Comic Book / Sonic the Hedgehog/Mega Man: Worlds Unite

"Oh, Wily will have his reckoning. We all will. The time will come, and Worlds will Collide again..."

— Xander Payne

In 2013, the worlds of the Sonic the Hedgehog and Mega Man comic series crossed over in the twelve part epic, Worlds Collide, a story which united two of gaming's most well-known blue heroes and brought about significant changes for the former series' future. In 2015, the Blue Bomber and the Blue Blur's paths crossed again in a new crossover titled Worlds Unite. But this time, it's not just their worlds and time periods that are getting involved; joining the crossover are the cast of Mega Man X and Sticks of Sonic Boom, along with many, many more from across Sega and Capcom's storied franchises.

The story picks up on plot threads that began in Mega Man's Dawn of X storyline, as well as prequels in the prior issues of both Sonic books. In X's timeline, sometime after the events of Mega Man X7, Sigma discovers the existence of the mysterious Genesis Portals, which lead to different dimensions. Believing that these portals are the key to his further evolution, the living virus travels to Sonic's world, where he forces Dr. Eggman into his servitude. After reuniting him with his former partner-in-crime from Worlds Collide, Dr. Wily, he puts them to work in building the means for his latest conquest, triggering a conflict that will span multiple dimensions.

In addition to characters from the Sonic and Mega Man franchises, Worlds Unite features characters from the following franchises:

Sega

• NiGHTS into Dreams…: Nights and Reala, with a brief appearance by Wizeman
• Alex Kidd: Alex Kidd and Stella
• Golden Axe: Gilius Thunderhead, Ax Battler, and Tyris Flame
• Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg: Billy Hatcher, Rolly Roll, Chick Poacher, Bantam Scrambled
• Skies of Arcadia: The entire Blue Rouge Pirates
• Panzer Dragoon: Keil Fluge and the Blue Dragon

Capcom

• Viewtiful Joe: Joe and Silvia
• Breath of Fire (specifically Breath of Fire III): Ryu, Garr, Nina, Momo, Honey, Rei and Peco
• Ghosts 'n Goblins (including the Gargoyle's Quest spin-offs as well): Arthur and Firebrand with a brief appearance by Astaroth.
• Ōkami: Amaterasu and Issun
• Street Fighter: Ryu, Ken, Guile, Chun-Li, M.Bison, Balrog and Vega.
• Monster Hunter: Gore Magala, Felyne and Palico

Worlds Unite began in May of Spring 2015 and ended in August 2015. As with Worlds Collide, it ran through four issues each of Sonic Universe, Sonic Boom, Sonic the Hedgehog and Mega Man in that cycle order through the three months. The series also included two direct-market tie-in books expanding on battles shown in the crossover, appropriately titled Worlds Unite: Battle Books.

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Main Series

• Advertised Extra: A giant poster made out of several connecting covers (which serves as this page's image) shows almost all characters that show up in story (with the notable exception of Sonic Boom characters, sans Sticks) evn if they actually have very small roles. The most egregious examples include Dr. Light and Auto (who only play small roles in Act 1), Team Dark (who only appear briefly to die) and Princess Prim Prim (who doesn't even make physical appearance in story, only being mentioned by Arthur).
• Alternate Self: The Boom versions of the Sonic characters appear in the crossover very briefly in a reference to the previous Boom issue, with appropriately witty text boxes to identify that these are the Boom versions for any readers that might be confused. It's pretty much handwaved, though, that Sticks promptly forgets her friends in her attempt to help the Maverick Hunters, and the Boom crew don't show up again until the end.
• Always a Bigger Fish: The X-Hunters learn the hard way that fighting in Gore Magala's territory is a bad idea.
• Arc Welding: Running with the Cosmic Retcon aftermath of Worlds Collide, Sonic Boom #8 revealed that Worlds Collide happened the exact way. However, the Chaos Emerald that enabled the crossover was flung to Mega Man's world by the Time Eater's space-time rampage in Sonic Generations in the rebooted Sonic continuity, rather by the first Genesis Wave in the Sonic Genesis arc in the old continuity. As such, (Modern) Eggman encountered Wily while stranded in a void during The Stinger of Generations (what happened to Classic Robotnik in that same scene is left unstated) and not while barking orders to his Grandmasters in his base.
• Apologetic Attacker: In part 7, when all Robot Masters, Maverick Hunters, Bunnie, and Gemerl are mind controlled by the Deadly Six. Snake Man is notably insincere, however.
• Army of The Ages: The final United Army consists of everything from half-naked barbarians to Japanese martial artists to futuristic robots.
• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Sigma's second body is huge.
• Author Appeal: Ian Flynn admitted that the reason why Breath of Fire III is specifically in the crossover is more or less a case of favoritism, since it's his favorite game in the series. He also holds particular esteem for Skies of Arcadia, and has wanted to work with the characters ever since Vyse's guest spot in Sonic Universe.
• Author Guest Spot: UDON, the current license holder for Street Fighter comics, helped out in this crossover.
• Back for the Dead: Dynamo, one of the few Mavericks who wasn't destroyed in-series, comes back and is kicked in half by Ryu and Ken.
