Sonic the Hedgehog #25 — "A Sudden Shift"

[deh_tommy]

Due to their species’ inherent ability to manipulate machinery, Dr. Starline has enlisted the help of the Deadly Six behind Eggman’s back to corral the zombots until he finds a better way of controlling them. To demonstrate, Zavok hijacks Metal Sonic and siccs him on Eggman.









So on the one hand, while Deadly Six were unable to nab Eggman for long, on the other they’ve now seized total control over his Faceship, the means to create the Metal Virus, and, above all, the seven Chaos Emeralds; distributed amongst each of them, they are now able to control the zombots by the thousands! Orbot and Cubot immediately suck up to their new boss so he doesn’t take their free will away. Zavok, amused by their sycophancy, lets them stay themselves - but unbeknownst to him, they’re actually in cahoots with a certain other individual...

With nowhere safe left on the surface, what’s left of the Restoration sets up shop on Angel Island and brings Knuckles up to speed on all that’s happened in the world below. Suddenly, they’re interrupted by some unwanted guests.







































Meanwhile, on the world below...













...whoof, that was a tough one to cut up. This was an extra length issue (24 pages instead of the usual 20), but there was so much stuff packed in and so many great moments I wanted to include so I tried to fit in as much as I could. I’m not sure if I’ve broken the 1/3 limit or not, but I hope this is okay.

Comments

[blues32]

Good grief. In one fell swoop, Starline has managed to catch up to Eggman in terms of terrible plans. Then again, it could be argued that bringing back Eggman without better knowledge of the person behind the genius was the worst plan of all.

[leahandillyana]

What happened?

[blues32]

What part are you confused about?

[deh_tommy]

The Deadly Six* are the main antagonists of Sonic: Lost World. They are Zeti: colourful, cruel creatures native to a mysterious floating continent known as the Lost Hex, and possess the innate ability to manipulate magnetic fields which by extension gives them total control over most machinery. The only thing that can keep them in check (apart from fighting them head on) is the Cacaphonic Conch, a rare conch shell thats tune causes great pain and distress to them. Like the name says, there are six of them:
Zavok (the red one and the leader of the group), Zazz (the purple one), Zomom (the orange one), Zeena (the green one), Zor (the one with the blue hair) and Master Zik (the light blue one and Zavok’s mentor).

Starline got in touch with the Six back in #21 because their powers were the only surefire method of controlling the zombots that he knew of. He found a cacaphonic conch of his own which he thought would be enough to hold them off, but the conch obviously only lasts as long as you blow into it, so now the Deadly Six have taken over Eggman’s scheme and seized control of the world’s zombots to do as they please.

*A bit of trivia: in the Japanese dub they’re explicitly classified as Oni and called Rokkishū (六鬼衆), literally ‘Band of Six Ogres’.

[leahandillyana]

The duck is a guy????

[blues32]

Platypus, apparently. But yes. Yes, he is.

[deh_tommy]

If you’re ever unsure, think of it this way: as mandated by SEGA themselves, the male-presenting main characters are not allowed to wear pants, while female-presenting main characters must have some article of clothing covering their lower half. The only exceptions I can think of are Blaze and Zeena, but I could be wrong there.

[blues32]

Blaze is fully clothed. Her pants are just the same color as her fur.

[deh_tommy]

Well that’s just confusing. Give us true equality, SEGA, let dudes wear pants and let the ladies go commando.

[lbd_nytetrayn]

Blaze is female, though.

[deh_tommy]

Hence why I said the only exceptions I could think of.

[lbd_nytetrayn]

But she wears pants?

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/sonic/images/2/29/TSR_Blaze.png/revision/latest?cb=20201002035011
https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/mario/images/6/6d/E278FCB5-2BBB-482C-8964-C5F22FE82101.png/revision/latest?cb=20181008044130

[deh_tommy]

Her mouth is the same colour as her leggings, hopefully you can see why I was confused.

[lbd_nytetrayn]

Oh, fair dinkum.

[blues32]

It's the royal look. Purple is the color of royalty and she's the princess of...I don't know, her world? They never really specified how large her kingdom is.

[super_fly]

tl;dr : Starlin done goofed.

[tinygaylaura]

That panel of Amy is hilarious

"So this is how I die..."

[scorntx]

You mean Amy making the death eyes face?

[tinygaylaura]

Starline: I've got us to safety Dr Eggman!

Amy: OH NO YA DON'T

[scorntx]

Eggman: Not the hedgehog I thought would kill me. (Always thought it'd be Shadow...)

[tinygaylaura]

It was in some of the cutscenes of Shad Ow The Edge Hog 0_0

[blues32]

Amy: "Omae wa mou shindeiru..."

[super_fly]

"Top 30 anime deaths, #1 YOUR FUCKIN' ASS RIGHT NOW!"

