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Big huge golden letters to indicate what’s coming over the only picture of the new Metal Sonic available at that point make this cover simplistic and basic but pretty good, in my view, slightly better than the other Sonic Heroes covers I’ve done.
New introduction bringing us up to speed. This introduction tells the previous four stories as though they happened all at the same time, and that is kind of the truth, kind of not, it’s up to the reader, I like the Teams running with the characters in the background, looks spunky. Anyway, as a result, all four Teams are assembled in Eggman’s new base, face-to-face with Eggman with Metal ready and waiting, they all got there and they’re all ready. Here we find out the true extent of Eggman’s plan- to lure them all there on a wild goose chase so that Metal can gather their abilities and become stronger to destroy them all! But when ordered to, Metal doesn’t respond. “Heh, maybe he’s rusted”- classic :D
Then WHAM!! Metal takes out Eggman, he powers up and bursts away into the night, allowing me a good excuse to use the smashed-up version of this background! It was damn hard to have all twelve characters in every scene at the same time, made things very squashed, half the reason why each Team has their own Part and don’t interact until this point. Sonic takes command and heads out, leaving Eggman to talk with no line leading to his mouth lol. Eggman’s explanation is accurate here, as we find out in I, Metal, Metal has absorbed too much power and believes that he can transform into his ascended state (IE: Super Metal) and destroy Sonic, thus why he turned on Eggman. However, the power wasn’t quite complete and there was a miscalculation on Metal’s part, resulting in a power spike or fluctuation, which transformed Metal instead into a gigantic, rampaging monster called the Metal Overlord. I love the scene where Metal is absorbing the lightning, which is right out of the game. The transformation itself comes off a bit bad, it is supposed to show Metal morphing to the Overlord, and there was a brief glimpse of Super Metal but it fades away, but you can’t really see it. Obviously this was a good excuse to use the giant Red Metal sprite from Chaotix, which isn’t Metal Overlord from the game but it was the closest thing. I actually did consider re-colouring it blue but it looked terrible, so I left it red. The damn thing is huge and barely fits into the frame lol. See how Sonic is sceptical/surprised about Metal’s transformation? Because he should be, Eggman reckons it’s the real deal but it’s really not and this Metal Overlord is overcome with confidence and virtual insanity and fails to realise that it’s actually only half as powerful as it would eventually be as Super Metal in Metal Ragnorak.
These two frames are again taken right from the game, here though it’s not made entirely certain why Eggman is actually giving them help and advice, especially since in Perfect Chaos he was quite happy to see Chaos destroy the whole world. I am going to chalk it up to the fact that Eggman’s insanity has levelled out a bit now to give him the sense to see that he can’t rule the world if he’s dead, so he’s giving the heroes some advice to take down Metal so Eggman has a chance to rule. Either way, they rally together and offer them support to allow for the return of the Supers! A much more sparing use of the Supers this time makes it more important and more significant, especially after their powers were virtually beaten down our throats in TCRS, now it’s a much more basic approach. And, unlike the game, Knux and Tails actually do power up, magic golden bubbles my ass SEGA!
There isn’t really much that Metal Overlord can do, less than the Super Mecha Robotnik from TCRS, but it’s so big and powerful that this fact doesn’t really matter and I like to think I “protected” Metal enough here to show that it is powerful despite not having many attacks. Amy gets pissed at Eggman’s pessimistic nature and clobbers him (again), allowing for only positive support for the Supers.
This results in their impressive flurry of energy attacks, to be countered by Overlord’s big weapon- the chest cannon! It spaks them one alright lol, and in the group-shot frame you see the remnants of the beam hanging in the air, a nice little bit of continuity I thought, same as the bright light emanating from the fight. Now, you might’ve been asking “Why did Shadow power up and help?” well, maybe he couldn’t at this point? But either way, Shadow channels his anger and takes command, ordering the others to rescue the prisoners and taking all his frustration out on Metal Overlord’s big fat ugly face!
To no avail, and Overlord wipes out Shadow with one hit, taunting him along the way. So Overlord is pretty strong. This sparks Rouge to actually root for Knuckles. Meanwhile, it’s more game dialogue as the prisoners are freed and MORE characters are added to the group shots! It was at about this point where I started having heart palpitations lol.
The Supers push it on and Sonic taunts Overlord, who nicks a line from the game again whilst retaliating, initially that line was something else but I liked the “speck of dust…” bit so much that I had to have it. Again the groupies give their encouragement and the Supers push it on, this time they avoid the chest-cannon and Sonic continues to taunt Overlord, knowing that metal will make mistakes when riled up.
