| “ | Even with the slightest exposure, my synthetic concoction spreads across organic tissue, converting it into my robotic slave! It's an army that builds itself! | „ |
| ~ Dr. Eggman explaining the Metal Virus. |
The Metal Virus is a villainous item appearing IDW's Sonic the Hedgehog comic series. It is an artificial virus created by the evil Dr. Ivo "Eggman" Robotnik and its visage resembles one of the mad genius' known logos representing his insidious Eggman Empire, and it has the power to turn organic beings into metallic beings known as "Zombots". It was used by Eggman to aid him in his another scheme of world domination, yet it ultimately backfire on him.
Description
Appearance
The Metal Virus are nanobots that resemble bacteriophages, spheres with the Eggman Empire decal emblazoned on them and bodies with six legs each.
When observed by the naked eye, the virus appears as a metallic goop.
Powers and traits
When the Metal Virus makes contact with active organic tissue, be it either in flora or fauna, the virus will spread across the cells of the subject and infect them, transmuting them into a metal-like substance on a molecular level. However, it cannot transmute processed or inorganic matter, such as food, processed wood, metal, or stone, although clothing worn by living beings appears to be an exception.
In the case of fauna fully infected by the virus, their bodies' organic matter will have been transmuted into a liquid metallic composition. This makes their bodies stronger and more durable than they were before. In addition, such subjects can manipulate their own liquid body composition, allowing them to instantly reconstitute their bodies whenever they receive a damaging blow. Also, the virus will rob the subjects of their free will and any personality traits once they are fully transformed, essentially turning them into soulless machines that are programmed to be subservient to Dr. Eggman's orders. The virus also causes the infected subjects to display aggressive tendencies without direction. Faunas that have been fully converted by the Metal Virus are referred to as "Zombots", a term originally coined by Sonic. Flora are similarly turned into metal constructs, and as such do not absorb water or nutrition.
The virus can make slight changes to a subject's anatomy. This includes making a plant's parts more mechanical in shape and granting Zombots sharp claws, spikes, and red eyes.
According to Gemerl, He cannot bond with the virus to control it and those who are infected.
Like an actual virus, the Metal Virus is contagious, and its infection can be transferred immediately to others through the slightest touch with subjects infected with the virus. The rate of which the Metal Virus spreads its infection across an organism depends on the situation though. Full saturation in the virus causes an immediate and total transmutation, while infections received through touch from infected subjects will spread at a considerable slower rate. However, repeated physical exposure to the virus through Zombots will speed up the process. As the infected subjects' bodies are converted into metal, the subjects will experience "unpleasant", or "nasty", sensations.
Weaknesses
The Metal Virus can't infect robots because they are immune as shown with Gemerl, E-123 Omega, Metal Sonic, and Belle.
Owing to its virus-like nature, the Metal Virus is capable of evolving through mutations in its coding, which are brought about by spreading through exposure. Over time, these mutations caused the Zombots created from the Metal Virus to grow steadily more disobedient of Eggman's orders. Disobedient Zombots can be controlled by directly manipulating the electromagnetic signals operating them or by deploying override signals, although Eggman noted that the latter would only be a temporary solution as the virus's mutations would eventually render such signals moot. In addition, the Metal Virus could adapt to the point where otherwise potential cures for it would be rendered ineffective.
So far, no known vaccine, antidote, or cure for the Metal Virus has been created, Tails managed to get a sample of the virus to make models for immunization, as well as the reversal of the contagion, but sadly Zombot Cheese and Chocola cuts Tails' lab's main power supply while a Zombot broken in and destroyed the server blades containing the information on a cure.
However, speed seems to counteract it to a degree. Sonic, for example, was able to drive the virus into remission and burn it off by moving at super speeds while his infection was still underway. However, it could not cure him of it, and he would have relapses once he started to slow down again. Over time, Sonic's infection evolved further until his speed would lose its ability to counter and reverse the virus.
