Questions on Sonic
“Can you explain Sonic’s fate hax?”
Ok so what is Sonic’s fate hax supposed to be? To first give some context behind it, in Issue 200, Eggman literally goes insane after being defeated by Sonic again. He was a genius mastermind who managed to play both sides of the Great War and then conquered the world in a few years after his coup d’etat. Yet despite all of his brilliance, he was never able to beat Sonic, and it drove him crazy that he didn’t know why.
In Issue 210, Eggman regains his sanity when he creates a hypothesis to figure out the answer. Eggman thought that by absorbing so much chaos energy over the years, Sonic had become “the embodiment of chaos”. In every scenario, there’s essentially a factor of the unpredictable that cannot be calculated for, and Sonic is that factor.
This is the entire reason why the first Genesis Wave, Operation: Clean Sweep, was launched. Eggman reset the entire world and its history just to reset Sonic’s chaos energy.
Mammoth Mogul also retires from being a major villain and threat to the series for a similar reason. He realizes that so long as Sonic is around to stand in his way, he’s never going to win, so he decides to just wait until he dies of old age before getting back to his worldwide conquering. Worth noting that Mogul was afflicted with a curse at the time he did not know about that makes him fail at his endeavors anyway, but whatever
So what does this mean for the applicability of Sonic’s “fate hax” in a one-on-one isolated fight?
Well, it’s not really clear to be honest. While the concept of him being an embodiment of chaos is brought up a few times, there’s not really a tangible piece of evidence to point to on how it “affects” any combat scenarios. It’s not like a character like Domino or Gwenpool where their ability to manipulate events is very obvious and visibly shown to happen on camera in a way that’s impossible to mistake. At most Sonic just tends to come off as “unpredictable” or is “underestimated” by his opponents, allowing him to get an advantage in most scenarios. Which is apt since that’s what “chaos theory” actually is. It’s causing a controlled system to break down due to unpredictable factors(chaos theory is what Eggman described btw).
Anyway because of that vagueness and lack of tangible proof it’s kind of a non-factor. Not to mention any hero worth their salt has “defied fate” or been “unpredictable” in some way, let alone one of the Flashes. Wally doing things like outrunning death being chief among them.
“Superforms don’t have a time limit in Archie”
They do it’s mentioned in the encyclopedia, the evil super sonic formed in issue 126 dissipates because the time limit runs out, Sonic references super forms having a time limit multiple times when fighting super scourge. It also comes up post-reboot after Super sonic fights Dark Gaia and the form runs out of energy.
“What does Sonic’s Billionth Ring aura do?”
Sonic’s Billionth Power Ring grants him a protective aura that both allows him to take more bouts of damage than he should reasonably be allowed to. It also provided him with an internal aura that protected his life force, which allowed him to retain some bits of free will and personality even after roboticiziation. It also gives him some protection against certain magic, such as being the reason why a “hex” or mind control spell might not work on him.
Think of it like an extra layer of armor. It shields him from damage, but he can still eventually take too much and succumb to injury. He is not invincible, nor is there any evidence that it will save him from death. In fact, technically given Sonic 06 was confirmed to have happened in the Archie Sonic timeline in the encyclopedia, Sonic had to have died while having this aura. A death the encyclopedia confirmed happened.
Yes, it's true Sonic used a “normal” power ring to “revive” his father after he received fatal damage once, but it's important to note his father was entirely robotic. Robotization was originally created by Uncle Chuck as a medical treatment to make characters survive injuries or diseases they normally would not be able to. When the organic character Antoine was heavily injured and comatose, power rings couldn’t be used as such a quick fix. Sonic’s aura potentially being able to innately utilize a power rings ability to grant wishes has also never been brought up.
A lot of the other stuff people attribute to this aura is also a bit speculative. Eggman never specifically stated it was Sonic’s ring aura that was connected to his nature as an “embodiment of chaos”. It was never really stated that Sonic was “protected” from the effects of the first Genesis Wave because of it. None of his allies were erased in the new reality either and while altered, they were fine(Heck Sally was actually revived). Showing it wasn’t some special power of sonic.
“What about the Ultimate Annihilator feat?”
The Ultimate Annihilator is a weapon that can erase people or things from existence. In order to use the weapon, you need to program in a specific biosignature of an object you want to erase. The cannon then shoots a beam meant to reflect off a satellite in space, allowing the user to aim at targets from a distance.
