Main Tropes Index

Troperville

Editing Help

Tools

Toys

Narrative

Genre

Media

Topical Tropes

Other Categories

Custom Search
0 reviews
Comicbook: Sonic The Hedgehog
Sonic the Hedgehog #125, featuring a portion of the cast.

The US comic book based on the Sonic The Hedgehog video game franchise, published monthly by Archie Comics. Not to be confused with the UK's Sonic The Comic.

Originally a tie-in with the SatAM series, the comic debuted in 1993. When the series ended, the comic, which by then had developed its own continuity somewhat, kept going. The comic has been published monthly since its inception.

The plot at first remained the same. Dr. Robotnik had taken over the Kingdom of Acorn and had turned everyone into robots. He was opposed by the Freedom Fighters, a band of, well, freedom fighters that operated out of their secret base of Knothole. Sally Acorn was the leader while Sonic the Hedgehog was their main fighter. But then the series started to make its own characters and have more complicated storylines that would last a couple of issues.

This culminated in issue fifty where it permanently split from the original source material. Sally was put into a coma, Sonic was framed for her attempted murder, and Robotnik set in motion a doomsday plan to destroy Knothole. Sonic cleared his name and defeated Robotnik, who in the end was killed by his own nephew. Originally Sally was meant to die, but editorial changed that to her waking up from her coma.

Meanwhile Knuckles the Echidna got his own spinoff series that dealt with his role as the guardian of Angel Island. It ends up he (and this was a surprise to Knuckles) was the latest in a long line of guardians, The Brotherhood of Guardians, who protected Angel Island from the Dark Legion. The series dealt with Knuckles' role as Guardian while fighting the Dark Legion. A whole new (and very large) set of characters for Knuckles to interact with was introduced. This series was cancelled, but everyone who was introduced has been integrated into the main cast.

Since then the story has gotten more complicated. A Robotnik from another dimension arrived to fill in his original's place and renamed himself Eggman. Other villains were introduced, like Mammoth Mogul and Scourge the Hedgehog, to expand the villainous cast. Sally's family turned up and caused shenanigans when Sally's father fired her from her leader position. Everyone who was turned into a robot was turned back and moved to Knothole, while the rest of the planet has been introduced and linked with Knothole. This in turn has changed the status quo from counter-revolutionaries fighting an oppressive government to all out war between two sides. A love triangle was introduced between Sonic, Sally, and Mina the Mongoose that lasted for a while, but has since been gotten rid of. An attempt to integrate all of Sonic Adventure 1 & 2 into the storyline resulted in further complications. Finally Eggman bombed Knothole into last week so everyone had to be relocated to New Mobotropolis (built out of nanites no less).

The series has been subject to huge debate, with accusations of Fan Dumb, Fan Wank, Dork Age, Character Derailment, and Nostalgia Filter being thrown from all sides over the quality of the series. Despite this, the series is actually the longest-running singular comic series based on a licensed franchise. They must be doing something right.

This comic book contains examples of:

