By Albi in comics — 25 Oct 2025

Some Sorta Recap: DC x Sonic

In which I talk about that one crossover and also, what is Archie doing here?

Welcome back to Some Sorta Recap, where I am determined to keep this going despite my inner voice for this bit sounding suspiciously like a buncha white dudes on Youtube. Granted, they're all from the retro/vintage computer sphere so I can be doing a lot worse. Can you imagine if Vaush was the one in my head? I'd do something that'd get me demonetized on Google's platforms.

Look, if gay white men can have an inner sassy Black woman (for the record, they really shouldn't that's fucking racist), I can have an inner commentator white man. "I thought you wanted equality!" motherfuckers, I'm turning that back on you. Suck it.

An humanoid black female cat with white face and underbelly. She has silver bangles, blue scarf and red vest, and she's smiling and waving toward the audience. — Just imagine my rantsona being Hershey the Cat.

Tails, Shadow, Amy Rose, Knuckles, Silver, and Sonic in their counterpart costumes: Tails as Cyborg, Shadow as Batman, Amy as Wonder Woman, Knuckles as Superman, Silver a Green Lantern, and Sonic as The Flash. — You now can't unsee that rendering error in Shadow's left eye.

Speaking of dudes, I thought that was fanart. But no, it was real! And I read it! Eventually! I worried the comic book guy when I didn't show up for a month and a half. But IDW's Sonic the Hedgehog is one of my pulls, and he also knows me well enough to go ahead and order anything Sonic-related. Come springtime, the first issue was ready for me.

We're just gonna go right into it

Because otherwise, we'd be here all day.

So we open up with this weird thing all up in the sky.

The Death Egg-- a large oval contraption, floating in the sky and in front of the sun. It has two red menacing eyes. — Archie Sonic's Death Egg Saga

Wait, sorry; how did Archic Sonic get in here? Besides, Eggman is far too pedestrian a villain for a friggin' DC crossover, you know? We gotta go bigger. Universe-ending bigger.

It was this other thing that is not egg-shaped.

Darkseid's Ragna Rock appearing in the sky, over the picnic of Sonic, Amy, and Tails. — Really? In front of my chili dog?

Taking a page from Hot Rod's megalomania, it's Darkseid riding around in his own head, interrupting hedgehog picnics with Goldar clones and blowing up master emeralds. Eggman could never. He do some some goofy robot shit and then almost blow it up.

Fortunately, here's where the DC superheroes come in! We got

The Flash and Sonic, Team Speed

Two panels. Sonic and The Flash are smirking at each other as they race.

They go fast. They go fast. They go faster faster faster faster faster-- You know how it is with this alpha speedster types or whatever. They got jokes. There's friendly rivalry. And they make a good team.

Green Lantern and Silver, Team Mystic Floating Dudes

Silver and Green Lantern introducing themselves, and glad to see one another.

IT'S LAZER TIME, BOYZZ! (And you now have that banger stuck in your head.) The hedgie is psychic, but both are packing the light show (and it does go better for them than that other one). They work well together.

Batman and Shadow, Team Brood

Two panels of just Batman and Shadow silently acknowledging each other. — "..."

They understand each other and manage to cooperate. Bonus: Batman sees right through Shadow's lone wolf bullshit and tells him to knock it off, teamwork make the dream work.

Wonder Woman and Amy, Team LET'S GO WOMEN

Amy Rose in her pink flying car, with Wonder Woman flying beside her as they chat. — They're talking about Linux.

You know how you meet someone and you just know that y'all would get along? It was the vibe I got from these two absolute badasses. And they do be badass with their weapons of choice, while supporting and hyping each other up. Can you say, "Extended Sisterhood"? You do love to see it.

...hey, look, I didn't get all cynical and was like "they only paired up these two because they're the only girls!" I chilled the fuck out for once. Although I'm probably right.

Cyborg and Tails, Team Nerd

Tails and Cyborg discussing the chaos emeralds. — They are also talking about Linux.

The smart guys that think up the plans and build the knickknacks to set them in motion. Hahaha neeeeeeerds jk I love you guys, you two are my favorite, can you help me install Anubis? something something Codeburg mutuals.

