COVER

Team Dark looking all badass here, just like the other covers. Course when I did these covers, the CGI pictures were actually quite rare, so I had to wait a bit to piece them together, then redesigned them because the covers were just too big. Now they’re nice and compact.

1

Same introduction again but this time the story starts backwards, of sorts, as Rouge begins in Eggman’s new underground base looking for treasure. Rouge was just a cameo of sorts previously in TCRS but here she’s given centre stage, of sorts and fleshed out a lot more. Obviously she’s pretty much exactly like her game counterpart in that you never really know where her allegiances lie because she’s out for herself and will team up with anyone to get what she wants. Anyway, here she’s got her new Battle sprites, which weren’t very emotive for her I have to say, so her body language doesn’t always translate well as a result.

2

Rouge gives up her search pretty fast, especially after the “effort” it must’ve taken her to break in here, but whatever. Here we get the introduction of E-123 Omega, a character who gave me a chance, of sorts, to finally include someone like Gamma. This Omega sprite is custom-made by myself because Omega sprites weren’t around back then and the ones which are, even now, are not much better than what I made. I wanted my Omega to have a lot of actions and poses and be big and clunky like in the game, so I spliced this together and I think it works pretty well. Notice another Matrix reference from the Gamma Robots there :D

3

Hm, well, Rouge assumes Omega is self-aware and she isn’t totally wrong, but not totally right. He, like Omega and Gamma in the games, isn’t self-aware to the extent of Metal Sonic in my up-coming comics, but he is aware in the sense that he is rebelling against Eggman to work for himself. Thus, the two flee from Eggman’s base and we get out first series of Shadow Flashbacks, made in Paint Shop Pro 7- One from Chaos Control, one from Marooned, and one from Perfect Chaos, the idea of these was to show that Shadow is having these sudden flashes of memory, that he remembers bits and pieces of his past and his life but nothing 100% coherent at this point.

4

And here we have Shadow and Eggman, I love this background, it’s taken from a Megaman game of course and was just perfect for what I wanted here. This is a similar set up to the intro from the game, except I wanted Eggman here to “explain” things to us so the plot moves faster. So, this is a biological replica of Shadow, it’s the Jet-Black metal Sonic Robot design infused with Shadow’s DNA to create a kind of Wolverine-like creature- flesh over metallic bones, but it’s very much alive and a copy of Shadow, taken from DNA that Eggman acquired whilst they were all trapped on the Little Planet. Eggman’s big plan is to spawn an army of Shadow clones, which aren’t as powerful as the original but immensely powerful enough to allow him to control the Planet, but first he needs to wipe the clone’s memory and we get these brand-new Shadow Flashbacks I made for this comic, showing Shadow with Tikal. I later tied them into The Return Of Chaos to show that they were indeed real memories of Shadow’s, but when this comic was made they were totally new (three things to note about this page: Far right of the Clone Pod background you can just make out another Shadow clone, he isn’t there when the other Teams run through this background, there’s a reason for that. Spikes has a cameo in the background in one of the flashbacks and I actually put that Spikes cameo in that scene later in The Return Of Chaos once again and, lastly, the clone Shadow sprite is the default colour of the Sonic Battle Shadow sprite but the “real” Shadow’s sprites are always re-coloured to a darker black).

5

Anyway, the memory of Tikal awakens Shadow and, in a blind panic, he bursts free and gets the hell outta there. This is where we see, again, when Shadow flies or moves faster there is a distinctive shadow following him, I tried to minimise the blurring effects on Shadow as a result of this, I preferred to have him leaving little shadows behind him. Eggman doesn’t care, he can just do it again and views the clone as useless because he’s weakened by memories and emotions, and we get another quick Shadow Flashback to his origin.

6

And another, a great scene from Marooned, which leads us to Shadow on South Island, having landed there suddenly. Shadow’s dialogue is mostly lifted or augmented from MewTwo’s in Pokemon The First Movie, as I found their situations to be comparable, but a lot, of course, comes from the games and my own hand. Shadow finds it hard to believe that he’s the Ultimate Lifeform, but eventually his memories kick into gear. Here’s your “must eradicate all Eggman’s Robots” line from the game. Now, in the game, this never makes sense because they never revealed if the Shadow in the game was the real one or not, but here it is relevant because this Shadow is a clone and is, technically, part mechanical.