Due to some sabotage on the side of the Freedom Fighters, a malfunction occurred that caused the Ultimate Annihilator to explode and for its energy to bounce back across Sonic’s entire reality erasing everything in it for a fraction of a second. This energy also engulfed Sonic and Robotnik while they were having their final fight, seemingly destroying them both. Surprisingly, however, Sonic survived the blast while Robotnik didn’t.
The reason why this happened is explained in the comic itself. Snively reprogrammed the machine so only Robotnik's biosignature was recorded and therefore only he was affected by its erasing abilities. Sonic was never in any danger during this event.
Likewise, while the weapons firing did in fact create some new zones, or weaken barriers between them (leading to ripple effects that affected those in other universes), it was confirmed again in the encyclopedia that Sonic and all of Mobius were among those simply blipped out of existence for a moment before returning with no injury. Sonic surviving was not attributed to some special quality of himself. No one in Mobius prime was harmed.
“Sonic and Mobius meanwhile, only blipped out of existence for an instant before returning”
That odd moment where sonic is coming out of a ring after the cannon fired, was probably either his billionth ring taking him somewhere else, as It’s done so before Or it was meant to be a stylized depiction of what “blipping back into reality” was supposed to be.
“The Master Emerald can grant a longer-lasting superstate?”
The Master Emerald is confirmed in the encyclopedia to be stronger than the seven Chaos Emeralds collectively, hence why Sonic can use it to go super. Sonic having a longer-lasting super form when he used it to go super and fight Enerjak(a fight that lasted hours) could be because of that. This is backed up by the fact the Ultra sonic super form last for varying amounts of time depending on if rings or super emeralds are used. Though that said, even if Sonic’s super form does last for hours under normal circumstances, Wally’s stamina can last just as long.
“What about the Quantum Dial feat?”
Kind of a moot point honestly, since the fight comes down to Super Sonic VS Flash no matter how you cut it, but the Quantum Dial is essentially a machine that creates a rift in space underneath itself as the fan turns. After a full rotation, a black hole is formed that will swallow up whatever planet it's on, as well as the rest of the solar system. Sonic prevents the black hole from being formed by running around the machine so fast that the gears turning the machine go in the opposite direction, making it malfunction. Doing this is stated to make the device to “implode”, and when Sonic is caught in this implosion, he’s sent to another location in space.
Personally, we think it's unlikely that he “stopped the force of a black hole” since the whole point was to stop the black hole from being formed in the first place. Though frankly, Solar system level stats don’t matter in this fight, so go ahead and use it if you disagree.
In terms of being “blasted” to another solar system, we always assumed he got sucked into the rift the device was making because it was stated to be “imploding” not exploding. Particularly since a galaxy launching explosion would probably be bigger than what was shown in the comic. Of course, even going at face value you can’t calc FTL kinetic energy anyway, so it’s moot.
“Can you make a case for universal base Sonic via scaling to a single Chaos Emerald?”
Sure. We thought about this actually. Eggman’s original genesis wave affected Sonic’s entire home reality and almost destabilized it. The original genesis wave used a single chaos emerald. Given several characters over the years have used single Chaos Emeralds before and Sonic has fought them, I can buy it. At least somewhat.
“What does the term ‘Zone’ in Sonic refer to?”
According to the official Sonic Encyclopedia, “‘Zone’ itself usually refers to an alternate reality - an entire dimension. It can also refer to smaller pocket dimensions like the Special Zone. It also has sometimes been used to describe regions on Mobius, but that terminology is falling out of use.”
The character Zonic showing an overlay of alternate universe zones
The Special Zone is called a pocket zone and “the Zone of Silence” it was shaped from was also stated to exist in an alternate universe zone, showing that these are “subsets” of the main zones.
Sandopolis on Angel Island is an example of a geographical zone in a main universe
Knothole and Echidnapolis also existed within main zones as “temporal” pocket zones at one time
Tails also makes a specific distinction between a “pocket zone” and “another zone of reality”.
Extra emphasis here. Something being called a “Zone” does not automatically mean a full universe.
You can travel between zones (all three types) using dimensional tech like Warp Rings and Star Posts in Archie. You also use Chaos Control if you have an Emerald, or a strong link to the Chaos Force as well.
Sonic and everyone on Mobius hail from the Prime Zone, the original universe which all other universe zones are based on.
“What about the Super Sonic VS Hyper Knuckles Zone bust feat?”
The size of the zone Sonic and Knuckles destroyed is unspecified. Zones come in all shapes and sizes (with some being as big as cities only) and there isn’t much supporting evidence to suggest it was as big as a universe. Likewise, this zone was stated to be a subterranean area and was pretty much discovered underground.
