smoke its imagination coming up with Mega Man 4’s bosses, but it funneled a lot of hard work and cool ideas into the game’s soundtrack.