Capeworld Comics

The FORBIDDEN Death Battle Prediction Blog Episode 18

 

Prediction 5

 

The Flash (Wally West) vs Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics)

 

Ohhhhhh boy. You know how I said in my Ben vs Hal retrospective that I thought the closest we could get to replicating the Ben vs Hal salt would be Amethyst vs Sailor Moon?

 

I was wrong.

 

 I was so, so wrong.

 

Oh, what a battle this has been! Twists and turns, thrills and chills! I pity those of you who weren’t in the 4chan threads. They were a lot of fun. Leaks! Drama! Lies! Salt!

 

Currently, the big right-before-the-buzzer twist seems to be that a leak from an anonymous ex-voice actor released shortly after Flash vs Sonic was announced may very well be correct. He posted that Wally would win, that upcoming fights included Sanji vs Rock Lee and John Talbain vs Sabrewulf, and that we would be getting a The Boys themed BR where Billy Butcher’s boys fight the Seven.

 

Everyone went “Yeah right. A Boys vs The Seven BR? Get real.” and disregarded the leak as faker than CNN.

 

Then it got confirmed.

 

The ex-VA was legit.

 

That means it’s very likely that we got a Wally win.

 

But let’s go through this like any other Death Battle.

 

First thing I should probably talk about is bias.

 

Death Battle has a bias for Sonic.

 

“But wait Otto! You just said Wally’s likely to win! What do you mean they have a bias for Sonic?”

 

It’s possible to put your thumb on the scale so that the scales get a little more balanced without fully tipping the other way. That doesn’t mean there wasn’t bias.

 

There’s bias.

 

I don’t mean the footage of Ben taking his personal Archie Comics collection out and bragging about how powerful Sonic is while his eyes light up like a child on Christmas morning. I don’t mean the researcher leak where mystery researcher X describes three researchers as “huge Archie fans” that have “read the comics several times over” and Ben as being “the biggest Archie fan you’ll ever meet.”

 

Let’s put that statement in perspective. Toph vs Gaara and Tifa vs Yang were rigged harder than a boxing match in a film noir and Ben went in harder for this fight than those. Not a good look.

 

I don’t even mean Ben admitting on the podcast that they’re actively trying to find a fight that’ll beat a DC character and that they went into Booster vs Cable hoping and praying Booster would buy it.

 

I mean methodological bias.

 

The first thing you need to understand is that “Archie Sonic” is a sleight of hand. It makes you think they’re using a very specific version of a character like “DKR Batman” or  “Kal-L.” But they aren’t. Archie’s Sonic the Hedgehog has had so many retcons it would make Marv Wolfman blush. And it matters because the Sonic Wally is going up against doesn’t actually exist. It’s a Franken-Sonic created to tip the scales in Sonic’s favor. It’s a Sonic OC.

 

Here’s how DB built their OC:

 

Early on in Archie Sonic’s history, his comic had the cast of SatAM (Sonic the Hedgehog 1993) but the tone of Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog. You would have stories where Sonic would shrink down and fight cartoon bacteria with the help of “Aunty Body.” The stories were about as serious as Looney Tunes, probably even a little less. Eventually, the comic started to take the tone of SatAM and get more serious. And as it got more serious, Sonic’s power levels decreased sharply. 

 

Here’s Ian Flynn’s take on how Sonic’s cartoon era power levels stand in light of modern comics. Ian Flynn wrote Sonic from issue 160 to its cancelation.

 

 

Pre-Flynn Sonic has a feat in base form where he forms a water ball and throws it at a robot at near attosecond speeds.

 

Death Battle is going to take this feat and slap on features specific of Flynn’s version of Super Sonic. Flynn’s Super Sonic increases Sonic’s abilities by 1K. This isn’t much when Flynn’s Sonic’s best feat is running across the continental US in seconds, but it is when they stack this 1K atop pre-Flynn Sonic’s near-attosecond feat.

 

Flynn’s Super Sonic, who is vastly, comedicaly slower than base form pre-Flynn Sonic, can also use chaos control as a nifty cosmic level plot device to rewind time or cancel universe-level retcon waves. This is something the Super Sonic before Flynn couldn’t do. But as a composite, he can.

 

Pre-Flynn Sonic can’t use chaos control, but he’s really fast. Flynn’s Sonic can use chaos control, but he’s really slow. On their own, none are really a threat to Wally. But fused together, they are.

 

But wait, there’s more!

