Sonic the Hedgehog (IDW Publishing)

Sonic the Hedgehog is an ongoing American comic book series based on the Sega video game franchise, published by IDW Publishing. It is the third licensed comic book iteration based on Sega's Sonic the Hedgehog intellectual property, after Fleetway Publications' Sonic the Comic and Archie Comics' Sonic the Hedgehog series.

Publication history
On July 21, 2017, IDW Publishing announced a deal with Sega to produce a new series of Sonic comics after the cancellation of the Sonic the Hedgehog comic series by Archie Comics after a 24-year run. The new series began with a four-week long event where the first four issues were released each week in April 2018, followed by a monthly release of subsequent issues starting in May 2018. Archie Sonic writer Ian Flynn was later confirmed to return as the series' lead writer, alongside artist Tyson Hesse. In an interview with Game Informer, Flynn established that IDW Sonic is a brand-new continuity with no connection to the Sonic the Hedgehog comic series by Archie Comics.

During New York Comic Con 2017, Ian Flynn confirmed that characters old and new would be featured in the series, hinting that characters from the games and the original comics might possibly return. In January 2018, IDW revealed that Tracy Yardley, who originally worked on Archie's Sonic the Hedgehog comics, would be one of the pencillers for the IDW series.

On April 14, 2020, it was announced that Evan Stanley, one of the series' artists, would be writing for the series.

On June 28, 2020, two original characters from the series, Tangle the Lemur and Whisper the Wolf, were announced to appear in the Sonic mobile game Sonic Forces: Speed Battle as part of its events, with them doing so next month. Surge the Tenrec would also join Speed Battle on November 21, 2023. Merchandise, including a plush toy, of the former two have been released also. Tangle was also briefly mentioned in the 2022 Sonic game Sonic Frontiers. It is confirmed by the Lore Manager Chris Hernandez that the comics are canon to the games.

In November 2023, Sonic editor David Mariotte announced that the series would be taking a hiatus in 2024 until the miniseries Sonic the Hedgehog: Fang the Hunter is concluded.

On July 3rd, 2024, a crossover between the Sonic The Hedgehog comic book series and an unknown third party franchise is announced to be in the works, with more details to be revealed in the coming months.

Synopsis
The comic follows the adventures of Sonic and his friends (old and new) as they thwart Doctor Eggman and other villains.

In a story set during the classic era, Sonic, Tails, Knuckles and Amy Rose work together with Mighty The Armadillo and Ray The Flying Squirrel to find the Seven Chaos Emeralds, which are being hunted by Metal Sonic, Metal Knuckles, Tails Doll and the Hooligans. Doctor Eggman arrives and explains that Heavy King has gone rogue, taken control of his badniks and his base, and sent the robots after the Chaos Emeralds. This prompts Sonic and the Hooligans to team up with Eggman to get inside the base and take Heavy King down and recover the Chaos Emeralds. Sonic distracts Heavy King with his trademark teasing while his friends and rivals gather the Chaos Emeralds, and Eggman uses Tails Doll to regain control of Metal Sonic and Metal Knuckles, and his enemies leave before he has a chance to send his mechanical minions after them. Sonic, Knuckles, Tails, Amy, Mighty, Ray and the Hooligans go their seperate ways, taking a Chaos Emerald each, before Sonic runs off to his next adventure.

A while later, on Flicky Island, Sonic was captured by The Witchcarters, Tails' oldest enemies, who are rounding up every single Flicky on the Island so that Witchcart could use them to enhance her evil magic. But Tails defeats her, saves Sonic and the Flickies and the island, then they head off to their next adventure.

