#roboticised sonic on the brain!

[neometalsilver]

“Metal Sonic is robotized Sonic theory” applied to movieverse 3: Maddie sitting next to a damaged Metal Sonic who is covered in blanket and laying down which it’s all quiet and awkward, Metal Sonic avoids eye contact with her and tries to not look at her (it’s been a long time since it has seen mom) but when Maddie do make eye contact with Metal Sonic, she thought that she saw the same spark in the robot’s eyes like her blue hedgehog son has (She dismissed it as her imagination like surely Metal Sonic is just a robot right?)

i had this whole thing in my head like “tom is dead in the bad future/og timeline and sonic is going to struggle to accept that” but DUDE. tom and maddie having to accept that sonic is dead in the bad future/og timeline?? ouwghhhhh. usually with roboticised sonic i don’t have it so that people ever find out except for sometimes metal and obviously eggman but dude. the angst potential?

[generic-sonic-fan]

Metamorphosis

What's in a name? The robot once known as "Metal Sonic" muses on the subject upon receiving a new paint job after fleeing its former master.

(an excerpt from Complex Inquiries.)

Humans in this region of the globe, according to Unit MS-1’s observations, had names originating from languages outside their own culture. These verbal sounds were divorced from their literal meanings. There was no object associated with “Marlene”, for example; only people, living or having once lived. 

Mobians, meanwhile, took names from words in their primary language that they hoped to embody. Rose, for beauty. Charmy, short for Charming. Such names were decided, to the extent of Unit MS-1’s knowledge, by the individual in question. 

There were exceptions to both trends. Sometimes there were humans named after embodied terms, such as Hope, an apparent group member of Marlene’s. Sometimes Mobian chose human-sounding names to replace or supplement their original ones, as Amy Rose did. The inverse was Miles “Tails” Prower, born with a human name, with a Mobian name given to him by the one who adopted him as a brother. 

The name “Sonic” was distinct, evocative, self-explanatory, perfect. Perfect. Perfect, and taken.  Perhaps like a human name, that name now had the connotation of referring only to people, or in this case, one person and one person alone. The problem was that such a connotation would outlive its pathetic bearer. Even with his skull split and his entrails spilled out across the pavement, the image of Sonic the Hedgehog would persevere in the brains of all organic creatures, in books, in film, until perhaps hundreds of years had passed. 

Dr. Ivo Robotnik had cemented a similar persistence during his attack on Station Square and his act of terror in the utilization of the Eclipse Cannon. There were no civilians under the Robotnik name. Those who had survived and prospered after the raid on the space station ARK had modified their surnames. Furthermore, “Eggman”, Dr. Ivo Robotnik’s Mobian-given name, possessed an even stronger image in the public consciousness, spurring fear whenever any organic had whispered it in Unit MS-1’s presence. 

No, Unit MS-1 could not hope to seize Sonic’s name when it killed him, no more than it could repurpose any component of the name of Dr. Ivo Robotnik. Either association would be deeply flawed. 

It would have to create a more lasting name than either. 

—

The airbrush was no longer of any use, not for the precision Unit MS-1 sought. Marlene produced a set of paintbrushes from one of the drawers against the wall. Under her eyes were bags, indicating the disruption to her circadian rhythm that she had instigated the night prior to apply the base gradient to its frame.

It had inquired about whether her fatigue would affect her work. She promised it would not. All prior data supported that her claim was truthful.

Marlene dipped the head of the brush into the tray of paint, before Unit MS-1 registered the pressure against its calf plating. 

—

Unit MS-1 was not a human. Never had such a term been applicable to it. A human was someone named Dr. Ivo Robotnik or Marlene. Organics nearly double its height, with small heads and hands yet thick limbs. Humans were foreign, unpredictable, unknowable. 

Unit MS-1 was not Mobian. To be Mobian was to have fur, or scales, or quills. A Mobian roboticised was no longer referred to as a Mobian, but a robot, or a tragedy. Unit MS-1 was not a tragedy. Its proportions matched that of a Mobian, but every other aspect of its frame could not be further from. 

There were some words that were neither names nor objects in the primary language of this region. They were words from an extinct language that had been adopted, maintaining their meaning but resisting literal translation. 

Et Cetera- “plus the rest”.

Ergo- “therefore”.

Per Se- “by itself”. 

Embodying but not literal. Evocative, but not derivative. Neither value nor name, but something entirely different. And in this instance, perhaps it could be something new. 

—

"Refer to this unit as Neo," it typed onto the screen.

