‘Sonic the Hedgehog’ #29 review

Sonic and friends against the Metal Virus: This is it!

July 22, 2020

Sonic the Hedgehog #29 wraps up the story arc of Dr. Eggman’s metal virus, which has been spreading across the planet Mobius like a zombie plague.

It’s strange to read a story about an infectious plague spreading in a fantasy world when we are amidst fighting a real-world pandemic. Fortunately for the characters of Sonic the Hedgehog, death is not something they experience (unless of course Sonic runs out of air underwater at the end of his countdown sequence in a game). The metal virus simply turns everyone into robots.

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The buildup issues to this climax was messy at best. It made the stakes too high and called in every character who has ever appeared in the Sonic the Hedgehog universe. It was like watching a rushed season finale, with the exception of the annual special. Fortunately, this issue was sewn together a little bit better than previous issues.

Without spoiling the final pages of the issue, Sonic and Silver have to team up with the power of the Chaos Emeralds to essentially pull all of the metal virus into a void. By the time they have reached this point, almost every character had been transformed into a metal zombie. It’s actually very comical to see a character like Big the Cat looming over Dr. Eggman with a menacing expression on his face.

The end is certainly interesting, and I am curious to see where they are going with the next storyline. I just hope it doesn’t have a hundred characters all battling for lead time on the pages again.

While this particular story seemed fun and interesting, it also felt rushed. This issue provides more emotional stakes for Sonic and his friends, but it definitely feels like a quickly edited season finale when the production team finds out that they have been canceled from TV.