There’s something special when a crossover comic comes, especially one aimed at a younger audience like DC x Sonic the Hedgehog: The Metal Legion #1. With such a large cast, the characters are always boiled down to their most critical personality traits and quirks. It’s not simplistic, it feels like a cliff-notes interpretation, like they’re meeting their extended family and have to walk around being the most theirselves they possibly can be. It’s like they’re at a function and have to be on their best behavior at all times. Flash is fun, Shadow is brooding, Tails is a genius, Superman is sweet, it all feels so cookie cutter and performative.
And I loved every second of it because this book drips fun from every panel.
DC
The last DC x Sonic the Hedgehog crossover was a fun adventure that saw the two properties work together against a malevolent Darkseid that was hellbent on using the Chaos Emeralds to subjugate both dimensions. While the followup series is admittedly a little less heavy out the gate, it nonetheless sets up an interesting problem for the heroes of two worlds to solve.
Out of nowhere, trans-dimensional gates link the DC Universe with Sonic’s, allowing the heroes to team back up. The first half of the book is reintroducing the characters who bonded in the last series. Sonic and Flash, Wonder Woman and Amy, Superman and Knuckles, Silver and Green Lantern, Tails and Cyborg, Shadow and Batman etc.. While they’re all excited to see each other again, there’s still an air of uneasiness about how all this is happening.
Those trans-dimensional gates are effectively highways that link the worlds, and they’re highways with pretty specific branding on them… LexEgg. Yes, while all the heroes were teaming up, the villains were teaming up, too. Lex Luthor and Doctor Eggman have thrown their hats in together. Combining their evil genius, they’ve developed a plan to get rid of Sonic (and his friends) and the Justice League, thanks to the expanded ranks of an all-new Legion of Doom they’re leading.
DC
Like I said earlier, this book emphasizes fun right from the get-go. While the DC Universe hasn’t been nearly as dark lately as it used to be, it’s still refreshing to see an optimistic and upbeat place where evil is vanquished and the sun shines. The character play between each of Sonic’s friends and their complementary heroes is so much stress-free fun that it immediately feels like a classic book in the sense that everything just works the way you want and expect it to.
The art has a lot of personality, blending the insane proportions of someone like Dr. Eggman and Lex Luthor so well that it doesn’t look weird for them to stand next to each other. Sonic’s patented spin-speed is captured so well that It never feels off to see a blue spinning disc next to a Flash mid-stride barreling down the Central City interstate. The art takes the extravagant and absurd of each world and weaves them together in a unified art direction. That said, as great as the character work is, something about Wonder Woman just feels slightly off.
DC
DC x Sonic the Hedgehog: The Metal Legion #1 does everything I want a followup crossover series to do. It acknowledges the original and catches up the reader, while immediately taking what worked from it and uses it as a new foundation. While the threat may not be as big (at least not currently) as it was before, it’s set up to be more interesting, with a whole slew of villains poised to create havoc for our heroes. If you’re in need for some low-stakes positivity that eschews fun from every corner, there are few books I’d turn to faster than this one.
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