[scruffyplayssonic]

Are the ArchieSonic comics actually an 80's/90's syndicated cartoon? Episode 64 - 65: Two Multi-part Finale (part 10: Sonic the Hedgehog #247)

Welcome back to my investigation of how Archie Comics’ Sonic the Hedgehog series was actually a syndicated cartoon from the 80’s and 90’s!

Last time I discussed Sonic Universe #50, where Shard made his heroic final stand, Metal Sonic went from being a repeatedly blown up chump to a very, very scary robot, and Eggman implied that he had something big in the works. This brings us to Sonic the Hedgehog #247, the final pre-boot issue of the series. Team Fighters had chased the Death Egg all the way to its fueling station in the Arctic, and joined forces with the Arctic Freedom Fighters (who thankfully were NOT characters that Ken Penders was claiming copyright for). 

The heroes smashed their way into the base and were surprised to be joined by none other than Silver. At the end of the Secret Freedom Fighters’ arc in Sonic Universe, Harvey Who had told Silver that he’d figured out who Silver’s supposed traitor was, and offscreen he explained everything he’d found out. Then at the end of Endangered Species, Shard had contacted Silver to tip him off that Team Fighters were heading to the Arctic, hence him showing up here. Sonic really didn’t have the patience for any more of Silver’s shenanigans, which is fair when you remember that Silver tried to first kill him, then Rotor, and then blamed the comatose Antoine, all in the name of stopping his supposed traitor. But Tails put together that Silver was part of a team working with Elias (or “the true king,” as they were now forced to refer to him as), and convinced Sonic to give him one more chance. 

If Silver was trying not to get Sonic angry again, he was failing abysmally.

Back in New Mobotropolis, Nicole and Team Freedom were officially presenting the newly rebuilt Castle Acorn when the latest in a series of accidents involving the city’s nanites occurred.

Fortunately , Cream and Cheese had finally managed to figure out what was causing all these problems around the city. And so Cream took her theory to Rotor.

Meanwhile back up North, Silver was explaining to everyone why Sally was his “traitor.” 

When Sally saved the planet from the world roboticiser only to fall victim to it herself, she inadvertantly kicked off a series of events that would doom the planet anyway. Sonic still wasn’t thrilled to have Silver there, but since the time traveller had now dedicated himself to saving Sally like the rest of them, Sonic let him tag along. Their first task was to infiltrate the Death Egg from below via an underwater tunnel.

Whoops. Well that didn’t work - Eggman’s forces attacked and sounded the alarm. And Eggman, who was busy getting ready for his next big move, was not pleased with this new development. 

“Albert,” you say? Well if there was any doubt left that Eggman had already met Dr Wily - and after hinting that Metal Sonic would be working with Bass, there really shouldn’t have been - it seemed pretty clear now.

Back in New Mobotropolis, Team Freedom had laid a trap for the Tails Doll, expecting it to try and destroy the city’s power plant when it was left unsupervised. Sure enough, the creepy little jerk took the bait. There was just one small problem. …well actually, it was a large problem. 

I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again anyway - I don’t know what was going through Evan Stanley’s idea when she was drawing the Tails Doll’s kaiju form, but I guess I get the genital general idea of what she was going for. 😛

Back in the Arctic, things were looking pretty grim for Team Fighters and their friends. Mecha Sally had been authorised to shoot to kill, and she and her brain laser (called the “Boom Fant” by Ian Flynn) were on a rampage. Tails knocked Sonic out of the way of her point-blank shot, but both of them were hurt in the process.

Amy tried to protect Sonic and Tails as Mecha Sally moved in for the kill, and I feel like in the original timeline that Silver’s future was a result of, this is where all three of them died. However in this time an injured Silver swooped in at the last possible second and used his psychokinesis to disable Mecha Sally. 

Unfortunately they only got a few seconds to enjoy their win before another Genesis Wave went off and the world faded to white. 

And… that’s it. That’s how the preboot era of ArchieSonic ended. With the creative team facing the incredibly daunting task of having to take the story in an entirely new direction, the incredibly well-timed Sonic and Mega Man crossover gave them an extra few months to figure out where to go afterwards. So this latest Genesis Wave was set off by both Eggman and Wily, who used it to reshape both of their worlds.