  • A Day In The Limelight: This seems to be the point of Sonic Universe
  • Abusive Parents: Anti-Jules, under neglect.
    • Locke, sometimes, though he meant well.
  • Action Girl: Sally Acorn, Bunnie Rabbot, Julie-Su, Amy Rose.
  • Action Mom: Lupe, who has two kids, Maria and Marcos, and two more when she adopts Overlanders Ariel and Athena (one of whom is mute).
  • Adaptation Decay: Sonic Adventure 2 has received multiple adaptations trying to fit it into the comics; all of them are considered inferior to the game. Also, the Sonic Rush Adventure, Sonic Chronicles, Sonic Unleashed, and Sonic and the Black Knight adaptations are considered to be poorly done, as they only introduce the game, and then tell you to go play it. Sonic Universe #1 did fill in the holes left by the Sonic Rush Adventure adaptation. The other three are non-canon (they were never meant to be canon, just to advertise the games).
    • Not to mention the Sonic Adventure one, which was very poorly done. A city of humans inside a mountain, with an artificial sky?
    • The finished Sonic Adventure 2 adaptation in Sonic Universe isn't that bad. It does a good job of fitting the game into the canon at that time, as Knuckles and Tails couldn't really be involved.
  • After The End: The whole comic is set here.
  • A God Am I: Enerjak in all his forms.
  • AI Is A Crapshoot: NICOLE is a very nice AI, while A.D.A.M. is a very evil AI who tried to initiate a "Gray Goo" scenario. Honorable mention goes to the various Metal Sonics, Gamma, and Omega.
    • And before any of them? E.V.E.
  • Alas Poor Scrappy: Tommy Turtle.
  • A Long Time Ago In A Galaxy Far Far Away: Played straight for the majority of the comic, then the Xorda showed up and revealed that Mobius was Earth all along, and that nearly all the characters are the descendants of mankind.
  • Alternative Calendar
  • American Accents: Bunnie has a Dixie accent, despite there being no U.S. South.
  • Animal Gender Bender: Walt Wallaby of the Downunda Freedom Fighters has a pouch.
  • Arranged Marriage: Maximillian and Alicia Acorn. Sally and Anti-Antoine's short marriage was also one of these, until Elias became king and annulled it.
  • Art Shift: Some stories switched artists halfway through, such as "Night of 1000 Sonics" in issue #19. The "End Game" story arc was also a story arc that switched artists (and even co-writers) between installments, and then switched artists between scenes in the final chapter.
  • Ascended Extras: The Badniks from the first two Sonic games were major characters early on.
  • Ascended Meme: PINGAS!
  • Authors Saving Throw: Ian Flynn has managed to pull off a lot of these, especially regarding plots left dangling or satisfied unsatisfactorily by the previous author.
  • Ave Machina: The Dark Legion, a cyborg echidna sect which practically worshiped technology, even to the point that when their cybernetic implants are removed Lien-Da screams, "NO! It's not unnatural to want to better yourself!"
  • Axe Crazy: Rosy the Rascal, Amy's counterpart on Moebius. She's so in love with Scourge, she wants to bash his head in.
    • The villain Kodos becomes this after going crazy from radiation poisoning. Bonus points for actually wielding an axe.
  • Badass Mustache: Dr. Robotnik/Eggman.
  • Bald Of Evil: Dr. Robotnik/Eggman and his nephew Snively.
    • Snively doesn't think of himself as bald. Having about three hairs doesn't really count as a "full head of hair" but he's vain and deluded enough to think it does.
    • Six hairs. That he's attached tracking devices (?!) to...
  • Battle Royale With Cheese: The aptly titled Super Special Battle Royale, which only exists to depict the Freedom Fighters and Chaotix beating the crap out of one another.
  • Beta Couple: Antoine and Bunnie.
  • Big Badass Wolf: A whole mess of them form the Freedom Fighter cell known as, you guessed it, the Wolf Pack.
    • However, their former member, Drago, is a traitorous wuss.
  • Big Damn Villains: Averted in the "Enerjak Reborn" story-arc. The Freedom Fighters are desperate to stop Knuckles, who has been turned into Enerjak and gone mad with power, and it seems they might have to destroy him. Enter Eggman, who shows up with his Egg Fleet and warps Knuckles into a prison where he intends to drain the life from him to power his city. Needless to say, Knuckles breaks free and Eggman almost wets his pants.
  • Blessed With Suck: Bunnie had her share of angst about being part Robian, but she mostly came to terms with it and used her abilities to help in the fight against Robotnik. Then she found out they were literally killing her, and was forced to upgrade.
    • Even more so with Sonic's Uncle Chuck and father Jules. After getting his mind freed from Robotnik's control, Chuck would use his status to spy on the mad doctor's revelation. Jules, however, has gotten the worst of it - every other Robian has been restored to their original form but him, isolating him from his family and everyone else around him.
  • Bodyguard Betrayal: Heavy and Bomb, members of King Acorn's secret service, are reprogrammed by Eggman and ordered to kill the royal family after they are "rescued" from Robotropolis.
  • Bounty Hunter: Nack and his sister Nic fill this trope to a T.
  • Brainwashed And Crazy: This has happened to a few characters, but one notable example is what happened to Monkey Khan at the hands of the Iron Queen.
  • Breaking The Fourth Wall: Occurs several times in the earlier issues. One example is Robotnik finding Crabmeat reading a Sonic the Hedgehog Archie Comic. He then punishes Crabmeat for reading the comic of his most hated enemy, before getting the idea to use the OTHER comic books Crabmeat has for ideas for other robots. And yes, the other comic books are implied to be real comics as well. No, it doesn't make any sense.
    • Also falling into this category is Eggman's ramblings in issue 205. It appears he's finally figured out he's in a licensed comic book. He still wants to get that hedgehog though.
  • The Brigadier: Commander Abraham Tower.
