While it may be a simple Pet the Dog moment from Eggman, it actually makes sense why he thinks of Metal Sonic as his most precious creation. It is his most successful one of the bunch. Think about it, no other creation of the doctor has ever been as succesful and from the doctor's own merits.
The other Sonic doppelgangers were failures. Mecha Sonic, despite being very effective, didn't even get close to being Sonic's equal. Robo Sonic could barely do anything besides jet around and shoot easily dodged needles. Metal Sonic by comparison was highly effective in his introduction, helping the doctor take over an entire planet across 3 time periods. While he lost to Sonic, he only did so because of Eggman's own trap during the Stardust Speedway race. If it wasn't for Eggman, Metal would have beaten Sonic.
Not to mention that most of Eggman's highly effective robots like the E-series ended up betraying him, with Gamma destroying his brothers, Omega turning rogue and joining Team Dark, and if Sigma of Scrapnik Island didn't betray Eggman beforehand, he's certainly not on the Empire's side now. Metal Sonic, by comparison, was always loyal to Eggman, and even the one time he betrayed him, Metal Sonic 1) left him alive, which can be argued was done to please his master in a Loophole Abuse kind of way, and 2) obtained the power of Chaos and copied the data from Shadow on his own merits. It's possible Eggman has respect and pride for Metal Sonic to have gone that far, even if he joined the heroes against him.
In a couple spinoffs, like Sonic Rivals, Metal has helped Eggman keep other villains from being competition. He even teamed up with Shadow at least once.
Last but no least, Metal Sonic is Eggman's own creation. He is not a left-over from his grandfather like Shadow, nor some ancient artifact he stumbled one day like Emerl/Gemerl. Metal Sonic is his own creation, born from his intelligence.
The final point tends to be consistent with any other respectful moments from Eggman, that he will show open reverence so long as it under zero terms that can be insinuated as him deeming himself inferior to them. He lampshades that he would never humour Dr. Starline by complimenting him, which makes sense because Starline viewed himself as Eggman's Hyper-Competent Sidekick. Eggman is perfectly fine acknowledging him in death because he defeated him, so complimenting his talents from now on can only make himself look even better.
It makes sense Super Sonic would be able to take out Zavok in seconds. In Lost World, Sonic was able to beat him in his base form, even when Zavok was powered up by the life energy stolen from the planet. Without that buff, he had no chance.
The seven Chaos Emeralds together were able to completely cure Sonic of his Metal Virus infection and allowed him to go super. At the time the virus was created, Dr. Eggman had all seven Chaos Emeralds and told Dr. Starline that its secret ingredient was a "trade secret". It's likely that the secret ingredient was negative Chaos energy, hence why the Zombots quickly got out of control and why they were so resistant. In the past, it took Super Sonic to defeat Perfect Chaos and Ultimate Gemerl, both of whom who used negative Chaos energy to empower themselves and were also defeated by Super Sonic.
The guards' choice of Wispon at the prison is a remarkably intelligent one. The Hover Wispon allows them to push prisoners back with little risk to the prisoners' health. It is a perfect crowd control weapon, great for disabling single prisoners or breaking up groups.
In "Eggman's Day Off", out of the figurines that Eggman singles out as his enemies, he chooses the fox (Tails) and the chameleon (Espio). Why them in particular? They have the most amount of history with Eggman - Tails has personally beaten him in mech-to-mech combat and has foiled Eggman's plots all on his own, while Espio was a part of Team Chaotix when they beat up Eggman for refusing to pay them, and if you take Knuckles' Chaotix as canon, was part of the team that took down Eggman and Metal Sonic Kai in that game. Most other Sonic characters haven't fought against Eggman personally (as in, not one of his mechs or lackeys) as much as they has.
Both of said defeats also have a particularly humiliating tint to them than many others. Tails defeated Eggman with his own brand of tech-smarts, essentially proving he was not just stronger but also smarter in his own niche. While Chaotix's beatdown wasn't a proper fight or them even treating him like a threat, they just mugged him for wasting their time. He's had moments of making Vector and Charmy squirm and realise they were Bullying the Dragon, but Espio is iconic for having Nerves of Steel.