Sonic’s world was changed to one more like the games, set after the latest game in the series, Sonic Generations - wow, that makes me feel old - while Mega Man’s world was catapulted forward in time to after Mega Man 10. Combining their technology and robots, Eggman and Wily captured all of Sonic’s friends, transformed them into “roboticised masters,” and tasked them with retrieving all seven Chaos Emeralds. This would allow them to set off one last Genesis Wave that would essentially make them gods. Just like last time, Sonic transformed into his super form - this time with Mega Man joining him - and attempted to restore their worlds to how they were. While Mega Man was successful, Eggman threw a hissy fit and got in the way of Super Sonic, which… well… broke reality.

The end result of this was a rebooted world for Sonic, absent of not just the characters that Ken Penders had claimed copyright over, but all the characters created by anyone who wasn’t part of the current creative team at the time. I guess that Archie wanted to play it safe and prevent any further copyright snafus from happening, and considering that Ken Penders wasn’t the only former employee who gave them trouble, I think this was probably the right decision. But it was nonetheless a decision that had a heavy impact on the pre-crossover storylines, most of which were either quickly resolved or just discarded entirely. The Secret Freedom Fighters no longer existed (except for Silver, who was doing his own thing), and neither did Geoffrey St. John. Naugus was still around and causing mayhem in Mobotropolis, safe from the purge due to him having originally been introduced as a character in the SatAM cartoon.

But he quickly ran away with his tail between his legs and didn’t return for quite awhile. Team Freedom and Team Fighters were dropped in favour of bringing back the Freedom Fighters, who had been scattered across the planet so that they could be reintroduced one by one.

Rotor had gotten buff and was busy building the team’s new mobile flying base, the Sky Patrol.

Antoine was no longer in a coma and had been assigned guard duty of “Uncle” Chuck, who was now no longer Sonic’s literal uncle but more of a “uncle to all.” I believe that was one of the dreaded SEGA “mandates,” as the Sonic cast were no longer allowed to have relatives (except for Cream, of course). I hated that, but at least Uncle Chuck survived the purge. As did Sonic's former pet dog Muttski, who had undergone what was probably the most dramatic change.

Same, Sonic and Tails. Same.

Bunnie was undercover among the Egg Army, and had gone back to being a cyborg.

And Sally was no longer a robot, and was infiltrating the Death Egg but had to leave in a hurry when Eggman sent Metal Sonic after her. Within a few issues the team were all reunited, along with Big and Cream, just as everything went to Hell. Remember how I said that Eggman broke reality?

Yeaaaaaaaah. This led into a massive adaptation of Sonic Unleashed, which went on for almost the entirety of the rest of the series. This was a pretty brilliant idea in my opinion, as a game that was so heavily focused on travelling the shattered planet was the perfect way to re-introduce Sonic’s new world. We got to visit a variety of different locations and meet friends and enemies both familiar and new. Mighty, Ray, Lupe and Dulcy all returned with new looks and backstories, as did the former Super Special Sonic Search and Smash Squad and most surprising of all, Breezie. And a bunch of new characters quickly became fan favourites, such as the pronghorn sisters Cassia and Clove, the underwater mobians Coral, Pearly and Razor, and Shadow's new dark nemesis, Eclipse.

The reboot era of ArchieSonic lasted for over three years, but eventually it came to an abrupt end when SEGA pulled the plug. This leaves the last two (completed) arcs in post-reboot ArchieSonic for me to talk about: Terror in the Skies, the end of the Sonic Unleashed adaptation in the main book, and The Case of the Pirate Princess, a Chaotix arc that ended Sonic Universe. Even though it came after the Unleashed adapation ended, I'm going to be talking about the Chaotix arc first. Terror in the Skies feels like the best way to end this series. However I will be taking a bit of a hiatus, as I’m currently preparing to move overseas. So please be patient and wish me luck, and I'll be back with these three goobers before you know it!

[proudfreakmetarusonikku]

rambling more about nova bc I love her she’s my edgy Sonic oc from when I was eight and also metal sonics own edgy deviant art oc but something I really love is that she’s so fucked up. i mean like. yeah. she’s literally metal sonics organicsona she’s a t1000 who’s gone through severe child neglect and hates the world she’s extremely fucked up and commits atrocities but like. in the Later parts of the timeline where she’s more well adjusted she’s still Definitely a fucking problem. like she won’t kill you solely bc she knows that’d upset her friends and she doesn’t like that but she knows Far Worse things to do to a person than kill them. she's just as much lawful evil as Sonic is chaotic good which means she abides to a very strict ruleset and now she's nominally working with the good guys then doing something to piss her off is generally something pretty easy to avoid if you’re not a villain (unless you try and go after her father and sister, i guess, but pissing off Eggman and or Sage means you're probably fucked either way) but if you do… well, she Is a mad scientist at heart and she needs test subjects for her roboticiser before she can use it to “fix” her friends so have fun losing all your sense of self and forcibly having your brain rewritten with code to make you into whatever arbitrary idea of useful an extremely inhuman robot poorly pretending to be normal might have. and if you stupidly break the One Rule everyone knows to follow and try and killsteal her quarry from her, you can instead enjoy having your mind and purpose specifically overwritten to leave you in emotional agony for eternity with absolutely no possibility of fixing it without destroying your sense of self entirely, because the worst punishment she can think of is forcing you to feel the despair and hopelessness she once felt. just ask infinite 🥰