Chaos Emerald-empowered Zetis also appear to be able to protect themselves from the Metal Virus by using their enhanced electromagnetic abilities to keep the virus from sticking to them.
The Metal Virus will ultimately become unsustainable while it mutates, it will cause any infected heterotrophic eukaryote cells will eventually suffer a form of apoptosis, thus causing the Zombots to eventually disintegrate after 200 years. This explains why, in Silver's future, the world is an uninhabited wasteland with metallic plants.
The only known ways to cure the Metal Virus is either for the subject to enter an incredibly powerful state or remove it from the infected hosts telekinetically and then dispose it in someplace safe like the sun, which both Sonic and Silver were able to do both so with the Chaos Emeralds as well as the Warp Topaz. After being cured, all the individuals had no recollection of their time as Zombots.
History
The Metal Virus was created at some point in the past by the egotistical Doctor Eggman. However, it was put on file as his research found that as the Metal Virus mutates, becoming unsustainable. However, after recovering his memory, Eggman resumes his schemes to synthesize the Metal Virus, with the intention of unleashing it upon the planet Mobius, to forge a brand-new army for himself and exact his revenge upon the world for the indignities he he suffered from his amnesia.
After his first Metal Virus batch has been concocted, Dr. Eggman soon began experimenting with it to text the full extent of its power. The first test was a flower, which it successfully transmuted. The second test was with vertebrate specimens such as a Pocky of the namesake rabbit animal species to coat with the Metal Virus which ended in an instant transmutation. For the third test was to have a Zombot Pocky touch a Picky of the namesake swine anime species, which ended in the virus' infection and gradual transfiguration. After careful examination, later it began the fourth and final test involving a Ricky of the namesake squirrel animal breed picking up the transmuted flower and make it touch various objects, though despite the Metal Virus presenting no signs of transmuting the objects, and in having touched the flower, the Ricky creature was infected with the virus as well and the experiments on the Metal Virus a complete success.
When his insane Metal Virus experiments accomplished what he had hoped for, the evil Doctor Eggman began carrying it out into the next phase of his scheme. However, Eggman soon noticed how slow the Metal Virus was to transmute subjects who had been infected with it through mere touch with infected subjects, which made the cruel doctor worrysome due to the fact that the Metal Virus could not be spread very far. As a test to see if greater exposure to the virus could move things along, Dr. Eggman had the Zombot Pocky touch the partially-infected Ricky repeatedly. As expected, this caused the infection of the Ricky to spread faster, which Eggman noted was beneficial and began planning to administer the Metal Virus in different sites. When the 2 thuggish skunk brothers, Rough and Tumble came to Doctor Eggman to demand new weapons to use for their vendetta against Sonic, Dr. Eggman proposes an idea to them that "his latest weapon just got out of beta". Secretly plotting to turn the skunk brothers into his Zombots when they faced Sonic, Dr. Eggman prepared backpacks loaded with the Metal Virus which he told the skunk duo were back-ups they should use upon opening them if Sonic gets the upper hand. Facing Sonic and Amy Rose at the Echo Mine soon after, Rough and Tumble would open their backpacks, and unbeknowest to them, releases the Metal Virus which began gushing over them and turn them into Zombots. Although Sonic got rid of Rough and Tumble by knocking them into a refuse pit, he became infected with the Metal Virus in the process. Meanwhile, Eggman got ready to share the Metal Virus with the world.
At Doctor Eggman's flying spaceship known as the Faceship, Metal Sonic dipped his finger in a vat of Metal Virus to see the effects for himself. As he was not organic, the virus itself had no effect on him. Sonic soon discovered that he could burn off the virus and keep it in check with his speed. In the meantime, Dr. Eggman, Starline, Orbot, and Cubot took off in the Faceship. Aboard his ship, Doctor Eggman had a room dedicated to creating the Metal Virus en masse. He had also dedicated a large hatch in the Faceship to distribute the Metal Virus from a high altitude. Soon, the Faceship arrived at Windmill Village. There, the Faceship doused the villagers with the Metal Virus, quickly turning the population in Zombots. Following up on this, Eggman sent out the infected villagers and animals to spread among other people with the Metal Virus.