• The Bad Guy Wins: The first three issues which make up the first act are pretty much this as Sonic and Mega Man are captured and roboticized, then sent to their opposite worlds where they easily trounce all the opposition before them before activating a beacon and merging the two worlds.
• Badass Boast: Gemerl to M'Egga Man:
  Buddy, what I want is to live peacefully. But, you just had to come to my town and make a fuss. So, instead, I'll make you rest in peace!
• Badass Crew: Parts 9 and 10 involve a multiversal assembly of one.
• Batman Gambit: Eggman and Wily counted on Sonic and Mega Man eventually getting de-roboticized.
• Barbarian Hero: The Golden Axe heroes.
• Beyond the Impossible: Somehow, possibly due to Sonic Man's super speed, he is able to counter Flash Man's Time Stopper, which literally stops time around him.
• Bond Villain Stupidity: Sigma's army of mavericks end up soundly defeating the army of heroes. But before the heroes can be finished off, Sigma stops the fight and and sends all of the Mavericks across time and space so they can get a move on with activating the world-absorbing bombs, leaving four mavericks to finish off a team of nearly 30 heroes. But the heroes would have lost anyway were it not for the intervention of the Street Fighters
• Big Bad: Sigma.
• Bishōnen Line: While Sigma-2 is mountain sized, Sigma-3 is "merely" on the large side of humanlike.
• Big Damn Heroes: Sticks returns with Chun-Li, Ryu, Ken and Guile in Mega Man #51, giving the heroes a fighting chance against the army of Mavericks.
• Blatant Lies: Both Sonic and Eggman tell Mega Man and Wily... truncated versions of their last meetings, with Sonic mentioning that he so totally kicked Mega Man's butt when they first fought and Eggman leaving out the part where he and Metal Sonic tried to kill Dr. Light. Mega Man at least is skeptical that Sonic is just teasing him.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: Sonic and Mega Man for most of Act 1, getting turned into Roboticized Masters and sent to attack each other's worlds. They're only saved by a bit of extra programming Eggman and Wily snuck in that made them deroboticize each other upon meeting.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: Sticks does this a few times, as well as Joe and Silvia.
• Brick Joke: When Sticks goes with the Maverick Hunters, she requests she get to say "Take Me to Your Leader". She doesn't get the chance when the group arrive at the fused world due to the Freedom Fighters and the Robot Masters already talking about the situation. But when she falls into a Genesis Portal and winds up in the Street Fighter world, where she meets Chun-Li, she gets to say the line.
• Call-Back:
  • In the opening of Part 1, the frozen corpses of Blizzard Buffalo and Chill Penguin can be spotted in Sigma's snow hideout, the clear implication being that the lair once used to be Frost Walrus's stage where those same two corpses appeared in the background.
  • Appropriate for a comic with no Fourth Wall, Sonic Boom #8 has Cubot complaining about how Eggman wanted "Seven-point-five paint jobs? For one robot?" and that it was for "more variants", a playful jab at Sonic Universe #75 and the fact it had seven "and a half" variant covers.
  • A subtle one to a previous Sega/Capcom crossover involving Mega Man X. In Mega Man #51, Zero expresses relief that Iris isn't among the army of resurrected Mavericks. Chapter 29 of Project × Zone (set before X7 and therefore this crossover from X and Zero's perspective) centered around Vile doing exactly that as a psychological attack on Zero.
  • See the Came Back Wrong and Empty Shell examples below on this page? Those were also the explanation for the Boss Rush in Mega Man: Maverick Hunter X.
• Call-Forward: Dr. Wily contemplates Zero, and comments that Zero looks like a robot he would build. Zero will be created by Dr. Wily.
• Calling Your Attacks: Frankly, if the Street Fighter cast didn't do this, it would have been weird.
• Came Back Wrong: When Sigma revives his fortress bosses and Mavericks from X1 to X8. They all lack their personalities and memories, but Sigma deems this acceptable and doesn't bother to fix it. Except they clearly show personalities later on, the X-Hunters even recalling their last encounter.
• Canon Foreigner: In Worlds Collide, the original characters created for both comics didn't appear, aside from Quake Woman's small cameo on the cover and a brief appearance of Sally's roboticized form, with the writers opting to go with characters only from the game for the sake of new readers. This time, these characters are all given an actual role in the story.
• Celebrity Paradox: Of a sort. The Palicos X and Sticks encounter with the X-Hunters are wearing Sonic and Mega Man-themed gear (which yes, you can actually get in Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate). Nobody notices this.
• Chainmail Bikini: Tyris Flare from Golden Axe, which is a first for the Sonic comics.
• Colossus Climb: Sigma-2 is so huge that, despite his immense power, he can't really directly fight the heroes, and he ends serving as, essentially, a battlefield in itself late in the story, having to rely on Copy Sigmas and boss mavericks to battle the heroes.
• Comic-Book Adaptation: The main comics had Eggman investigate Lost Hex while everyone else was trying to fix their broken planet. With this, the main plot of Worlds Unite is essentially Archie's adaptation of Sonic Lost World, with the Deadly Six and the plot of draining the planet's power for the villain's schemes. It's also, in a way, their contribution to Capcom's Vs series.
