The Mighty Story ▸ Sonic's Oldest Buddy?

hey folks welcome today we're profiling one of the oldest sonic the hedgehog characters out there a character who faded into obscurity for decades before making a triumphant return to prominence in the last few years i'm talking about might of the armadillo possibly the world's second most famous armadillo after the holiday armadillo of course in this video we'll be going over absolutely everything there is to say about mighty from his origins in 1992 through his various comic book appearances and into the modern day with his return in sonic mania plus in 2018 one of the central themes here is how mighty was portrayed a little differently in western media compared to how sega of japan have always viewed the character i always closely associated him with the chaotix but in the games that link is pretty tenuous please feel free to share your thoughts on mighty's various different portrayals with me in the comments i'd love to hear about your views right let's get started mighty first appeared in sega sonic the hedgehog an arcade game originally released in 1993. mighty is one of three playable characters alongside sonic the hedgehog and ray the flying squirrel the game looks great with its bold and cartoony style but it's relatively obscure it was controlled by a trackball and action button despite plans to port the game over to the sega 32x or for the game to be included as part of sonic gems collections problems with the trackball control scheme have ensured this obscure gem has never enjoyed a re-release the fact that it wasn't widely distributed in the first place particularly outside of japan means that this is probably one of the rarer sonic games now mighty was originally designed by manabu kusunoki he added an armadillo and flying squirrel into the game as sonic's buddies because he felt they were relatively obscure animals and proportionally felt like they'd look fairly similar to sonic having each central character a different primary color also makes for a great visual choice too all three characters incidentally control exactly the same in the game there's no gameplay differences between them manabu might have designed mighty but he first really came to life in this piece of concept art by naoto oshima which is thought to originate from 1992 the piece also depicts two other friends of sonic vector the crocodile and max the parrot vector and max also known as sharps the parakeet were originally part of the sonic the hedgehog band find out more about them in my sonic the hedgehog iceberg video this piece of art would actually appear in the april 1992 edition of the shogaku gonansai sonic manga making it mighty's public facing debut the manga is a bit of a weird topic because a lot of the original run has been lost to the sands of time and isn't available online anywhere so whether mighty played a bigger part in the series i don't know back to the arcade game we don't really get much characterization for mighty and ray on the character select screen mighty has a bit of a scowl and flexes his arm which i think gave rise to his western portrayal as a bit of a tough guy it's worth noting that one animation in the game used when mighty falls from a great height shows him losing his shell if you ever wondered what was under there this game also had voice acting so mighty was one of the first sonic characters to get a voice now manabu has said that he originally had a backstory for mighty but can't remember it so that's where some headcanon comes in i once saw a semi-convincing theory that the sega sonic the hedgehog arcade game is actually a prequel to the original sonic the hedgehog game the main piece of evidence is the first cut scene which shows robotnik quite easily kidnapping sonic mighty and rey from their home island which might well be christmas island it's a fairly flimsy theory but it's one that i like and one that i roll with hence my declaration that mighty is one of sonic's oldest friends this theory incidentally is also covered in my iceberg video mighty's second video game appearance was not actually knuckles chaotix rather it was a sega saturn game called gale racer as one of the game's many sonic themed dangling keychains cute mighty's next and one of his most well-known game appearances was in knuckles chaotix released in 1995 for the sega 32x he appeared as a playable character alongside a large cast of characters that also included knuckles vector espio charmi and two robots called bomb and heavy the release of knuckles chaotix was the first time that i personally heard about mighty the central gimmick of knuckles chaotix is that you play as two characters at once connected by two rings that act as a kind of elastic band you can use this elastic band style constraint to launch your pair of characters super fast while the game allows you to pick one character the other is chosen via a little crane game so there's an element of randomness as to who you'll end up playing as each character has their own unique ability my tease is this little wall jump i've heard some suggest that it's the worst ability in the game especially because characters like knuckles and vector can already climb up walls but i really like it i think it adds a certain level of speed to the way that mighty plays as it turns out mighty's inclusion in knuckles chaotix is a bit of an oddity the game originally started life as sonic crackers a short prototype from 1994 featuring sonic and tails connected by two rings and an elasticated connection at some point in 94 and 95 the concept was expanded upon and morphed into knuckles chaotix but there's evidence to suggest that sonic and tails were planned to appear as playable characters in knuckles chaotix but were removed for unknown reasons mighty's sprites look incredibly similar to sonic's and if you access the level select menu you can select your character there's a weird extra character option that if chosen results in a glitchy character which many assume was originally intended to be tails before he was scrapped thus mighty and this glitchy mess are thought to be the remnants of sonic and tails don't worry we'll talk about that glitchy mess in more detail at some point sonic and tails do actually cameo at