To be fair, it’s not like Super Sonic isn’t already more powerful than universe busters anyway
“Can you explain the Zone of Silence?”
The Zone of Silence is a pocket zone from Mobius-Prime. It was discovered by the warlock Ixis Naugus (it's specifically stated he discovered it “first” in the encyclopedia). Naugus then altered it over time into a zone he could use for his own purposes. Characters often use it as a prison and it has an effect of slowly removing vibrations and sound from an object if they stay there for too long. It also grows larger and encroaches other zones as time goes on. It eventually gets turned into the Special Zone by the god Feist when Turbo Tails and Super Shadow send hundreds of Chaos Emeralds into it.
Anyways, I think the main questions are can anyone scale to it in base, how big is it and can Sonic utilize it in the fight to BFR Wally.
Given Ixis discovered and altered it over a period of time, and the fact that it grows larger over time, it's kind of hard to put a number to it for base characters. Though Feist altered it to become the Special Zone after gaining god-like power from the Chaos Emeralds, so super characters should scale to the whole thing.
In terms of size, it probably is on the larger side, since stars or celestial bodies can sometimes be seen in it. That said since the encyclopedia still defines the Special Zone/Zone of Silence as a “smaller pocket dimension”, it’s probably still somewhat smaller than the “Prime universe Zone” despite some comments from characters calling it a universe.
As for BFR, it's pretty unlikely. Not only did this zone not exist in its previous form for years in canon (it was the Special Zone for a large chunk of pre-gen), its vibration nullification effects would not take effect fast enough to stop Wally from just leaving the dimension immediately. Additionally, Wally can vibrate his body fast enough to potentially create infinite mass punches that are universe-shattering based on other speedsters. Making it unlikely the effects of the zone would be potent enough to affect him even if he was there for several days.
“What’s up with Sonic Man?”
Sonic man is Sonic’s robotized version made by Eggman/Wily. He’s fast enough to move through a time stop via pure speed. Base Sonic wouldn’t be able to match Sonic Man’s speed. Base Sonic has been affected by time stops. With that said, Super Sonic should be far more powerful than Sonic Man, so it would make sense that he could replicate Sonic Man’s speed.
Also for those wondering, in Archie Wily’s robots have been affected by time stop moves before, so there’s no reason to assume Sonicman has built-in immunity unless stated.
“How fast is the Cosmic Highway feat?”
First off, using the Cosmic Highway for a speed feat is fine.
The Cosmic Interstate is a highway that goes through the “No Zone”, a universe zone that’s sideways to all other universe zones. You can use it to access other “universe zones”. Its directions don’t always make sense in a linear fashion and Sonic does have help navigating it off-screen the first few times(with Zonic even saying he created the portals for Sonic to use get to other universes, showing they aren't in static locations), but other characters have still used it without aid and there are statements regarding light to year speed limits and “light years” to exits you can use for distance. Assuming characters can match these speed limits or that Sonic can just travel the distances these e exit signs imply in a reasonable timeframe, you would get some decent MFTL feats.
You can even extrapolate a bit since Sonic goes to at least 1000 universes via the Highway in issue 19(albeit again while being secretly aided by Zonic). Heck, It can be implied he traveled to more universes in said issue since in a later issue Zonic says Sonic recruited all sonics for this event, though the original comic specifies it was several hundred trips and the exploration of additional timelines like dark/light Mobius in later comics contradicts his statement.
Some people argue they retconned the distances in the sign stated in Mobius 20 Years Later to be miles rather than light-years. Personally, I’m not sure it matters. There are other MFTL feats from the time period to support these feats, and while the 20YL storyline is written as an intentional variant of the main timeline, it’s honestly hard to see what’s written on the sign anyways. So it might be confirmation bias.
“Is the Sonic Grams speed feat okay?”
Technically it's a Word of God feat(which normally aren't super great to use), but it’s technically consistent with other things he’s pulled off, and it’s not as fast as any of Wally’s feats regardless, so sure.
“Wait, Sonic can restore speed with Rings/Emeralds?
Correct, Sonic can restore stolen speed with Power Rings. This is most likely due to the fact that they amplify his speed when he uses them normally. Since Rings in Archie are byproducts of Chaos Energy, Chaos Emeralds should have the same effect. That said, his One Billionth Ring aura does not count towards this resistance, as Sonic had it at the time his speed was stolen in the comics.
“Why was Sonic scaled to the Super Genesis Wave?
Sonic was scaled to the Super Genesis Wave because Mega Man was able to match and neutralize its power with Chaos Control, returning his reality to normal. Obviously, Super Sonic is comparable to Super Mega Man and has way more experience manipulating Chaos Energy than Mega Man does. He only botched his own Chaos Control because Eggman got in the way.