In Flower Field Zone, Amy and her animal friends were about to start a party when she shows her Tarot cards, remembering how they played a part in her first meeting with Sonic. But then Metal Sonic arrives, much to Amy's terror, and as she hides until Metal Sonic leaves, she is assuming that Doctor Eggman might be up to something terrible. Using her Tarot Cards, Amy sets out to stop whatever he's planning with help from a Flicky. One by one, she rescues her friends and rivals, including Fang The Hunter, Ray The Flying Squirrel and Bark The Polar Bear, each one unexpectedly matching half of the traits based on the cryptic descriptions from each one of her cards. Eventually, with help from Ray and Bark, Amy travels to Eggman Island, defeats Metal Sonic and traps him in a capsule and saves Sonic, Bean The Duck and Mighty The Armadillo. Later, at the party, Amy realizes that the cards weren't describing the people she saved, but were describing Amy herself. Her friends cheer her for her astounding bravery.

Fang and his boys try to capture Sonic, but end up failing both hilariously and horribly. Fang explains to Sonic they were trying to catch him because he thinks he might know something about an eighth Chaos Emerald. Sonic doesn't really believe it, since he's collected Seven Chaos Emeralds before and thought Fang was referring to the Master Emerald. After The Hooligans begrudgingly leave, Tails tells Sonic that one of Eggman's battleships attacked South Island and then just disappeared into thin air. Interested, Sonic heads with Tails to investigate. Meanwhile, The Hooligans head to Angel Island in hopes that Knuckles might know something about the Eighth Chaos Emerald. But Knuckles subtly captures Bean and Bark, prompting Fang to challenge Knuckles to a fight. Sonic and Tails track down the battleship, and witness it disappear, much to Sonic's rage and Tails' shock. They head back home to investigate further. Fang frees Bean and Bark and questions Knuckles about the Eighth Chaos Emerald, but don't get any answers from him and leave. Bean and Bark soon question their loyalties to Fang, since they've always had bad luck with their capers thanks to Fang's selfishness and overconfidence, but Fang brushes it off as they arrive at Newtrogic High Zone, where they are captured by Doctor Eggman. In his lab, Tails creates a device that can help him and Sonic find out where the ship keeps disappearing and reappearing, much to Sonic's delight, since he was getting bored. After Fang tells Eggman about the fabeled Eighth Chaos Emerald, Eggman forces him and his boys to help him out after he himself explains that The Hard Boiled Heavies went rogue again after testing a mysterious object that keeps warping the Heavy Ship to random locations, and that he will pay them handsomely in return for retrieving the ship. With data given to them by Eggman, The Hooligans catch the ship warping just now, and sneak onto the ship, where they discover that the object is not the Eighth Chaos Emerald, but the poweful Warp Topaz. The Heavies catch them and reveal that Eggman sent them to excavate for new powerful gems and stumbled upon the Warp Topaz, and never really needed to report this, and deliberately ignored Eggman's orders to return to port so that they can use the Warp Topaz for themselves, and confirms that the Eighth Chaos Emerald never existed at all. The Hooligans, upset over a wild goose chase, The Hooligans defeat the Heavies and escape from the Heavy Ship, using the Warp Topaz to make a hasty retreat, while Sonic and Tails destroy the reactor and take the ship down. With Heavy King defeated and facing gruesome punishment from Eggman, Bean and Bark, fed up with Fang's reckless antics and that they nearly got killed over something that isn't real, quit, much to Fang's chagrin. Fang is then contacted by Eggman and requests his services in investigating a set of strange islands that he found, which Fang agrees to.

Years later, sometime After the end of the war, Eggman has genuinely lost his memory and ended up in a remote village where he has taken on the more friendly moniker of Mr. Tinker. Sonic learns that Neo Metal Sonic is now leading the Badniks, plotting to take over the world in Eggman's stead. While Sonic and his friends fight Neo Metal Sonic and his army on Angel Island, an Eggman admirer named Starline kidnaps Mr. Tinker and successfully reverts him back to Eggman after a defeated Metal Sonic returns to him.

While Tangle helps Whisper apprehend her former comrade turned criminal Mimic, Eggman hatches a new scheme involving the Metal Virus, which turns organic material into mindless robots dubbed "Zombots", but it quickly mutates beyond his control. Starline brings in the Deadly Six in hopes that they can control the Zombots, but they betray him. This leads to a falling-out between Starline and Eggman and forces the latter to help Sonic and his friends cure the world.