• Composite Character: Design-wise, NiGHTS has their Into Dreams'... lack of gloves (Journey of Dreams gave them gloves), while everything else is from NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams.
• Continuity Cameo:
  • The unnamed pink-haired navigator in Mega Man: Maverick Hunter X makes a one-panel cameo during X's flashback to the Day of Sigma in Part 4, fruitlessly attempting to contact Maverick Hunter units.
  • The Off-Panel comic in Sonic Universe #77 features Mama Robotnik from Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog and even the Captain N version of Mega Man of all characters.
  • Opa-Opa appears for a single panel in the foreground when Sigma approaches the Freedom Fighters' base. He was never recruited by the others and doesn't appear afterwards. He just happened to be flying through the rift during Sigma's advance.
• Contrived Coincidence: After the worlds are merged, this conveniently puts all the protagonists in the same area so that they'll be able to meet and team up.
• Cosmic Retcon: The one that hit Sonic's world after Worlds Collide gets discussed by Eggman at one point, and its effects noted, namely that the cause of his and Dr. Wily's original meeting is now the events of Sonic Generations.
• Counterpart Combat Coordination: In the third act, Sigma sends thematically-relevant Mavericks to invade each world:
  • In Sonic Universe #78:
    • Alex Kidd vs. Magna Centipede: Rock–Paper–Scissors is all the rage in Alex Kidd's world, and Centipede happens to be four-armed...
    • Ghosts 'n Goblins vs. Geemel and Zain: Two Mavericks with medieval-esque character designs intrude into a castle.
    • Skies of Arcadia vs. Tidal Makkoeen/Tidal Whale/Duff McWhalen: As a robot whale, Duff is seen by the Blue Rogues as a mockery of Rhaknam.
    • Street Fighter - Ryu, Ken, Chun-Li and Guile vs. Magma Dragoon: Dragoon could explicitly perform Hadoukens and Shoryukens in-game, and he also wears a bead necklace akin to Akuma's. Here, he's killed by a Shoryuken and a Hadouken. Plus, M. Bison fights Blizzard Buffalo.
    • NiGHTS intro Dreams... vs. Storm Eagle and Storm Owl: Fliers vs. fliers.
    • Okami vs. Blizzard Wolfang: Wolf vs. wolf.
  • In Sonic Boom #10:
    • Monster Hunter vs. the X-Hunters: It's in the name.
    • Billy Hatcher vs. Wind Crowrang and Dark Necrobat/Dark Dizzy: As he explicitly points out, Billy Hatcher fights crow monsters on a regular basis, and bats are creatures of darkness.
    • Panzer Dragoon vs. Burn Dinorex/Mattrex and Gigavolt Man-o-War: The Panzer Dragoon series (bar the third game) and Gigavolt Man-o-War's stage are both Rail Shooters. In Dinorex's case, the only dragon Maverick was already killed in the previous issue due to his pre-existing Street Fighter connections, so the next best thing had to be settled on - the only dinosaur Maverick.
    • Breath of Fire vs. Toxic Seahorse and Spiral Pegasus/The Skiver: Combined, they resemble the game's final boss who is a winged snake with toxic attacks.
    • Golden Axe vs. Gareth and Berkana: As with the Ghosts 'n Goblins case, chosen for their character designs fitting with the thematic of the series they're invading.
    • Viewtiful Joe vs. Volt Kraken/Squid Adler and Sting Chameleon: Joe compares them to Viewtiful Joe 2 bosses Dr. Cranken and Cameo Leon, who are... you guessed it, a squid man and a chameleon.
• Covers Always Lie:
  • Team Dark is featured in the crossover poster (as seen on the image up above), but only appear briefly in part 4 to die killed when a building fuses with the G.U.N airship and explodes. Don't worry, this isn't permanent.
  • A much more egregious example: the main cover for Sonic Boom issue 8 (part 2) very prominently features Signas and Alia of Mega Man X, giving the impression that they'd be important players in the story. Not only do they not appear in this issue, they don't appear in the crossover at all. All they ever get is a passing mention in a later issue.
• Crisis Crossover: Even more than Worlds Collide as it not only involves Sonic and Mega Man's worlds once again. But brings in the Mega Man X timeline and the universe of Sonic Boom as well as a multitude of characters from other game series. It is virtually a comic book version of Capcom vs Sega.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Several.
  • The fights with Sonic's and Mega Man's corrupted forms are this in spades. Sonic (as "Sonic Man") takes on the Mega City cops, the Light Robot Masters (including Proto/Break Man), Quake Woman, and eight redeemed Wily Robot Masters. Mega Man (as "M'egga Man") simultaneously faces the Knothole Royal Guards, the Freedom Fighters, Knuckles, and Gemerl. Both single-handedly wipe the freaking floor with their opponents' faces and don't even break a sweat doing so; in return, they each get hit only once.
  • Sticks' and the Street Fighters' Big Damn Heroes moment plays out like this. The Mavericks menacing the blue heroes and co. never stood a chance.
  • The Sega/Capcom worlds' resident heroes (and villains) versus Sigma's Mavericks in the crossover's third act. With a few exceptions, the Mavericks get their asses handed to them on all fronts. Sonic, Mega Man, and co. do a lot more explaining and news-spreading than actual fighting.