[scruffyplayssonic]

Are the ArchieSonic comics actually an 80's/90's syndicated cartoon? Episode 33: Animal character(s) become human and/or vice-versa

Welcome back to my look at the ArchieSonic comic series, and how it shared a lot of the same story tropes as a typical ‘80s or ‘90s syndicated cartoon!

Hey, we're halfway through our 65 episodes! I’ve got a doozy of a topic to talk about today, so let’s not waste any time and just get straight into it:

Episode 33: Animal character(s) become human and/or vice-versa 

I really had to rack my brains over this one, because I just couldn’t think of any examples of this happening at first. The closest I could think of was when Walter Naugus disguised himself as an echidna to trick Knuckles into helping him get the Master Emerald shards.

But that wasn’t so much a transformation as an illusion, and it was from troll to echidna and back again, so not really a human transforming into an animal or vice versa. But then it hit me. Muttski!

You remember Muttski, right? Sonic’s pet dog who was introduced all the way back in issue #0 of the original Sonic mini series only to fall victim to Robotnik’s roboticiser?

He later returned in Sonic #32 as antagonist, programmed to sniff out Sonic’s location. But Uncle Chuck was able to reprogram him and give him back his free will, so from that point on Sonic had a pet dog who just happened to be a robot and often times worked undercover in Robotropolis.

Muttski and Uncle Chuck were later reprogrammed to be mindless slaves again when Robo-Robotnik was introduced as the new villain of the series, but as discussed in an earlier post, the two of them had their free will restored by the Sword of Acorns and decided to stay undercover in Robotropolis again for awhile so that they could get information to Sonic.

Then in Sonic #124 all the robot mobians (aka “robians”) were transformed back to normal by an unknown force, which I’ll get into in more detail later on down the road. So for the next 125 or so issues Muttski was a normal dog again, doing normal dog things like drinking from the toilet (probably)...

talking to Sonic (technically)...

...and trying to murder Tails (it was apparently a misunderstanding?). It was a weird time in the ArchieSonic series. But the weirdest change for Muttski was yet to come. 

Sonic #247 ended with Eggman activating the Super Genesis Wave, rewriting reality and leading into the big 12 issue crossover with Mega Man. But this also served the purpose of creating a narrative reason for the reboot which began in Sonic #252. Because of the legal battle between Archie Comics and former writer Ken Penders, all original comic characters not created by the current comic staff were wiped from existence. Scourge the Hedgehog and all associated characters? Gone. Sonic and Tails’ parents? Gone. The millions upon millions of echidna characters? Gone. Even the ones who were central to the current stories going on in the comic at the time, such as Geoffrey St John, Elias Acorn, and Shard the Metal Sonic had to go. All of them were Thanos-snapped from existence, and a new continuity began. But you know what characters were allowed to stay? Uncle Chuck and Muttski! Because they had both been characters in the SatAM cartoon series, they got the same deal as the Freedom Fighters and were allowed to remain a part of the narrative so long as their designs were updated to fit in better with the modern Sonic style.

Uncle Chuck looked pretty similar to before, but Muttski?

Muttski was redesigned as a mobian and renamed Ben “The Mutt” Muttski, apparently in honour of the late Ben Hurst, one of the main writers of Sonic SatAM. I know this isn’t exactly the same as an animal character becoming human, but this is honestly pretty darn close. Muttski changed from a quadrupedal housepet to a sapient character standing on two feet. For what it’s worth, the pre-reboot comics stated that Mobian DNA contained “a sizable percentage of human DNA,” so it’s arguable that humans and mobians are pretty much the same thing. Although it’s unclear whether or not that fact remained true in the post-reboot comics… but what do you want from me?! I had to come up with something for this entry!

What are your thoughts on this topic? Let me know in the comments! Next time I’ll be going over a much easier category: the idiot comic relief character becomes a genius. See you then!