Shadow's sheer adamancy about stopping villains over protecting the innocent makes sense when you consider that the last time he let a villain go (Sonic Forces, which the comics take place directly after) resulted in said villain (Infinite) becoming a world-threatening terror and helping Eggman completely enslave the world for months, which wouldn't have happened if Shadow had simply killed him outright. Hence, Shadow wants to kill every villain he sees (no matter how many innocents get hurt in the process) to prevent a new Infinite from being born.
This also puts his change in personality from Sonic Forces in perspective. Being indirectly responsible for the creation of one of the deadliest foes you and your allies have ever faced as well as Eggman's complete take over of the world, already isn't going to do well for anyone's conscious (even if they are a brooding Anti-Hero). Plus unlike Sonic (whom had the 'luxury' of being imprisoned.) Shadow likely witnessed it and the brutal war that followed first hand, making whatever guilt he feels grow further. To pour more salt on the wound, He had to see Sonic (Alongside Classic Sonic and The Custom Hero) fix his mistake, while he was reduced to being another soldier on the front lines, which certainly wouldn't help his ego. When you add all that up, it makes sense why He'd grow more rasher, prideful and violent than He previously was. In his mind, he has a lot to make up for.
Despite Starline's objections, Eggman deciding against reenacting Neo Metal Sonic's plan was probably the smarter choice. Metal only got as far as he did because no one knew he was an element in play, which allowed him to operate mostly unimpeded. Sonic and pals now know he's out there and one of the biggest advantages Metal was able to get the first time round, the Master Emerald, is now fully guarded.
In Bad Guys Issue #2, when Zavok and Tumble punch the doors to frame Sonic, it seems like Zavok is stronger than Tumble as he doesn't hurt his hand punching the door. However, earlier we are shown he absorbed the "Power" Power core. Thus he was able to safely damage the door.
Surge has electric powers which is Tails' weakness and Kit has water powers which is Sonic's weakness. Additionally, they're designed to cover each other's weaknesses and to replace Sonic and Tails as part of Starline's plans.
Kit's low self-esteem also fits on a meta level, based on the glitches his, Starline's, and Surge's designs are based on. While Starline's and Surge's designs are based on two relatively-well-known palette glitches (Wechnia and Ashura, respectively), Kit's is based on a smaller part of a palette glitch, namely how the Blue Knuckles glitch gives a signpost featuring a blue Tails.
It makes sense that Dr. Starline would lose a fight against his own creations. Starline was never much of a fighter even back when he had the Warp Topaz, where he used it as an escape measure rather than an offensive tool. As shown in Chao Races and Badnik Bases and then Imposter Syndrome, Starline does poorly in fights when up against many opponents.
Additionally the limitations of his Tricore references how Sonic Heroes only allows you to control one character at a time, forcing you to switch out if you need to change type. As Surge demonstrates, the Tricore's advantages are limited if she can move faster than he can change powers which allows her and Kit to turn the tables against their master.
Dr. Starline is surprisingly similar to another villain: Infinite. Both of them are white creatures who were on Dr. Eggman's side, are named after an easter egg or glitch in the series's history e.g Fun is Infinite depicting a creepy Sonic with a realistic face and ***/Wechina who is an off-colour Knuckles), try to manipulate the perceptions of others for their own gain(Infinite uses the Phantom Ruby, Starline uses his Hypno Glove), both of them are psychopathic with no redeeming qualities, both of them use a gemstone (Infinite's Phantom Ruby and Dr. Starline's Warp Topaz and later Tricore) that immensely boosts their power and are over reliant on them, both of them manage to defeat Sonic (or in Starline's case, nearly kill him), both of them have allied with Zavok and Metal Sonic and both of them are important antagonistic figures in their respective stories.
