Hard Scale

The Hardman of the Mechanical Maniacs is 14 feet tall. Maybe.

Hadrian (Hard) came up with this number himself and has kept with it pretty consistently, with Rich (Magnet) and myself adopting it as well.

Others, namely Gauntlet and Nightmare (Shadow, Top), didn't immediately come up with an accurate image of that height in their heads right away, and instead pictured him in his more widely accepted 9'-10' size. Since they never said anything about the number 14, we all assumed there were no problems with that and have been going along with it for quite some time.

It wasn't until recently, when Top wrote a scene in which Shadowman pins a Hard Knuckle to the ground with a Shadow Blade, that some debate about Hardman's size came up. I said "A Shadow Blade can't do that, Hard Knuckles are freakin' huge."

Top came back with "Well, the Shadow Blade I'm picturing is pretty huge too. Like the big one seen in the re-release artwork."

"No, I mean the Hard Knuckles are HA-YUUUGE"

Then I scribbled this up, so the numerical-visual-impaired could finally have an image to associate with a number. This met with some disapproval from Top and Shadow, who maintain that it is impossible for a behemoth that size to interact appropriatley with the world around him. It's true, really, but in some of the epilogues that didn't really matter, it just made the interaction more humourous. It introduced some absurdity into everything Hardman was involved in. But for the more serious stories, it obviously causes some problems.

As far as I know, the official number is still 14, but it seems authors are going to have their own interpretations about Hardman's size depending on the situation. Screw consistency.

Anyway, I know this pic isn't drawn well at all, but you gotta love the facial expressions, assuming you can make them all out.

Hardman, Topman, Shadowman copyright Capcom.