  • Broken Base: Seasonal Rot is largely the cause of this. Where did the Dork Age start? Where did it end? Did it end? Was Sally's Chickification justified, or was it a hideously huge breach of established character just to sink the fanbase's largest ship? The typical benchmarks are that the series started to decline after Endgame, took a full-on nosedive during the Bem/Xorda arc, and has only started recovering since issue #160 with Ian Flynn being head writer. Of course, this is the Sonic fandom...
  • Canon Foreigner: Tons. They outnumber the original characters.
  • Canon Sue: Though he was accepted by most of the fanbase, Knuckles started turning into this after a while. Being part of a vast lineage wasn't the end of it, he eventually came to have an important prophecy associated with him and took on powers that allowed him to warp reality as he saw fit. At its peak, Knuckles started to eclipse SONIC in importance, and one storyline set in the future revealed that Knuckles destroyed Robotnik, who was Sonic's main villain and rival. Add onto his his previous friendship and relationship with Sally, and you get the distinct impression that Knuckles had pretty much taken over the comic. Recently, however, they've started to balance this, with Sonic taking the reins back as main character, and him, Tails, and Knuckles being defined as Mobius's quintessential Power Trio.
    • Many fans blame former head writer Ken Penders for this, as he's accused of turning Knuckles (and the Echidna race as a whole) into a Spotlight Stealing Squad, while he was in charge.
  • Capulet Counterpart: What happened with Julie-Su and Knuckles. Made even stronger when it's revealed that Julie-Su is one of Dimitri's descendants.
  • Cat Fight: A really really blatant one was set up between Bunnie and Rouge.
  • Cerebus Syndrome: Although based on the more serious Sat AM, the earlier comics were much more similar to Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog in tone, with little continuity. The series got more serious and interconnected as it went on. The Endgame arc is pretty much the point where things have fully shifted, though there are a few occasional one-shot lighter comics interspersed here and there.
  • Cheeky Mouth
  • Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys: Antoine was pretty much the personification of this trope in earlier issues.
  • Chickification: Sally Acorn was like this for a while. Thankfully it didn't last. Surprisingly, though, the lasting effects of it have yet to be Retconned or reversed...
  • Clear My Name: The "Mecha Madness" and "Endgame" storylines.
  • Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Snively has this problem and everyone knows it.
    • ALL of the characters from Moebius have this as well. Being evil doubles of the main characters means most of them are too arrogant to work together without trying to backstab each other.
      • Sleuth Dawg. Oh so much.
  • Colonel Makepeace: Many over the course of the comic, ranging from the Arctic Freedom Fighters all the way to the G.U.N. special forces.
  • Complete Monster: More than a few. Finitevus wants to wipe out the majority of the world's population and start over (he's a psychotic mix of Mr Sinister and Apocalypse in a creepy albino package). General Kage, leader of a fascist regime that sought to wipe out all echidnas and sported torture chambers and what were fairly obviously concentration camps. Super Scourge, the regular Scourge's insanity and sadism jacked up to a whole new level. And Eggman, who gets pleasure out of the suffering of innocents, merrily plots genocide in his free time and has more issues than Time Magazine.
  • Continuity Cameo: Bean and Bark got a few of these before showing up as actual characters later on. Their earlier appearances are impossible to reconcile with their current role though.
    • Patrick Spaziante would often do this with Astal, a Sega Saturn video game character he was apparently very fond of.
  • Continuity Lock Out: The first couple of issues of Sonic Universe have this problem. #1 gave such a quick summary of Sonic Rush Adventure that only people who played the game knew what was going on. Also, #1 continued from Sonic X #40 (a whole different series), which continued from Sonic the Hedgehog #196, which was part of a large story arc from the main series. #2 was an adaptation of Sonic Adventure 2 (probably an attempt to explain how it did fit into the continuity, as the original adaptation didn't really tell the reader much of anything about the game's story or how it fit into continuity), but would probably be pretty confusing to anyone who didn't play the original game.
    • This may be why the Sonic the Hedgehog comic offering for the 2009 Free Comic Book Day was more of a lengthy synopsis about the characters and the story than anything else...
    • It should be noted that they can't get TOO into the Sonic Rush side of things, as they're apparently forbidden from using Eggman Nega beyond a few ominous references.
  • Continuity Snarl: Trying to fit Sonic Adventure 1 and Sonic Adventure 2 perfectly into continuity caused problems. Made worse by the fact that the writers didn't have complete information about the games when they started writing the arcs...
    • The Sonic Adventure snarl was particularly nasty, as it involved taking what had been (until then) a relatively archaic world with violent humanoids (see Fantastic Racism and Four Fingered Hands below) and trying to force half of the cast into an Ordinary High School Student scenario and trying to introduce humans that were somehow completely different in personality than the ones met formerly without getting rid of the underlying Humans Are Bastards subtext.
  • Criminal Amnesiac: Sonic in issue #28.
  • Crowning Moment Of Heartwarming: After a touching (and trope page-illustrating) Now Or Never Kiss between Sonic and Sally in issue #125, Sonic travels across space for five issues to get back to a planet where everyone thinks he's dead. The Crowning Moment Of Heartwarming comes into play multiple times when people see him among the living, and Sonic even starts crying when he reunites with his uncle...
    • ...which is to say nothing of his reunion of Sally, at which point the trope ascends to a Crowning Moment Of Awesome that won issue #130 an award for best comic of the year.
