Metal Virus: The Darkest of Days | Sonic Speed Reading

welcome back to sonic speed reading and welcome back to our coverage of the metal virus arc and uh if you thought everything leading up to this point was emotionally taxing buckle in because it gets pretty rough and well after everything that we all experienced in 2020 yeah it hits home even harder so fair warning now these next few issues all take place at the same time but that doesn't mean they're just spinning their wheels each issue actually follows the offense from a different character's perspective and they all pertain to some very important events and well you'll see okay as you might see from this cover they are indeed using a ciao to show off a scary zombie image i just oh who would have thought we'd see this my goodness and yeah as you can see the first story is going to revolve around tails as he attempts to come up with a cure for the virus we go back in time just a little bit to central city as it was first being invaded by eggman yes only an hour has passed after everything else we've covered that's how quickly this whole mess spread now we see tails with tangle and whisper long and short of it tango whisper tell tales to get to work on the virus they're going to handle things outside and we see tails doing his best to remain undetected in his workshop which might be hard if all of his machines are making all these beepy noises as one of them is as sonic gives him a call and sonic tells him he's right outside of barricade town just checking in we'll tell them that the data from bioscanner you know that fitbit tails gave him so they could track his biometrics to see if there's any connection between sonic's speed and a cure for the virus he says that that information is coming through details workshop perfectly so he has everything he needs to get to work on a cure on his end of things he just has to remain again undetected by the zombots tales also reminds sonic that regardless of what eggman is doing he needs that speed data that ultimately is going to be the key to stop whatever else eggman is doing if they can find a cure for the virus they can stop whatever other attack he's coming up with and as tails hangs up with sonic he's startled by a crash as the zombot tumbles over some trash outside then he then calls amy to see how she's doing with restoration hq and long and short of it amy is checking in to see if they need to send over any shuttles tails isn't sure so he's going to check in with tinkling whisper to see what kind of resources they might need from restoration hq then we come back to the duo having some fun creative action against the zombots always a fun time to see and yeah as we already know from the chaotics into things this is going to be where they send everybody down to the docks all that fun stuff we don't need to focus on that the main story we have to focus on is tails and how he is going to come up with a cure and showing off tails brilliance he flips over to a hologram that shows basically what we saw when eggman first showed off the metal virus tails has kind of figured it out he understands the basic structure explaining that it looks and acts like a real live virus speaking out loud so the reader understands what he's thinking and you know maybe this is just how he problem solves just talking out loud he points out that he knows sonic's speed deteriorates the virus structure and how does he apply that to everything else happening here they can't risk a vaccine that's too weak or only partially effective they got to get this right on the first go and to test out some more experiments he's going to need a bit of the virus itself so he takes a power glove and heads on outside again trying to remain undetected by zombots he freezes for a second as flickies fly overhead but thankfully they don't notice him he grabs a sample of the stuff and gives himself a nice cheer as we see a couple of chow over the horizon of his face shaped workshop the comic then cuts over to zetty castle which you might recall from sonic lost world and this is here to help establish these characters as even if you are familiar with who they are from that game this is the first time they've appeared in the comics and they are going to be very important to the third act of this story as you might recall starline dug up some information about the whole lost world situation and has decided that he is going to meet with the zetty to concoct a plan to control the zombots as we know that the more the virus spreads the less control eggman has over the entire thing and starline is doing his best to circumvent any future issues by using these guys who can control robots now if you might remember everything kinda went to in lost world between the zetty eggman and sonic so this is a tense moment for starlin but he tries to muster up as much bravado as possible says that this is an opportunity to make amends with eggman command incredible power and destroy sonic the hedgehog and zavok the big red bowser dude right here is surprisingly agreeable with this plan of action if you're familiar with the sonic franchise at all you already know that starline and all of the zetty are all garbage trash creatures so this polite garbage is clearly just a ruse for the other and yeah as soon as both of them part ways they both start talking trash about