Metropolis

Metropolis is the central stronghold of Doctor Eggman in the video game and Sonic the Comic continuities. This gargantuan machine-city is a polluted nightmare of steel and concrete, replete with robot sentries, Orwellian tele-screens, and free-flowing rivers of radioactive slurry.



Many of the other Sonic continuities site the Doctor's base of operations in a very similar city-fortress - Archie, SatAM, Sonic Underground, and the Sonic OVA Movie all used Robotropolis - see the Robotropolis main article for more information on the city's portrayal in those continuities.

=Game Appearences=

For 16 years (1992-2008), Metropolis occupied a sort of conceptual limbo in the game continuity. Although (as mentioned above) Megao/Metro/Robo/Mobotropolis functioned as Eggman's base of operations in most other Sonic media, within the games there was only Sonic 2's Metropolis Zone, which scarcely looked like a city, let alone the capital of the Eggman Empire. For over a decade, throughout the main series and spin-off games, Robotnik was shown operating out of mobile command centres or hidden research labs - with little to indicate that the Doctor still had a central stronghold. But a definitive answer finally came within Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood, where the fortress-city at last made an unambiguous videogame appearence.

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (16-bit)
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Metropolis first appeared in the Sonic series as Metropolis Zone, the eighth stage of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (16-bit); coming after Oil Ocean Zone and preceeding Sky Chase Zone. Unlike the previous seven levels, Metropolis contains three full Acts, and the stages are particularly massive - in some cases infinite, for in Act 2, the bottom of the level loops to the top!

Apparently a metropolis in name only at this point, the level sees Sonic and Tails make their way through a bustling industrial plant. Metre-wide screws and bolts tower up into the caves of turquoise steel, and vast meshwork dynamos thrash out hundreds of revolutions a minute. Along the walls, steam-pipes coil like brassy pythons, and giant cogs slowly grind out immense manufacturing processes above lakes of molten metal.

But perhaps the most dangerous aspect of Metropolis Zone comes in the form of the badniks, for the Doctor's city sports probably the most brutal robots of the entire game. Viridian mantisbots hurl their razor-sharp scythe arms with boomeranging abandon, an attack which proves surprisingly difficult for Sonic to dodge. And then there's the starfish. These self-destructing drones are placed with infuriating precision, such that they invariably manage to knock the hedgehog off the giant screw-lifts used to move up the level.

Boss


At the end of Metropolis Zone's huge third Act, the Doctor breaks out his Egg-O-Matic for the sixth and final time in Sonic 2. Although this boss lacks any direct offensive weaponry, it remains nonetheless quite difficult in comparison to earlier fights - due to its heavy defensive countermeasures. The Doctor surrounds his pod with a ring of eight orbiting drones, whch prevent Sonic from easily landing a hit. If an opening does present itself and you manage to strike the Fat Man, one of the pods will deploy, releasing a strange, evanescent simulacrum of Robotnik's machine. These copies bounce lazily along the floor and can be destroyed quite easily.

Later on in the Death Egg saga, Mecha Sonic breaks this exact same design out of storage for the second sub-boss of Sky Sanctuary Zone in Sonic 3 & Knuckles.

Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood
Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood actually starts with the destruction of Eggman's Metropolis. GUN attacks the city in full military force, while Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and Amy battle the Doctor on board his latest Egg Carrier (which bears closest resemblance to the Egg Stingray from the end of Sonic Heroes). Tails succeeds in sabotaging the Carrier, such that the airship disintegrates and crashes into Metropolis, devastating the city in a massive explosion as the GUN forces and the heroes retreat.

Following this defeat, and with Eggman missing presumed dead, the ruins of Metropolis were left to rust. The only visitors were those human scavengers brave or foolhardy enough to raid the ghost city for saleable metals and technology, until more... exotic guests began to arrive.

Under Marauder Control
The black-clad Marauders secretively moved into the ruins of Metropolis, using the devastated city as their main base of operations on Sonic's world. The Marauders hacked into obsolete Eggman robots, deploying them to guard their operations while Procurator Shade moved forwards with the plan to capture the Chaos Emeralds. Using the Emeralds, the Marauders were able to move Angel Island from above the Mystic Ruins to Metropolis.

In Chapter 5, Eggman provisioned Sonic with the necessary information to infiltrate the Metropolis Underground and stop the Marauders. The hedgehog arrived seconds too late, though; after expropriating the Master Emerald from its plinth, the Marauders abandoned the stronghold and returned to the Twilight Cage - leaving Knuckles' floating continent to crash square into the city.

Metropolis Ground Zero
Chapter 6 sees the Sonic's team battling through the rubble of what is now Metropolis Ground Zero - the stronghold now doubly devastated, and half-crushed underneath Angel Island. Eggman's Hazard Vault was broken open by the impact, sending crazed, unstable robots rampaging through the streets. After restoring electricity to Robotnik's weapons lab and collecting necessary components to build a spacecraft (the Cyclone), Sonic and friends were able to follow the Marauders into the Twilight Cage, leaving Eggman behind to "guide [them] through re-entry on the way back" and prepare for an impending Marauder invasion should the team fail.

In the end sequence of The Dark Brotherhood, the team return from the Twilight Cage to find Metropolis entirely rebuilt - and bristling with weaponry. Eggman promptly shoots the Cyclone out of the sky in something of a cliffhanger ending.

=Sonic the Comic= In the continuity of Fleetway's Sonic the Comic, Doctor Robotnik managed to conquer all of the planet Mobius and establish a totalitarian regime when Sonic and his crew were catapulted six months into the future by the Omni-Viewer. He remained in power from Sonic the Comic #8-#100, ruling the planet first from the Special Zone's Egg Fortress and later from Citadel Robotnik in the Metropolis City Zone. Metropolis was still inhabited by flesh-and-blood Mobians, even under Robotnik's rule; but the city was a dystopic police state, its residents living in perpetual fear of arbitrary arrest and deportation to the Badnik Processing Plants.

Metropolis City was a focal point for many of Robotnik’s traps and surprises for Sonic (including the infamous Hero of the Year Award, and the ridiculous Mister Blobnik). Sonic and the gang visited the Zone quite frequently, attempting to disrupt Robotnik’s rule there.

After the Doctor's regime was toppled in Issue #100 (thanks to an electromagnetic pulse generated by Super Sonic), the oppressed residents of Metropolis took back the city and razed Citadel Robotnik.

=Notes=