  • Culture Clash: Overlanders versus Mobians and Echidnas versus Dingoes.
    • Hell Echidnas versus ECHIDNAS too. With the religious right "Mitres" (Echidna Priests) denouncing the technology loving Dark Legion and their upgrades as "Unnatural". Does This Remind You Of Anything?
      • Anything can remind anyone of anything if they look at it from the right angle.
  • Crazy Awesome: Several characters fall into this at times, but Omega gets points for shooting the creator of the Chaos Emeralds in the face while praising Team Dark's agreed "Plan B."
  • Crossover: One with the Image Comics superheroes, another with Sabrina The Teenage Witch.
  • Curse Cut Short: A particularly infamous example in issue #165:
    Julie-Su: "Let me go, you b—"
    Rouge: "Bat. Remember it."
    • Not to mention the innumerable "What the—?"s and "What in—?"s.
  • Dark Skinned Redhead: Sally. Well, technically she's a dark-FURRED redhead, but it's the same effect.
  • Dating Catwoman: Rouge is trying to invoke this trope with Knuckles, much to Julie-Su's annoyance.
  • Days Of Future Past: See Feudal Future.
  • Death From Above: How Eggman ultimately destroyed Knothole.
  • Demoted To Extra: The Substitute Freedom Fighters. One eventually becomes so bitter about it, he runs for office just so he can make a difference and vent his frustrations...and then leaves office after he's still ignored by the main cast.
  • Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu: Omega in SU#4
  • Doesn't Like Guns: The Kingdom of Acorn has had a strict "No guns" policy ever since a previous war was started because two kids were playing with a gun. Julie-Su is the exception.
    • Julie-Su isn't a member of the Kingdom of Acorn. She just lives there.
    • This turned into a Wall Banger when Rotor chastised a character for suggesting that they use guns, when he himself created and used a gun himself. And both instances were done by the same WRITER.
  • Does This Remind You Of Anything: The animosity between the Dingoes and the Echidnas is almost an exact analogy for the Arab Israeli Conflict. Who plays who is just as much up to interpretation.
  • Draco In Leather Pants: You'd be surprised just how many pictures there are on Deviant Art of this comic's villains in suggestive situations, but it's perhaps this one takes the cake.
  • Dragon Lady: The Iron Queen. Although technically she's not native to that region.
  • The Empire: The Eggman Empire, to be precise.
  • Evil Albino: Dr. Finitevus.
  • Evil Is Sexy: Lien-Da. A sexy as hell Echidna girl in skintight leather and a habit of whip wielding? What's not to like here?
    • Fiona after her Face Heel Turn started dressing a LOT sexier in skintight rubber/leather gear.
      • The Iron Queen has more than a few fans too. As does Finitevus, Scourge and (disturbingly) Snively and Eggman.
  • Evil Twin: Everyone from Anti-Mobius. But special mention has to be given to Anti-Sonic, who used the Master Emerald to turn himself green, renamed himself Scourge the Hedgehog, and has become a recurring villain.
    • Averted with Anti-Knuckles, who's a good guy, just more mellow and pacifistic than Knuckles. That doesn't stop him from fighting when he thinks he has to, though.
    • Finitevus is also something of an evil twin to Knuckles. An accident transformed him into a negative image of Knuckles, and he uses the exact opposite methods that Knuckles does; while Knuckles favors direct action, Finitevus uses his powers over dark magic and subterfuge. And while Knuckles is a Guardian, biologically engineered and trained from birth to be an ultimate protector, Finitevus wants to BLOW IT ALL UP!
  • Executive Meddling: Part of the reason why previous head writer Ken Penders left, and part of the reason behind some of the fan frustration, in recent comics. Ever wonder why new writer Ian Flynn doesn't get Sonic and Sally back together? This is why.
  • Face Heel Turn: Fiona Fox.
    • As of issue 202, Espio the Chameleon.
  • Fantastic Racism: The Overlanders and Mobians are usually pretty antagonistic to each other due to a long history of conflict between them. Attitudes have softened, however, as the comic has gone on and the two have fought together more and more against their common enemies.
    • Also the Dingoes and the Echidnas who are constantly at one another's throats. Who is in the right is up to interpretation, though the militant General Kage took it way past the Moral Event Horizon and kept on going.
      • Not based on race but the same basic idea is the reason why the Dark Legion broke off from the rest of Echidna society. Their love of technology led to them being persecuted and oppressed by the government.
      • Normal Mobians had a significant amount of dislike for the roboticized Robians.
  • Fantasy Counterpart Culture: The ENTIRE planet of Mobius.
  • Fetish Fuel: Rouge, Lien-Da and Fiona in particular for their tight outfits, and Sally for her near-total lack of one, but really… just about any female will do it for someone.
  • Feudal Future: But Prince Acorn has begun to give the populace more control of their government after an attempted coup, so at least it is progressing.
  • First Name Basis
  • Five Bad Band: Scourge's Suppression Squad.
  • Five Man Band: Several, including the Freedom Fighters, the Chaotix, the Downunda Freedom Fighters, and King Acorn's Secret Service.
  • Flash Forward: The "X Years Later" storylines.
  • Footnote Fever: Almost every single time the comic references a previous event, there's a footnote helpfully telling you exactly what issue it took place in. In particularly referential issues, the phenomenon is lampshaded. Frequently.
  • Four Fingered Hands: Rarely consistent, given its conflicting source material—the cartoon gives every Mobian four fingers, while the games gives almost every one of its characters five. Right now the number of fingers depends on the artist, with some giving every character five fingers, and others giving the Sega characters five and everybody else four. Similarly, earlier issues had established that the main difference between humanoid Overlanders such as Robotnik and proper Humans such as the characters seen in the Federation was the number of fingers: four and five, respectively. Thanks to artistic interpretation, this has since been quietly ignored.