the other behind their back with the savak explaining that yeah no we're we're gonna capitalize on their foolishness we're gonna basically take over the world and starline's basically gonna say the same thing at the end of this issue so let's not waste our time there they're both planning to double cross each other no no shocker there we then spend a little more time with tangle and whisper again attacking some more zombots having a good time we don't need to focus on that go read the comic for yourself if you want to see this stuff it's a lot of fun all this actions here is just to show that the rest of the cast outside of sonic are hard at work to combat the virus however they can and also a quick little note here just in case fans would ask because you know they would ask turns out the wisps are immune to the virus since they are made of pure energy we also see silver in action by himself over in some isolated ice world so that explains where he is during all of this craziness we're not gonna spend a lot of time talking about any of this stuff because again this is not super important what is important is that while all of this is happening it looks like tails has come up with a cure he says that by applying sonic's biometric data to a fresh sample of the virus he grabbed outside he can apply the data in real time to test models for immunization and even reversal of connotation basically he's saying that he combined data of sonic's speed with the virus and i guess it came up with the cure they don't really go into any further detail than that we don't actually know why sonic speed is combating this stuff long and short of it tails has figured it out he says he's just gonna go upload it to the server at restoration hq he's gonna head on out to meet up with tangle and whisper but an alarm goes off and it turns out that the two metal virused up chow are wrecking up his wires meaning he won't be able to upload the data but tails being the smart boy he is doesn't panic he's instead just gonna grab the server blade and plug it in manually to restoration hq there's still a chance to get this all set up so they can cure the world but unfortunately at the same time a zombot crashes through startles tales who then drops the blade destroying the data tails looking defeated runs on over to one of those zipline things i love that they brought those in from the games oh and he does a spin dash like this is a really dark moment but i love these little game details here and we're not done with it yet because he brings out his walker from sonic adventure 2. and tails is gonna go hard with tears in his eyes and fury in his face he quietly whispers to himself i had it i was so close and i can't blame you he understands that they are victims but man i gotta tell you if that was eggman right in front of him i would be worried because we know how hard tails goes when he is pissed in that mech nothing can stop him and yeah we see tails bust on out of his workshop combating the zombots as best as he can and yeah this just had to be a great little moment for sonic adventure 2 fans even though this is a miserable time for the entire cast here and yeah look at taegel she is just geeking out there she's just fangirling it up who can blame her man it's good to see that stupid robot again as much as i hate playing it yeah long and short of it all that really matters at this point is to get the rest of the survivors over to the shuttle and while we don't have any casualties of the cast we have a casualty all the same because just as we got to geek out over the return of his walker the zombots tear it apart and you know your boy tails loves his machines the tear rolls down his face thanking it for all of its hard work saying it deserved better and i'm sure a lot of sa2 fans have been feeling that way for quite a long time but those tears only last for a panel as tails gets a dope action shot flying away from his exploding walker oh man and just bringing in the sa2 walker is sign enough that even if you're mad about what happened with shadow this is still a reminder to the readers that yo we know we get it we love these characters too we're not drawing the tales from sonic forces this is tails from sonic adventure 2. this is a hero and despite everything that just happened he doesn't give up like a so yeah everything sucks they literally had the cure in hand but man it was good to see tails go off he flies on up to the shuttle that's already taken off and catches up with amy and tails is a little confused where are the other shuttles didn't have that many survivors but amy interrupts him we're on the only one that made it out tails like what are you saying well got some more bad news turns out restoration hq has fallen and almost everyone with it and now we're gonna dial back the clock and figure out exactly how that happened as the next issue follows amy and the restoration hq as everything was going on and we kicked things off with amy explaining that sonic's running around getting dated for tails and tails is doing the research at central city silver's there vector zips stay over there it doesn't doesn't matter they're catching people up if you have just spent a month away we have not so let's keep going long and short of it amy is trying her best to allocate the resources and heroes at her disposal to combat this