    • Astaroth is not happy to see uninvited visitors from another dimension trying to take over his. When the Mavericks invading his castle don't take the hint, he torches on the spot.
    • M. Bison takes out Blizzard Buffalo faster than you can say "Of course!"
  • After Sigma assumes his final form, he proceeds to casually trash EVERYONE except for Eggman, Wily, and Xander Payne (who have infiltrated the Lost Hex by then). He even holds his own against Super Sonic and Super Mega Man for a while until the evil doctors and Xander cut off his power supply, at which point Sigma suffers this trope himself.
• Deus ex Machina: As soon as Wily and Eggman pray for a miracle to save them, Xander opens up a dimensional, space-spanning portal with his eye using a power he received only moments before to save them.
• Ditching the Dub Names: Ian Flynn personally dislikes the very blatant Guns N' Roses-themed names for the initial localized English names for the Mavericks in Mega Man X5, and so refers to them by names based on their Japanese ones (a change that Capcom would later make official to the English scripts in the Mega Man X Legacy Collection 2 release of X5) - or in the case of Duff McWhalen, his actual Japanese name "Tidal Makkoeen"^note Flynn admitted that was an editorial slip-up. - during the third act. Ergo, Vyse cannot claim he once fought a robot named "Duff McWhalen".
• A Dog Named "Dog": "Felyne" is the name of the species of catlike creatures that sometimes help Monster Hunters, while "Palico" is a name for the occupation of doing so. Used here because Palicos have randomly-generated/player-given names in the games.
• Early-Bird Cameo: Chun-Li shows up near the end of Part 6 (Sonic Boom #9) after Sticks gets tossed into a Genesis portal during the battle outside Sigma's fortress and winds up in the Street Fighter world.
• Empty Shell: The time-cloned Mavericks all lose their personality, replaced with only a desire to follow Sigma's orders. In fact, across the entire seventh issue, two words are spoken across all of them. This ends up being to their advantage, since they are free of any boastfulness or banter that might prove to be their undoing. However, they all regain their personalities after leaving Sigma's presence.
• Enemy Mine: After Eggman and Wily escape from Sigma, they agree to team up with the Freedom Fighters, Maverick Hunters and Light's Robot Masters to help the group defeat Sigma and his forces.
  • Reala and Firebrand join the heroes under the orders of their masters, because neither Wizeman nor Astaroth appreciates Sigma contesting their claim to their worlds.
  • Metal Sonic puts off his grudge with Sonic to help against Sigma, seeing him as the major threat.
  • Likewise Bison has Shadowloo come join in the battle against Sigma as well since he's messing with his world.
  • In 11th issue, there is whole one page lampshading the trope: It has four panels each showing one duo fighting together: Artur and Firebrand, Sonic and Metal Sonic, Mega Man and Break Man, and Nights and Reala.
• Energy Ring Attack: Sonic Man can fire rings that bind enemies.
• Eviler than Thou: Sigma's lay to claim of the various gaming worlds ends up, as stated above, setting him directly against those worlds' reigning central villains. In particular doctors Eggman and Wily, who from the beginning set up a plan to usurp Sigma and take back their seats. They ultimately succeed — albeit briefly. Unfortunately for them, Xander had plans of his own.
• Expy: Gemerl from Sonic Advance 3 debuts in this series, though he was mentioned earlier, matching his ending role as the caretaker for Cream the Rabbit and her family. However, he carries the behaviors of Shard, a rebuilt Metal Sonic from the old universe.
• Face Death with Dignity: Blizzard Wolfgang when Amaterasu lands a major blow on him. He compliments the goddess and tells her to finish it.
• Face Framed in Shadow: Chun-Li in Part 7 (Mega Man #51) when she interviews Sticks.
• Family-Unfriendly Death: The Neck Snap example noted below. We even see oil squirt onto M. Bison's face as he deals the Coup de Grâce.
• Fighting from the Inside: All robots when they get controlled by the Deadly Six, except Snake Man.
• Fluffy Tamer: Sticks calms down the Gore Magala to bring back with them.
• Godhood Seeker: Wily and Eggman tell the heroes that they propose this is Sigma's main goal: to siphon energy from different worlds and make himself a god. Of course, the first chance they get they try to do this themselves.
• Gondor Calls for Aid: With the Mavericks heading into various worlds, our heroes decide to follow them and recruit the heroes of those worlds.
• The Heart: Sticks' primary role is this. While she's a decent fighter, her most prominent ability is the ability to win people over with her pluck - The Maverick Hunters, four Street Fighters, Fastidious Beaver and Comedy Chimp, Viewtiful Joe and Sylvia, Felyne and Palico and even the eldritch nightmare that is Gore Magala
• Heel–Face Turn: Wily's Robot Masters have turned good following their reprogramming in the Mega Man arc preceding this crossover. Subverted with Shadow Man who states he's still loyal to Wily.
• Heroic Willpower: Villainous example. Sigma is able to resist the Deadly Six's ability to control machines through his advanced Reploid programming and sheer willpower before he manages to take control of them.
• Hope Spot:
  • Break Man and Gemerl make dramatic entrances when confronting Sonic Man and M'egga Man, only to lose just as easily as all the heroes who came before them.