  • Funny Animals: Though they do retain some traits of their animal origins. Oddly enough sea creatures remain the same.
  • Funny Schizophrenia: Bean. Just. Bean.
  • Furry Fandom: Go to Deviant Art, type in echidnas, and see how many people represent themselves as echidnas. We'll wait.
  • Fusion Dance: Gamma's "soul" enters Omega's mind, fusing their thoughts together and granting Omega the ability to feel proper emotion.
    • Also, we have Tikhaos.
    • And, sadly, Titan Tails.
  • Future Badass: Somewhat averted with Silver. He's quite capable, but he's also a bit too inexperienced and naive, which leads to him making a few mistakes.
  • Gadgeteer Genius: The comic has a lot of these, most notably Rotor, Tails, and Uncle Chuck.
  • Gender Equals Breed: Seems to be the case in the recent "30 Years Later" storyline.
  • General Ripper: Depending on which side of the fence you're on, General Helmut von Stryker. His son Kage definitely qualifies.
  • Genetic Engineering Is The New Nuke: The Xorda take this to its logical conclusion by having a genetic engineering weapon that functions very much like a nuke. Said weapon also serves as the backstory for the planet.
  • Getting Too Old For This: They obviously can't invoke this trope completely, as the series has no actors, but in the Mobius 30 Years Later arc, Sonic is starting to show his age and even jokes about. Luckily, he manages to avoid the repercussions of this from the previous future arc; there, he was on the receiving end of a Curbstomp Battle courtesy of the ageless King Shadow.
  • Go Karting With Bowser: Snively plays hockey with Sonic in issue #33.
  • Happily Married: Bunnie and Antoine.
  • Heel Face Turn: Dr. Robotnik at one point, believe it or not. It didn't last long.
  • Hell Bent For Leather: Dark Legionnaire Lien-Da is usually shown wearing some sort of leather outfit. And wielding a whip, for some odd reason.
  • Heroic BSOD: Sonic when he realizes that he literally drove Eggman insane thanks to Snively's Hannibal Lecture. However, the writers quickly push this under a rug. It counts, though, as Sonic did really feel terrible about what he did to Eggman.
    • Played for laughs with Shadow after Marine tells him she doesn't know as much as she led on about ship building. Results in one of the most Narm awkwardly funny facial expressions ever seen in the comic.
  • Heroic Sociopath: Omega. Even after gaining a "soul" from Gamma, Omega is still a bit too triggerhappy and willing to blow things up.
  • Hollywood Cyborg: Bunnie, and her children in the "30 Years Later" storyline.
  • Hot Blooded: Monkey Khan.
  • Humans Are Bastards: Done somewhat ironically. Humans usually are quite amicable people, but our cartoon character counterparts the Overlanders are bastard-covered bastards with bastard fillings sprinkled with bastard frosted bastard flakes - at least from the Mobian perspective. What's the difference? About one finger on each hand.
    • Also, Mobians live in an idealistic utopian society.
    • This starts to get averted later on. Around issue #100 or so, the Overlanders return to Mobius. The Overlanders we see here are civilians, and their fear of animals is generally born out of ignorance and isolation from the Mobians. Robotnik's brother is shown to be a caring, if not extremely foolish father to Hope, who goes on to befriend the Mobians and becomes accepted by them.
    • Never mind the fact that the war between the Overlanders and Mobians started due to an ACCIDENT. Really, the only thing that casts them as particularly bad is the Mobians' own limited perspective and the fact that Robotnik and Snively are the only representatives of their race we see for a while. And the Overlanders KICKED THEM OUT for being evil scumbags.
    • Also, Nate Morgan. He's generally one of the kindest and well mannered characters in the series.
  • Hypocritical Humor: In an early story, Robotnik asks how Boomer Rotor can let himself get so fat...while his own stomach greatly hangs out.
  • Identical Grandson
  • Idol Singer: Mina Mongoose.
  • Immortality: This is Mammoth Mogul's shtick, since he's an Alternate Company Equivalent of Vandal Savage.
    • Also Enerjak's shtick. Until Mogul stole his chaos powers anyway.
  • Improbable Age: The Freedom Fighters started fighting The Empire when they were barely even teenagers, and they won. Granted, it took them quite a while and it still hasn't stuck, but even the oldest is still barely breaching their twenties.
  • Incredibly Lame Pun: The early stories were full of them.
  • Instant Awesome Just Add Ninja: Espio, in accordance with his redesign in Sonic Heroes. Now, made even stronger with the addition of the four houses of the Dragon Kingdom, which includes the bat ninja Yagyu Clan. Lightning Lynx is similarly revealed to be a member of one of the Ninja Clans.
    • There's also Uma Arachnis and her children.
  • Intercontinuity Crossover
  • Interspecies Romance: Let's list them, shall we?
    • Geoffrey St. John/Hershey St. John (skunk/cat)
    • Antoine D'Coolette/Bunnie D'Coolette (coyote/rabbit cyborg)
    • King Max Acorn/Queen Alicia Acorn (squirrel/chipmunk)
    • Sonic's various canonical relationships:
      • With Princess Sally Acorn (hedgehog/squirrel-chipmunk hybrid) - lampshaded in a later issue:
      Bean: Are you and the princess going to marry and have mutant hedge-squirrel babies?
      • With Mina (hedgehog/mongoose)
      • With Fiona (hedgehog/fox)
    • Thankfully subverted with the Iron King and Iron Queen, who are merely in a relationship of convenience in order to solidify their power base.
  • Irony: The Historical/geographical kind. The location of the capital city of a one world absolute monarchy? Texas. The home of the racist aggressors and oppressors? New England. The reaction of the Freedom Fighters' government to the people's demands for democratic reform? Crush the rebellion, and imprison the leader. (Sally managed to eventually get a compromise.)