insane virus and the poor girl is super overwhelmed then we have the cheerful cream hopping in saying it's break time and this is a wonderful interaction between these often overlooked characters amy asks cream how do you do it and cream responds adorably like it's my mother's recipe and she learned it from her mother she's like he was like i mean like staying upbeat and sunny and well cream gets a little real here she says it isn't easy still can't sleep very well i dream of cheese and chocolate and what happened and with tears in her eyes cream says that but she knows that her mother's afraid too and she sees everyone hiding here is scared and that fear spreads like the metal virus so to combat that she's gonna put the biggest smile on her face and share it with everyone and it's corny and it's cheesy and it is so very very important to have that kind of a mindset when you're in a dire situation like this cream is showing us yet again why the rest of sonic's cast respects her as much as they do even though she's just a little kid now we have a very sweet hug and they're all chatting and then tails calls and interrupts everything cause it sounds like some crap is going down but we again cut over to the zetty and this is where the reader meets the rest of the deadly six and despite how much i despise their designs you can kinda tell what these guys are all about with their design which is kind of the point of the characters and also establishing the aggressive leadership of zavik as he explains to his team that hey we're taking up starline's offer and then we're gonna double cross him and the green one i don't know her name sarcastically responds you know unless this is another trap and where eggman slaves again and zavic not one for criticism raises his hand showing that he clearly beats the crap out of her and everybody else on his team real angry dude for having long turquoise fingernails you know what i mean but this is him saying that we're gonna take our revenge we're gonna get back at sonic eggman and the entire world below us and we're just gonna wreck their but again that's the only page of those characters we're gonna get in this issue it's just again here to tell us they're coming whether you like it or not they're coming we cut back to amy and cream and i don't really know what happened with that tails call he looked very distressed but i don't know maybe i missed in the last issue it doesn't really matter point is cream heads on back out to the survivors and as we can see they are in tight quarters they are very crammed they're very stressed out and everybody is miserable and to make things worse espio and vector come on in with an infected charmy in an item bubble with general trying to stop him and being a cold logical robot he points out that they brought in a zomboc and he's a pathogenic threat to my little rabbit you gotta get him out of here victor is showing his loyalty to his crew saying yo the chaotix do not abandon their own but victor i feel like you're being kind of a hypocrite after you made a car jail for somebody else back in central city but yes basically he's just arguing with the robot on whether or not they should keep charming in there and cream jumps on in to intervene and tells general to calm down in general just he's going to go along with it because he listens to cream but points out that this is a logical and self-destructive and this is a very very stupid idea espo's reasoning is that vector has a solid plan they'll securely store charmy in tail's lab alongside omega and once tails is found a cure charmy will be immediately accessible that's not a good plan i'm just that's a horrible plan that's just putting him in the front of the line and if he gets out the first people are gonna be infected are the people working on the cure this is a stupid dumb stupid dumb plan we then cut on over to some of the survivors who are chatting amongst each other and there's a monkey that's all sweaty and in a blanket and you know he's infected and we'll look at that if i end the page he's infected yeah he just he didn't want to be alone so he thought he'd come in and just in fact everybody i hate people stupid god this makes me much angrier after 2020. yeah i don't know how he slipped on through without anybody noticing but yeah he immediately transitions over into a zombot and that's been a problem for me because it seems like the infection rate of these things is very very inconsistent but whatever point is there's now a metal monkey and everyone's freaking out about it they start running all over the place general immediately grabs cream and gets her out of the way and through all the rumbling and shaking oh would you look at that charmy breaks out oh goody goody full of great ideas happening god this is everyone's stupid espio sets off the alarm and amy runs over to the radio and tells the pilots to prep for shuttles they're gonna be taken off immediately restoration hq has been compromised it's time to bail just then general is pushed through the door with the angry metal monkey on top and amy kindly responds with a hammer to its stupid monkey face amy sets general off with some orders to save who they can get the priorities in order and then jumps into the middle of all the zombots and starts wailing on them this girl is hardcore she's trying to find cream who is