  • The heroes raid on Sigma's Base seems to be going well and they manage to defeat the Deadly Six. However, the Zeti use their robot controlling powers to take control of the Mega Man characters and turn them against the Freedom Fighters.
  • Wily and Eggman manage to disable the Deadly Six's powers and bring the robots back to normal. Before the heroes have a chance to recover though, Sigma siphons the energy from the two merged worlds, grows giant and summons every Maverick, grossly outnumbering the heroes. In response, the two doctors attempt to repair the device they used on the Deadly Six to shut down the Mavericks only for Tornado Tonion to make a Dynamic Entry right on top of it.
  • After traveling to other worlds and keeping the generators from being activated, preventing more worlds from merging, and gaining more allies, the new United Army proceeds to make short work of Sigma's giant form and his forces. He seems to be defeated ..only to reveal he made himself another body known as the Sigma-3, which is so insanely powerful that the army is quickly decimated. This forces Sonic and Mega Man to go Super as a last resort.
• Hourglass Plot: Worlds Collide ends with Mega Man's universe returning to normal but Sonic's universe suffering a Cosmic Retcon. While Mega Man's universe doesn't have the same effect by the time this event closes, small changes happen regarless, like Xander Payne becoming Mr. X, plus a world of unknown origin is born from the aftermath. Sonic, Sticks and Mega Man X's universes, meanwhile, are back to normal.
• I Am the Noun: When the Mega City cops tell Sonic Man to drop his weapons, he coldly replies "I am the weapon".
• Info Dump: The first five issues have lengthy exposition dumps about the plot, characters, and what's going on.
• It Will Never Catch On:
  • During a conversation, Sticks hears "Sonic, X", making her muse that it'll never last past three seasons.
  • Similarly, Sticks' Sonic blows off the idea of Super Sonic with a sarcastic "Oh, sure, I turn gold and fly around all the time." Which Knuckles believes.
• Killed Offscreen: Shadow, Rouge, Omega, the mayor of Mega City, and the entire G.U.N. crew for the entirety of the crossover. The Deadly Six likewise seems to have been killed as well when Sigma destroys the Sky Patrol and the heroes that stayed behind on the ship were forced to evacuate, leaving the Zeti in the brig.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: Due to Mega Man managing to fix his universe at the end of Worlds Collide, the Mega Man-verse characters don't remember anything of the previous crossover with only Sonic and Eggman aware of it due to being displaced in a new timeline of their universe. Eggman takes advantage of this when he meets Wily again and tells a false version of crossover to get him to be his partner once more. Likewise Sonic fills the Light family in on everything after Mega Man and he are freed from their robotization.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler: Gore Magala is described as an Elder Dragon^note specifically, the juvenile form of the Elder Dragon Shagaru Magala), a fact that comes as a surprise in Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate.
• Lawyer-Friendly Cameo: Among the background citizens from Mega Man's world watching the deroboticization of Sonic and Mega Man are knock-offs of the Kobayashi family from Mega Man: Upon a Star, Dex Oyama, Yai Ayanokoji^note As the Short Circuits of the final Mega Man issue makes more evident with its silhouetted cameos, they are knock-offs by necessity due to Viz Media holding exclusive American rights to print Mega Man Battle Network stories. and Ash Ketchum.
• Let's You and Him Fight: Solicits for the second act have the Freedom Fighters fight against the Light Bots and the Maverick Hunters thanks to the Deadly Six.
• Like You Would Really Do It: Invoked. When the comic's editor decided the stakes weren't personal enough and told Ian Flynn to kill someone off, he chose Shadow, Rouge, and Omega, characters so important that readers would know there was no way they'd die. Their inevitable return was lampshaded. Although Subverted, as they really did kill them off in the story. But it was nothing a Reset Button couldn't fix.
• Lock-and-Load Montage: Sonic Universe #77 is pretty much the protagonists working together and preparing themselves before they go to war with Sigma.
• Loincloth / Walking Shirtless Scene: Ax Battler from Golden Axe, another first for the Sonic comics, at least for a human character.
• Madness Mantra: A clearly traumatized Fastidious Beaver and Comedy Chimp utters "There's no place like home" at the end.
• Massive Multiplayer Crossover: Much more pronounced in this series than the first, given that it adds the casts of Sonic Boom and Mega Man X. That's not even bringing the other Sega and Capcom characters into the mix.
• Medium Awareness:
  • When Axl and Sticks show up in Viewtiful Joe 's world, this gets lampshaded to heck and back.
    Joe: Dr. Cracken?! Cameo Leon?! What're they doing in the Real World?
    Silvia: No...I think we've wandered into some kind of franchise crossover!
  • As well as...
    Sticks: Alright! Mission accomplished! Axl! Go destroy the unity engine while I recruit these two!
    Axl: Sure, but weren't you with partnered with X?^note  Earlier in the issue, Sticks had gone with X to the Monster Hunter world. All of a sudden, she showed up with Axl in this world.
    Sticks: I fell through a plot hole and now I'm here.
    Axl: Don't you mean "Genesis Portal"?
    Sticks: Whatever works for you kid, now move it!
    Axl: (Rolls eyes) Yes ma'am.
  • And of course this...
    Sticks: OhMyGosh! You guys break the fourth wall too?!
