Metallix

Metallix the Metal Sonic is the version of Metal Sonic appearing in the United Kingdom's official Sonic publication, Sonic the Comic. Each Metallix robot is a part of a vast group known as the Brotherhood of Metallix. Though most Metallix models are based on Sonic the Hedgehog, there have also been Metallix replicas of Knuckles the Echidna and Porker Lewis.

First appearance
Metallix first appeared, in shadow and apparently incomplete, in the final panel of "Girl Trouble, Part 2", after Sonic had rescued Amy Rose from Robotnik's Egg Fortress in the Special Zone. "Operation Metallix" was created by Robotnik and his chief scientist, Grimer, as a means to destroy Sonic once and for all. The new robot was thoroughly tested, obliterating practice robots resembling Sonic, before his first public appearance: attacking the Emerald Hill Zone in search of Sonic.

In order to draw out Sonic, Metallix kidnapped Amy Rose and brought her to Never Lake. Sonic arrived and battled Metallix, the two of them moving so fast that Amy could not see what was happening. In the end, Sonic won, and Metallix was forced to call a tactical retreat by capturing Amy once again and taking her up the chain to the Miracle Planet, with Sonic hot on their trail. Once on the Miracle Planet, which had been completely cyberformed by Robotnik, Metallix was able to draw limitless power from the planet itself, becoming able to raise forcefields and discharge electric bolts. Not even ramming it after running around the entire planet could do Metallix any damage.

Fortunately, Sonic received help from a time-travelling version of himself from the future, who gave him a Time Stone with instructions to use it to head into the past. Back in time, Sonic was able to prevent the planet's cyberforming and then return to the present to pass the Time Stone to himself and complete the loop. The Miracle Planet was restored to its natural state, and Metallix was apparently erased from existence.

(How this time paradox works at all has been debated, and even artist Richard Elson is confused by it. )

Brotherhood of Metallix
A new model of Metallix, based on Mecha Sonic from Sonic &amp; Knuckles, appeared during the comic's adaptation of that game. This new Metallix stole the Master Emerald from the Floating Island's Emerald Chamber for Robotnik to use as the power core of his new Death Egg. Luring Sonic and Knuckles to the Sky Sanctuary Zone on Robotnik's orders, Metallix drew power from the Emerald and incapacitated Knuckles with a single blow. He was even more powerful than Sonic, being unimpressed by Sonic's lauded speed, but Sonic was able to destroy him by using the Emerald's power to become Super Sonic. Before Super Sonic ripped him to pieces, the new Metallix revealed that he was part of an "elite brotherhood" of which the original Metallix had been but one member.

This brotherhood soon revealed itself when Knuckles was accidentally transported into the Special Zone and encountered Chaotix. Operating out of Robotnik's abandoned Egg Fortress in the Special Zone, the Brotherhood of Metallix — innumerable Metallixes identical to the original, ruled over by a giant red and gold Emperor — had been charged with producing the ultimate badnik version of Sonic, but had developed their own plans and goals. With the help of the turncoat Chaotix member, Nack the Weasel, the Brotherhood of Metallix captured the Omni-Viewer, Chaotix's sentient, space-time transporter.

With Knuckles' help, Chaotix infiltrated the Egg Fortress. Nack led the team into a trap, revealing himself as a traitor, but was subsequently betrayed by the Brotherhood because he had outlived his usefulness. Nack had expected this, however, and had brought a Disruptor gun. He was knocked unconscious before he could use it, but Knuckles retrieved it and used it to apparently destroy the circuitry of every Metallix robot, allowing Chaotix to retrieve the Omni-Viewer. However, they were later rebooted by a backup system. They had succeeded in creating a "pirate copy" of the Omni-Viewer, allowing them to travel through time and space, and since their enemies believed them dead, they could continue their operations unhindered.

Final battle
In their next move, the Brotherhood captured Grimer, Doctor Robotnik's chief scientist, who had created the Metallix design in the first place. They forced him to construct the Alpha Device, a device that could once again cyber-form the Miracle Planet, converting it into a limitless power-source for the Brotherhood. After the Alpha Device was completed, the Brotherhood of Metallix evacuated the Egg Fortress and moved their entire operation to the Miracle Planet.

Sonic and the Freedom Fighters travelled to the Miracle Planet in an attempt to stop them, and seemed to succeed, but his ally, Porker Lewis, was trapped on the Miracle Planet when it vanished from Mobius' dimension for a month in its usual pattern.