fine overhead watching her mother get infected by the zombots while she begs amy to get her little girl to safety and amy does just that she launches herself up with her pico hammer and i love that they bring that element in from the games actually kind of miss that thing and gets cream out of there as she no longer can save her mother and she's just gonna get infected herself vanilla says thank you weekly a scream screams for her mother as amy keeps cream on hold so she doesn't rush back in general and vector begin to close the doors on the zombots man that poor girl's been through a lot amy guides her over to the shuttle and she asks where the other pilots are well it turns out only one of them made it out of all the chaos but hey they got some survivors out this is pretty rough but the worst of it is over or so we think general gets one last scan inside the room to make sure that there are no survivors in there and confirms that everybody left in there is infected to some degree so unfortunately they're just gonna have to lock it up but before they do charmy ever the troublemaker flies on out leaving vector no choice but to pin him down and unfortunately the virus begins to spread to vector general is barely holding back the zombot horde saying that vector is compromised immediate quarantine is required infector like a boss just shoves general aside holding charmy under his arm saying yeah i guess this is what i get i'll beat him back just close the door behind me and then turns around with a wink in the middle of a zombot horde infected himself saying hey espio your lead detective now and the doors shut closed are gator boy having the coolest send-off of everybody so far sorry shadow our heroes stand in stun silence even general is taken aback but quickly reminds everybody that they've got to get going vector is very strong and as a zombot it won't be long before he breaks down the door amy collects herself and then picks up spo and they take off and that is where we meet up with tails yet again their stories now converge but now we get a little more information from there now that everybody is collected tails is finally allowed to freak out justifiably so now that he has lost everything in central city and now he has just found out that restoration hq has fallen because even if the upload was incomplete he still could have done something with that data in that lab there is only one hope left and that's if sonic comes back with a data analyzer intact they're at a rough spot but they can figure something out as long as they have that data and golly wouldn't you know it the next story takes place finally from the view of sonic the hedgehog and i bet everything's just gonna go swimmingly don't you think again we turn back the clock to that initial conversation between everyone this time from the perspective of sonic as he zips through some fields asking how tails is doing saying he's right outside a barricade town blah blah blah blah we know this stuff and i love that while they don't immediately say it they've said it in past issues you can see that sonic is clearly worn out with rings under his eyes he's uh he's been going for quite a while to keep his own virus in check and we returned to barricade town that spot where our two skunk boys first attacked all the way back in issue three with a thunderstorm overcast and the barricade of barricade town toppled over clearly things have uh not gone great we see a quick moment of doubt in the ever confidence sonic the hedgehog who questions to himself if he should check for survivors and then do what smart guy he can't carry them to safety and he could potentially risk a hit on this data analyzer that tails gave him and questions what is right maybe saving one person or keep running to save everyone that's an obvious answer sonic just keep running none of this infection is going to matter as long as you keep running and get the data necessary to provide a cure obviously but while he stands there pondering he notices a very familiar egg shape over the wall of barricade town we then flip on over to the perspective of doctors starline and eggman who are trying out different frequencies as has been established already eggman has lost control over his zombots and as the virus spreads they are less and less responsive so they're basically trying out different frequencies to see if they can bring them back in and nothing seems to be working and eggman is not the type to sit around and just do boring things pointed out they should have rigged an automated version of play from the phase ship and starline growing ever more frustrated by his hero points out that wideband broadcasts have had no effect he agreed on a tight band localized attempt because this was the obvious next step an eggman responds i don't get a passive aggressive with me if you're gonna write my coattails you better have my back and starline through gritted teeth all i'm saying sir is that in hindsight it would have been smart to have a fail safe for the metal virus mutating beyond your control and yeah this is where we finally see a proper argument between these two characters starline's grown completely disillusioned with the tactics of eggman who sees the mutations as his creations exceeding his own expectations and says hey why don't we try that special gemstone of yours which is