“How do you know Sonic can perform reality-warping feats on his own?”
Characters like Mogul or Feist, who use Chaos Energy, have been stated to have reality-warping powers, showing it is something Chaos Energy can do. Knuckles also performed a feat pretty similar to the genesis waves with the master emerald once. Sonic himself also attempted to alter reality to fix temporal damage in Worlds Unite. His experience probably isn’t as high as some of the others, but he should be able to do it himself.
We will point out that the Super Genisis wave was the strongest form of reality-warping in the series(even better than knuckles). As it affected the multiverse and the chaos force. Hence why the episode stated it was unclear if Sonic would "perfectly" replicate everything it could do in the heat of the moment. But the verdict was created under the assumption that he "could", making that irrelevant.
“Could Sonic blow up reality during the fight?”
Not exactly. While Sonic could likely alter reality using Chaos Control, the multiverse collapse was due to his imperfect Chaos Control hitting the Super Genesis Wave-affected reality and botching said Genesis Wave. The entire situation was an accident that would not occur in a normal fight and there’s no reason Sonic would want to intentionally do this anyway. Sonic himself also was not immune to the effects of the reality collapse and pretty much awoke back in his new reality without any Chaos Emeralds or his super form. Making this move could be a death sentence if he does try it and the opponent doesn’t go down.
“Does Super Sonic scale Master Mogul and Enerjak?”
In case you didn’t know, characters in most of Archie get their powers from the “Chaos Force”, an extra-dimensional energy field. At one point, Mogul gains the power of “all of it”, allowing him to effortlessly crush universe zones. He’s only stopped by whatever the fuck Titan Tails was supposed to be. Enerjak is a being whose consciousness is merged with the Chaos Force, and who possesses echidna avatars. Technically there’s some semantics you could bring up regarding scaling since Super Sonic has either never fought or never beaten either of these two characters when they were at full power (Enerjak is normally depowered via the Sword of Acorns, not at full strength, or his victim is exorcised somehow and Tails beat Mogul in a special form).
Anyways, personally yes, Super Sonic scales to them. You can probably argue about raw physical strength in the same way as Wally vs Superman, but Sonic’s chaos powers should be more powerful. Matching the Super Genesis Wave was technically a better feat than anything they’ve done since the Genesis Wave did affect the entire Chaos Force according to the writer at the time.
For those curious, Sonic also scales to Sigma in Worlds Unite, who is also probably multiversal. Though this scan people constantly point to is just a monologue and not an event that actually happens. The heroes stop his power progression before he can become truly unbeatable.
“Is Super/Ultra Sonic’s invincible?”
Yes and no. Technically It’s never actually stated that Ultra Sonic is invincible. While it is consistently stated that Super Sonic is invulnerable, there are a few occasions where he has been harmed (Super Sonic vs Perfect Dark Gaia). Super Sonic also lost to Enerjak in an alternate timeline. It’s likely that Super Sonic has a limit to his increased durability and that it can be bypassed by enemies strong enough to overcome his AP. If you play the game you know this also happens several times with canonical villains as well (Gaia and Solaris can bypass Super form durability in the games).
“Can’t Sonic gain knowledge from Power Rings?”
Sonic can gain knowledge from Power Rings. However he’s only done this once, it takes concentration, he almost passed out while doing it, and the knowledge he gained was vague.
It’s not an ability he could just pull out in an instant to figure out all of Flash’s weaknesses or how to win the fight. Not that there are any particular weaknesses Wally has to take advantage of anyway.
At most maybe you could speculate based on the ability of other characters like Tikal, Nugus, or Mephiles(who doesn’t really show up in Archie outside a cameo and the encyclopedia, but whatever) to project visions or use forms of clairvoyance, then apply that to Sonic. Or perhaps assume a stronger connection to the chaos force might grant more knowledge than a single power ring. But that's all speculation and it's based around abilities Sonic was never shown to have.
Furthermore, Wally’s ability to utilize the timestream should give him a much easier method of scoping out Sonic's entire history and power set in comparison. There's also less guesswork involved on how it could work.
“What about Sonic’s toonforce?”
Sonic’s toon force has mostly just been regulated to small gags in side-comic strips or occassional nods to the auidince. It’s not really an ability he’s used to canonically affect the outcomes of fights .
“Can you explain UltraSonic and its powers?”