Afterwards, Sonic and company decide to fix E-123 Omega, whose body was destroyed during the plague. Sonic and Tails investigate an Eggman base to find the blueprints while Rouge, Amy, Cream, and Cheese enter a competition to win parts; the former group discovers a peaceful Badnik created by Mr. Tinker named Belle while the latter comes into conflict with former crime boss Clutch. Meanwhile, Starline, hoping to regain Eggman's respect and rejoin him by proving his own superiority, sets his own plans in motion by allying himself with villains like Zavok and stalking Sonic's friends. Zavok reunites the Deadly Six and they attack the Restoration's home base, but are defeated and banished to their homeworld of Lost Hex.

From the bio-data he has collected, Starline creates Surge and Kitsunami, two cyborgs meant to replace Sonic and Tails and end the status quo between them and Eggman. Upon learning that he has been conditioning them and wiping their memories to create their personalities and being unable to find any trace of their past, Surge and Kit vow to destroy all heroes and villains. Starline, oblivious, moves to accomplish his vision by conquering the Eggman Empire's new capital, Eggperial City, which is expanding itself until it covers the entire planet, and lures Sonic, Tails, and Belle there. However, Eggman defeats Starline and leaves him to die, while Kit flees with Surge in tow after several defeats incapacitate her. Eggman himself is subsequently defeated, and Eggperial City destroyed, by the Restoration and their allies.

Sonic and his friends later went on their own adventures, like getting rid of an unstable Warp Topaz, challenging the Babylon Rogues in a sports tournament for their place at the beach near Green Hill, tracking down and recovering a stockpile of Halloween candy from a group of greedy kids, competing in a Winter-themed reality-game-show-styled competition hosted by Orbot and Cubot and exposing the culprit behind an attempted sabotage in a flower contest during the Spring Fair.

Meanwhile, Clutch, having been inspired by his encounter with Sonic and his friends, came out of retirement to challenge the new generation of heroes while also managing his company, Clean Sweep Inc., a shady corporation that salvages and sells Eggman's technology after each battle. Seeing that the Restoration does the same thing, but for free and destroys the materials after they recover them, Clutch hatches a scheme to take control the Restoration in order to eliminate his competition. He recruits Mimic, who is trying to lay low after Starline broke him out, and convinces him to infiltrate the Restoration under the guise of a cat named Duo after informing him of a new group bearing his old crew's moniker, The Diamond Cutters, and gives him the opportunity to settle the score with his old adversaries. Clutch also recruits Surge and Kit after revealing himself to be an old associate of Starline and falsely promises to give them the details of who they were before their torture and transformation at Starline's hands if they help him achieve his goals, prompting Surge and Kit to simply go to the Restoration under the cover that they want to accept Sonic's offer of being given a second chance. Clutch also temporarily recruits the Babylon Rogues to steal some artifacts from Angel Island as a ruse to distract Knuckles and The Chaotix away from the Restoration while he makes a deal with Jewel to have his company go into a partnership with the Restoration.

During an Extreme Gear event called the Clean Sweepstakes, Clutch has his allies sabotage Sonic, Tails and Amy's gear to get them disqualified from the race and ensure they don't find out what he's up to. Assuming that there's something shady about Clean Sweep Inc., Sonic makes a deal with Eggman, who was furious about Clean Sweep Inc. not only making profit off of his creations, but also mocking him on live TV, to have Sonic compete in the race disguised as a renegade Gear rider named The Phantom Rider as a diversion to get rid of most of Clean Sweep's security while Tails and Amy sneak onto the Restoration's shuttle, where a mere fraction of their suspicions are confirmed when they find Belle tied up and shoved into a locker. Meanwhile, Sonic's ruse as the Phantom Rider humilates the Babylon Rogues, despite them claiming victory, and Surge and Kit are seen by the public as heroes for stopping the Rider...