  • I Want My Beloved To Be Happy: For Sonic's sake, Mina took a bullet for Sally. She Got Better.
  • Jerk With A Heart Of Gold: Ash the Mongoose. Antoine before his Character Development.
    • Sonic at times too. At one point it got so bad Tails, his best friend, physically assaulted him. He's wised up a little now, though he can still be a Jerk Ass at times.
    • Also, Geoffrey St. John, and Vector some of the time.
  • Jonas Quinn: RoboRobotnik/Dr. Eggman, for, well, himself.
  • Kangaroo Court: Sonic was once put on trial by Knothole in a literal Kangaroo Court: two kangaroos were the judges. Other than that, however, it seemed like a fair trial, though the prosecutor seemed a little too interested in getting a guilty verdict.
  • Killed Off For Real: Robotnik Prime and Locke are the big ones.
    • Also, Tommy Turtle and Sir Connery.
    • And Locke was actually Killed Off For Real twice. It was an alternate timeline/future thing.
    • And before any of them, Tobor and Kragok.
  • Kissing Cousins: A distantly related version, when it's revealed that Julie-Su is descended from the evil side of Knuckles' family tree.
  • Knight Templar: King Shadow
  • La Resistance: The Freedom Fighters.
    • And the Rebel Underground, a group of freedom fighters who invoke this trope in imagery and name.
  • Lawyer Friendly Cameo: The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles appear in the background of one panel in issue #10, remarking that they're in the wrong comic. (It should be noted that Archie Comics produced a comic book series based on the turtles, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures.)
    • Also, in issue #18, Sonic mistakes the badnik Bat Brain's silhouette for the Batsignal and thinks Batman is trying to steal his spotlight.
    • The main story (as well as the cover) of issue #8 takes this trope to extremes.
  • Lego Genetics: Sally Acorn is the most prominent example, being half squirrel and half chipmunk without any problems.
  • The Load: Antoine was this before he started to pull his own weight. Ian Flynn says that this is the case for Drago in the Destructix.
  • Loads And Loads Of Characters: You have almost everyone from the videogames, everyone from Satam, all the original characters, all the original characters from Knuckles' series, and all the characters introduced to tie the videogames and comics together.
  • Long Runner: The comic prides itself on being the longest running video game comic in human history, and the author's notes at the end of the 200th issue boasted that they're only 76 strips away from becoming the longest running licensed comic book publication of the modern age.
  • Losing Your Head: Due to sudden rapid aging, Dimitri had to have more and more of his body replaced with cybernetic implants. Now he is just a cyborg head in a floating fishbowl.
  • Luke I Am Your Father: A variation occurs with Enerjak, who is Knuckles' distant ancestor. Then again when the Dark Legion is revealed to be a bunch of echidnas (and led by one of Enerjak/Dimitri's descendants to boot. Then, yet again when Julie-Su finds out that she's the daughter of one of the Legion's Grandmasters, and Kragok and Lien-da's sister.
    • A more literal example occurs when it's confirmed that Remington is Kragok's son.
  • Magitek: Regina is a "technomage".
  • Mad Bomber: Bean the Dynamite Duck, and Bomb after being reprogrammed. Bomb is of literal note because he actually is a bomb. He transfers his programming to a fresh duplicate each time he explodes.
  • Mad Scientist: Dr. Robotnik/Eggman, Dr. Finitevus, Dimitri.
  • Magnificent Bastard: Mammoth Mogul most certainly didn't fit the bill for this early on, even though he was clearly meant to be one. An immortal cavemammoth from earth's second Ice Age (it's complicated), Mogul was always plotting and scheming, with the writers trying their darndest to build him up with unlikely Xanatos Gambit stories. Nothing worked, and his world domination plans failed again and again and again. Then one day Mogul wised up and essentially said to the heroes "I just remembered that I'm immortal. So here's my new plan: I'll live in this sweet casino I just had built, amuse myself by taking pot shots at you whenever I can, and wait for you all to die of old age. I can beat you by outliving you."
  • Mecha Mooks: SWATbots, Combots, Shadowbots, and later, the Egg Pawns.
  • Medium Awareness: A regular part of Michael Gallagher's scripts, particularly in the early days.
  • Mirror Universe: Moebius (formerly named Anti-Mobius).
    • Bizarro Universe: It's not just good and evil switched, although that's how the idea started. Floating Island floats in the ocean instead of in the sky, Scourge's one billionth ring drove Amy insane when it granted her wish, and Anarchy Beryl (Anti-Chaos Emeralds) drains energy from people when they use it instead of boosting their energy.
  • The Mole: The Guardian Tobor, who is really the Legionnaire Moritori Rex, who took advantage of an accident to replace the real Tobor so he could spy on the Brotherhood of Guardians.
  • My Greatest Failure
  • My Master Right Or Wrong: Espio
  • My Name Is Not Durwood: Marine gets this pretty hard from Shadow in Sonic Universe #1.
  • Mythology Gag: Sonic and Sally's future offspring are called Sonia and Manik, the names of Sonic's siblings in Sonic Underground.
    • On the title page for one issue, Nack's description is listed as "Fanged Sniper", a reference to his Japanese name.
    • Sonic remarks that he beat Scratch, Ground, and Coconuts when he was eight, which is the age he would have been when you subtract the number of years ago Adventures Of Sonic The Hedgehog aired from his current age.
  • No Biochemical Barriers: The Mobius: 25 Years Later series features Sally (chipmunk/squirrel) and Sonic's (hedgehog) kids, among other examples.
  • No Fourth Wall: The "Off Panel", brief comics in some issues that have the characters frequently doing this and often interacting with the writers/editors of the comic. Also noticeable in the comic's early era, when Michael Gallagher was the main writer.
