REVIEW: DC X Sonic the Hedgehog: Metal Legion #4

DC x Sonic the Hedgehog: Metal Legion #4 has me wishing that Dr. Eggman was this cool in the video games as he unleashed the Metal Legion. There’s no race to anything, no special thing to retrieve, it’s just the personal beef this made scientist has with Sonic, his friends, and the Justice League.

Pablo M. Collar’s cover features The Flash and Sonic with new Justice Leaguers and Sonic Teamers who didn’t appear in the prequel series. For the time being, their appearances a have been modest but judging by the cover they’ll become major players really soon. We also get a really important development –Cheese’ DC counterpart is Krypto and he’s wearing a little dog costume.

Min Ho Kim’s variant could be a children’s Valentine’s Day card it’s so cute. Again, there is a Chao running around dressed as a dog –very important. I love the manga-inspired looks for Supergirl, Superman, and The Flash. Sonic manga is very much a real thing, and their art style doesn’t need to be changed at all to look the part.

Danielel Di Nicuolo’s variant comes just in time for Green Lantern month. Like Min Ho Kim’s cover, backgrounds are minimal and it’s all about the characters. I love how in this series Silver gets to interact more with the Corps as one of them.

Sonic, his friends, and the Justice League are storming the Legion of Doom’s headquarters that has been commandeered by Eggman as he unleashes the Metal Legion; robotic copies of the Legion members in true Metal Sonic-style. As a bonus, he also threw in one designed after Azrael Batman; Metal Knightfall. He’s also decked his Luthor-inspired suit to be able stand up to Superman and has tons of drones redirecting attacks like Lantern constructs. Basically, the set-up of a perfect boss battle. What follows is an all-out brawl between the heroes and the Metal Legion. Guess this was what the title advertised. Eggman and Superman wallop each other, Shadow (in true Shadow fashion) must conquer the Metal Knightfall, and our heroes must go head-to-head with these machines designed after their enemies.

Ian Flynn puts all these characters in a room together and makes them fight. That’s all there is to this issue, and it’s glorious. Eggman is a boss (pun intended) in every sense of the word here as he adapts Lexcorp and Legion tech to his advantage. What’s more, he’s directly challenging Superman in this one. He’s basically taken Lex’s war suit and improved it, that combined with technology that can match Sonic makes him a huge threat. Shadow also sums up how he would handle the Knightfall arc, he wouldn’t break. Letters are by Becca Carey.

Adam Bryce Thomas, with colors by Matt Herms, simply spoil the readers this month with not one, but three two-page spreads –one of which features Superman and Eggman punching at each other (I want a poster of that). Superman actually has kind of prominent role in this one action-wise so it’s very satisfying to see. In fact, every character gets their moment here. This time around, how they are handled seems much more toon-like, in a good way (like a Saturday morning cartoon). The only question remains is that, with the Metal Legion revealed? What else is there to face in the next two issues?

(9/10) DC x Sonic the Hedgehog: Metal Legion #4 is what happens when Eggman is set to nightmare mode. With the entire issue dedicated to a singular battle, it’s hard to not keep turning the pages. I deeply appreciate the Superman action.