Characters
New characters to the series include:
 * Tangle the Lemur – an energetic ring-tailed lemur who can elongate her tail for use in combat. She joins the reformed Diamond Cutters with Whisper, and Lanolin.
 * Whisper the Wolf – a reserved wolf who uses a Wisp-powered rifle and becomes Tangle's best friend. She was formerly a member of an anti-Eggman mercenary group called the Diamond Cutters. She eventually reforms the Diamond Cutters with Tangle, and Lanolin.
 * Jewel the Beetle – a cautious and worryful beetle museum curator and Tangle's childhood friend who later becomes the newest Restoration leader following the Metal Virus pandemic.
 * Belle the Tinkerer – a clumsy but kindhearted marionette-like robot created by Eggman when he was "Mr. Tinker".
 * Lanolin the Sheep – a nervous sheep who joins the Restoration after Sonic and Amy saved her village. She later becomes the leader of the reformed Diamond Cutters.
 * Doctor Starline – a platypus scientist who admires Eggman. He dies at Eggman's hands after trying to take over his empire.
 * Rough & Tumble – a pair of trouble-making skunk brothers and former mercenaries.
 * Mimic – a shapeshifting mimic octopus and former comrade of Whisper who betrayed his team to Eggman.
 * Surge the Tenrec – a punkish cyborg lowland streaked tenrec created by Starline to be Sonic's doppelgänger. Like Sonic, she can move at superhuman speeds. Her name also references electrical powers which she displays. She is deeply traumatized by Starline's experiments and has no memory of her prior life.
 * Kitsunami "Kit" the Fennec – a somber cyborg fennec fox created by Starline to be Tails' doppelgänger and Surge's sidekick. Kit possesses the ability to control water, and his name is a fusion of the word Kitsune, a reference to his powers making it seem as though he has multiple tails which echoes the multi-tailed fox of Japanese myth, and the word Tsunami, which denotes a massive tidal event. Like Surge, he is also deeply traumatized by Starline's experiments and has no memory of his prior life.
 * Clutch the Opossum – an opossum crime boss who collects Eggtech and uses it for personal profit.

Publications
(Publications marked with * take place in a separate continuity from the main series.)

Reprints

 * Sonic the Hedgehog Issue 1–4 Box Set (June 27, 2018) (collects issues #1–4)
 * Sonic the Hedgehog Volume 1: Fallout! (September 18, 2018) (a reprint of #1–4)
 * Sonic the Hedgehog Volume 2: The Fate of Dr. Eggman (February 19, 2019) (a reprint of #5–8)
 * Team Sonic Racing Plus Deluxe Turbo Championship Edition one-shot (May 22, 2019) (a reprint of the story featured in Team Sonic Racing One-Shot, which also includes bonus features)
 * Sonic the Hedgehog: Bonds of Friendship (2019) (a Scholastic-exclusive collection of several reprinted issues in the Sonic the Hedgehog comic series)
 * Sonic the Hedgehog Volume 3: Battle For Angel Island (July 23, 2019) (a reprint of #9–12)
 * Sonic the Hedgehog Volume 4: Infection (September 3, 2019) (a reprint of #13–16)
 * Sonic the Hedgehog: Tangle & Whisper Box Set (December 4, 2019) (collects issues #1–4)
 * Sonic the Hedgehog: Tangle & Whisper (April 14, 2020) (a reprint of Tangle & Whisper issues #1–4 including the 2019 Annual)
 * Sonic the Hedgehog Volume 5: Crisis City (February 11, 2020) (a reprint of #17–20)
 * Sonic the Hedgehog Volume 6: The Last Minute (June 23, 2020) (a reprint of #21–24)
 * Sonic the Hedgehog Volume 7: All or Nothing (December 8, 2020) (a reprint of #25–29)
 * Sonic the Hedgehog Volume 8: Out of the Blue (March 30, 2021) (a reprint of #30–32 including the 2020 Annual)
 * Sonic the Hedgehog: Bad Guys (May 11, 2021) (a reprint of Bad Guys issues #1–4)
 * Sonic the Hedgehog Volume 9: Chao Races & Badnik Bases (January 11, 2022) (a reprint of #33–36)
 * Sonic the Hedgehog Volume 10: Test Run! (March 22, 2022) (a reprint of #37–40)
 * Sonic the Hedgehog Volume 11: Zeti Hunt! (June 7, 2022) (a reprint of #41-44)
 * Sonic the Hedgehog Volume 12: Trial by Fire (September 13, 2022) (a reprint of #45–49)
 * Sonic the Hedgehog: Imposter Syndrome (October 11, 2022) (a reprint of Imposter Syndrome issues #1–4)
 * Sonic the Hedgehog Volume 13: Battle for the Empire (February 7, 2023) (a reprint of #50-51 including the 2022 Free Comic Book Day and 2022 Annual)
 * Sonic the Hedgehog Volume 14: Overpowered (June 20, 2023) (a reprint of #52-56)
 * Sonic the Hedgehog: Scrapnik Island (August 29, 2023) (a reprint of Scrapnik Island issues #1–4)
 * Sonic the Hedgehog Volume 15: Urban Warfare (October 24, 2023) (a reprint of #57-61)
 * Sonic the Hedgehog Volume 16: Misadventures (April 23, 2024) (a reprint of #62-66)
 * Sonic the Hedgehog : Fang The Hunter (October 17, 2024) (a reprint of Fang The Hunter issues #1-4)
 * Sonic the Hedgehog Volume 17: Adventure Awaits (October 22, 2024) (a reprint of #67-68 including the Endless Summer, 900th Adventure, and Halloween Specials)