Later, at the coastal metropolis known as Seaside City where the mad Doctor Eggman began spilling the Metal Virus into the city via his Faceship, transforming many of the citizens into Zombots as the next phase of his sinister plan has commenced. However, a small part of the population was saved by the Chaotix detective team and escaped aboard a Rescue Shuttle with Vector and Espio. Charmy, on the other hand, tried to save one of the survivors who had been partially infected with the Metal Virus, before he was caught by the Zombots, who overwhelmed him with their numbers and infected him with the dreaded Metal Virus.
Continuing onward, Dr. Eggman arrived at the Floral Forest Village within the remote Floral Forest where he orchestrated another Zombot outbreak by pouring the Metal Virus agent into the village from his Faceship. However, when the new Zombots ignored Dr. Eggman's direct orders, Orbot revealed that there had been a steady decline in the Zombots' obedience. This made the infuriated Dr. Eggman theorize that the Metal Virus's coding had begun mutating due to the virus spreading through exposure.
The mad scientist Doctor Starline, an affiliate of the Eggman Empire, began to worry about the Metal Virus' current progress, while Doctor Eggman himself remained certain he could regain control over the virus. Meanwhile, the Metal Virus steadily spread across the now ravaged Floral Forest Village. While keeping the Zombots at bay, Sonic's own Metal Virus infection grew stronger due to his exposure to the Zombots. Meanwhile, Cheese and Chocola became infected with the Metal Virus while trying to protect their family from the rampaging Zombots, and quickly became Zombots themselves. Regardless, Sonic and the robot Gemerl managed to get villagers like Cream and Vanilla to safety.
Sunset City, a shimmering merchant city that would now become the next site of an additional, and yet, enormous Zombot outbreak after being targeted by the egomaniacal Doctor Eggman's Faceship for more display of the dreaded Metal Virus. While helping the survivors, the heroic hedgehog Sonic fought through more Zombots invading the town, which only made his Metal Virus infection grow worse. Shadow the rogue hedgehog later engaged the Zombots. While Shadow proved more resilient to the Metal Virus (presumably due to his "Ultimate Lifeform" physiology), it ultimately infected him too after he touched too many Zombots. In the end, Shadow was overwhelmed by Zombots, allowing the Metal Virus to transform him into a Zombot as well. The Zombot Shadow began to rampage and fight against Sonic and his growing infection. After Rouge the Bat took off with the uninfected civilians to safety, while her robot ally E-123 Omega stayed behind to fight more Zombots. Soon, Sonic and Omega found themselves at the mercy of the Zombots in the devastated Sunset City but they were saved by Sonic's close friends Miles Tails Prower and Silver the Hedgehog. Sonic then ran back to the Restoration group's HQ, thereby burning off a massive Metal Virus infection that nearly turned him into a Zombot.
At the normal huge borough known as Central City, another worst Zombot outbreak unleashed upon its streets after Dr. Eggman used the Faceship to distribute a batch of his Metal Virus there an hour ago.
The Metal Virus strain had soon also reached its next target, a glittering wintry city zone known as Ice Paradise. Afterwards, Another surge of Zombot infection plunged the entire city into chaos.
Meahwile, at Tails' Lab, the young genius fox himself researched the dreaded Metal Virus secretly and utilized the data gathered from his friend Sonic's biometrics via his bio-scanner, and through this expermiment, he can develop an antidote to the biomechanical contagion itself. Just as he found the cure however, the Zombots attacked his laboratory and the data he had collected was lost because of it. Regardless, Tails and his allies managed to flee the Metal Virus in Central City uninfected.
