Shadow the Hedgehog (Sonic Boom)

Shadow the Hedgehog is a character that appears in the Sonic Boom series. He is an anthropomorphic hedgehog referred to as the "Ultimate Life Form," and the arch-rival of Sonic the Hedgehog.

Appearance
Shadow's appearance is mostly the same as his main series counterpart, except for a few physical and clothing differences. He is slimmer and has longer arms and legs, and more pronounced shoulders, giving him a taller appearance. He also has a single cowlick-like spike that sticks out from underneath his top quills. His attire includes white gloves with red backs which have long red and black cuffs with fasteners. His shoes look much like the Air Shoes, except his has large red tongues and longer, more detailed red and black cuffs. He also has golden ring bands around his wrists and ankles.

Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric
In Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric, Shadow silently watched Dr. Eggman and Metal Sonic from a distance at Lyric's Tomb, which Team Sonic had gotten themselves locked within, before leaving. He soon after confronted Sonic and Tails at the Abandoned Research Facility where both of them had opened a portal to travel to the past which Shadow refused to let them go through. Taunting Sonic for being weak due to his loyalty to his friends, Shadow engaged them in a fight across time. On the verge of defeat, Shadow was kicked into a portal by Sonic that sent him to the near future, after Team Sonic had defeated Lyric the Last Ancient. Although prepared to fight again, Shadow instead gave the team his approval when he saw the beaten Lyric before walking away, chuckling.

Sonic Boom: Shattered Crystal
In Sonic Boom: Shattered Crystal, Shadow caught Lyric the Last Ancient excavating an area, but did not object to Lyric's dark sense of justice when he brought up seizing the Lost Crystal of Power. Grimly, Shadow refused to serve Lyric when the snake took an interest in making him his slave, only for Lyric to plant a Mind Control Device on him.

Under Lyric's control, Shadow confronted Team Sonic, but was knocked unconscious by Sonic when he beat him in a race. When he awoke, Shadow had been freed from Lyric's Mind Control Device. As Shadow had Tails analyze Lyric's device, a hologram of Lyric appeared, warning the group not to cross him. Shadow threatened Lyric to come and face him, but the villain declined, so Shadow left on his own to hunt down Lyric and pay him back.

Shadow finally found Lyric when he was about to destroy Team Sonic with a cannon, whom Shadow saved by disabling Lyric's weapon. He then kicked Lyric away as Sonic opened a trapdoor, sending Lyric falling to his doom. While everyone agreed their teamwork made the difference, Shadow called them out for being pathetic and left on the notice that he was Sonic's superior.

Season one
Receiving invitations from Dr. Eggman, Shadow came to Eggman's lair where he joined Eggman's league of villains in their mission to defeat Sonic. However, Shadow quickly grew tired of their foolishness and disputes and left the group. He soon showed up again to destroy Sonic himself after Team Eggman proved incapable of it. After an intense battle, Shadow got the upper hand, only to be distracted by a geeking Eggman, allowing Sonic to take him down. Fed up with Eggman, Shadow warned Sonic that they would soon fight again, but on his terms, and teleported away.

Season two
Since Eggman needs special motions and attacks of someone who could defeat Team Sonic in his own video game, he requested Shadow to provide the motion. Shadow refused, stating that he would not help the doctor again. Despite having rejected him however, Shadow soon met Eggman again, who this time showed him a video of Sonic trash-talking Shadow. Feeling insulted, Shadow hunted down Team Sonic and took each member down until Sonic was at his mercy.

When he was about to kill Sonic, Sonic reveals that he didn't insult Shadow and the footage used was edited. Furious that Eggman manipulated him to fight Sonic, he hunts down Eggman.

Sonic Dash 2: Sonic Boom
In Sonic Dash 2: Sonic Boom, Shadow became a playable character following a new actualization. To unlock him in gameplay, the player has to reach the eleventh level, then collect 50 Red Star Rings.

Shadow's special attack, is the Chaos Spear, where he releases a projectiles that can destroy enemies and detonate mines. His variant version of the Dash, is the Chaos Blast where he spears ahead in a comet of a raw red energy by using the jets on his shoes to propel himself.

In later updates to the game, Shadow makes an appearance on the High Score menu, holding the third place with a score of 750,000 points.

Personality
Shadow is a cold and edgy character. He comes off as blunt, arrogant and uncaring and does not take kindly to outside interference, swiftly disposing of whoever gets in his way. Extremely aggressive and lacking in inhibitions, he is perfectly willing to eliminate a foe rather than merely subduing them, unlike Sonic, and believes that justice must be had by any means necessary. Despite his villainous tendencies, his motivations to fight are purely related to his pride, and not villainy. Because of this, he is often very destructive and even brutal in battle. Still, he usually maintains a calm, if not aloof and indifferent, attitude, and shows a general interest in nothing. Shadow has a strong sense of purpose and sticks to his goals with grim determination and intense focus, not resting until it is fulfilled. He is also not one to run away from a confrontation.

Shadow is fiercely independent. A lone wolf, he believes friendship to be a sign of weakness and refuses to serve anyone but himself. Even when joining forces with others, he has no interest in collaborating or the group's plans unless it aligns with his own goals. He is likewise very serious and has little patience for silly behavior, having no issue criticizing others harshly or speaking out his low opinions for others. He despises weakness and people he deems weak, but is willing to at least give compliments when deserved. Shadow is also vengeful and not one to let go of grudges easily; once free from Lyric's control, he spent most of his time hunting down Lyric to make him pay for enslaving him.