Well of course Dr. Starline lost to Dr. Eggman during Issue #50. Eggman has had years of experience in the field compared to Starline, and unlike Starline, has had to learn how to adapt to the chaotic world around him due to Sonic constantly challenging him. In addition, Dr. Starline's logical but rigid thinking and his own obsession with the mad doctor means that his plans fall apart because he doesn't seem to realize that the world doesn't operate with the same tunnel vision that he does.
During their mech fight, Dr. Starline chooses the Eggrobo to combat the Egg Emperor, a matchup that ends in Dr. Eggman's favour. Considering that most of its attacks are projectile based that can be shielded against, Starline's own inexperience in piloting it, the mech still being damaged, and because it's far weaker due to not having the world's life force as a power source, Starline was fighting an uphill battle.
Even without a mech, Dr. Eggman would be able to put Dr. Starline in his place. He's already been betrayed several times by other villains (organic and machine) enough to be wary of Starline's powerset and therefore create countermeasures to shut down all of Dr. Starline's tricks. Not to mention that Dr. Starline himself is a poor fighter who relies on his powered stones like Infinite and is far, far weaker without them due to his lack of actual combat experience.
Kitsunami was meant to be a counterpart to Tails, but he also functions as a counterpart to Knuckles. Kit has proven himself to be physically strong with his water, with his fighting style revolving around restraining his opponents as well as lifting heavy objects. His appearance is based on one of Knuckles’s glitches and both are constantly forced to do the will of evil: Knuckles out of gullibility and Kit out of brainwashing. This is further reflected in 52 where Kit teams up with Sonic temporarily, while Knuckles does the same thing with Eggman.
The reason why Surge hallucinates Dr. Starline? Her mechanical skeleton wasn't designed with the Dynamo Cage in mind, causing glitches in her systems. As for why the Dr. Starline hallucination has Black Eyes of Evil in #53 but not in the issues after, it's implied that the hallucination is becoming more real to Surge as the Dynamo Cage continues to fry her brain in tandem with being in a place that triggers her traumatic memories.
Additionally, Surge becomes more terrified of the hallucinations the less nightmarish they get and more like his usual Smug Smiler self. The whole Overpowered arc is the cast realising that Starline, for all his flaws and bluster, was actually a very disturbed and dangerous individual. The hallucinations aren't becoming more inffectual in Surge's eyes, the normal Starline is the one who hurt her the most.
#54 confirms that only Surge can see the hallucination Starline but not Kit. It'd seem like an oversight but then you remember that Dr. Starline never programmed Kit with the same level of hate for Tails like Surge has for Sonic. Or that him underestimating Kit allows Surge to use his Hypno Glove to trick him into thinking they were still on board with his plan. Or that Kit's lack of programmed hatred allows Tails to talk him down unlike Surge who goes down fighting. If anything, the various oversights in regard to Kit's programming actually allow him to be far more reasonable than Surge whose brainwashing is far deeper.
The reason why Mecha Sonic despised Mecha Knuckles and ended up destroying him in Scrapnik Island #2? Mecha Knuckles reminded Mecha Sonic of the very person who destroyed him and caused Dr. Eggman to scrap him in favour of Metal Sonic.
When the leftovers of Dr. Starline's schemes (including living experiments) leave both sides struggling well after his death, Eggman, who never shown Starline respect in life, is actually amused by all the carnage he has caused. This makes even more sense when you consider that Starline has essentially pulled a Gerald on everyone.
The Metal Virus saga foreshadows Starline's poor judgement of Eggman in advance of their last showdown (fittingly in both issue milestones of #25 and #50). He summons the Zeti because he believes Eggman has no plan against the virus going out of control. In truth he did, if an incredulous one; to bail on the whole planet and start anew on a different one. It is heavily implied he intended to leave Starline at the mercy of the virus, hence playing dumb when he asked about it. In both arcs, Starline comes out short because he chose to believe his mentor was incompetent rather than capable of scheming behind his back.