Ultra Sonic is another super form of Sonic’s, though it’s implied to be an entirely separate being. Normally Sonic absorbs a lot of Rings to take on the form, and it grants elemental powers and portal creating abilities. Sonic normally can’t maintain this form long on rings alone.
The form also can be obtained with a “Super Emerald” which is a special kind of emerald created from a series of crystalized Chao. Gaining the form this way seems more sustainable and the power of the Super Emeralds seems to allow Sonic to speed up time by running or take on elemental variants of himself based on location (though we never see said variants fight).
Since Sonic doesn’t really show a lot of powers in this form because of the lack of appearances, you kind of have to extrapolate based on Ixis Naugus who the form was supposed to have powers similar to. With the power of a Chaos Emerald, Naugus can also reverse transmutation which I guess Ultra Sonic with a Super Emerald might be able to do. He also has crystalline magic that can turn non-organic stuff into crystal.
In terms of how it affects the fight, not a whole lot. It’s implied it “might” be stronger than Super Sonic since it comes out after that form when Sonic uses a Super Emerald, likely being chalked up to Sonic absorbing more Chaos Energy, but the degree isn’t established. Sonic has also never used the form to disassemble a person atomically or anything of that nature, even admitting that he “doesn’t have a lot of finesse with that kind of power”. Even if he could, that wouldn’t work on Wally because of his own atomic control over his body.
“What about the time beam?”
This is not important, but we figured we might as well explain the events of issue 71, since all the time stuff in that issue is confusing.
Essentially, because of the events of Endgame and the Ultimate Annihilator being set off, Knothole was hit with a large brunt of energy from the machine’s beam. When it blinked out of existence and then came back, it was placed in a “temporal pocket zone” of sorts that was desynced from the time flow of the rest of the planet by three hours.
Anyways, at the start of the chapter a satellite activates in space, which fires a time/temporal beam. Anything the beam hits has its time flow backwards (like the reverse button on a tv remote). It’s attracted to Knothole because it was desynced from the rest of the planet, and hitting there would reverse time in that location until it was resynced. The problem is the effects of the beam wouldn’t stop after the localised area of Knothole was resynced and would keep hitting the planet, causing a paradox where time was moving forward and backwards at the same time. This effect would destroy the planet and destabilize space-time.
Essentially, the plan to stop this is to have Sonic use the power of a Super Emerald to attract the time beam away from Knothole right when its time flow gets synced with the rest of the planet. Sonic running while using a Super Emerald causes time to start moving forward at a faster rate, and him altering the flow of time is what attracts the beam (in the same way that it was attracted to Knothole due to its own unusual time flow). Sonic gets hit by the time beam and he gets his Adventure appearance because of it. The main feat to take away from this issue is that Super/Ultra Sonic with a super emerald can cause time to flow faster by running. The time beam itself is not deadly on its own, as everyone in Knothole was under its effects when it hit them. The beam itself also probably wasn’t moving at an infinite speed while it was following Sonic despite being temporal in nature (not that these matters cause Sonic has other infinite speed feats).
Also worth noting other speedsters in DC like Barry can move time forward via pure speed, so Wally can pull off this same feat because of scaling.
“Why can Sonic and Wally both tank atomization and phasing-based attacks?”
In order for Wally to phase into Sonic, he needs to manipulate the molecules/atoms in Sonic’s body. While base Sonic can’t resist Wally’s phasing/atomization, Super Sonic can because Enerjak admitted he couldn’t destroy Super Sonic despite possessing the ability to dismantle structures on a molecular level.
Wally likewise has total control over his atomic structure, so those tactics won't work on him either.
“Didn’t Sonic auto resurrect in Sonic Live?”
Sonic gets blasted by some lasers and seemingly dies in this comic. Then arrives in some weird virtual limbo. The book seems to imply the rayguns created some kind of energy surge that sent Sonic there. He likely didn’t die, since we know Sonic can die due to Sonic 06 happening in Archie’s timeline.
“Sonic has time manipulation too. Why would Wally be better at it?”
Sonic has very little experience manipulating time to the same extent Wally has. The only time he’s used time travel was during the first Genesis Wave, and it was only used to travel back a few days(or a few seconds if you don’t count the time spent in genesis reality), whereas Wally can travel to the beginning and end of time. To be fair, Chaos knuckles has traveled back in time for longer periods of time if you want to scale(though it's still like 100s of years vs trillions). But unlike Wally, Sonic doesn’t get a preview of events to come while time traveling, so he’d still be at a disadvantage.