    Joe: Ehh...A little bit.
    Silvia: Mostly for the self-referential humor.
• Mythology Gag: The aforementionned poster in Advertised Extra up above depicts Roll's broom leaving a rainbow trail - a visual trait exclusive to her depiction in Tatsunoko vs. Capcom.
• Near-Villain Victory: A posthumous example. Sigma-3 is destroyed by Super Sonic and Mega Man thanks to the doctors tampering with the engine that's giving him his power making him vulnerable. But even with him gone, he caused too much damage to the worlds that even Chaos Control can't fix it. What's more Eggman and Wily take over the engine and are posed to re-write reality. It's only thanks to Xander taking over the machine and using it to kill Sigma before he jumped to Sonic's world, thus keeping the crossover events from happening, that everyone is saved.
• Neck Snap: M. Bison does this. To Blizzard Buffalo. One-handed.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain:
  • Sigma recruits Dr. Wily and Dr. Eggman for his plan. Eggman and Wily put in a program in the robotized Sonic and Mega Man so that they'll battle each other and revert to normal in the process with the memory that Sigma is their enemy. While it does work, they had hoped the two would return to base first before that happened. But the world's merging put the two directly in each others sights from the get go. Once Sonic and Mega Man are changed back to normal, this tips Sigma off that the two doctors have betrayed him.
  • There's also Sigma's invasion of other worlds: He's managed to piss off Astaroth and Wizeman, leading them to send Firebrand and Reala with the heroes and their usual arch-nemesis. As well, M. Bison has declared that Sigma has now gotten "the full attention of Shadaloo".
  • In the end Eggman and Wily tampering with the Eternal Engine weakened Sigma enough for Sonic and Mega Man to destroy him. Likewise when they finally took control of it, it allowed Xander the opportunity to stop the crossover from happening by killing Sigma before he has a chance to jump to Sonic's world.
• No Honor Among Thieves: A misanthropic Reploid with a messiah complex, two notoriously treacherous and egomaniacal Mad Scientists, six hostile Zeti, and a half-insane terrorist mastermind, all in one setting. And each group plans on screwing the rest over. One such double-cross even undoes the whole crossover!
• "Not So Different" Remark: Quake Woman and Nicole (incidentally both canon foreigners in their respective series) find they actually have a lot in common when it comes to trying to understand emotions.
• Offscreen Teleportation: Sticks gets to team of with X to got into the Monster Hunter world, while going with Ryu, Chun-Li, Ken, and Guile in to the Street Fighter universe, while at the same time going with Axl to the world of Viewtiful Joe, by falling into a "plot hole" (which Axl tries to correct as Genesis Portal).
• Off with His Head!: A favored tactic of the Golden Axe protagonists. Gore Magala plays with this by instead removing Serges' body from his head instead.
• One-Man Army: Sonic Man and M'egga Man during the first act, and Sigma's final form in the third act.
• Portal Crossroad World: Implied in the Sequel Hook with the Nexus. It is also known as the Genesis Nexus in some fan circles.
• Power Creep, Power Seep: All over the place, though most notable when Antoine's perfectly ordinary military sword manages to block a laser blade.
• Planetary Core Manipulation: Sigma's plan is ultimately to merge several worlds together to feed off their energy and power himself up to God-like status. He succeeds in doing this to Sonic and Mega Man's world, but the process drains the planet's core as well. By the time the heroes manage to beat him, it's too late to fix the damage and the combined planet nearly implodes on itself. The day's only saved because Xander Payne takes advantage of Eggman and Wily's Eternal Engine to open a portal back to the past and prevent Sigma from transferring himself to Orbot, stopping the events of the crossover from happening.
• Psychic-Assisted Suicide: The Zeti, when first capturing Mega Man, defeat him by using their inherent robot-controlling powers to make Mega Man shoot himself.
• Recursive Canon: The Felyne and Palico from Monster Hunter wear downloadable content outfits of Sonic and Mega Man.
• Reset Button: Xander shooting Sigma when he first entered the portals causes a time paradox, resetting reality to how it was before the crossover. However, everyone remembers that it happened somewhat.
  • Subverted in that Genesis Portals continue to be a problem Silver the Hedgehog after this crossover is over, and Xander ends up flung thirty years into the past, the effects of which were already felt before the crossover and after.
• Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory: Zig-zagged at the end. Sonic, Mega Man, Wily, and Eggman somewhat recall the crossover but not the full details just that something happened and their fellow partners had a hand in it. Sticks, Comedy Chimp and Fastidious Beaver however remember it vividly for some reason but Sticks surmises since it technically never happened with the timeline change, the other heroes recruited likewise won't recall the crossover when they went back to their worlds. Mr. X also seems aware of what happened to Wily, since Wily stated that it was HIM all along, insinuating that Mr. X may indeed be a time-aged Xander Payne, since the doctors DID warn him about the trickery of time travel.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Comedy Chimp and Fastidious Beaver flee, screaming in abject terror, the moment their team goes into battle.