Meanhile, at the Restoration group's HQ, a person infected with the Metal Virus managed to sneak himself in with the survivors because he did not want to be alone. However, the virus soon took hold and he soon turned into a Zombot, thus this caused panic among the survivors. Meanwhile, Zombot Charmy joined the fray when he broke out of his Containment Bubble after Vector and Espio had brought him to the Restoration Head Quarters. In the end, most of the survivors got infected by the Metal Virus during the mayhem, including Cream's beloved mother Vanilla. When Zombot Charmy then tried to get to the Rescue Shuttle, Vector restrained him, causing the Metal Virus to infect him as well. In order not to endanger his friends when he became a Zombot, Vector had himself get sealed off from the survivors. With the Restoration organization's HQ fallen, Tails realized that he had lost all the data that might have enabled him to invent a cure to combat the Metal Virus, and that Sonic himself was the last hope left. At the same time, the Metal Virus had reached the quaint walled city of Barricade Town and soon transformed all the inhabitants into more Zombots. There, the evil scientists Dr. Eggman and Dr. Starline tried assuming control over the Zombots with different override signals. When Sonic found the two madmen and engaged Eggman, Sonic tried to infect Eggman with the Metal Virus to give him an incentive to make a cure for it. During the fight, Starline found an override signal that yet gave Eggman control over the Zombots again. However, Sonic destroyed Starline's discovery before he could save it or upload it to the Faceship's mainframe, although this also destroyed Tails' bio-scanner. As the villains fled, Sonic was almost overtaken by the vile Metal Virus, but he managed to gather his resolve and escaped, running his infection down to a low level again.
On the way to a quaint hilltop community called Spiral Hill Village, the mad Doctor Eggman's Faceship soon distributed the Metal Virus at the local farms twice. This resulted in the majority of the members of the Sonic Fan Club in that town turning into new Zombots. After the first wave, the president and vice president of the club touched the virus without knowing what it was, and following the second wave they unintentionally infected Jewel the Beetle in the process. Afterwards, the Faceship flew directly over Spiral Hill Village and dumped more Metal Virus down into it. As a result, several citizens were turned into Zombots. When Tangle later arrived in the Mineral Museum, a fully-transformed Zombot Jewel infected Tangle with the Metal Virus. While the survivors of the village were evacuated by the Restoration group, the robot Gemerl performed a scan of Sonic when he arrived and noticed that Sonic's speed was starting to lose its ability to counter the Metal Virus. Soon after, Tangle would fight the Zombots in her village alone to allow the Restoration to make their escape. However, she soon succumbed to the Metal Virus and end up becoming a Zombot.
Big the Cat and his pet Froggy eventually came across the noxious Zombots. While Big fought them, Froggy jumped on the head of one of them, unintentionally infecting himself. After tying the Zombots up, Big went back to the Mystic Ruins with Froggy. As he recounted his long adventure to his friend, Froggy immediately turned into a Zombot and began to infect his huge feline friend and the surround flora around them, with Big woefully unaware of what was happening now.
Upon arriving at the fabled Angel Island, Sonic was already mostly covered by the Metal Virus, so he had go on a quick run around the island while avoiding touching and infecting the flora along the way. Later, Sonic received a treadmill to keep himself running in place. Meanwhile, the Deadly Six gang took over the Faceship and its Metal Virus production plant. They also empowered themselves with the magical Chaos Emeralds to control thousands of Zombots around the world with their electromagnetic powers. Forced to flee from the Faceship to Angel Island, Dr. Eggman and Dr. Starline met up with Sonic and his crew. There, Eggman then explained, after they got away, others pressed him for a cure on the Metal Virus, that in about 200 years, the Zombots and all else infected by this inorganic virus would be gone, as it would eventually become unstable. The heroes and villains alike then brainstormed for a solution, and eventually devised a plan to combine Super Sonic's power with the Warp Topaz stone to warp all of the Metal Virus away in one fell swoop. Meanwhile, the Deadly Six took off to the farthest corners of the planet and began using the rampaging Zombots to infect everything they came across with the Metal Virus.