Compilations

 * Sonic the Hedgehog: Sonic & Tails: Best Buds Forever (February 23, 2022) (a reprint of stories from #1, #13, #34 and #35)
 * Sonic the Hedgehog: Knuckles' Greatest Hits (October 24, 2023; reprints of #3, #10, #11, FCBD 2022 and Annual 2022 stories featuring Knuckles)

Collections

 * Sonic The Hedgehog: Seasons of Chaos (October 10, 2023; collection featuring stories from Sonic the Hedgehog 30th Anniversary Special and Free Comic Book Day 2021)
 * Sonic The Hedgehog: The IDW Comic Art Collection (October 24, 2023; collection featuring various art pieces from throughout the IDW Sonic comics and the collection also includes various pieces of concept art of characters like Lanolin The Sheep.)

The IDW Collection

 * Sonic the Hedgehog: The IDW Collection, Vol. 1 (June 8, 2021) (a reprint of Issues #1–12)
 * Sonic the Hedgehog: The IDW Collection, Vol. 2 (March 15, 2022) (a reprint of Issues #13–20, including the 2019 Annual and the Tangle & Whisper miniseries.)
 * Sonic the Hedgehog: The IDW Collection, Vol. 3 (March 14, 2023) (a reprint of Issues #21–32, including the 2020 Annual.)
 * Sonic the Hedgehog: The IDW Collection, Vol. 4 (March 12, 2024) (a reprint of Issues #33-40, including the Bad Guys miniseries.)
 * Sonic the Hedgehog: The IDW Collection, Vol. 5 (March 18, 2025) (a reprint of Issues #41-50, including the Imposter Syndrome miniseries.)

Other

 * Sonic The Hedgehog: Sonic Prime, Vol. 1 (November 19, 2024) (Contains adaptions of the first two episodes of Sonic Prime.)

Cancelled

 * Sonic the Hedgehog: Tangle & Whisper Boxset (would've contained issues #1–4 in a collectible slipcase)

Reception
Joshua Davison on Bleeding Cool gave the first issue a score of 6.5/10, praising the art and creativity of the story but criticizing Sonic's characterization: "Sonic is an insufferable character... He's smug, annoying, and radical in that 1990's sense."

Dustin Holland's review of the first issue of the Imposter Syndrome miniseries on Comic Book Resources praised the personalities of new villains Surge the Tenrec and Kit the Fennec, action-filled plot, and appropriately expressive art.