Also worth noting, Wally has shown himself to be unaffected by his own history being retconned before. Characters in Archie are not immune to time paradoxes as Sonic awoke after his multiverse collapsed affected by the change, and was affected by the Worlds Unite crossover being alerted via time travel. Chaos knuckles almost killed himself several times because of nearly causing time paradoxes.
“What about the source of all”
The source of all is pretty vague as a concept. From the way writer Ian Flynn described it, it’s basically just a substance that served as the “building block” for all matter and energy in the universe, and there was a small pool of it left characters could use for magical means. It was used mainly as a tool for creating certain magical items and It doesn’t really have any notable applications in this fight.
“But I thought Ian Flynn said earlier Sonic’s stories were only fuzzy canon?”
The Sonic the Hedgehog comics have had multiple authors over the years. While Ian was the main one for a long time, that doesn’t mean that his word on the canon is the be-all end-all. And those early comic characters and concepts are referenced multiple times throughout Ian’s stories regardless. Characters like Scourge, the 6S and Harvey Who originate from them, along with Moebius, the Cosmic Interstate, Pseudo Sonic, the Krudzu, and more.
Besides, he said that the canon was only “fuzzy” after all, not that everything could or should be totally disregarded. And even then, with feats like Sonic Man moving through a time stop or Sonic taking the Cosmic Interstate to the No Zone in the modern comics, or Sonic manually piloting star ships during the Tossed in Space story arc, Sonic’s speed in earlier stories remain supported in his later stories.
Questions on Wally
“Is Wally’s AP really that high?”
First, there was Wally and Barry’s feat of running across the universe.
(Flash #49, pg. 7) He and Barry are generating so much energy while racing against each other that it’s disrupting magic, the Green, the Microverse, and could be felt all the way in New Genesis so strongly that Highfather thought it was coming from the Source. Image
Cyborg reiterates on the next page that “the energy they’re generating is playing havoc with the very fabric of the multiverse.”
He then annihilates Hal’s construct which was even vibrating at a frequency in order to slow them down. This nearly breaks Hal’s ring, and Hal states he’s using ALL his willpower. Image 1 Image 2
All of these feats are done BEFORE Wally and Barry generate the energy to enter the Speed Force.
Then the anti monitor
(Flash #150, pg. 12) Shares speed with heroes in order to boost their strength to be powerful enough to injure the Anti-Monitor. When they fail, Wally then starts tearing apart the Anti-Monitor’s armor by himself. This is not his full strength, as demonstrated later in the issue with his fight against Cobalt Blue. Image 1 Image 2 Image 3 Image 4 Image 5
(To clarify, the Anti-Monitor was having his power drained by Doctor Light, but he was also more powerful in this timeline due to Barry’s absence further unbalancing the AM’s power in favor of anti-matter.)
Not even the Spectre, who was magically amplified by all of DC’s sorcerer’s at the time, was capable of piercing the Anti-Monitor’s armor and defeating him. Image 1 Image 2 Image 3
Both are pretty good feats for that level of power. Wally being able to move faster than or use all of the speed force could also be considered on that level of power. Since the speed force is literally equal to the kinetic energy of the entire multiverse.
“Wally can phase through reality-warping energy?”
He can. Nobody caught it.
The quantum zealot energy is a pretty similar ability and tier of power as the chaos abilities so it should be possible for Wally to counter it. Remember chaos energy is still… well energy. Even when sonic used Chaos control for reality-warping he had to charge a ball of energy in his hands and release it.
Wally has also resited reality-warping from 6th dimensional ID before, making this consistent.
“How can the DC universe be larger than Sonic’s?”“How can limitless Chaos Control have limits?”
This is where DC comics get stupid. You know how you can have an infinite line, but that line will never have any area. Or how you can have an infinite square but never have volume. It’s sorta like that.
Sonic’s multiverse has infinite timelines, infinite universes, perhaps one or two extra-dimensional locations, and then the chaos force, which sits outside space/time. The super genesis wave affected all of that.
DC’s multiverse is also infinite, but is multi-dimensional, with some claims even putting it at infinitely dimensional. And each universe within the infinite multiverse is subject to an infinite number of alternate universes differentiated by branching timelines. So an infinity of infinity. This is known as the metaverse. This is all contained within the Bleed, below the Speed Force, as evidenced by Grant Morrison’s cosmology map. Here are some extra sources that explain it all in greater detail:
https://comicvine.gamespot.com/forums/gen-discussion-1/dc-cosmology-1903336/
https://vsbattles.fandom.com/wiki/User_blog:PrinceOfTheMorning/DC_Cosmology_-_From_a_Holistic_Stance_on_the_Overall_Canon
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7b0PktXUqD4
The point is, DC’s multiverse extends far greater than what Chaos Control has shown capable of reaching. It’s like comparing a cube to a tesseract. Even extrapolations based on say maginary world(which is barely mentioned in Archie and would need guesswork based on the sketchy game arguments) don’t compete. Stuff like Flash disrupting magic, the green, the microverse, and being mistaken as the source during his run with Barry also arguably make his multiversal feats even more impressive due to how those fit in the DC cosmology.
