no. 17: Metal Sonic - Sonic the Hedgehog

Finishing out the evil twin train with one that simply can't be avoided when it comes to this archetype. Sonic the Hedgehog. I'm not exactly sure what it is about him, but the Sonic seems to accrue a new rival in nearly every other game. Robot counterparts, dark counterparts, alternate universe counterparts, you name 'em! There's so damn many of them I added multiples of them into my 2015 countdown themed entirely around evil twins and those were just the bad ones! Let us not forget that Blaze the Cat was initially an alternate universe's equivalent to Sonic and Knuckles the Echidna was even a parallel to Sonic originally! Hell, even Eggman has an alternate universal counterpart! (or descendant or whatever the hell Eggman Nega is now) While many of these have fallen to the wayside or been changed fundamentally it's still wild to think that Sonic has two canonically existing parallel versions of himself to this day. Thematically, the robotic clone makes sense. Robotnik makes robots and wants to best Sonic, got it, but to also have Shadow who has no connection to Sonic whatsoever but conveniently looks like him? Was one just not enough? What a greedy hedge-HOG!

That said, I'll be the first to admit I vastly prefer Shadow over Metal Sonic and that simply comes down to Shadow being more of a character then Metal Sonic. Sure, Shadow may be an angsty, edgy try hard whom Sonic Team has no clue how to use, but at least he's a character. He has a personality which, frankly, better rivals the constantly peppy, optimistic vibes of Sonic and if I'm being candid, his design also looks better for a dark counterpart of Sonic. Even if they pacify Shadow into being some kind of antihero, Metal Sonic just seems to have run out his usefulness in the series and has been rendered redundant due to Shadow's existence for better or for worse.

Well now that I've thoroughly pissed off all Metal Sonic fans I should stress that I think Metal Sonic can be cool in his own right. The problem is that I don't feel Sonic Team has the ability to use Metal Sonic in a more nuanced way as to distinguish the character as more than just an object, which is a shame. So if I feel this way, why include him in the first place? Well, because I feel he's owed it. As mentioned prior, I I did technically included Metal, as well as other robot Sonics into the mix. However, the main focus was really a joke, lampooning Sonic recolors the likes of Sonichu or Coldsteel. I didn't give a proper shout out to the bucket of bolts and I feel that was a disservice. While Shadow pulls off the brooding edge lord vibe, Metal Sonic exudes a cold, existential dread whenever he's around that can't be beat and I think that needs to be remembered. He may not have been the first evil Sonic, but he was the first one that got it right and has stuck around even to this day despite Shadow's intense popularity and I think that should be commended.