Superman and Knuckles, Team Brick

Superman and Knuckles, both thoughtful since the former saved the latter's life as Angel Island plunged into the ocean. — why so fucking serious

Your flying bricks. Super tough, can punch things, and are giant introverts in their own right. And if it weren't for Supes, Knucks would've blown up along with the master emerald. Together th– you get the running gag by now.

What Is That Maniac Up To?

After introductions and knocking out the first wave of mooks, Cyborg and Wonder Woman tell it...

Cyborg and Wonder Woman bringing the IDW cast up to speed. Their speech bubbles have been edited. Cyborg keeps it as "He's been all anti-life and whatever and that is bad." Wonder Woman chimes in: "So he's on this floating rock to find it. Literally a giant rock, 'Ragna Rock' are you... are you kidding me right now? Goofiest thing I saw since Hot Rod riding around in his own head." Last panel has Sonic looking... skeptical. — DarkWing? Got it.

...such as he came upon Mobius (er, whatever Sonic's world is called in IDW; please go easy on me it's Archic Sonic brain) and the good guys followed him in their own wormhole/boom tube to stop him from gaining more power to reach his goal.

Three guesses why DarkSleigh is here. No... make it seven.

A Garry's Mod-esque image of President Obama at the presidential podium, looking incredibly smug while holding a chaos emerald. — Why didn't he just ask Obama? Youtube Video by Zeramations.

We cannot be having that! Trying to swipe the chaos emeralds is Eggman's shtick!

Everyone breaks off into teams to try and beat DarkLoad to the punch; in the case of Tails and Cyborg, they hit the lab to do science stuff. There's banter and bonding (Even Team Brood; they just bond in silence).

In some sort of irony, DarkSlam managed to beat Team Speed and nabbed one of the emeralds. But one is enough for the teams to pivot to the offensive immediately. And kinda get thrashed.

The Flash and Sonic narrowly escaping Darkseid's eyerays of doom. There is a big red explosion that sends them sprawling. — oop

By the way, Eggman does get his designated Enemy Mine appearance and offers to ram his airship into "that grotesque flying face."

Eggman on top of one of his hovering contraptions, flustered. His speech bubble has been edited to "BAN HIM PLEASE."

There is a pretty epic fight once they catch up to the baddie in Casa de DarkMood. And in that fight, the timey wimey stuff got discombobulated.

And uh

collapsed a little

...

A blank panel with only 'speed lines' from Archic Sonic, of Knothole being eradicated. — huh?

Ugh, that again. I may need to up my dosage.

"What's Kansas, anyway?"

Mister Terrific got some bad news for our anthropomorphic pals once they come out the other side.

Shadow, Silver, Knuckles, Sonic, Amy, and Tails with varying degrees of shock and horror. Speech bubble edit: Mr. Terrific, in Will Smith's voice, greets them with "Welcome to Earf." in reference to the Independence Day meme. — Also your shit is just *gone*

Their world– and the Justice League– are AWOL. And no matter how threatening Knuckles got, there just weren't any coordinates to send them back to...

yet. Ya know Tails is That Bitch.

Tails, talking to himself and thinking of a way to get them back home. — And don't you fucking forget it!

While he works on a hypothesis, there's some big shoes to fill. And no worries about the need to blend in; we know what comic conventions are. Team Sonic suits up (and Silver is a Green Lantern, the ring says so) and lays waste to their buddy's nemesises.

Nemesi?

MULTIPLE BAD GUYS who also just happen to be causing chaos with some the chaos emeralds. How convenient! And color coded! Sinistero was Yellow (duh), Lex had Green (duh), some gorilla dudes had the red one, Joker is Purple (duh), and Reverse-Flash had... blue? Eh, Sonic's blue so it still works.

Emerald GET Montage!

Sonic, Knuckles, Silver, Shadow and Amy holding their respective chaos emeralds. The bad guys are either disposed of, or they explain to their allies what the chaos emeralds are.

We don't see how Teen Titans and Tails managed to get the sixth White chaos emerald; that apparently happened off-screen and was probably boring anyway compared to what the jocks were doing.