 

Pre-Flynn Sonic had a mode that went beyond his version of Super Sonic of the day called Ultra Sonic. Super Sonic was activated by Sonic absorbing the power of fifty rings and a few chaos emeralds while Ultra Sonic was activated by Sonic downing a large but indeterminate amount of rings. Sonic transformed into Ultra Sonic by passing through Super Sonic, but Ultra Sonic was nowhere near the power demonstrated by Flynn’s Super Sonic. This is because the old Super Sonic transformation just needed a few chaos emeralds to work back when the universe was full of them (yes, Archie used to have a universe full of chaos emeralds) while the modern Super Sonic transformation requires seven fused chaos emeralds. 

 

You see, Tails turned out to be the chosen one of prophecy and used his secret cosmic powers to banish all the chaos emeralds to a pocket dimension called the Zone of Silence where a cosmic panda god named Feist merged emeralds of the same colors until there were only seven emeralds just like the video games.

 

Archie Sonic was weird.

 

But the point here is that modern Super Sonic, which is activated through all seven fused chaos emeralds, uses VASTLY more chaos force than the old Super Sonic. It goes Pre-Flynn Super Sonic<Ultra Sonic<Flynn’s Super Sonic.

 

But DB is going to stack Ultra as a form on top of modern Super Sonic to essentially create a mode for Sonic that doesn’t exist.

 

If Death Battle wants to use composites, then they should use composites for both characters. If they want to use Franken-Sonic, then they should give Wally his powers from Kingdom Come. At the very least, they should give Wally his recent power boost from sitting in Metron’s chair and absorbing Dr. Manhattan’s powers. That’s actually an in-canon powerup unlike the form-stacking Sonic is getting.

 

So Death Battle is sticking their thumb on the scale for Sonic. Does that mean Wally is doomed? Not necessarily. Death Battle has put their thumb on the scales before while still picking the right winner (and besides, we got that VA leak). Sometimes sticking their thumb on the scales results in a screwjob as was the case for Tifa vs Yang and Gaara vs Toph. But sometimes the one that should win does win and DB put their thumb down just to make the loser look better and soften the blow for the loser’s side. Look at Machamp vs Goro. Everyone and their mother knew that Machamp was faster, but DB gave the speed advantage to Goro by scaling him to Kabal…even though Kabal is the franchise’s speedster and Goro has never even been in the same room as Kabal. Look at Billy vs Carol. Billy scales to Superman and his power-patron Zeus has murdered skyfathers that make universes in puddles. He gets a fraction of the big bang as his power? Give me a break. Look at She-Ra vs Wonder Woman. They talk about how Wonder Woman’s strength is less than She-Ra kicking a planet on the same slide they have her fishing Martian Manhunter out of a black hole.

 

Is DB biased toward Sonic? Oh yeah. Does this mean Sonic wins? Not necessarily.

 

Now let’s get to the fight.

 

Let’s get to the BIG question.

 

Who is Faster?

 

It’s almost a contest in and of itself. We’re talking about two characters who have built their reputations on their speed. It’s like asking who’s stronger–Doomsday or Hulk, or who’s smarter–Lex Luthor or Dr. Doom?

 

Well? Who is Faster?

 

Wally.

 

Wally, Wally, so Wally.

 

How fast is Wally?

 

He’s currently the fastest superhero in DC beating out even his uncle Barry the second Flash who generates the hyperdimensional Speed Force that gives them both their abilities and makes the universe go. If you’ve been in vs battles long enough, you probably know that a good chunk of DC power levels come from speed feats. Starting the speedster superhero archetype in 1940 with Jay Garrick will do that for you. Wally stands at the tip-top of that speed feat pyramid. It’s more than just him being in the number one slot on that DC speedsters chart. It’s Barry admitting he’s faster. You see, Barry might generate the speed force, but Wally knows how to use it better. 

 

What makes Wally the DC king of speed? Wally is capable of physics breaking bullshit.

 

Now you’re probably thinking, well duh Otto, he’s a Flash, You had Barry breaking physics by vibrating his molecules back in the late fifties. Flashs have been breaking physics since before Have Gun–Will Travel.

 

No. Wally is really, really, REALLY capable of physics breaking bullshit.

 

Here’s a good example. In the very excellent Morrison/Waid story The Human Race, Wally has to race a small blue humanoid that used to be his imaginary friend (they better reference this) for cosmic gamesters or they’ll blow up the Earth. He eventually gets one over the gamesters by challenging them to a race back to Earth. The gamesters can teleport anywhere they want in an instant, but Flash still beats them by absorbing the speed (he can do that) of two planets which allows him to break physics and access “transtime.”

 

That was Wally in 1998. That was a Wally who was still afraid of tapping into the Speed Force because he thinks it will absorb and kill him.

 

Modern Wally can freely access the Speed Force without fear.