the end of the game rather infamously sonic has tan legs which always looks a bit weird in short though what this all means is that mighty was never really intended to be a chaotix team member he was a last minute inclusion in the game but the irony is a lot of fans had their opinions of mighty shaped by media that portrayed him as a core member of team chaotix over in the uk for example mighty was a central part of team chaotix in sonic the comic from the 1990s he first appeared in issue 53 from 1995 as a member of the chaotix crew a team of heroes who operate almost exclusively in the interdimensional special zone the team also originally included knack the weasel too in sonic the comic mighty is hot-headed and quite easy to anger incredibly strong and often at odds with espio with whom he maintains a kind of friendly rivalry chaotix crew in sonic the comic kinda remind me of the teenage mutant ninja turtles with mighty being similar to raphael probably the most interesting thing about sonic the comics mighty is the fact that he has a dad blockhead built blockhead bill first appears as a villain in issue 134 riding a dinosaur and crashing through new tech city the capital of the special zone bill has a prominent mustache and quite a southern american style of speaking he's evidently inspired by yosemite sam from looney tunes bill and his dinosaur pal have mistook sonic for another villain called the crimson cobra perhaps a sign of how old and senile bill is after all later in the story bill also talks about his brother but mighty has to remind him that he doesn't have one bill also has terrible eyesight because he can't see that sonic is actually blue when mighty and the chaotix arrive on the scene mighty manages to calm his father down the dinosaur also transforms into a gentlemanly lizard called society max who reveals himself to be bill's business partner he has the ability to transform into the angry dinosaur beast when fed a mandrake root it turns out that bill is actually under the control of an ancient creature called root who resides in the swamps of the special zone bill and max were captured when searching the swamp for mandrake roots and put under the control of the nefarious route root also captures and brainwashes the chaotix too using a little mind route when they come to look for bill root's master plan is to enslave the citizens of new tech city and turn it into a swamp sonic manages to single-handedly get rid of the mind route freeing chaotix and bill and max from their mental slavery sonic defeats root and saves the day now one interesting build detail is that comic writer and artist nigel kitching later alluded online to him being in a homosexual relationship with max though this wasn't made explicit in the comics let's get back to the games for a second after knuckles chaotix the next time that the chaotix appeared as a unit together was in sonic heroes in they appeared as a trio however with no mighty in sight each team in sonic heroes had a strong a flying and a speedy character you would have thought mighty would be perfect as the strong character in team chaotix but that role went to vector the crocodile instead a few years back it was revealed that mighty was considered for sonic heroes but he was going to be teamed up with ray the squirrel and metal sonic i guess that shows the difference of representation of mighty between japan and the west it seems like sega of japan always associated mighty with rey while fleetway and archie comics made us western fans think of him as a chaotix member next i've talked about this a lot in my team hooligan series of videos but mighty appears next in sonic generations which was released in 2011. he appears on missing posters alongside rey in the classic city escape zone the posters actually misspell armadillo hey we all make mistakes but it also says missing since 1993 which completely ignores mighty's appearance in knuckles chaotix in 95. i guess the date hammers home the previous point that mighty was never considered a member of the chaotix team in the canon of the games which is a little bit sad i've saved archie for now because it straddled the line for much of the comic's early run mighty was part of the chaotix but in its later years he separated from the group and became much more closely associated with rey mighty's archie background is surprisingly dark and grim he and his sister matilda were born to parents who were thieves they were sent to prison in mighty's childhood for their crimes a young mighty brokered a deal with the villainous mammoth mogul gaining his immense strength making him one of the strongest beings in the world of archie sonic mighty hoped that gaining this strength could help him free his parents but he failed to rescue them and would be exiled from his home after wandering mobius mighty would end up being taken prisoner by dr robotnik and conscripted to work in power gem mine it was there that he met rey and a young sonic sonic led a resistance that freed himself mighty and others but in the fraca mighty and sonic ended up separated mighty would end up finding some peace on angel island alongside vector and knuckles though when angel island was attacked by dr robotnik a team known as chaotix was formed to protect the island and the master emerald with mighty being a key member of the team mighty would remain a part of chaotix for quite a while fighting as one of them against a whole host of different baddies later mighty found himself in the employee of nick the weasel knapp's sister he was conscripted to help recover an old treasure in return for information about rey's whereabouts much to mighty's delight rey was found alongside the treasure mighty kind of departed the chaotix and became even closer to rey when he found out that his long-lost sister was indeed alive and well somewhere ray accompanied mighty on the quest to find his sister his sister matilda had her own traumatic backstory after being separated from mighty and her parents as a child she was roboticized then liberated and then became one of a troupe of cybernetic guardians protecting oil ocean refinery on behalf of dr robotnik mighty experienced a little more trauma when he finally reunited with matilda because she emotionlessly