Even if all of that were moot, Sonic really has no way of knowing that Flash’s power source comes from the Speed Force and would not think to target it.
It’s also worth mentioning that Chaos Control isn’t perfect and has failed in the past. In the second crossover, due to disruptions in reality and the involvement of more than just two franchises, Chaos Control failed to fix reality, so it likely has limitations in regards to multiple multiverses, something that might harm its effectiveness at reaching beyond the Metaverse and infinite dimensions to get to the Speed Force.
Is Wally faster than Sonic?
Again this is where comics get stupid. Sonic really only has a handful of feats that could be considered infinite or immeasurable. This includes outrunning the time stop and having his Super sonic speed being called “incalculable” and his multiversal Chaos control(which affected all zones and the chaos force which is outside space/time).
Even comparing Wally directly to Sonic Man, both Superman and Superboy have moved in time stops, and Wally is easily capable of blitzing them without going full out. Many of Wally’s other immeasurable/infinite feats were also performed without tapping into the Speed Force fully, and by now he’s exceeded the Speed Force entirely after becoming “unmoored,”
In other words, Wally is so fast he can blitz characters who already have infinite or immeasurable seed feats. He’s so fast he can perform feats on that level himself without fully tapping into his power source or weakened. HE’S SO FAST he’s literally faster than a concept of speed that exists on a dimensional layer beyond what you can even find in sonic’s cosmology.
He’s so fast he can blitz himself. Truly I wish I wasn’t making this up but it happened.
Can Wally outlast Super Sonic?
The answer is a likely yes. He can physically contend with Super Sonic, is more than fast enough to avoid his attacks, and has the stamina to run for days before shutting down (even then, he can always keep pulling energy from the Speed Force). Super Sonic’s limit of a few hours is significant, but will run out eventually, especially with certain high-level techniques like resetting time with Chaos Control.
Wally can enter the Speed Force to wait Sonic out or time travel past when Sonic’s limit runs out Once Super Sonic is no longer an option, it’s game over.
Why didn’t you use the manhattan powers?
They were pretty new when the ep was being worked on and seemed pretty different than Wally’s normal set of powers. We didn’t think he’d keep them permanently and ultimately he didn’t need them to win anyway.
Summary
So in terms of just comparing Base Sonic, pre-Super form transformation, versus Wally West, it’s kind of a blowout for Wally. And it’s not because Base Archie Sonic is unimpressive, it’s just he’s being compared to a League-tier DC superhero.
At minimum, Sonic would be multi-continental via scaling to Perfect Chaos, who held all the oceans in place. Maybe the solar system if you use the quantum dial. At max, he has the potential to be universal via scaling to a single Chaos Emerald, which have multiple feats of rewriting the space-time continuum, though whether or not he scales fully can vary from person to person.
In terms of raw power, Wally has stood up to other League members and been compared to them. He can’t lift as much, sure, but his striking power aided by his speed puts him in the same tier of raw power. There are literally dozens of universal feats for League-tier heroes (both Pre- and Post-Crisis), and we even covered a couple for Green Lantern. He’s battered Ultraman and Mongol, taken hits from Zoom (who Diana said hit harder than Superman), and hit with the force of a white dwarf star. He should be easily comparable to Base Archie Sonic’s questionable max and far outstrip his safer feats.
Speed is similar. Sonic has numerous massively faster than light speed feats potentially stretching into the hundreds of millions of times faster than light, and even one that reaches into the nonillions of times FTL(the sonic gram feat). Staggering to be sure, but Wally still surpasses that. Even without fully tapping into the Speed Force, Wally has shown the ability to move up to tredecillions of times faster than light(beating out instant teleportation), and again scales to other DC League-tier feats of the same caliber. Frankly, his best speeds we calced were massive lowballs, and even then he’s gone faster without fully exerting himself. Base Sonic would get blitzed.
Base Sonic also doesn’t have an answer to Wally’s numerous haxes, like phasing, speed stealing, and vibrating-explosions. All in all, Wally should have a significant advantage in a fight against Base Sonic, and win both quickly and easily.