 

The Speed Force contains quite a bit more speed than two planets. It contains all the kinetic energy of a multiverse.

 

One might object that just because Wally can move inside and control the Speed Force doesn’t necessarily mean he can channel all of the Speed Force. But he’s done it before in the 90’s to frag Cobalt Blue. Cobalt Blue was Barry Allen’s secret evil brother (don’t you just love comics?) who could absorb the Speed Force to get stronger. Wally killed him by channeling “every last erg” of the Speed Force through him.

 

Wally survived doing this. There’s no reason that modern amped Wally with fancy new space-colored lightning couldn’t do the same thing and ramp up to and even surpass Human Race speeds.

 

Wally also went faster than the Speed Force recently to kill a bunch of regenerating shadow monsters from the Dark Multiverse.

 

He went faster than the combined kinetic energy of the DC multiverse.

 

Some people think that this was Wally being hyperbolic. “How can Wally run faster than the combined kinetic energy of his own multiverse?” they ask while ignoring that Wally lives in a comicbook where Dream is a person, a scale model of the universe exists inside the universe called the worlogog (and includes itself), and God’s wrath wears little green Robin booties. Wally West can go faster than the Speed Force because he’s a superhero and not real. No fiction cop is going to bust DC for Wally going too fast.

 

In context, it makes sense for Wally to be going that fast. He’s fighting against shadow monsters that threaten to eat the multiverse. This multiverse includes worlds that contain versions of himself, Superman, Specter, Dr. Fate, and other very powerful and very fast beings. This would be the kind of threat that would necessitate Wally going faster than the speed force.

 

Now, how does Sonic’s speed stack up against Wally?

 

Not well.

 

Stack whatever multiplier you like on whatever cartoon era feat you want. Stack Ultra Sonic on top of modern chaos control Super Sonic.

 

Sonic is still just too slow.

 

DB will try and equalize the speed. They will take a panel of Super Sonic fighting Hyper Knuckles where the narration box says they move at “incalculable speed” to mean Super Sonic can move at infinite speed even though they can totally calculate the speed by measuring the explosion Sonic and Knuckles create when they hit each other. 

 

Eggman’s computers struggled to keep up with Sonic when he zipped to the East coast. The threshold for incalculability is very low on Mobius. It also sets an awful precedent for future episodes to take a narration box at face value. Are characters said to be invincible in narration boxes now truly invincible?

 

I’ve also heard the argument that because Sonic Man, a roboticized and upgraded version of Sonic created by Dr. Wily plus Eggman plus Sigma, overcame Flash Man’s time stopper ability that Sonic has infinite speed.

 

Okay. For the sake of argument, lets see that overcoming a time stop move means you have infinite speed. It doesn’t unless you think Star Platinum can dash to Alpha Centauri, but let’s say that it does.

 

Jon Kent broke through time stop and he’s far, far, farrrrrrrr from the top of the DC speed pyramid. A weakened Wally West broke through time stop. Superman has broken through time stop, and something something “That was just for charity Clark.”

 

If you want to make overcoming time stop equal infinite speed, know that Wally goes beyond this trick farrrrrr more than Sonic. He goes farrrrrr beyond whatever “creative accounting” you can pull for Sonic’s speed.

 

The fastest man alive is also the fastest thing alive.

 

Who is More Powerful?

 

Wally.

 

When Wally and Barry raced each other, the multiverse shook to the point High Father up in New Genesis thought the Source itself was acting up.

 

When 31st speedster XS attempted a variation of Wally’s famous infinite mass punch, Brianc 13 stated that her mass could increase to the point the universe would be destroyed.

 

Wally recently gained the ability to quantum stack punches so that multiple punches hit at once through quantum mechanics.

 

Wally can quantum stack infinite mass punches.

 

During the Chain Lightning arc, Barry Allen’s secret evil twin brother Cobalt Blue and Wally mucked about the time streak. A consequence of their mucking about was that Wally found himself facing an Anti-Monitor from an alternate timeline where he won because Barry wasn’t around to stop his multiverse level canon. This created a little more antimatter in the universe which gave the Anti-Monitor enough of a boost to destroy all the superheroes and all the positive matter universes.

 

Whoops.

 

And you thought Barry was a butterfingers when it came to the time line!

 

Hoping things could still be salvaged, Wally time traveled a little ways to the climactic battle of COIE hoping that he could help the heroes defeat the uber-Anti-Monitor.

 

It took a bunch of pre-crisis Superman level characters, including pre-crisis Superman himself, combining their powers to make a crack in the Anti-Monitor armor.

Wally turned it into a swiss cheese then made it explode.