told him she had no memory nor feelings for him though she would later come around and open her heart to her brother in sonic universe issue 48 mighty experienced a little redesign at the hands of artist and writer elea baker that would stick for the rest of his archie run mighty had a lot of accessories added like hefty boots and fingerless gloves that i believe was intended to give him more of a rough and tumble adventurer look in my opinion it makes his design look a little too busy and it kind of looks like it was ripped straight out of sonic boom but i appreciate the effort to give mighty more personality in the comics later years mighty was primarily associated with rey and mighty's relationship with rey mirrored sonics with tales mighty viewed rey as an adopted little brother figure it's a nice way of giving their relationship some real gravitas right at the tail end of the comics lifespan in 2017 the comic experienced a hard reset and began retelling the story of the original games a direct comic adaption of the sega sonic the hedgehog arcade game was planned but never saw the light of day the comic finished and was decommissioned before this issue was released in the summer of 2017 a little game you might have heard of called sonic mania released sonic mania was a nostalgic experience for many fans and was hailed as one of the best sonic games ever a year later the game received an expansion sonic mania plus which added two new playable characters mighty and ray the game also included a new encore mode which is used to introduce the two new additions at the start of encore mode sonic returns to angel island zone apparently after helping the resistance in sonic forces sonic chases the phantom ruby which is sonic mania's primary macguffin through the jungle and to a capsule in which mighty and ray are trapped the player has the chance to free them and then team up with one of them whichever character the player doesn't pick ends up being the heavy magician in disguise what i really love about the sonic series is how much passion fans have for the characters takashi izuka a key producer director and designer at sonic team stated that if it weren't for the success of the nostalgic sonic mania mighty and rey would have never returned in an interview about sonic mania plus izuka described mighty as a sealed character who he thought would never see the light of day again this is a good example of why fan enthusiasm is good without support for mighty he might have been consigned to the dustbin of history mighty has a couple of unique abilities in sonic mania interestingly his wall jump move from knuckles chaotix doesn't make a return but because of the defensive nature of his shell he's able to bounce off obstacles like spikes that damage other characters which makes him slightly more forgiving to play as he also has his hammer drop maneuver which is kind of like a ground pound it's fun to hammer drop onto badniks but in all honesty it's not as fun as his wall jump mighty is also capable of turning into super mighty if he collects all seven chaos emeralds like all of the characters in super form mighty's speed increases and he becomes invulnerable to damage his shell also flashes too i still find it kind of weird when relatively minor characters like mighty pull off something like this it makes me think that literally every sonic character could have a super form but we've only ever seen a small handful of them the great thing about mighty's sonic mania return is that it's kind of opened the floodgates a little mighty has been appearing all over the place in sonic media ever since for example mighty appeared in a few of the short sonic mania adventure animations written and directed by the wonderful titan hess to coincide with sonic mania plus's release in sonic mania adventures we get to see another taste of mighty's immense strength as he throws hefty rocks at metal sonic just think these three were gonna team up in sonic heroes the only problem with mighty's renaissance is that he's been designated a classic character you see since sonic generations there's been a bit of a timeline split between the world and characters of classic and modern sonic so despite the fact that chaotics exist in the world of modern sonic i doubt we'll ever see mighty make the jump and appear in a modern 3d sonic game anytime soon which is a massive shame at least we have minecraft mighty recently appeared as a playable skin in the sonic minecraft dlc from 2021 which is a nice treat look he's even right there with the chaotix too i think this is the closest he'll ever get to being with the chaotix again fortunately though mighty's return in sonic mania has ensured he's become a recurring fixture in official sonic art in the last few years including appearing in this piece which appears to show a slice of a modern interpretation of mighty which is quite exciting mighty has also made a couple of appearances in the ongoing idw comic books within the confines of the comics classic universe he's been used sparingly but i like what i've seen of idw mighty he's tough confident and likeable and that is just about everything there is to say about mighty the armadillo it's great that e zooka and co allowed mighty to make a comeback there are so many sonic characters and it's unrealistic to ask for all of them all the time but it's nice to see some obscure ones popping up every now and again for some time in the sun like i said earlier let me know your takes on mighty what's his best luck is he sonic's oldest buddy is he a core chaotix member to you thanks for watching and hopefully i'll see you next time [Music]

Channel: Johnny Vector

Views: 234,979

Keywords: mighty, mighty the armadillo, mighty the armadillo theme, mighty the armadillo sonic mania, mighty the armadillo comic dub, mighty the armadillo and ray the flying squirrel, mighty sonic, mighty sonic mania, mighty sonic character, mighty and ray, mighty minecraft, mighty knuckles chaotix, knuckles chaotix, sonic mania plus mighty, team chaotix, chaotix, chaotix crew, blockhead bill, society max, mighty armadillo, sonic arcade game, sonic archie comics, segasonic the hedgehog

Id: A4kQ1PsfbGw

Length: 19min 41sec (1181 seconds)

Published: Sun May 22 2022