Both arcs also show the other side of the coin, as in both, while Starline's rebuttals are thwarted pretty easily, Eggman's plans go pear shaped and even nearly cause his demise as a result of Starline's leftover machinations (the Zeti-controlled Zombots in the first instance, and his dealings with Surge and the exposure and eventual destruction of Eggperial City in the second). As Tails lampshades, while Starline underestimated Eggman's wits, simply being faithful to the platypus in the first place likely would have saved the doctor a lot of trouble.
Starline's trail of plotting and sabotages having their most pronounced impacts after he's left the scene is only natural for a venomous platypus. He literally and figuratively poisons everything he touches.
Eggman suddenly showing far more pragmatism against non-Sonic opponents makes more sense, not just by Sonic being his Worthy Opponent he wants a proper victory over, but also that he is the one opponent that avoids more permanent methods to defeat Eggman, due to his All-Loving Hero code. Eggman is brazen around Sonic since he knows he can rinse and repeat over and over with only a botched scheme as collateral damage. This is shown any occasion he might have pushed Sonic too far, and Eggman suddenly becomes much more self preservational.
The Neo Diamond Cutters' Extreme Gear on the main cover for Issue #69 matches different attributes of theirs:
Whisper's Extreme Gear is the Angel-Devil, or "Angel Whisperer-Devil Whisperer" in Japanese. Its name corresponds with hers as well as her "Guardian Angel" moniker, and its coloration (black and white with blue exhaust) matches her Diamond Cutter uniform.
Tangle's Extreme Gear is a pair of Grinder skates, whose color is coincidentally identical to her normal and Riders outfits.
Lanolin's Extreme Gear appears to be a Heavy Bike, supposedly the heaviest Extreme Gear of all. In-game, it ignores turbulence at the cost of sluggish acceleration and handling, which corresponds with Lanolin's firm-yet-cautious Straight Man attitude even though it doesn't match her color-wise.
In "Eggman's Day Off" in Annual 2020, Starline finds a toy Zombot version of himself that Eggman created, in which Eggman then escorts him out. Is that supposed to be indicative of something, considering how Eggman tricked Rough and Tumble into turning themselves into Zombots, and later Eggman fired Starline by having him thrown through a warp portal to nowhere?
Before Starline's dismissal, Eggman admits his backup plan was to simply let the planet get enveloped by the virus and immigrate to a new one. Given Starline brought in the Deadly Six because Eggman never told him that, it can be implied that Starline was deemed surplus to this plan, and Starline's screw up just led to Eggman taking the more upfront approach about dismissing Starline. Starline not only unwittingly saved everyone from the virus, but also himself from a more fatal betrayal.
The Custom Hero from Forces is definitely a Zombot during the Metal Virus saga. Angel Island being the only uninfected place by the time of the climax pretty much confirms it.
Though it's a mere throwaway cameo, Dr. Starline somehow got his hands on a Matrix of Leadership, which is the only thing that can stop Unicron. In other words, Dr. Starline may've unwittingly doomed Cybertron to its fate.
If Dr. Starline absolutely wanted to, he could've easily used all 7 Chaos Emeralds on himself instead of giving them all to Dr. Eggman. God only knows what would've happened if Dr. Starline had turned super...
Considering that he was able to find all 7 Chaos Emeralds or that the Warp Topaz is still intact, all Dr. Starline has to do is find the Warp Topaz and retrieve it. Just imagine how powerful he'd be with both the Warp Topaz and the Tricore.
Although a background detail its implied that even after the Metal Virus was defeated and erased that many people went missing either due to traveling far away from their hometowns as Zombots or...possibly coming out of their zombot state in dangerous parts of the world and succumbing to the elements. Considering how in the 2020 annual that Big saw Zombots falling off a bridge or when Zavok tossed Zombots onto Angel Island that some fell off the Island into the ocean its very easy to see where the missing people reports are likely coming from.
The chaos and instability along with the people whom are still missing after the Metal Virus makes this the likely time that Dr. Starline kidnapped the two innocent civilians that he ended up experimenting on and brainwashing into Surge and Kit. It's very possible that they too were lost after the virus was initially defeated and ended up being kidnapped by Starline off the streets whilst trying to return to their families. Chances are their families are still looking for them out there.