 

True, this didn’t destroy the Anti-Monitor. His energy form got up and killed everyone but Wally.   Wally had to go back even further in time to make sure Barry made his sacrifice. But Wally still obliterated an armor that stands up to multiverse-level punishment.

 

Wally can quantum stack infinite mass punches that break an amped Anti-Monitor’s armor.

 

Now, how does Sonic’s power compare to Wally’s?

 

Not well.

 

In terms of direct power feats, Sonic doesn’t have much. He doesn’t even have a good “blow up a planet” feat. His best power feats come from indirect actions such as when he blocked Eggman’s Super Genesis Wave.

 

The Super Genesis Wave resulted from Eggman and Dr. Wily (of Mega Man fame) teaming up. They created a device powered by the seven chaos emeralds that would rewrite both their universes and make them god-kings. Sonic needed to go Super Sonic and give Mega Man his own Super form in order to counter the Super Genesis Wave. They separated to save their respective universes. Mega Man managed to save his universe, but Sonic got bumped by Eggman in a broken mech which broke his concentration and made him fumble his chaos control horribly, disintegrating him and his universe at the molecular level. Fortunately, Sonic and his world were reborn–and double fortunately without echidna OCs.

 

This would put Sonic pretty firmly at circumstantial universe level with the caveat that when he’s channeling enough chaos force to overcome a magic retcon wave he’s very vulnerable. He has to stand still and focus and if anything bumps him he can wind up destroying himself with his own power. But DB will likely bump Sonic up to multiverse level. You see, the SGW originally only targeted and affected Mega Man’s universe and Sonic’s universe. Two universes were involved. But Sonic’s entire multiverse ended up getting a retcon. NICOLE and Eggman both say that the multiverse collapsed. SO was the SGW multiverse level?

 

Not exactly. You have to understand that Sonic’s universe is like the Mirage universe in the TMNT multiverse. It’s a cornerstone universe. Whatever happens to it happens to all the universes that spun out from it. If you blow up the Mirage universe, you blow up the TMNT multiverse. And when Sonic’s universe of Zone Prime blew up, all the other Zones went with it…which included a Zone based on Sonic X. Ouch. Goodbye, Chris Thorndike.

 

But go ahead. Give Sonic multiversal levels of power. He still has to concentrate his thoughts and channel the chaos force. In a fight against someone faster than he is, that’s tantamount to signing his own death warrant.

 

Who is More Durable?

 

Wally.

 

Delete him from time?

 

He comes back.

Delete him from the metaverse?

 

He comes back.

 

Kill him?

 

He outruns death.

 

Destroy him?

 

Speed Force puts him back together.

 

Sonic was knocked out of Super Sonic by a sub-planetary level explosion that will likely be wanked to universe level. But the point is that he was still knocked out of it by enough force.

 

Wally isn’t going to be knocked out of the Speed Force.

 

Some people argue that Sonic can’t be killed because of an aura granted to him by his 1 billionth ring. Let me explain, because this is another weird Archie comic thing.

 

The Ancient Walkers, weird but benevolent cosmic gods, rewarded Sonic by empowering the 1 billionth ring he collected to make it more powerful than the average ring. Sonic mounted this ring on his wall (1 billion served) and it rescued him by creating a portal when Robotnik Prime’s base exploded in his face.

 

Then when Sonic was roboticized into an ugly looking mech, Sally’s computer handheld NICOLE was able to tap into an internal force field secretly created by the billionth ring to restore Sonic’s body.

 

I told you Archie Sonic was weird.

 

Note that this field didn’t protect Sonic from being turned into a robot in the first place and had to be activated by another character.

 

Ways Wally Can Win

 

Make a Sonic Statue

 

Good ol’ speed steal. The bedrock of Flash power level arguments since the 1990’s.

 

Wally can steal speed. That was sort of his signature move among DC speedsters for awhile but eventually Barry and Jay figured out how to do it as well. By “speed” I mean kinetic energy. He can hold his hand out and make bullets fall down like Neo. He can keep the planet from shaking apart as the League uses it for tug-of-war with an Atlantean witch. When used against a person, they get slower and he gets faster. Typically this causes them to freeze up for a few moments, but if Wally is really pissed he can drain all of a person’s speed and turn them into a living statue. He did this to Inertia, who was sort of Bart’s version of a Reverse Flash, to punish Inertia for his role in Bart’s death and stuck him in the Flash Museum. Wally can also speed steal to heal. Ha! It rhymes!

 

When an amped Cheetah slit his throat, Wally stole her speed to freeze her and heal himself.

 

There’s no reason he can’t steal Sonic’s speed. Jay Garrick successfully used it against Superman who is far durable and far more “hax proof” than any version of Sonic.