the warp topaz and here we finally get a little more information on this magical gem that just casually dropped into this universe turns out that starline found this warped topaz a long time ago and explained some of its properties he says that it responded strongly to even the most passive of energy waves and in his early experiments anything beyond a light controlled charge resulted in extreme reality alteration which is weird that doesn't sound like teleportation that sounds like phantom ruby nonsense but who can keep any of this crap in check anyway whatever point is as he points out that this can be a useful tool when used properly but what eggman is proposing is incredibly dangerous and again as starling points out eggman is anything but cautious he's absolutely not going to hand over the warped topaz and also points out that they get to be inoculated for the metal virus and when a man response shows what you know there is no fancy oh my god i love this character strongly doesn't know how to handle this she's like well how are we gonna be protected from the infection i mean it just says we're just not gonna touch zombots obviously what if there was a spill on the faceship or a mishap in the field or if it mutates and becomes airborne and eggman's just like i i'm done with it bored with this conversation just shut up yeah it's a lot of fun having another scientist here that will challenge eggman in his chaotic ways i love this interaction but before the fight can continue any further it's interrupted by sonic now it's also important to note while eggman and sonic technically have met before in this comic this is the first time he's met him in his eggman persona not like for their first time ever they're using a lot of game cannon here but the only other time we've seen these two interact in this particular comic series was when eggman was mr tinker but flynn gets right back into the classic eggman sonic back and forth with eggman talking saying look who it is patient zero have you enjoyed watching my unbeatable plan unfold and sonic's just like he's not having it today dude he's tired and he's pissed off he's like you know i'm not we're not doing this we're not doing this today i need you to tell me why the hell you're doing this man and again eggy just does not provide any kind of logic whatsoever it's like dog i've been trying to take over the world for years you know that song's like no man like why did you go back to this mad scientist i mean sure dr fashion disaster over there gave you back your memories and i love that sudden little bit of art there showing starlight mess with his collar but sonic desperate to reach out to any kind of kindness in eggman's heart wants to know why did he go back to his old ways what was wrong with being like mr tinker negan just simply says that's not who i am song's like well why don't you just be like him and aggie's like what do you want me to be a charitable goodie two shoes who fixes doorknobs and builds toys and he looks back down at the city below him saying living on grateful smiles listening to children's laughter day in and day out making things people need and use and for a moment it looks like he might actually miss being a decent dude but quickly turns back saying yeah that was a relaxing life but i'm going to do something better he's bringing peace and unity to the world by providing it with his brilliant guidance that's about as far as that particular conversation was going to go and of course i had to jointly shove in a bit of crush 40 lyrics with angry and saying we're not that different you and i we both have our own styles and we won't change i don't know if that would have read a little bit more naturally if i didn't hear that song a thousand times but it was a little distracting for me it's fine and it's also on point but sonic's just he's had enough of it it's out of patience tells eggman you're going to reverse his metal virus or else and egg is like or else what and song's like or i'll kick your ass or else what he's like all right dog one last battle before your stupid-ass zombie let's roll so they go out of classic sonic and eggman style and we take this time to look at this from starline's perspective and it's a very interesting critique of the relationship between these long time foes starling says that he's been dreaming of seeing this scene play out in front of him for as long as he could remember but now that it is all he can feel is apathy he looks back on the plan of neo-metal sonic who nearly succeeded in reviving the eggman empire but starline thought he acted far too brashly starline was under the impression that neo only failed because he was designed to be a counter to sonic a ballistic missile with a built-in grudge but now that he's looking at this neometal sonic didn't fail because he was copying sonic he failed because he was copying eggman this is the exact same brute force strategy he's seen play out before basically don't meet your heroes starline has completely lost faith in eggman's ability to carry out this plan and we will see how that plays out in just a little while going back to the perspective of eggman and sonic they keep trying to talk to each other with eggman saying that you can't run forever you're gonna be tired eventually and then you're gonna turn into a zombot and sonic's like cool if you