• Sequel Hook: Slightly though the crossover is erased from the timeline. Sonic, Mega Man, Wily and Eggman still vaguely remember each other with the latter two having mended their friendship and vowing to try again in the future. What's more, when Sticks tells the Sonic Boom cast what happened, she theorizes, and we're shown, that the Genesis Portals aren't completely gone, there are probably new worlds to explore, changing the essence of reality has lasting consequences, and at the middle of it all is a nexus. This sets up Silver's next story arc in Sonic Universe.
• Serious Business: Alex Kidd and Stella apparently destroy Magna Centipede for cheating at Rock-Paper-Scissors. To be fair though, Rock-Paper-Scissors is a lethal deal in their world.
• Set Right What Once Went Wrong: Xander saves the day by shooting Sigma in the past just before he transferred himself into Orbot, undoing most of the crossover and saving reality from falling apart.
• "Shaggy Dog" Story: The heroes ultimately fail in each act: they're defeated be Sonic Man and M'egga Man, resulting in the worlds being united; they're overwhelmed when they storm Sigma's base; and even after defeating Sigma himself, they can't undo the damage he's done to reality. Things are only salvaged because Xander turns back the clock.
• Shattered World: Unlike the first crossover, this story doesn't overwrite Sonic's world, as the planet is still broken up into multiple shards as part of the series' Sonic Unleashed adaptation. It only gets worse when Sigma combines Sonic's world and Mega Man's world together.
• Sidelined Protagonist Crossover: This comicbook is mainly a crossover between Mega Man, Mega Man X, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Sonic Boom. In Sonic Boom's case, however, the only characters with actual involvement in the crossover are Sticks the Badger, Fastidious Beaver, and Comedy Chimp, as they're the only characters who don't have counterparts in the main Sonic continuity (which is acknowledged in at least one of the crossover's backup humor shorts). The Boom versions of Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and Amy have no involvement at all, and the Boom versions of Orbot and Cubot are the only counterpart characters to interact with someone from another franchise (specifically, the Mega Man X characters).
• Spanner in the Works:
  • Sticks to Sigma, surprisingly enough. She's the one who brings the Maverick Hunters to the other heroes, allowing them to fill them in on what's going on. During the initial battle with Sigma, she is the who brings the Street Fighters to come help the others and gives Sally the idea to transverse to other worlds and bring in other heroes (and some villains) to come help combat Sigma's threat.
  • Eggman, Wily, and Xander to Sigma as well. Sigma never anticipated that he could be defeated if anybody actually found the Unity Engine, let alone tamper with it. Xander in particular uses the Engine's power to pinpoint when Sigma jumped to Sonic's world and blasted him, negating the whole crossover.
• Spotlight-Stealing Squad: Narrowly averted. Then-editor Paul Kaminski ordered Ian to include Xander Payne to such a degree that in one draft he overshadowed the rest of the cast. This was dialed back for the actual story.
• The Starscream:
  • Sigma convinces the Deadly Six to turn on Eggman early on in the story, after freeing them from the control of Eggman's "Cacophonic Conch". Then, they try to turn on Sigma too, but he has a fail-safe built into the armor he gave them.
  • Eggman talks his old friend Albert into being co-Starscream against Sigma.
• Super-Empowering: The space-bending of Sigma causes a reaction in Xander, the only human in Mega Man's world to have time traveled, allowing him to shoot portals out of his eye socket.
• Tele-Frag: When the worlds begin to unite, the G.U.N. Carrier tries to combine itself with the mayoral office of Mega City, resulting in an explosion.
• Timey-Wimey Ball: Mega Man villain Xander Payne is involved in the story, and he's already witnessed the future. The cast of the original Mega Man games will appear in the same story as their successors in the future of Mega Man X.
• Too Clever by Half: Eggman and Wily transform Sonic and Mega Man into Roboticized Masters under Sigma's orders. However, the two scientists secretly programmed in a secondary objective into the two robots that would have them restore each other to normal and fight Sigma once the two worlds were merged. Sonic Man and M'Egga Man do indeed end up fighting undoing each other's corruption, but the intention was for this to happen in Sigma's base in the Lost Hex. When Sigma sees Sonic and Mega Man freed from his control, he immediately realizes what Eggman and Wily's plan was and orders the Deadly Six to find them.
• Trash the Set: The Sky Patrol gets destroyed by Sigma-2 while the heroes are away. Sonic and Mega Man's worlds are also nearly destroyed as well due to being fused together. But thankfully restored thanks to Xander stopping Sigma in the past and restoring both heroes respective worlds.
• Unwilling Roboticization: Sonic and Mega Man are inflicted with the Roboticized Masters process, creating Sonic Man and "M'Egga Man".
• War Arc: As it involves multiple worlds and character, it ultimately winds up being this in the long run.
• Wham Episode:
  • Act 1 starts with Sonic captured and roboticized into Sonic Man, while Mega Man is captured and converted into M'Egga Man. They are completely unstoppable throughout but are turned back to normal by the next act.
  • Team Dark, including Shadow, are among those who perish during the fusing of Sonic amd Mega Man's worlds. They remain dead until the end of the storyline, when Xander destroys Sigma in the past, resetting the timeline.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Despite being central antagonists for the first third, the Deadly Six disappear afterward and are last since getting carted away by Big. It's surmised that they were thrown into the Sky Patrol brig while everyone was preparing to world hop to recruit heroes. And considering Sigma later destroyed the Sky Patrol and the heroes that stayed behind had to quickly evacuate... yeah. But that's nothing a Reset Button can't fix... though Archie never got to Lost World proper and the Deadly Six in Sonic before getting cancelled.