At the time of its release, most readers were under the understanding that the comic's world only had animal people on the planet (asides Eggman) who were affected by the Metal Virus on a global scale. However, TailsTube has re-retconned things to being on a single planet, where Sonic and pals live strictly on islands and humans are in continents, with the Misadventures arc showing Sonic and Blaze visiting locations like Spagonia and Station Square, which are populated by humans (that the reader never sees, but still). This introduces some frightening possibilities taking this and the Metal Virus into account. Did humans end up becoming Zombots by a rogue animal or wildlife that caught it and infected a city that the reader never sees? Was the virus was only localized to the islands (which greatly reduces the scope and scale of the metal virus in retrospect) and no one on the bigger continents would know about it until Eggman brought the virus to them? Did Eggman willingly drop the metal virus on a city of humans that we never see? Any one of these are scary to think about.
During Imposter Syndrome Issue #3, it's implied that Kit and Surge have been killed during training and resurrected several times. It's also clear that Starline uses mind control to deal with their psychological trauma. Just how much of Surge and Kit's personalities are a response to their traumas and how much of it is due to Starline's extensive brainwashing?
Considering that Kit and Surge were replacements for Tails and Sonic, was Starline planning on turning them into his new super soldiers?
Another factor for Whisper’s quiet, closed-off nature, is her personal enemy is a shapeshifter. When anyone in the crowd could potentially be Mimic coming back to finish off the job, Whisper probably felt she could never let her guard down around anyone.
Imposter Syndrome Issue #3 confirms that both Surge and Kit are both brainwashed and cannot remember their old identities. This means that somewhere, there are two missing people who probably have loved ones that will be horrified when they find out that their friend or family member has been brainwashed into becoming a supervillain.
Another one related to Surge and Kit’s brainwashing: All of it would have had to be done between the Zeti Hunt (Starline obtains a copy of Belle’s programming, allowing him to perform his brainwashing) and Trial By Fire (Surge and Kit start the fire) arcs. We don’t know how much time takes place between the two arcs, but it can be inferred that it wasn’t much given Trial By Fire is immediately after Zeti Hunt. That means that in this short period, a total of over 250 brainwashing sessions and 600 training sessions where it is implied the imposters died happened. If we estimate a month happened between the two arcs, that means that at least 20 of these sessions happened a day. No wonder Starline felt the need to erase the mental trauma.
In Issue #50, Surge comes to the conclusion that her old self must have been a bad person because no one bothered to look for her. What if someone did look for her or Kit, and Starline silenced them to cover his tracks?
Issue #52 has Sonic firmly asking Kit to fight off Metal Sonic because he is the only one capable of doing so. Kit agrees by saying “Yes, sir”- the masculine counterpart to his response whenever Surge instructs him. This implies that Kit teamed with the heroes not out of self-preservation, but his mind was so reliant on Surge that he made Sonic his Replacement Goldfish in her absence. This means that even if Kit manages to break free from Surge, he will just find someone to replace her in controlling his life. Kit will never be free.
Just how deep is Starline's influence in regards to Surge and Kit? In #53, the Dynamo Cage's power is implied to cause Surge to start hallucinating the doctor despite Dr. Starline being dead. The hallucination claims that it'd take all day to get the root of why she'd want his counsel despite Surge having been utterly frustrated with him and later intending to betray him later down the line.
Though a minor detail, the fact that Surge and Kit only sleep on a cheap bunkbed without duvets and only a single pillow really does enforce that Dr. Starline only cared enough to get them on his side but never really cared for their wellbeing. The lack of personal belongings also further implies that Dr. Starline didn't want Surge and Kit having any identity of their own outside of his twisted vision for them.
Sigma seems to be designed after the older E-Series units (i.e., not like the Phi line or Omega), so there's a real possibility that he has an animal inside powering him. Given Sigma's condition and the fact he was in the ocean for an unknown amount of time, said animal's chance of survival is looking rather slim.