love it so much why don't you have some and eggy completely freaks out and topples over his egg mobile and falls into the village below i love sonic here sure it'd be nice if he had a cure handy huh and eggy's starting to freak out in front of his own creations he panically screams get back and then all the zombots completely ignore him and begin to attack sonic and eggy is very confused that worked we cut back to starline up in the air still looking pissed saying no i just found an effective command symbol and while he is frustrated he does also point out that well maybe he doesn't need to roll out his other plan now that they have a frequency that works but if that's the case what will eggman learn from this but eggie cheers him on saying excellent work now upload that frequency to the faceship so i can command the rest of the zombots around the world and sonic completely sworn by zombots freaks out he knows he can't let that happen and blasts on through the horde and up through the egg mobile destroying eggman's ability to upload the frequency to control all the zombots but also destroying the data analyzer necessary for tails to concoct a cure eggy and starline fly on off bickering the entire time a bit i just love these two they are fantastic starline opens a portal back to the faceship and is still pretty pissed eggy quite used to these failures just as whatever who cares starline's saying that with all the commotion he didn't get to memorize the working frequency but he does recall the range so they could start from there but eggman says why why bother starline understandably asks excuse me and eggman points out that it's too risky to use it at such a close range besides the metal virus is most likely already adapting to resist it and i'm not gonna go through all of that again just for something that's not gonna work which to be fair is sound reasoning and starline finally seems to agree but follows up by asking well what are we going to do next the eggman's basically like i don't know i'll think of something don't worry about it well with starline's look on his face you can tell uh he's kind of made up his mind about enacting another plan but we cut back over to sonic who has become much shinier since we last saw him he is beyond exhausted and full of regret as he sees zombots begin to swarm around him he finally notices that his data analyzer is destroyed and his guilt overtakes him as the metal virus begins to as well he wasn't able to protect the data analyzer he hasn't been able to protect his friends he put the faith in the idea that everyone has a little good in them and eggman has made him pay for it every day as he turns we see his eyes begin to turn red but sonic being sonic is not about to give up and blasts on out of the town we see flakes of the virus begin to shave off him as he once again shoots off through a field seeing that he can't give up he's got to find a way to protect his friends and keep him safe he's screwed up a lot but he still has time to make things right and again we're seeing something we rarely ever see in sonic media he's run to the point of exhaustion i love this line like he feels like he's going to collapse is this what everyone else feels like after a run and at this point amy makes contact with him catches him up with everything that's been going on while he's been away restoration hq has fallen tail's lab has been destroyed and now they're on their way to spiral hill village to help evacuate it and poor exhausted sonic says to himself man oh man i guess the good news is things officially can't get any worse so now all of our characters are all caught up in their particular stories and now we're gonna carry on forward as sonic arrives at spiral hill village saying that the first time he was here it was under attack by eggman and it doesn't look like things have changed the little hints of the metal virus on the surrounding vegetation shows us that it's already hit the town and since we already covered that annual we know that was the case as well sonic blasts on through some zombots noticing that restoration hq is already here and uh they all look a little uh well cheerful isn't the right word probably every other word opposite of cheerful that was that's probably the best way to describe how they're all looking right now sonic scopes the perimeter to see who needs help first and takes a look at espio and says yeah probably could use a little bit of assistance and as a zombot horde begins to overwhelm sbo sonic comes in and saves the day once that's cleared the two boys have a moment to catch up sonic joking hey you fighting the whole town by yourself and that feels like well our numbers have grown thin and spo basically lays out what all the other characters are doing to help get survivors out of this town but as espio goes through the list of folks sonic notices that he doesn't mention vector and that's where espio catches sonic up on that let him know that vector got infected back at restoration hq and begins to blame himself saying that he should never have let vector bring charmy back to restoration it's my fault and sonic tries to console him saying no man you can't but espio snaps on sonic because he isn't blaming himself for vector coming back with charming to restoration hq he's blaming himself for letting sonic convince him to leave