During that month, the Metallixes reasserted themselves, captured Porker and completed the cyber forming of the planet. A Metallix, disguised as Porker, was left to stand guard as the Metallixes departed into Mobius' past with their copy of the Omni-Viewer, and when they returned, they encountered Sonic and Chaotix, who had come to investigate. But then the terrifying truth became apparent - the Metallixes had changed history, and Mobius had become a city-planet, covered with filthy industry, where surviving Mobians lived underground.

Sonic and Chaotix soon discovered the reason for the change. The Metallixes had travelled back in time to the moment of Doctor Robotnik's creation, and removed from the fridge the rotten egg that would transform Ovi Kintobor into Ivo Robotnik. Kintobor never became Robotnik, but the Metallixes were still built by Grimer alone - the only difference being the self-destruct mechanism that Robotnik had added to the design. Without such a check holding them back, the Metallixes were able to completely subjugate Mobius, transforming it into "Planet Metallix".

Using the real Omni-Viewer, Sonic and Chaotix travelled back in time themselves to fix the time line. Retrieving the egg, Sonic and Chaotix returned to Kintobor's lab and replaced it, and then, as Kintobor held it in his hand, Sonic yanked a cable to trip him up, triggering the chain of events that turned him into Doctor Robotnik. Despite the disturbing revelation that he was responsible for creating the greatest evil on Mobius, Sonic returned to the present with Chaotix, where the robots still held control of the Miracle Planet. Forced into an alliance with Doctor Robotnik, Sonic retrieved the remote control for the Metallixes' self-destruct from the villain in a pitched final battle, and used it to deactivated all the Metallixes. (Sonic later claimed that he found it anticlimactic that the Emperor Metallix and his army were defeated by a simple push of a button.)

A final Metallix appeared much later as Robotnik, embued with the power of the Chaos Emeralds to an almost god-like level of power, resurrected Sonic's greatest enemies to battle him at the same time. All of these were dispatched when Sonic knocked the robot Brutus into the energy being known as Plasma, causing a chain reaction that destroyed all the other recreated villains.

Knuckles Metallix


The Knuckles Metallix first appeared in the final panel of the "Brotherhood of Metallix" story arc, as Grimer states that a Metallix version of Sonic was too unstable, presenting blueprints for a Knuckles-based Metallix and saying "This is my new idea".

After Doctor Robotnik was defeated and taken away by the Drakon Empire, he returned with the new Knuckles Metallix. Sonic when confrtoning it reminded Robotnik of his past experiences with Metallix, but Robotnik merely said that the problem with disloyalty had been fixed. Sonic is taken captive and forced to stand trial for destroying a Drakon Sentinel. (The Sentinel had in fact destroyed itself in the Aquatic Ruin Zone after discovering its masters had left Mobius. ) The Drakon Empire made him stand trial by fighting the Knuckles Metallix in a duel to prove his innocence. After a hard fight the Metallix is crushed under a door and Sonic escapes back to Mobius. Robotnik is later shown to have multiple Knuckles Metallixes in his base on Flickies' Island, but they were never activated, and Grimer used a single Knuckles Metallix to capture Sonic and extract the location of the missing Dr. Robotnik. None of these Metallixes were ever seen again.

Production background
Writer Nigel Kitching's original name for the character was "Metallico"; Metallix was editor Richard Burton's suggestion.

In addition to being based on Metal Sonic from the game Sonic CD (and, subsequently, Sonic &amp; Knuckles and Knuckles' Chaotix), many of Metallix's characteristics were derived from other famous robots from film and TV. The title of the first story, "The Sonic Terminator", is an obvious reference to the Terminator series. (Although not directly attributed to the Metallixes, another reference occurs in Sonic the Comic #60, "The Brotherhood of Metallix, Part 2", in which Sonic tells Robotnik "I'll be back!", a reference to the famous line in The Terminator, which became Arnold Schwarzenegger's catchphrase.) In Sonic the Comic #70, "The Return of Chaotix, Part 4", one of the Metallixes says "Resistance is futile." This is frequently said by the Borg in Star Trek.

More than other sources however, the Metallixes are based on the Daleks from the TV series Doctor Who. In particular, their habit of demanding Sonic's "extermination" (as in the first robot's first full appearance in Sonic the Comic #25, "The Sonic Terminator, Part 2") and the existence of a red-and-gold Emperor Metallix, are both highly reminiscent of the Daleks. Writer Nigel Kitching has admitted the similarity. According to Kitching, while he had not initially intended to rip off the Daleks, when he noticed the similarity he decided merely to run with the idea, rather than tweak it into something different. At the time, Doctor Who had been off the air for seven years, and Kitching felt that the similarity was unlikely to jar with the readership.