 

Some people argue that Sonic can mitigate having his speed stolen through power rings. In one issue of his comic, he had his momentum cut but he got it back by draining a power ring. But this is a band-aid on a gaping wound.

 

Power rings in the comic don’t work like they do in the games. Sonic doesn’t walk over them and “absorb” them into himself as a jingle plays. Sonic doesn’t gush rings when he gets hit. Rings follow SatAM rules. They’re tangible reservoirs of powers spawn by lakes. Mobians often use them to power machinery. Sonic grabs a ring and drains it to get a boost of speed and energy.

 

If Wally starts to drain his speed, Sonic will have to run to a lake of rings to grab one…while he’s slowing down. Even if the fight somehow ends up in a lake of rings, draining the rings just means Wally gets to steal that speed on top of what he’s already stolen from Sonic. Wally can drain the entire planet of rings if he has to.

 

Blow up Sonic’s Molecules

 

Wally has learned to control his vibrations, but back in the 80’s and 90’s, his vibrations were destructive compared to his Uncle Barry’s. This was written as a way to limit Wally’s powers, ground him, and further his inferiority complex next to Barry. Wally couldn’t phase through things like Uncle Barrry because they would explode. Phasing through inert matter became a “I better check to see if no one’s nearby” thing and phasing through people was right out.

 

But in a fight to the death, Wally’s flaw becomes a very good weapon. He can vibrate and essentially become a ghost that destroys your molecules on contact. He’s so good at this that he destroyed one of the Anti-Monitor’s shadow demons with his touch and they exist to destroy matter with their own touch. That’s like turning Medusa to stone by locking eyes with her.

 

Sonic in his base form once vibrated his molecules as a desperation move to pass through a wall that would have otherwise flattened him. He stated that doing so was extremely risky, and he never did it again. When it comes to vibrating his molecules, he’s a white belt and Wally’s a black belt. Wally can even make other people phasing by vibrating their molecules stop as he did against Martian Manhunter. If Wally touched Sonic with his destructive vibrations, I don’t see Sonic having the control necessary to avoid exploding. He’s never dealt with an attack like it before.

 

Some might argue that Ultra Sonic’s molecular control will let Sonic avoid being fragged. But Ultra Sonic never manipulated his own molecules. Even if Ultra Sonic could manipulate his own molecules, I don’t think he’d know how to manipulate them so as to cancel out Wally’s vibrations. It’s the difference between trying to assemble a jigsaw puzzle and trying to assemble a jigsaw puzzle in a hurricane.

 

Some might also look at the fight Super Sonic had with Enerjak Knuckles and argue that it means Super Sonic can resist molecular control. 

 

This requires another little lesson in Archie Sonic history. Enerjak was an evil spirit of chaos magic who was once bonded to an echidna named Demitri. Eventually, he bonded to Knuckles. At first this wasn’t so bad. Knuckles had cosmic power and was a little more dickish than usual. He took care of echidna specific villains (echidnas were sort of like the X-Men of the Archie universe in that they had their own sub-setting and lore) like the Dark Legion and protected his people. He was like Namor/Black Adam/Authority levels of corrupt. But then he got worse and Sonic had to team-up with Eggman to stop Enerjak Knuckles.

 

The two reasons why Enerjak didn’t smoke Super Sonic were that part of his power was drained by Eggman and that Knuckles wasn’t a very creative host (seriously). He never tried to molecularly disintegrate Super Sonic. He threw an energy blast. In fact, we know that if he had tried to moleculary disintegrate Super Sonic it would have worked because he tried to trap Super Sonic by turning him into a cloud and moving him underground. It worked. Super Sonic turned into a cloud and was moved underground. It’s just that Super Sonic dug himself out. If Enerjak Knuckles had kept Super Sonic as a cloud he would have won as Sonic would have reverted to a cloud of flesh and blood when his timer ran out.

 

…Didn’t I do something like that in Power of Stardust?

 

If you want the ultimate proof that Sonic is vulnerable to molecular attacks, look at the SGW. Sonic and his multiverse were destroyed at the molecular level. There you go. His atoms are less secure than a DNC server.

 

Steal Sonic’s Powers

 

This is a dirty one, but it’s also effective. A lot of Sonic fans on /co/ got upset when this strategy was brainstormed for Wally and cried FANFICTION FANFICTION FANFICTION as if this wasn’t a fight to the death between Flash and Sonic. This anger shows how effective it is.