eggman in windmill village sonic responds saying that that was mr tinker there's no way to know that starlin would bring him back to his eggman persona and espo responds and if we had dealt with him then we wouldn't have anything to worry about sonic quips back so what we have to assume the worst about everyone and everything show no mercy to anyone no second chances and the two just look at each other this is not the time or the place for this particular debate espio is pissed as hell but as he says there are people to save sonic turns his back saying yep see at the shuttle sonic gets back to work taking down zombots and containing them and notices a little backup from whisper the wolf good to see ya here and they give each other a thumbs up he then carries on over to finally catch up with amy and uh if you'll notice here a few of the survivors are looking a little pissed at him i wonder why they have their cute little back and forth but long and short of it sonic just wants to know where he's needed amy basically again lays out what everybody else is doing which we've already done and sonic summarizes it pretty shortly so he's got to cover the escape out of the town gotcha he's gonna go find tangle and see if she's got any ideas this is her hometown after all so she's obviously the first person to talk to about roots for evacuation stuff of that nature but before he goes tails and cream catch up to him tails desperate for any kind of hope as sonic if he still has the data recorder stashed somewhere and sonic and tells him what happened with eggman the data analyzer is destroyed and tails trying his best to hold back tears says it's fine without his lab or the headquarters he wouldn't have been able to synthesize a vaccine anyway so our heroes are about as hopeless as they've been so far in this story but we're not done here amy exhausted does her best to tell tales to focus on the now tail says it's whatever we couldn't find anybody else anyway everyone's become zombots we see a little more amy die on the inside well then it's time to go signal the retreat we gotta get out of here and sonic gets back to his original plan he's gonna at least find tangle and coordinate with her tails is gonna go off and find spo and whisper and as the boys rush off general approaches amy who says amy rose i performed a scan on sonic and amy just poor kills exhausted he says yeah i know he's infected we've known that for a minute and he says correct however he's run calculations on the level of infection he's exhibiting and it's higher than the previous estimates should allow amy's had it she's like what are you getting at man in general reveals that sonic's speed is losing its ability to hold back his own virus so even if sonic could miraculously stay awake forever the virus is mutating to a point where even his speed is not going to matter for much longer and uh now we cut over the tangle because you know we really we really need a little bright bit of sunshine at this point and you can't do much better than her and she's cleverly holding back zombots by using little stools to protect her feet from infection i don't know why the soles of her shoes can't do that but whatever doesn't matter so yeah she's just talking until sonic finally arrives and asks her hey anyone need a rescue and tangle says nah i'm fine sonic informs her that amy's calling for a retreat but the minute we stop causing a ruckus in town and tangle finishes the sentence the zombots will head for the big noisy shuttle not good but restorations manage to cover just about every avenue except for this one sonic asks her does she have any ideas on how to plug this particular bottleneck and tangle everett optimus says yeah sure do step one you pick me up step two i wrap my tail around one of the lamp posts step three you wind us between the lamp posts and i use my tail as a tripwire look how she's drawn here i love how expressive this is god look at this art this is amazing and sonic points out the one and only flaw of this plan if they do that she'll get infected but tangle hey she ain't worried about it she says already got it covered she went and checked on jewel the instant she arrived in town and she was already infected and got the jump on her and casually points out that she's been infected and she really doesn't have a whole lot longer and sonic just apologizes to her tangle says why it's not your fault song's like isn't it if i just listen to shadow or spo or if i hadn't let metal sonic go but tangle interrupts him by punching a zombot with her tail and says that you didn't bring eggman back that was starline you made sure metal was harmless eggman weaponized him again song says yeah and i haven't been able to protect my friends or anybody tangle says yeah and nobody's guarding that shuttle full of nothing and sonic responds you're not gonna let this thing get to you arya and she has a triumphant never because you're sonic the hedgehog you'll set this right i know you will now less moping and more moving so with that he picks up tangle she grabs a lamp post and they crisscross between a whole set of them to create a tripwire and tickle says that should be enough to at least get the shuttle out of there and says tell the others i'm sorry especially whisper song says thanks for everything and they give one last hug and something we've never