Soon after, the heroes and their allies took off to recover the Chaos Emeralds from the Deadly Six. While facing the heroes, Zeena and Zomom lost their Chaos Emeralds and thus lost control of all their Zombots. Zeena in particular ended up getting infected by the Metal Virus. Cream, who helped fight Zeena, also got hit by the Metal Virus during the fight, but the robotGemerl promised to stay by her side until she was well again. In the meantime, Master Zik, Zazz and Zor had their Emeralds taken as well, and were thus left at the mercy of the Zombots they could no longer command. Lastly, Rouge caused the Faceship to come crashing down when she stole the Chaos Emerald powering it, thereby destroying its Metal Virus production plant in the process.
Assuming his giant form, the Deadly Six leader Zavok threw his Zombot army up to Angel Island to spread the Metal Virus around the mystical flying isle. In addition, Sonic's infection, having now developed an almost complete resistance to his speed, slowly began to overtake him. In an effort to buy Sonic time and protect his island, the Master Emerald and the survivors, Knuckles started fighting Shadow now in his mindless form as Zombot Shadow, but became infected himself in the fight. Still, Knuckles persisted until he succumbed to the Metal Virus and became a Zombot. Meanwhile, Tails got infected while escaping from Zombot Cheese and Zombot Chocola. Amy also got infected when Eggman pushed her into Zombot Big. While escaping however, the cowardly Doctor Eggman himself tripped over Zombot Froggy, who tried to infect him. Ultimately though, Sonic managed to snatch the last Chaos Emerald from Zavok, just as he was almost completely overrun by the Metal Virus. Immediately after, Sonic got rid of his infection when he transformed into Super Sonic, while Silver became Super Silver, with the Chaos Emeralds. Sonic then opened a Super Warp Portal to the sun using the Warp Topaz, and Super Silver began removing the Metal Virus from its victims with his psychokinesis and dragging it into the Super Warp Portal. Noticing that the said supernatural orange orb itself was not reacting well to all that energy though, Super Sonic and Super Silver circled the entire planet several times, removing every trace of the Metal Virus from it along the way. After the heinous biomechanical virus itself was eradicated at last, everything alive on Sonic's home world returned to normal.
Aftermath
Despite the destruction of the Metal Virus, effects of its infection remained. Many people were displaced from their time as Zombots, and in that state had damaged infrastructure across the board, including Eggman's own bases. At the Forest Ridge Zone Campground, the Metal Virus had struck during the winter season, preventing the local flora from absorbing the amount of water they needed and leaving the forest dry during subsequent seasons after the Metal Virus was removed. Knuckles would later spent most of the time scouting Angel Island for remains of the Metal Virus, causing him to find new sections of Angel Island he did not know.
Dr. Starline would later repurpose the code for the Metal Virus to make cellular upgrades for Surge and Kit's cybernetic enhancements, thereby making them much more physically resilient and allowing them to survive damage that could be considered deadly to others. As part of his tests for them, Starline sent Surge and Kit to cause a wildfire at the drought-stricken Forest Ridge Zone Campground, hoping to kill Amy's group and demoralize Sonic. However, this plan failed.
Gallery
Trivia
- The transmutation that the virus causes is similar to roboticization, a reoccurring evil process seen in the mainline Sonic the Hedgehog video games, the previous Archie Sonic the Hedgehog comics, the Sonic the Hedgehog/Sonic SatAM animated television series and the spin-off cartoon show Sonic Underground.
- Ian Flynn has explained that the reason why autotrophic cells would endure the deterioration of the Metal Virus longer than heterotropic cells is because botanical cell structure is more rigid in nature.
- Flynn has stated that the reason Silver had not been affected by the Metal Virus when he visited his future after the war is because the Metal Virus had mutated to a state where it was not as effective anymore. It was also due to Silver's psychokinetic powers inconsistently being able to counteract electronics.