 

Going fast isn’t enough to give someone speedster powers. Superman, Wonder Woman, Martian Manhunter, they can all go really fast, faster than even some speedsters, but they don’t have Speed Force granted powers. You can’t just touch the Speed Force and get Flash powers. Sonic can’t enter the Speed Force and power up from it. Superboy Prime spent four years in the Speed Force. No extra powers.

 

But powering up through chaos emeralds and power rings isn’t something that only Sonic can do. It’s not like he’s the only one that can access a supermode from these objects. If you grab an emerald/power ring and will it, you get the power.

 

The following have powered up on chaos force objects:

 

A hedgehog.

A hedgehog from another universe.

A cat from another universe.

A hedgehog from an alternate timeline.

A mutant bioweapon hedgehog.

A mutant fox boy with two tails who is the chosen one of prophecy.

An echidna.

An evil AI.

An evil hedgehog AI.

A benevolent AI

A benevolent AI from another universe (Mega Man).

An immortal mammoth.

An evil wizard that’s either a fusion of three monster-men or from a race of troll-humans.

 

I don’t see why Wally wouldn’t be able to power up from Sonic’s jewelry collection. There’s even a precedent for him powering up from stuff besides the Speed Force in how he absorbed Dr. Manhattan’s powers from the Mobius Chair.

 

Wally can even combine this strategy with his time travel abilities for a VERY mean combo. He can run back into the past and grab the emeralds before Sonic uses them.

 

How’s that for a repeat of Ben vs Hal?

 

Just imagine Wally’s suit turning back to Kid Flash yellow as he steals Sonic’s super form. I’ll be honest. I want to see it. How often is stealing a character’s transformation a viable win con? We might never get the opportunity again.

 

Beat Sonic to Death

 

Yeah, Sonic’s durable. But he’s not “Specter boosted by several magic superheroes couldn’t crack my armor” durable.

 

Sonic was knocked out of Super Sonic by a sub-planetary explosion that took place in a Zone beneath a tree. DB will likely make this sub-planetary Zone the size of a universe (Ultraguy argued a building was the size of the observable universe), but that still means a universe blowing up knocked Sonic out of Super Sonic.

 

If one IMP threatens a universe and Wally can ORAORAORAORA them and quantum stack them–well you see where I’m going with this.

 

Overwhelm him with Speed Clones

 

Yeah. Wally can make speed clones of himself. You know how Booster was able to clone himself in Booster vs Cable? Wally can do the same thing. He doesn’t do it often, it’s more of Bart’s signature technique, but he can do it. Look at Heroes in Crisis for an infamously headache inducing example. 

 

Wally arrests himself for murder. It’s pretty cringe. And it means there’s a second Wally somewhere out there in the multiverse. Such is the state of modern comics.

 

There’s really nothing stopping Wally from summoning an army of himself and beating Sonic to death with quantum-stacked IMP. Sonic doesn’t have a counter for that. Use chaos control to take down all the clones with a big universe crushing blast? Good luck doing that as the clones phase in and out of reality and attack Sonic not only at different points in space but time. 

 

Wait for Time to Run Out

 

This is one I’ve found a lot of people overlook.

 

Sonic is on a timer. Wally isn’t.

 

Just like in the games, Sonic’s super-modes eventually end and he reverts back to his normal blue self. With the Speed Force regenerating him and providing infinite energy, Wally only needs to run the clock in order to win. Ultra Sonic ends pretty fast. It only held up for Sonic’s fight against Ixis Naugus and Sonic indicated that the more he exerted himself the faster this mode ran out. Super Sonic lasts longer. It typically only lasts a few minutes, but one example had it last four hours. It’s still on a timer.

 

Wally won’t even need to wait the full four hours for Sonic to revert. He can time travel not only back in time, but forwards in time. Wally isn’t a police scientist (that’s cool guy talk for forensic scientist) like his Uncle Barry, but it’s not a stretch to imagine that if he’s struggling with a guy that suddenly got stronger by absorbing the energy of plot device objects that he might jump forward 48 hours or so to see if the powerup still lasts.

 

Have the Speed Force Eat Him

 

The Speed Force is not a nice place. It’s often been treated as the speedster afterlife because typically when they go fast enough to reach it, they don’t come back. They get absorbed by the Speed Force. Wally’s managed to get himself out of the Speed Force by being a main character and now he can freely enter and exit it. But Sonic’s not going to have an easy time in the Speed Force. It’s not like any Zone he’s ever seen before. If he gets stuck in it, he’s stuck for good. Remember that the Speed Force was able to imprison Superboy “I punch the walls of reality to make retcons” Prime. Sure, he eventually got out, but it took some time–four years to be exact.