Wally vs Super Sonic is where things get interesting. Super Sonic gains a massive stats boost and becomes extremely resistant to most of Wally’s haxes.
In terms of raw power and durability, Super Sonic should be solidly multiversal. The power of Chaos Control was enough to reverse the Super Genesis Wave, which could affect infinite multiverses with his power (as in multiverses w/ infinite universes in them each), as well as the Chaos Force that exists outside of it. This super form also has the benefit of not running out in a minute. While its life expectancy isn’t endless, it should last for at least a couple of hours.
In terms of speed, he’s about 1000x faster than in base going by statements, putting his speed in the decillions of times FTL. What’s more, he has a few potential scaling to “infinite/immeasurable” speed feats, which is when a speed feat is done w/o regard for the concept of time. As Sonic Man he was able to move during a time stop, his speed was called incalculable and his chaos control.
What’s extremely important is that he also has resistance to Wally’s most common hax. Enerjak was fully incapable of harming him with magic that would disassemble him at the molecular level, the same kind of hax Flash employs with his phasing and vibrational explosions. He can also use Chaos energy to replenish any speed that is stolen from him. He would still be affected, and Flash would still benefit, but he wouldn’t be rendered a statue forever.
So how does Wally stack up with that? Surprisingly, still very competitive. Going all-out (for the time) against Barry during Flash War, their race was generating so much speed force energy that it was disrupting the fabric of the Multiverse, as well as other multiverse-spanning energy fields like Magic and the Green. Highfather even mistook them for the Source, which could actually put it beyond multiversal. Of note, while it took both of them running to do this, a) Wally was leading, and b) Wally has gone even faster since then.
Wally was also capable of piercing the Anti-Monitor’s armor, which took blows from the combined efforts of DC’s greatest Pre-Crisis heroes and even the multiversal being the Spectre. This was again, not the fastest he’s gone (he went faster later that issue). So Wally’s peak power should be in the same ballpark as Super Sonic.
In terms of measurable speed feats, Wally actually still has a notable advantage. Comparing the teleport feat to Sonic visiting every planet in the universe, Wally is still 3.7 billion times faster. He also has his fair share of immeasurable feats as well, more numerous than Sonic’s, and was capable of doing them when he was much slower than he is currently. At this point he’s beyond the speed force entirely.
So the way the stats stack up, they’re roughly even in terms of power and durability, and Wally has a big speed advantage. However, Super Sonic also grants Sonic the ability to use Chaos Control, which can warp reality at a multiversal scale.
Wally actually does have a couple of ways of surviving this. He can vibrate through the fourth dimension to avoid any 3-dimensional barriers or attacks of any kind, meaning the Chaos wave would not be able to harm him. He can also vibrate through energy attacks and convert them into different kinds of energy. He was able to interface with the energy of the Quantum Mechanics, which were higher dimensional reality-warping godlike beings with his energy prism, so he should be easily able to do so with Chaos energy due to its similarities.
He could also escape the wave entirely by running into the Timestream or Speed Force, which exists outside the DC multiverse. This sounds similar to Chaos Control being able to reach the Chaos Force. Does this mean Super Sonic could potentially wipe out the Timestream and the Speed Force with Chaos Control? Well, it’s unlikely due to DC’s dimensional tiering. Wally can outlast Super Sonic due to his endurance or just circumvent it with his better time mastery.
Finally, it is worth noting on the side, while Wally and Sonic do have some similar abilities, Wally generally has more proficiency. Sonic has used phasing about 3 times in his comics, while Wally does it all the time. Sonic doesn’t really have super potent atomic alteration abilities outside speculation, while Wally ses such abilities far more often. While Rings restore speed, in one issue while Wally uses speed stealing to freeze another speedster near permanently and can probably speed stolen from high tier heroes that are probably on the same level as Sonic anyway(So his protection might not be enough). Not to mention naturally dozens of years of comics gives him more experience.
TL;DR
Wally = Super Sonic in AP. Maybe more.
Wally is faster in terms of measurable feats and has more consistent infinite/immeasurable feats(many of which at low power or before surpassing the speed force).
Even if Sonic can restore his stolen speed, Wally can just do it again, essentially guaranteeing that he’ll be faster
The Speed Force is too big for Sonic to affect
Both characters can counter the others’ hax, but Wally in particular can phase through and avoid Chaos Control, which is Sonic’s only real win option.
Wally can either outlast or circumvent the super forms
More experienced
While Sonic and Wally have some similar powers, Wally has used most of those powers longer and with more proficiency(Phasing, Speed steal, Atomic alteration, time travel, ect)