Beast Boy shape-shifted as a green Knuckles. Tails, in his version of Cyborg's outfit, looks on in annoyance. — don't

we're not talking about all those references in that panel get out of my head Penders gdi Beast Boy sos sos sos sos sos sos sos

....ANYWAY, Tails! He managed to prove his theory with all six together: their world is only just sleeping. In a pocket dimension, probably due to DarkSouls' printer going on the fritz or something.

Some fiddling here, chaos emeralds there (and everyone telling Shadow to STFU with his "should we do this?" brooding bullshit)...

aaaaaand--

A Quick One, While They Were Away

So, yeah. The world was not destroyed (but is being shaken apart by DarkLadel's microwave)! Which means The Justice League got up to some shenanigans of their own, in parallel with their friends Birthed on Another Earth'd.

Gotta get those emeralds, too! They shake down Mook Wave #2 and the elites on DarkSleeve's payroll, and steamroll the local baddies that decided to work with them. They even get some help now and then.

Wonder Woman and Blaze shaking hands and introducing themselves. Their speech bubbles are edited as they ask each other to be friends on last.fm. — Alright, WW. You're making me jealous.

Well, in Batman's case, it was his trusty motorcycle.

Mecha Sonic getting bodied by Batman's motorcycle, dropping his chaos emerald. — GET. FUCKED.

And of course, The Gay Agenda.

Green Lantern teaming up with the wisps, cumulating in Granny Goodness getting absolutely blasted by a giant rainbow beam. — TASTE THE RAINBOW MOTHERFUCKER

What that Flash do? Not waste his time, that's what, he's got eight-lane loop-de-loops to get on. I'll just leave this here:

The Flash, looking Not Impressed, saying to Baron Vermin: "So that weird shell controls your rainbow coalition of critters? You're just saying that out loud? Okay..." The second panel has Baron Vermin realizing his mistake of monologuing too much. — Not Bothered to be Pictured: The Deadly Six. Losers.

Eggman still can't catch a break. He was minding his own business while the local heroes were away! Really!

Superman talking to Eggman, who looks flabbergasted. Supe's speech bubble is edited with "stop it, get some help" with an image of Michael Jordan. — Youtube vid for the entire experience. (Michael Jordan saying "Stop it. Get some help." This was a snippet from an anti-drug commercial campaign he did years ago.)

Meanwhile their half of the Geek Squad rigged up a similar contraption to his Teams buddy, and Cyborg do his fiddlin' thing annnnnnd

Reunited And It Feels So Good

Both teams commiserating: Superman and Sonic trading quips, Wonder Woman picking up Amy Rose in joy, Green Lantern and Silver talking, Tails and Cyborg comparing notes, The Flash and Knuckles just standing looking cool. In the foreground Batman and Shadow share a glance; Batman is even smiling a tiny bit while Shadow is still his default standoffish. — This is adorable.

Everyone catches up and we get more bonding moments, a nice breather before the endgame. It's several sweet moments of Team Sonic gushing over Team JL's home, light smack-talk, blunt "how's things?" and "...Joker blew up the Batmobile." "It happens."

Hey enough of that! Plan time! They're gonna bust up in that floating rock, by doing some resonating with the shiny chaos rocks, and DarkSeethe will get his shit rocked and Bob's yer uncle, the worlds are saved!

...okay we got time for some one-liners.

Sonic proclaiming "...or it's really gonna be the big goodbye!" as he rushes off. — Archie Sonic's Director's Cut of EndGame

dang it sorry it's the Archie one again oh shit it keeps happening will you fucking stop

"Alexa, Play Boss Battle Music"

Darkseid with his back to the audience, overlooking his chaos contraption and saying, "At last." He had been waiting a long time. — Yo. Pizza was getting cold.

DarkSeeD gives 'em a couple of paragraphs about their predictability and how he wants to kill 'em and such. He summons the rock arms and the rock arms get slapped around, and the good guys keep him entertained while the brainiacs implement the last stage of their plan.

They just need the last emerald and to hack the Gibson.

Sonic and The Flash do what they do best: Teamwork make the dream work! And, you know, what's one more competition when the end of reality is at stake? (They can multitask.)