 

Wally just needs to keep Sonic in the Speed Force for four hours. And that’s assuming it doesn’t just absorb Sonic outright–super-modes and all. Running really fast in the Speed Force when you don’t know what it is and what it can do is a very bad idea. If Sonic tries to run out of the Speed Force, he’ll just get absorbed faster.

 

Terminate Him

 

There’s nothing keeping Wally from pulling a “It was me Sonic, me” and running back in time to kill Sonic as a baby. I saw someone post early on that Sonic once survived his past self being deleted but I haven’t seen any proof of that. Time travel is an easy move for Wally to pull and the only thing Sonic has done similar is to use chaos control to undo the effects of the Genesis Wave (not the Super Genesis Wave, this one was done by Eggman using only a single chaos emerald to rewrite the reality of a single planet).

 

Sonic has never, for instance, ran into the time stream. So if Wally runs back to when Sonic is a baby, he’s likely not going to know what Wally is doing until it’s too late. And as the numerous retcons of Sonic’s comic have shown, Sonic is vulnerable to being retconned out of existence in a way Wally isn’t.

 

Ways Sonic Can’t Win

 

Beat Wally to Death

 

With Wally’s phasing tricks, Sonic can’t really land a blow and will have to worry about blowing himself up just by touching Wally through his destructive vibrations.

 

Use Ultra Sonic to turn Wally into a toilet

 

Yes I have seen the fanart. It is such a sadness that Sonic fans have to follow the stereotype of being creepy degenerates.

 

Ultra Sonic demonstrated the ability to exert Firestorm levels of molecular control. He could turn objects to smoke and raise pillars out of the Earth and the like. He never demonstrated the ability to control organic matter, but it’s likely Death Battle will give him the ability to do so. It’s also likely that given they’re sticking Ultra atop modern Super that they’ll upgrade Sonic’s molecular control to universe if not multiverse level.

 

So can Sonic turn Wally into a statue? Not likely. Wally has complete control over his own molecular structure to the point he survived temporarily phasing into a deleted multiverse, though it caused him pain. His molecular control is so good that he could even cancel the molecular phasing of other superheroes like Martian Manhunter. His molecular control is so good that he was able to send himself and the League into Marvel’s 616 even while it actively tried to keep him out and didn’t have the Speed Force.

 

Wally also regenerates his body off speed. Once he starts mainling the Speed Force, any molecular damage Sonic inflicts on him is just going to be repaired. If Sonic tried to molecularly destroy Wally, he would feel his molecules being messed with and would replace them with Speed Force energy and space-lighting.

 

Delete Wally with Chaos Control

 

The argument goes that chaos control can do anything, so why can’t it undo everything? It’s described by Sonic as turning thoughts into reality. Chaos control is also very powerful. Sonic used it to hold back a universe-altering wave. Sure, Sonic has never Thanos-style snapped anyone out of existence, but maybe in light of chaos control’s power he can?

 

Been there, done that.

 

Being removed from time by Abra Kadabra (a villain who alternates between using technology so advanced it follows Clark’s Law and actual magic) didn’t stop Wally. He came back. Dr. Manhattan then went one step beyond and removed Wally from the metaverse which is a sort of a bizarre hyper-reality that follows the real-life timeline of DC comics. It’s high-level reality deletion, basically, and Wally still came back from that. He struggled coming back because no one remembered him, but the moment Barry did he came back. 

 

I doubt Sonic would forget the strange red Overlander he just wished into non-existence, so Wally won’t have to worry about not coming back.

 

Icing on the cake is that Sonic needs to focus to use chaos control. He has to concentrate and slow down. It’s interesting that for Sonic to do his most powerful stuff, he has to calm down and slow down. Props to Ian Flynn.

 

Say that Sonic could delete Wally. He’d have to slow down to use chaos control, and the attosecond he does so he eats quantum stacked IMPs.

 

Delete/Transform the Speed Force with Chaos Control

 

This is an even more wild take than the last.

 

The amount of power Sonic channels is not equal to the amount of power Wally channels. Sonic only ever channels a portion of the chaos force. Wally can channel all of the Speed Force. 

 

Go ahead and give Sonic all the chaos force. The biggest thing we’ve seen chaos force do is retcon two universes at once. Go ahead and ignore how Mobius Prime works and say it was a multiverse. DC’s multiverse is still absurdly larger than Sonic’s own. It’s also better protected.

 

Sol Zone, home of Blaze the Cat, was able to withstand the SGW because it had a magic jeweled scepter. That’s all it takes to beat the SGW. I’m pretty sure the DC cosmos has better failsafes than a magic scepter for its cosmic engine room.

