Sonic the Hedgehog Promo Comic

Kintobor: "Who in tarnations are you!?"
Sonic: "Don't you know? I'm Sonic the Hedgehog™."

A very interesting entry from the earliest days in the Sonic the Hedgehog series, this oneshot promo comic was crafted in an attempt to provide an origin story for Sonic in the western world, as well as promote his debut game.

The comic starts with Sonic rescuing his friends from several badniks created by Dr. Robotnik, as they question where their friend Dr. Kintobor is--only for Sonic to drop the bad news that Kintobor IS Robotnik! He then goes into an origin story, where Sonic explains that he first met Kintobor by burrowing into his underground laboratory, just as he is working on the Retro Orbital Chaos Compressor-- or just ROCC for short, which the good doctor intends to use to rid the world of all evil, as soon as he finds the seventh Chaos Emerald, which is required with the other six already in the machine. Sonic and Kintobor become fast friends, and after a freak accident involving a treadmill (due to Sonic wanting to kick the mass versus velocity theory in the dirt) Sonic's fur is turned from brown to cobalt blue, and his quills are permanently fused together from the heat of the speed he was going at--and Kintobor promptly gives him a special pair of frictionless shoes to replace his old ones.

But one day, Kintobor spills a drink on the ROCC controls, causing the ROCC's containment rings to scatter all over the island, as well as bathe Kintobor in 10,000 bolts of Pure Evil Energy, causing him to transform into Dr. Robotnik.

The rest of the comic is spent on Sonic partaking in loose adaptations of the levels from the games to try and stop Robotnik, as well as saving Porker Lewis in the end, and the comic telling the readers to go buy the game to see what happens next.

While the comic is obviously not canon to the games, it did provide the backbone for Fleetway's Sonic the Comic, which borrowed the same origin story.

No relation to Archie's Sonic the Hedgehog comic series, by the way.

You can find the comic in question in its entirety here.

Tropes used in Sonic the Hedgehog Promo Comic include:

• Art Evolution: Sally Acorn appears very, very different. She is not humanoid at all (the current one is essentially a photorealistic naked human with a anthro animal head stuck on espesically under Stevn Butler), wearing a pink bow (the current one has boots and a vest) and very dimunitive.
  • Also applies to Jonny Lightfoot and Porker Lewis. Thankfully, the current incarnations are not photorealistic humans with animal heads, however the new ones are more anthropomorphised.
  • Sally is essentially Ricky with a bow on his head, trying to pass for a girl, in this issue.
• Beneath the Earth: Where Kintobor's secret lab is located.
• Canon Immigrant: Porker Lewis would become a prominent character in the UK Sonic Comic.
  • Oh, Sally's here too. She looks completely different from her current self, though.
    • And Johnny Lightfoot.
• Cliff Hanger
• Continuity Drift
• The Corruption: What turns Kintobor into Robotnik.
• Create Your Own Villain: Robotnik
• Early Installment Weirdness: On account of the totally bizarre origin story.
• Fun with Acronyms: ROCC.
• Grimy Water: In Labyrinth Zone, due to Robotnik's pollution.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes
• Mecha-Mooks: The Badniks.
• Mineral MacGuffin: The Chaos Emeralds.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: If Kintobor had just kept that soda away from the machine, the whole mess wouldn't have started in the first place.
• Off-Model: Sonic frequently changes in girth throughout the comic.
• Pungeon Master: Sonic.
• Sdrawkcab Name: Kintobor and Robotnik.
• Super-Hero Origin
• Super Speed: Sonic, naturally.