Metal Overlord blasts his chest-cannon again but this time the three Supers just take it, defended by an energy shield of sorts, proving that Overlord’s offense is becoming less and less effective the more focussed they become. I love those little lines by Tails and Knux, they’re really trying to piss Metal off. And it works, as Metal Overlord pours it on, getting really mad now, then they all enter a test of strength energy beam contest straight out of Dragonball Z and that’s all three Supers making that one giant beam by the way. Omega backs up the fact that Metal is getting weaker, as Overlord has put all his power and energy into one final blast- all or nothing for Metal because he’s desperate to just win and kill them all. The Supers keep the beam, keep up the farce and do their little “we’re so great together” speech to let Metal know that it’s the end, then power up and blast a hole right through Metal’s chest!!!
In the original concept for this comic, that blast was to destroy Metal and that was to be the end of him, but that ended up happening in Sonic Liberty because Heroes was released and I wanted to do a spin-off and thank God I did because it helped establish so many things and put my comics back on track somewhat. Now that Metal is clearly losing, Eggman is back on his side, rooting for Metal almost. However, it’s all for naught, as the three Supers power up a special energy beam, one made of light-blue energy, which is a Chaos-empowered blast which strips Metal back down to his original form, as seen at the conclusion of the game when Metal transforms back to his normal form, all his power and energy used up and spent, resulting in shut down. This of course leads us to the power-down sequence of the Supers and the now-classic finishing poses of my comics.
But wait, Metal’s back up, worse for wear somewhat, with just enough time to allow me to use more dialogue from the game before he collapses again. In an interesting turn of events, with his most powerful creation once again defeated and the threat averted, Sonic takes off and leaves Eggman, closely followed by Tails and, of course, Amy, who came all that way and went through all that to impress Sonic, only to have him run off lol. Rouge leaves the door open for her return and Chaotix are reunited at last as I finally filter the characters off and out of the frames.
Omega flies away, saying his mission is accomplished. Will he return? Remains to be seen, I was considering keeping him partnered with Rouge but decided against it and I’ll wait and see what SEGA do next before I bring him back I think, I like his character and I thought this was a fitting open-door end for him. Of course there’s the final stare down between Eggman and the clone Shadow, who channels MewTwo and Neo to deliver a firm warning to Eggman before teleporting away, leaving Eggman to gather up Metal and swear revenge. You might ask why Eggman would still use/trust Metal after he kicked the crap out of him earlier but it’s simple- Eggman thinks Metal simply malfunctioned and went power-crazy, he doesn’t know and, I believe, never knows that Metal is actually self aware and working with his own agenda. Metal is Eggman’s most powerful creation and he would be stupid to just discard or destroy him. Of course we have the usual epilogue, tying the ends up as Cream, Cheese, Chocola-Chao and Vanilla go back home.
Where we see them living in peace once again on Flickie’s Island, allowing the Chao to fly with the Flickie’s and for Spikes to make another brief cameo. Sonic bids farewell to Knuckles and Chaotix, leaving on good terms. Where’d Rouge go? It’s a mystery. Shadow finds himself standing in another Megaman background, once again channelling the spirit of MewTwo and deciding that he will make it his purpose to discover his won destiny and, no matter what, that he is and forever shall be the Ultimate Lifeform. This leaves us finally with the usual end discourse between Sonic and Tails and the nifty little multi-team collage “The End” picture, which wraps it up nicely enough.
Overall
Considering that this comic was originally, basically, Metal Ragnorak and some of this plot combined, Sonic Heroes comes off quite well. In many ways it’s a filler story, needed to re-establish a more basic tone after the drawn-out Dragonball Z-like stuff I did in TCRS and set up Metal in a new light, for there’s obviously something odd about Metal in this story and that all comes to a head in the following comic, where we discover that it was actually all subtly laid out to lead to Metal’s eventually evolution into his own super-powerful character. This comic is also essentially for reintroducing Shadow, placing a clone in my universe and allowing for opportunities for Shadow/Shadow team ups in the future, which we eventually did see. Overall, I like this comic, it’s very basic in some parts, very emotional and plot-heavy in others and flows pretty well. It’s also not a direct translation of the game, rather my version of it based upon the game, just like BFTCE was my take on the first four Sonic games on Genesis.
Thanks for reading
-Stuart/SkSpAwN