 

If Sonic even could manipulate the combined kinetic energy of a setting vastly larger than his own, he’d have to do that while all the Dreams, all the Presences, and all the Darkseid notice that someone is messing with their kinetic energy.

 

I think that equals a magic scepter.

 

Remove Wally from the Speed Force

 

Given that the preview showed Wally and Sonic fighting in the Cosmic Interstate, one of those worlds-between-worlds deals, from Sonic’s multiverse, this argument is pretty much dead in the water, but let’s address it anyway. 

 

The argument goes that since Wally couldn’t use the Speed Force when he crossed over into Marvel’s 616 that if Sonic found some way to transport him into his own setting that Wally would be screwed.

 

The big problem with this is that Sonic has no way of figuring out that Wally needs the Speed Force. As far as he knows, he’s fighting a red Overlander who can take him to a weird Zone filled with lighting. Unless Wally opens his mouth and says “Aha Sonic! I am powered by the Speed Force, which is this Zone you see around you. If I am moved far away enough from the Speed Force I lose my powers and die!” Sonic isn’t going to come up with the tactic on his own.

 

Sonic also has no practical way of pulling this off. Portal rings to other Zones exist in his setting, but Sonic doesn’t carry these on his person. He prefers to run instead of teleport. Ultra Sonic was able to banish Ixis Naugus to the Zone of Silence by creating a portal ring, but this required all of his power to pull off.

 

You think Death Battle will take this as a limit to Ultra Sonic’s power? You think they’ll argue that Wally is stronger because he can freely zip himself and others across the multiverse by shaking while Sonic burns out just creating a link between his universe and a pocket dimension?

 

Probably not.

 

Fate will Conspire to Protect Sonic

 

This argument is kind of sad, isn’t it? “Well Sonic won’t win on his own but a vague and nebulous force will intervene on his behalf and rescue him.”

 

Sonic isn’t Longshot or Domino. Things don’t just “happen” for his benefit. I don’t know why people are taking Mammoth Mogul being salty and telling Sonic that he’s retiring to run a casino because Sonic is destined to always win to mean Sonic can’t lose. And I really don’t know why people are taking Eggman saying Sonic is an agent of chaos destined to always ruin his plans to mean Sonic can’t lose. Eggman went on to kick Sonic’s ass and burn his hometown to the ground after saying that. He won. He won several victories against Sonic after declaring him an agent of chaos. Eggman is the last person to think Sonic will always win “just because.”

 

If you compare Sonic to Wally, you’ll find that the “destined to always win” argument actually applies much better to Wally.

 

Sonic lost his hometown to Eggman. Several of his echidna friends (good riddance) were tortured and killed by Eggman. He was physically beaten into hospitalization by Eggman. Tommy Turtle died on his watch. Charmie got mindbroken on his watch. Sonic lost his girlfriend to a skunk, a monkey, and a computer. And to top it all off, he and his universe were destroyed.

 

Look at what the Super Genesis Wave did. It retconned Sonic and his universe by disintegrating them at the molecular level and then remaking them. It’s a ship of Theseus sort of deal, but in a very substantial way the Sonic and Mobius we got after the Super Genius Wave was not the Sonic and Mobius we had before.

 

Sonic’s “fatehax” really let him down there.

 

Wally on the other hand, was retconned out of existence by Geoff Johns and Jim Lee’s cancerous fanfiction that was Nu 52 and replaced by a black teenager. Wally came back. And then he got his wife back. And then he got his kids back. Even Tom “CIA Pawn” King’s character assasination that was Heroes in Crisis couldn’t stop Wally from getting his life back.

 

Even on a meta level, Wally’s “fatehax” beats out Sonic’s own. The Super Genesis Wave, and then the cancelation of Archie Sonic, happened because Ken Penders, ultra cringe lord and source of the billion echidna OCs that plagued Archie Sonic, decided to sue Archie. Archie lost his work-for-hire documentation in a fire (for real) and Ken wanted to win the rights back to his OC’s and various other characters he had dubious claims to. The SGW was Ian Flynn’s attempt to wipe the slate clean so he could get on with writing without having to worry about litigious assholes by purging Archie of anything with Penders’ fingerprints. But it wasn’t enough, and SEGA decided to pull the plug on Archie to guarantee no more messy legal problems.

 

Archie Sonic was killed by a fanboy and it stuck.

 

Wally was removed from the universe and replaced by a black teenager because EIC Dan Didio has a raging fanboy hatred for Wally. Dan recently had to step down as EIC because modern comics are awful and Warner Bros. wanted to make heads roll for their underperformance.

 

Wally was killed by a fanboy and he came back and the fanboy lost his job.

 

If people want to argue “fatehax,” they better argue it for Wally, not Sonic.