Two speech bubbles. "Quick feet, Sonic!" and "Small strides, Flash!" as they work together. However, exactly what they're doing is cropped out, but is implied that they're running in tandem somehow. — I'm not trying to spoiler *everything,* go to the Games Apologist's Sonic Speed Reading for that!

They swipe DarkSlug's jewelry, outrun his killer eye lasers, Sonic gets a dash in, and... drumroll, please...

Super Sonic, taunting "Backseid" after his power-up. — YOU KNOW IT. also lol backside

But wait, there's more!

Everyone continues to wail on Dark Magician Man, to wear him down and to buy a little more time. Just a little more! Because! We always need more power! What's more powerful than chaos emeralds? That Speedy Force stuff, I guess!

the... The Flash is using Tails' tails as a fucking treadmill are you kidding me

The Flash using Tails' tails as a treadmill. — Cyborg is like "ARE YOU SEEING THIS SHIT?!!"

I guess seeing that just pushed this bad guy over the edge and he's like "FUCK IT, ERASE EVERYTHING! DESTROY THE UNIVERSE!!"

Two white-on-black panels as DarkSeid attempts to end it all. His only speech bubble has been edited to red text of random gibberish, as if someone just smashed random keys on their keyboard. — keysmash

...

Once again, from Archic Sonic. Sonic is exclaiming "WHOA" as he reaches out of the void. — ARCHIEEEEEEE

Yup. Need to up that dosage.

Everything As It Was

You know DarkSleek wasn't successful. Nick of time and all that. The Flash slapped the final touch on their plan, and the universe snapped back to how things were before DarkDork started mucking things up. Nothing destroyed and no one displaced or where they shouldn't be.

Most importantly? No chili dogs were harmed.

"Think of it as save scumming," Tails and Cyborg explained, except not really, but that's how I'm parsing it as and that's good enough for me.

Also Sonic pines for The Flash and now I ship it--

Sonic standing off to the side, arms folded and contemplative. His thought bubble has been edited to have a flashback of The Flash in a heart shape. — I just wanna race him bro; don't make it weird.

Final Thoughts

Tails, Sonic, and Amy celebrating post-crisis.

This was just... a good ol' time. I freakin' love comics. I love the IDW run of Sonic for what it is (and isn't, despite my cracks and references to Archie Sonic).

And gosh darnit the art is just so good. It really sells these two IPs with all the charm and resonation you'd expect from this sort of thing.

And as many people mentioned, this was kind of a big deal. It really screams, to me, "Yes, this series is relevant enough for a crossover!"

I agree with Game Apologist with how they appeared to "play it safe" with this one, but the alternative (read: a bad crossover) gives me chills and I'm thankful for what we got.

I hope this'll embolden them to do more bold things in the future. I want The Flash running on Tails' tails, squared.

Not-Rating

Shadow's Height / 5. Observe:

The Joker and Shadow (as Batman) standing almost side-by-side. Shadow is only about half Joker's size.

I was fucking hollering, it's pocketsized hedgie batman, "edgy hedgie" as Joker called him before getting his lights kicked out. Yes, of course this was my favorite part of the whole shebang. This is me showing restraint with keeping it to one more panel.

Headcanon that Batman, with his Prep Time, did have a hedgehog-sized suit just sitting around and ready.

...wait a second

Hey, I wonder how that Eggman is holding up? Probably taking a little mini vacay from all that nonsense, right? He certainly can't be doing anything nefarious or jumping multiverses or teaming up with other evil geniuses or anything, right?

...right?

Eggman and Dr. Wily, dancing and holding wine flutes. Both are declaring, "...And we are loving it!" as Megaman and Sonic fight in the background. — REMEMBER WHEN--

NO, NOT THAT ONE.

Are you there, God? It's me, Albi. Please make the flashbacks stop.

Eggman and Lex Luthor hanging out, talking about their robot collaboration. — Lex Luthor and Eggman, together again.

ok bye– for now!

The Joker's comically exaggerated expression of surprise and deranged glee. — I may have lost the plot.

Some Sorta Recap: DC x Sonic