  • Not So Different: The Brotherhood is pretty damn hypocritical in their combating the Dark Legion, using the very technology that they convinced echidna society to ban and thereby started the conflict in the first place. The Dark Legion comes close to calling them out on this on several occasions.
  • Nuclear Weapons Taboo: Partially subverted in the comic itself; played straight with the Kingdom of Acorn.
  • Oddly Small Organization: The Freedom Fighters, though it's temporarily subverted at different points in the series. This later comes back to bite the main characters in the tail when one of the disenfranchised former members of the Substitute Freedom Fighters becomes a leader in the government.
  • Official Couple: Sonic and Sally.
  • Omnicidal Maniac: Finitevus.
  • One World Order: The Kingdom of Acorn before the events of the comics; Dr. Robotnik's empire after his coup.
    • Of course, now it's pretty much broken up and the only vast power base is the Iron Queen's control of Robotnik's city and the Dragon Kingdom. Sonic makes a particular note of the fact that Eggman's lost control of his own empire at one point.
  • Our Dragons Are Different: Dulcy the dragon and her race.
  • Parental Abandonment: Almost every regular character, until Robotnik Prime's death.
    • Of particular note is Knuckles, who was left in a wilderness by his father at a young age, and was then spied on by him for a while. This happened to every Guardian before him, but Locke had a particularly hard time with it, which eventually tore their family apart and caused his wife to leave him.
  • Plot Relevant Age Up: Amy does this for the Sonic Adventure adaptation.
  • Plot Tumor: Coupled with Knuckles turning into a Canon Sue, as described above. Knuckles goes from living in a wilderness, believing himself to be the last of his kind, to living in a city full of other echidnas and having a family tree that becomes more and more convoluted as time goes on. Eventually, the echidnas end up becoming the most important race in the comic. Then, the Eggman Empire (and Ian Flynn) came along... Needless to say, there aren't as many echidnas now.
  • Product Placement: Stories that really serve no purpose other than to serve as a five-page advertisement for whatever the newest Sonic game is.
    • Word Of God has declared the Sonic Chronicles, Sonic Unleashed, and Sonic and the Black Knight stories as non-canon in the comic's continuity.
  • Projected Man: How NICOLE now interacts with the rest of the cast, in a lyn(u)x form.
  • Promoted Fanboy: Archie Comics were so impressed with Ian Flynn's writing of the fan comic Other-M that he was hired as head writer, and also contributes stories to the Sonic X comics.
  • Psycho For Hire: Bean is the Comedic Sociopathy version of this.
  • Psychopathic Man Child: Eggman has become this after Sonic #200.
  • The Psycho Rangers: The Suppression Squad, who are the Freedom Fighters' Evil Twins from an alternate dimension.
  • Putting On The Reich: The Overlanders and the Dingoes on occasion.
    • And the Dark Legion from time to time.
  • Quirky Miniboss Squad: The Destructix, comprised of Predator Hawk, Sgt. Simian, Lightning Lynx, Flying Frog, Sleuth Doggy Dog, and Drago Wolf. They haven't gotten much characterization over the years, and mostly show up when various Big Bads need some minions to throw at the heroes.
  • Raised By Wolves: Aerial and Athena, who are the adopted daughters of Lupe.
  • The Real Remington Steele: Fiona, who was introduced as a Robotnik-created bot years before her real self appeared.
  • The Reason You Suck Speech: Sonic to Eggman in issue #200
  • Redemption Equals Death: This is the case for the original Metal Sonic, who sacrifices himself to save Sonic and Tails after seeing Sonic go through everything to save his best friend.
  • Robot War: Technically, usually, since this is Robotnik/Eggman's Weapon Of Choice.
  • Romantic Plot Tumor: Plagued the comic for quite a long time. Luckily the comic has since moved on.
  • Royals Who Actually Do Something: The House of Acorn.
  • Running The Asylum: Several examples, the most prominent being Ian Flynn, the current head writer.
  • Screw This Im Outta Here: The Dark Presence
  • Sdrawkcab Name: Julian Kintobor changes his name to Dr. Ivo Robotnik.
  • Self Made Orphan: Implied with Scourge
  • Ship Sinking: Sonic and Fiona; and Tails and Fiona, via the comics AND Word Of God.
  • Shout Out: Tons, for just about every fiction franchise on Earth. Most of these can be found in a group shot of AU Tails.
    • One particular example is M, Robotnik's android "daughter." She's a sunglasses wearing android whose Made Of Iron, who eventually gets her outer shell blown off to reveal a skeletal-looking body underneath. Now what does this remind you of? To add to it, there's the fact that she looks like a female version of Arnold.
    • A supplemental piece of art for an earlier comic was also a homage to Disney's Aladdin.
    • I always assumed Constable Remington was a shout out to the series Remington Steele.
    • Eggman's rambling in one of the more recent comics (STH 204) is likely a Shout Out to the hybrids in the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica.
  • Slap Slap Kiss/Kiss Kiss Slap: For a while it reached ridiculous levels with Sonic and Sally. It's calmed down in more recent strips.
  • Species Surname: Sometimes (Maurice "Sonic" Hedgehog), sometimes not (Amy Rose).
  • Spinoff: Knuckles' comic. Also the new Sonic Universe comic.
  • The Starscream: Snively.
  • Start Of Darkness: Regina in "A Lonely Girl's Story".
  • Stuff Blowing Up: Omega prefers this to happen in every mission he's taken part in so far. So far, he is pleased.
  • Summers Family Tree: Knuckles' ancestors, the Brotherhood of Guardians, and the leaders of the Dark Legion. It eventually is revealed to include Julie-Su and Remington. Finitevus eventually lampshades this.
  • Super Dickery: Issues #28, #203 and #204
  • Theme Naming: The Brotherhood of Guardians.
  • Token Evil Teammate: Team Dark. Shadow's mellowed out, but Rouge is a thief who's in it for herself, and Omega is a Heroic Sociopath. And if Abraham Tower has his back story from the games...
