When Archie Comics acquired the rights to Capcom’s Mega Man franchise, I knew that it was very likely they’d produce a crossover with their long-running adaptation of Sega’s Sonic the Hedgehog. It really made sense considering Sonic and Mega Man were both blue video game icons who fought the robotic armies of a mad scientist. So, on the urging of Capcom, Archie produced the twelve-part miniseries Worlds Collide.
Our story opens with the forces of the nefarious Dr. Wily coming across a Chaos Emerald near his base in the Amazon Jungle. When he attempts to analyze it, he comes in contact with Dr. Eggman in another universe. Realizing they have a lot in common, they meet in a pocket zone later dubbed “the Skull Egg Zone” to start their scheme in dealing with their blue advisories. After building their super weapon, the Wily Egg, they use the Chaos Emerald to reboot their respective universes.
From there, the doctors send their henchmen Metal Sonic, Bass, and Copy Robot to begin kidnapping Sonic’s friends to be transformed into Roboticized Masters. They send the Roboticized Masters to rob a bank in Mega Man’s world, partially to both draw the Blue Bomber out but also steal a Chaos Emerald that appeared there. They also send Copy Robot out to confront Sonic, using Mega Man’s doppelganger’s appearance to confuse the Blue Blur.
The doctors then send Metal Sonic after Mega Man to draw him into Sonic’s world, where the two blue heroes do confront each other. The fight between the two is fairly even, which the doctors watch with glee in hopes that the heroes will destroy each other. However, when the fight spills back into Mega Man’s world and the heroes start pulling their punches with civilians around, the doctors panic and order Tails Man, the Roboticized Master monitoring the fight, to attack.
Sonic and Mega Man call a truce and deal with Sonic’s roboticized friend, eventually reverting Tails back to normal. Realizing that both Doctors Wily and Eggman are behind the Roboticized Masters, they travel to Dr. Light’s lab… just in time to see the good doctor being kidnapped by Bass and Metal Sonic. Joined by Proto Man and Rush, they travel to the Skull Egg Zone to rescue Dr. Light and put an end to the evil doctors’ scheme.
I’ve been a big fan of both Sonic the Hedgehog and Mega Man since I was a kid, so I knew both franchises really well. The reboot allowed the Mega Man franchise to use characters from all the games, including the Game Boy series and the Genesis’ Wily Wars, despite the comic itself being only up to the third game. All the characters from both franchises come strictly from the games, with comic-exclusive characters limited to brief cameos. Notes frequently appear to help readers unfamiliar to either franchise to know characters or references, though these sometimes get repeated every issue and can get repetitive.
While Worlds Collide does a great job utilizing both the Sonic the Hedgehog and Mega Man franchises, there are a few things that did bug me. Mega Man characters seem to be used a lot more than Sonic characters are, at least in terms of numbers. Granted, most of them are various Robot Masters from all over the franchise, meaning that most might get one scene of importance while the Sonic characters receive somewhat larger roles. There are also far more nods to memes or bits of Sonic history scattered throughout than there are for Mega Man, though I honestly think there aren’t that many well-known Mega Man memes.
I feel that the interaction between the two franchises’ characters was really well done. The alliance between Drs. Eggman and Wily was great, with two evil geniuses working together to defeat their blue nemesi, even managing NOT to try stabbing each other in the back until near the end. Sonic and Mega Man’s interaction is great too, starting out fighting each other due to a case to mistaken identities before eventually calling a truce when people’s lives are in jeopardy. Sonic tends to tease the Blue Bomber and acts nonchalant when the latter is worried about Dr. Light, but in the end they both have each other’s backs.
Of course, once everything’s said and done, the two heroes have to fix the damage that the doctors have done. I’ll try not to give away too many spoilers, but while Mega Man’s universe remains relatively unscathed, Sonic’s universe suffers…. greatly. The comic-only characters are drastically reduced to only characters originating from two of the 90’s cartoons, with most characters introduced over the series’ 20 or so year history retconned out. This was a result of legal issues in regards to one of the former writers as well as changes in policy on Sega’s end, so, unfortunately this crossover ended up being used to deal with these behind-the-scenes issues. On the plus side, the Sonic comic is perhaps closer to the games than it has ever been. On the down, a lot of popular characters are now gone and any unresolved plot lines hanging.
Worlds Collide was a really well done crossover between two of gaming’s legendary franchises that I really enjoyed. It did both franchises the justice they deserved even though the circumstances of the conclusion were unfortunate. It was popular enough to spawn a sequel,Worlds Unite, which upped the scale to include other Sega and Capcom franchises besides Sonic the Hedgehog and Mega Man.