[blues32]

But he was wrong. Because he's gonna get his ass sniped by...wait. If Whisper snipes Eggman, does that make her Sniper Wolf?

[tinygaylaura]

"Snake

Snake

SNAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAKE"

Crimson Cobra: stop that

[b_i_beast]

Well, she and her team are a shout out to the Metal Gear Solid Series. I don't think there was a Solid Snake expy though.

[deh_tommy]

I’m a little let down no one got my Quiet joke back in the Tangle & Whisper #3 post, but on the other hand it wasn’t that good a joke to begin with so I don’t know what I was expecting.

[blues32]

There wouldn't be, I suppose. They seem to be a parody/homage to Fox Hound, the enemy team in Metal Gear Solid. Sniper Wolf, Decoy Octopus, Revolver Ocelot, Psycho Mantis and Vulcan Raven. I don't know if Liquid Snake was considered a member or if he took the group over. So Whisper is Sniper Wolf, Mimic is Decoy Octopus...I don't know the other members of her group off hand.

[scorntx]

You know your plan is too stupid when Dr. Eggman reaches breaking point and tells you you're being stupid.

Well, you should know, at any rate.

[blues32]

Starline went from being the more calculating genius to the biggest moron in the room in a single toot of a conch.

[deh_tommy]

He truly is Eggman’s protégé. He’d probably be proud if Starline’s plans weren’t so detrimental and ruinous.

[morallyambiguousscience]

I think it was only matter of time before Eggman turned on Starline, Starline was getting way too big for his britches and thought he could tell Eggman what to do.

[blues32]

He didn't even really tell Eggman what to do so much as complain and nitpick a lot. Yes, his protests were sound, but Eggman doesn't care how sound an argument is. He doesn't want to hear an argument.

[blues32]

And whiny. Starline is far too whiny with his, "But what about control methods" and "We should be inoculated against the horrific virus" nonsense.

[dan_ingram]

The irony being that this plan fell apart because he wasn't enough of a blowhard...

[tinygaylaura]

Sonic is a pretty forgiving and laidback dude so its extra funny his reaction to what happens to Starline is "Fucker had it coming"

[john_drake1964]

Well, when you kidnap Mr. Tinker, attempt to turn him back into Dr. Eggman, only succeed because Metal Sonic reawakened Eggman's paternal instincts, and thus allowed him to gleefully spread a nano-virus without any form of active control or inoculation against infection, and then bring in guys who make Eggman seem like the better option, as well as not doing the damn reading on the conch of control, well...you've gone past burning bridges and just outright thrown unstable nitoglycerine at them with abandon.

Course, the Restoration/Resistance probably might have wanted to have some operatives in Windmill Village to keep an eye on Mr. Tinker, just cause there might be someone with a grudge who might want to do something to him, let alone "I'm Star L. Ine, Super-Genius" coming to try and bring back the world conquering menace of Eggman.

[blues32]

That is a very fair point. Leaving Tinker alone was a huge mistake and I can't really blame Sonic for it. Sonic is too laid back to think of contingency plans, but the Chaotix (Espio in particular) should really have known better.

Then again, the Restoration/Resistance Team had disbanded because Knuckles is a lazy dick. "Meh. I can't be dealing with fixing the damage a massive global war when I could be laying on top of this huge gem. Disband the team." So there were no operatives to leave there.

[tinygaylaura]

My guess would be they thought having people guarding Eggman 25/7 would just draw attention to where he was

[blues32]

Nah, I'm sure they could have kept it low key. Have a couple of people move into town. Not anyone we know, just some Resistance members. Like whoever we were playing in Sonic Forces. Nobody even knows their name. They're just "The Rookie" and they were always wearing weird clothes. Just ask them to dress normally for once.

[john_drake1964]

At the very least, see about leaving a radio comm set in town in-case something like this happened.

[deh_tommy]

Starline Gets Repeatedy Dunked On While Everyone Barely Restrains Themselves From Personally Killing Eggman: A drama in 24 pages

[tinygaylaura]

He brought this on himself!

[john_drake1964]

He had it coming, he had it coming
He only had himself to blame!
If you'd have been there, if you'd have seen it
I betcha you would have done the same!

[blues32]

Are the Zeti immune to the virus? If I was one of the villagers and my time was up, infecting them would be my top priority. Especially the fat one. He's got his butt parked right there on the ground. He's not going to dodge.

[deh_tommy]

They’re just as vulnerable to the Virus as anyone, but good luck to the average joe getting the drop on one when they’re guarded by literal cities worth of zombots all totally under their control.

[blues32]

Like I said, the fat one is wide open. He's just sitting there. There are like...two zombots in sight. Him and Zeena, really...though she might be too fast. I've never played Lost World. The other Zeti are smart enough to stay out of range.

[deh_tommy]

Don’t let his size fool you, Zomom may be clumsy but he’s a lot faster than he looks.