  • Took A Level In Badass: Antoine takes several, Evil Sonic when he becomes Scourge
  • Totally Radical: The series still bills itself as "The World's Most Way Past Cool Comic!" Delicious early '90s camp.
  • Trademark Favorite Food: Chili-dogs for Sonic.
  • Trickster Mentor: Archimedes the Fire Ant filled this role for Knuckles, by way of a Xanatos Gambit that initially made Knuckles and the readers believe he was being set up as a villain.
  • Unfortunate Implications: Let's see, two characters are given the Word Of Gay treatment by the comic's previous head writer. The current writer, who is later established as gleefully mistreating characters in the comic he doesn't like, as one of his first tasks after taking over the story, kills off said characters (or one of them, anyway) in a short, hasty, and brutal torture scene that ends with their captors giddy over the deed, then refuses to make an official statement on the Word Of Gay either way, ignoring the whole thing.
  • Vague Age: The planet itself, believe it or not, with the time between the Xorda attack on Earth and the current strips ranging from anywhere between 3200 years to 15,000 years.
  • Values Dissonance: Covering everything from the systems of government on Mobius to the clothes the characters don't wear.
  • Villainous Breakdown: Dr. Eggman
    • Also Scourge after he's betrayed by everyone. He expresses a desire to destroy two whole worlds, one of which is his home, just out of annoyance.
  • Villain Decay: Taken to the logical conclusion with Eggman in the 200th issue.
  • The Voiceless: Bark the Polar Bear, Bean's partner in crime, never speaks.
  • Wall Banger: The origin of Mobius is that Earth was bombed?!
    • Gene bombed! And the Chaos Emeralds were created from irradiated beryl deposits (thankfully that last one has been retconned out because it came from an Unreliable Narrator).
    • That's just a way of justifying why a world of Funny Animals exist. It's only a Wall Banger if you have a particular attachment to Mobius being a vaguely defined fantasy world.
  • Well Done Son Guy: Knuckles and Locke's relationship has elements of this. Also, Antoine invokes this trope when he tries to earn his father's appreciation after the latter starts acting more impressed with Sonic.
    • Snively's lack of appreciation by his father is hinted to be part of the reason for him being evil. Interestingly enough, his father, Robotnik's brother, was also favored over his brother. Hmmm.
    • And let's not get started on King Max's relationship with his kids.
  • Well Intentioned Extremist: Knuckles as Enerjak. The dingoes also apply, depending on how you look at it.
    • Dimitri is very much this. Despite all he's done he just wants his people free to pursue their lifestyle. They were harming no one until the government made technology illegal, persecuting those who used it. Knuckles himself has sided with Dimitri when the latter tried to integrate his people with Echidna society at large.
    • Not exactly. The Dark Legion didn't exist until technology was made illegal, and after that, Dimitri's son Menniker began a coup. It was only after tensions between the two parties became all out war did both sides start marching towards the Moral Event Horizon. Dimitri is trying to save the Legion from themselves as much as he is trying to save them from prejudice.
  • The Wesley: Scourge, Tommy Turtle.
    • Your Mileage May Vary. For some, Scourge is an Ensemble Darkhorse.
    • Mina Mongoose could arguably fit into this, mainly because her amourous pursuit of Sonic outraged fans of the Sonic/Sally and Sonic/Amy pairings (the fever pitch of hatred being when Mina kissed Sonic and Sally, witnessing this, got the wrong impression), but also partially because Mina seemed to be pushed upon the readers by Karl Bollers, who named her after his grandmother. Making her beautiful, giving her a speed to match Sonic's and making her a popular singer didn't help matters, though after a while she was featured less and became more toned down. On the other hand, Mina acquired a sizeable amount of fans in the Sonic fandom for such a minor character, so once again, Your Milage May Vary.
  • Will They Or Won't They: Sonic and Sally did this for a long time. Then they started dating, broke up, and are doing it again.
    • Knuckles and Julie-Su had a fair bit of this when they first met too. And Shadow and Rouge still do, though it's unlikely they ever will given Shadow being an emotional cripple who can barely articulate his feelings other than arrogance and anger.
  • With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: Both Dimitri and Knuckles were turned into the crazed god Enerjak by draining power from the Master Emerald.
  • Word Of Gay: Ken Penders got around the CCA somehow by hinting at one of the characters in the "Mobius: X Years Later" storyline being gay... and somehow doing this while showing the life partner, threading the relationship into the text. Once fans started searching, it became obvious (and confirmed by Ken), that the hinted couple was Rotor and Cobar, the latter an echidna scientist from the Dark Legion.
  • Word Of God: Current writer Ian Flynn has organized his own message board, where he and other creators interact with fans and answer their questions.
    • His predecessor, Ken Penders, also has an active message board that talks about the stories that he had planned for the series. Interestingly, Ian has stated in his board that he's a follower of Ken's board, himself.
  • Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe: How Rob O' the Hedge often talks. His cousin, Amy, who comes from the same region, doesn't do this.
  • You Have Failed Me: The first Robotnik, often.
  • You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: King Shadow to Lien Da.
  • Younger Than They Look: A lot of the cast is like this.
  • Zen Survivor: General von Styker, after his son ousts him from power.

Solar Man of the AtomComic BooksSpawn
Sonic The ComicComic BooksSouthern Knights
new edits
forum
page history
edit page
view source
discuss
Creative Commons License
This wiki is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.