Powers and abilities
Shadow is a very powerful individual. Said to match even Sonic in both speed and abilities, Shadow is regarded as the one person who can beat Sonic in a fair fight. As a testament to his power, he is able to effortlessly defeat each member of Team Sonic and fight Sonic to a near standstill (although not without gaining the upper hand multiple times).

Although he relies on his shoes for running, Shadow can move at speeds that rivals Sonic's on his own as well, and has reflexes to match both his and Sonic's speed. In addition to speed, Shadow is exceptionally strong, capable of kicking Sonic into the ground with such force that he made an impact crater and hitting Sonic with enough strength to knock him through several palm trees without slowing down. Shadow also has impressive durability; even after taking a direct hit from Sonic's spin attack while his guard was down and getting knocked through a house, Shadow instantly got back up. He is also able to project red energies for a variety of purposes; he can envelop himself in a red aura which empowers his attacks and makes him virtually invulnerable, throw energy bolts named Chaos Spears to attack his enemies and unleash an explosion of energy named the Chaos Blast. He is also capable of teleportation. With his teleportation skill, Shadow can dodge attacks and launch surprise attacks with ease.

Shadow is a skilled hand-to-hand combatant, capable of taking on multiple opponents at the same time. Shadow can as well perform the spin attack, where he curls tightly into a concussive ball. In this stance, Shadow can damage, destroy and mow down obstacles or foes when in motion and even equal Sonic's spin attack head-on.

Equipment
Shadow wears a pair of specialized shoes. These footwear produce small jet streams that lets him hover-skate at speeds equaling Sonic's speed. Alternatively, Shadow can use his shoes to produce fire to achieve midair hovering and flight.

Sonic the Hedgehog
Sonic the Hedgehog is Shadow's tense arch rival and his equal in both speed, abilities and dashing looks. Despite their similarities, they are polar opposites in every way, with Shadow disagreeing with nearly everything Sonic stands for. While Sonic is joyful, free-spirited and adventurous, Shadow is brooding, serious and violently aggressive. Whereas Sonic draws strength from his friends and believes in teamwork, Shadow is a loner who only relies on himself. Shadow's rivalry with Sonic is hostile to the point of them being enemies, but he will put their rivalry aside when a greater threat is present.

Shadow shares a bitter arch-rivalry with Sonic which goes way back, and is determined to defeat him at all costs due to his pride. He finds Sonic extensively annoying and criticizes him for being weak and a disgrace to hedgehog-kind. Shadow also firmly thinks of himself as Sonic's superior, and whenever they meet, they usually end up arguing. While willing to ignore Sonic out of a sense of superiority, Shadow will just as easily pick a fight with him and go out of his way to defeat or even kill Sonic to prove how pathetic he is, which Shadow justifies on the grounds that Sonic deserves it for being such a disgrace. In fact, fighting Sonic is one of the few things Shadow ever shows an interest in. For all his animosity though, Shadow has a small degree of respect for Sonic, willingly complimenting Sonic and letting him go after he beat Lyric.

Dr. Eggman
In spite of their shared animosity for Sonic, Shadow thinks little of Dr. Eggman. While the doctor idolizes Shadow, Shadow sees Eggman as a pathetic fool and buffoon who is only a waste of his time, an opinion of which he is very open about. Regardless, Shadow was once willing to join forces with Eggman to plan Sonic's demise, although he left once he got fed up with him. In battle, Shadow will not hesitate to brush the doctor away, but at the same time finds him such an annoyance that he would abandon a fight with Sonic just to get away from him. Despite this, however, Shadow seems to have at least a hint of tolerance towards the doctor, begrudgingly letting him take a selfie with him when he could have easily left or attacked him instead.

Rivals

 * Sonic the Hedgehog (arch-rival)

Enemies

 * Lyric the Last Ancient
 * Metal Sonic
 * Lord Eggman

Battle
In both Sonic Boom: Shattered Crystal and Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric, the player must defeat Shadow in order to complete the story. The environment of the boss battle ranges from a race to a close-combat battle.

Trivia

 * According to Alan Denton, it was initially decided during the writing process of the first season of the Sonic Boom television series that Shadow was not going to be used in the series. The reason was that if they had to, it would have to be in a way that did not make fun of him or made him look stupid or goofy. After a lot of work though, the writers found a way to include him in "It Takes a Village to Defeat a Hedgehog".
 * In the Japanese version of Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric, it is revealed that Shadow is controlled by Lyric through a mind control chip on his head. His Japanese voice is given a mechanical filter to sound more robotic, giving the impression that Shadow was an android. This aspect was not included in the game in other versions, for unknown reasons.
 * Vo_level_02_00000206.ogg the game files of the non-Japanese versions of the game, some of Tails' unused lines indicate that Shadow was mind-controlled by a chip that Tails saw on the latter's head. Shadow, however, was not shown with a chip on his head in the game.
 * Shadow's appearance in the Sonic Boom franchise was first officially hinted to the public as one of two "fan-favorite" characters, along with Metal Sonic, to appear in Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric.
 * Unlike his other counterparts, whenever Shadow curls up into a spinball form, he gives off a fully-red color instead of his black color with small shades of red. The trail that follows him is also red as opposed to yellowish-orange.