seen from this character before a tear rolls down tangle's face and then turns her face before sonic can see saying hey get a move on told you i got this and sonic understanding turns his back to leave it to tinker who then wipes away that tear and gets back to fighting zombots sonic catches up with the rest of restoration hq saying let's get going i'll write on the outside and amy asks where's tangle sonic says she got infected she's staying behind to cover all of us she said she was sorry but heroes have nothing to be sorry about and while we will pick that particular line apart later the more important takeaway for the rest of the crew is that tangles infected and we see the reactions of amy cream tails sbo and whisper and our quiet little wolf completely breaks down and again we all know this is all gonna wrap up just fine good guys will win in the end there's no actual violence or death it's a kid's story but it's moments like this that really hit you to your core where you see these fun cartoony colorful characters react in the most human way possible to pain and loss and the grief of whisper is so severe that her namesake no longer applies her closed eyes are wide open with tears flooding freely her mouth a gape with her fangs bared screaming for her friend let's give it up for the art here again because the emotion is so raw she stops looking like any other cartoon character she looks almost animalistic in her pain and after everything we've seen between those two characters and their relationship form especially with the mini-series this this one is really hard amy tries her best to hold whisper back telling sonic to help and he can't he can't touch anybody he can't do anything and that's when whispers wisps come shooting out of her wispon and drag her onto the shuttle i gotta tell you 10 years ago playing sonic colors i never would once think that one of the most emotionally raw moments of the sonic franchise would contain the wisps it's um man this is rough they drag her on board with amy giving one last command to get out of there and sonic silently jumps on afterwards we cut back to the perspective of tangle who is still holding on as long as she can she gives a little smirk and says don't keep me waiting too long and then gets right back to it by punching zombots in the face and the virus begins to creep up her tail and right onto her booty she's like oh that's unpleasant and she looks onto the horde even though the virus still spreads she says that she's still standing still fighting still and as she throws out one last punch it falls short just an inch before a zombot's face and tangle finally has turned joining the rest of the mindless zombot ore that were once her neighbors and sonic just looks on and cream despite losing everything despite being dead on the inside holds a grieving crying whisper as the most optimistic cheerful member of the idw sonic crew has fallen so yeah through all four of these issues you keep feeling like it just can't get worse but then it's one emotional gut punch after the other and it all happens at the same time we had to wait month after month to watch all of this happen but all of these losses happened to sonic and his friends all in one bell swoop and we're not done just yet as we cut back to starline and eggman starline says doctor i have found a solution to the ongoing problem of not being able to control the zombots and eggman says i told you i would figure something out stop pestering me and with that final dismissive comment we see starline's resolution to enact his own plan and activates the warp topaz to bring in the worst ska band to ever hit the world that's right kids the characters that nobody ever wanted to see again have finally returned but that is all we are going to cover today that was a lot of stuff and i uh i need a break i don't know about the rest of you but man that was tough to read through again especially after everything else that's happened in the real world goodness gracious so hang tight kids because we will be back very soon with more sonic speed reading and the third and final act of the metal virus thank you all for sitting through this extra long video thank you to my patrons who support me over on patreon look at all these amazing people rolling through the credit list the show has been made because of their help so could not do it without you guys i cannot thank you enough if you want to talk about this a little bit more we got a whole discord server go check that out go bother me on twitter whatever you want to do i'm going to get right back to work on this show and some other stuff i got working so see you guys back here very soon 2-2 sonic warriors you

Channel: Game Apologist

Views: 177,236

Rating: 4.9660168 out of 5

Keywords: game apologist, sonic speed reading, metal virus, part 6, zombot tangle, zombot sonic, deadly six, zavok, eggman, dr. starline, nick, idw sonic, ian flynn, metal virus saga, metal virus sonic, sonic comic, sonic anniversary, 30th anniversary, sonic 2022, tails, sonic adventure 2, amy rose, zombot charmy, sonic vs espio, espio, vector, zombot vector, gemerl, cream the rabbit, idw metal virus, sega, modern sonic, whisper the wolf, tangle and whisper, vanilla zombot, faceship

Id: iJ-UG5uWXJw

Length: 40min 28sec (2428 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 01 2021