7

I love Shadow’s Matrix-dive towards Omega, dodging all those bullets, looks great, then Rouge interrupts and sorts things out, she’s got a little flirty thing going on with Shadow methinks. Interesting thing to note is that the DNA Eggman used to create this clone is from before Shadow encountered Perfect Chaos and Sonic, yet the clone has those memories anyway. Why? Well, Shadow’s not a living creature in the same sense as, say, Sonic, Shadow is mystic, he is energy formed into a living being, so this clone is like a contradiction- there can’t be two Shadows, so, in a way, they are like the same, yet different. This is complicated but important to note and I try to highlight it with the clone Shadow, that this clone ISN’T Shadow, it’s a whole new character with parts of Shadow. While Shadow in my continuity is very different from Shadow in the games, the clone is more like Shadow in the games, making them very different personalities (such as: the clone gets angry much easier).

8

Shadow gets pissed and decides to go beat the truth out of Eggman and, surprisingly, Rouge decides to help, saying that her and Omega want to get revenge on Eggman for being tight-fisted and thus a Team is formed. This is a bit half-assed, but this Part is much more emotional and plot-heavy and dense than the others, which were straight-up action, and I wanted to get things rolling and to get Shadow moving towards finding out the truth.

9

That’s right baby, Shadow can fly lol, making this Team the only one which gets to Egg Island by themselves instead of using flying machines. Now, I was originally going to have them just always be on Egg Island but that would’ve made a damn short story, so they travelled away and then back again, with determination. Lol, really Shadow, your head is “chaotix” is it? Lol, little type-error I made but it’s quite a nifty little in-joke too.

10

Slight change to the standard Run-There-Fast motif of this comic which has Omega blasting the Robots out of Shadow’s path as he legs it there, made for some nifty effects I have to say but all this really led to me getting more and more fed up with putting together explosions, I kept adding more and more and doing more and more and it got a little repetitive sometimes, but I like this, I think it’s cute. Note this Team reaches the base a lot faster than the others- there’s no messing about with Shadow.

11

Ooh, Shadow remembers defeating Perfect Chaos- interesting note here is that the closer Shadow gets to where he was born, the more vivid his memories become (his memories end at the point after he initiated Chaos Control and sealed Perfect Chaos away) which is why in those Flashbacks there’s more colour. I love that multi-split scene where they’re running, shows what’s going through Shadow’s head as he gets closer and closer. This is where Rouge reveals the full extent of the truth to Shadow and that another clone was released after Shadow escaped, one with its memories and emotions erased.

12

Naturally, Shadow goes ballistic and does a MewTwo again, destroying the lab. I love that little bit, very powerful. Mighty gets Sonic’s line from the game because there’s no intercourse between Sonic or Shadow in this comic, in fact they barely seem to register that Shadow is even there, which was kind of dumb when I think about it, but the havoc that is to come kind of took up all the focus, that’s why this Part is so important because Shadow’s story here is very complex and important for later comics and stuff so I had to give it a lot of focus here. Notice the other clone has more orange on him and is a lighter shade of black, just so you can see a subtle difference in the clones.

13

Shadow says his memories and emotions make up who he is and Eggman is far from impressed, sounds about right lol. I like this fight between the two clones but, in the script, it was actually a bit longer, but, for whatever reason, it’s cut down a bit here. I like the double energy shots they did and the Chaos Spear looks fantastic- ever other Chaos Spear I’ve done since has looked the same- a flurry of shots followed by a big energy bolt- great stuff!

14

And it was enough to defeat the clone! Wow, not very tough after all huh? Love that sliding-pose by Shadow and his words, taken right out of Sonic Adventure 2 when you beat a level and get an A Ranking. Team Dark wants blood but wait, look, the clone turned into a puddle! It was Metal!! But why did he lose so easily? Simple- he was gauging Shadow’s abilities and copying his genetic structure and stalling for time. So was there really another Shadow clone released? If so, where is it? That, my friends, is called a set-up (not a plot hole, not a plot hole, not a plot hole lol). And we end in overly dramatic fashion.

Overall

I love this Part, it’s easily my favourite one out of the Sonic Heroes comic, purely because it brings back Shadow, but not the Shadow we’ve established before, this is a Shadow much closer to the character from the games. SEGA may have made a mess with the whole clone debacle, but I took advantage of it to get the real Shadow up and running and to give him that mysterious, powerful, badass attitude that we know and love whilst still maintaining the quiet discipline of “my” Shadow