  • Chip is traveling on the Sky Patrol with the Freedom Fighters both before and after the events of Unite, but is completely absent during this story. Dr. Light stops appearing a third of the way into the story. Concrete Man appears with Guts Man at the beginning of and right after the crossover, but vanishes for the rest of the story, and isn't seen fighting/being defeated by Sonic Man unlike the rest of the Light Robot Masters. Snake Man, Spark Man, Gemerl, and Roll also just up and vanish when the collected army goes to other worlds to recruit more heroes, and no one notices.
  • Worlds Unite establishes that in the rebooted Sonic comic continuity, first contact between Eggman and Wily occured during The Stinger of Sonic Generations on the Sonic side, in which Modern Eggman and Classic Robotnik were stranded in a void, and thus it was Wily who helped Eggman return to normal space-time. Classic Robotnik's presence in the void is never brought up by Eggman during his recollections of Wily's contact, leaving his means of escaping a mystery (he does reappear in later Sonic Classic Whole Episode Flashback issues set after Generations).
• The Worf Effect:
  • It only takes half of the Deadly Six to capture Sonic and Mega Man each. This is justified by the fact that they're using armor that enhances their already considerable powers. They are also able to control Sigma's body, but not his mind, while he is able to easily control their bodies and minds thanks to the armor he gave them.
  • Issue 3 is almost nothing but Worfing, as Sonic Man makes short work of the Light Masters, Quake Woman, the reformed Wily Masters, and Break Man, with the entirety of his damage being a single punch in the face. M'egga Man defeats the entire Freedom Fighters, Knuckles and Gemerl easily, with the sum of his damage being one body slam.
  • In Issue 6, despite being prominently featured on several covers and having several focuses beforehand, Eregion (the giant dragon Mechaniloid intro boss from X4) goes down in two panels when Antoine stabs it in the top of the head with his sword, though in the panel beforehand he was shrugging off everything else being thrown at him, including the Sky Patrol's guns.
  • Averted when the amassed Maverick army clashes with the heroes. Unlike in Worlds Collide where the Robot Masters went down by the handfuls in comedic ways, the Mavericks easily hold their own and even turn the tables on the heroes, with some like Crescent Grizzly/Grizzly Slash and Spike Rosered/Axle the Red even knocking aside three heroes at once.
    • And then played straight when Parts 8 and 9 see the Mavericks getting trashed by the new characters introduced in the span of one-two pages. It's handled better since most Mavericks are being ganged up on, see Back for the Dead for instance, or fighting characters way above their level, such as Blizzard Buffalo vs M. Bison or Blizzard Wolfgang vs. Amaterasu. Otherwise, there's no indication that they aren't at full power when they're killed.
  • The whole united army against Sigma-3, who proceeds to waste no time in trashing the heroes. True to the trope, he starts by smacking down Gore Magala and the Blue Dragon while no-selling the Celestial Brush.
• Wrong Turn at Albuquerque: X, Zero, and Axl land in the Boom universe by accident, when Silver opens up a Genesis portal for them, but does so incorrectly.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: As soon as Sigma gives the Deadly Six armor that amplifies their powers to the point that they can control Sigma, they proceed to do exactly that. Unfortunately for them, Sigma sees a double cross coming and rigged the armor to allow him to control them. The only thing that surprised him was how quickly he had to use that trump card.

Battle Book series

• Badass Normal: Roll is just a robot girl with only a rocket powered broom, similar to some game appearances like Mega Man: Powered Up and the Vs. Capcom entries, she manages to hold her own against the onslaught Sticks brings down on her in the simulator room.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: Sticks in the Sonic Battle Book where she interrupts the info page as it's giving details about the Roll and hers fight's setup.
  Sticks: The intro's over! Give it a rest!
• Crossover Cameo: Sliver in the Mega Man issue. He lends a hand against Vile but otherwise doesn't appear in the main crossover.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Likely to be the case in a few areas
  • Mega Man vs Zazz, Zomom and Master Zik: The former gets knocked around like a rag doll before Zik knocks him out with his own blaster.
  • Sonic Man vs the Robot Masters: Sonic Man plows through them easily.
• Designated Girl Fight: Sorta, Roll vs Sticks is more the former being put through the ringer of a training simulator that Sticks is controlling, with Sticks only directly confronting her near the end in trying to destroy Roll's broom which Sticks sees as a "spy" to Sigma.
• Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: Knuckles and Break Man's fight is essentially this as Break Man tries to talk Knuckles into destroying him (as he's being controlled by the Deadly Six at the time) but Knuckles refuses and even gives Blues a What the Hell, Hero? speech on his defeatist attitude to the situation.
• Heroic Second Wind: Attempted during Mega Man's fight against three of the Deadly Six when they ambushed him but he manages to get back on his feet. Unfortunately Master Zik takes control of Mega Man's blaster and forces him to shoot himself in the head to knock him out.
• Heroic Willpower: Blues has this ini his fight vs. Knuckles, but it takes a lot of effort from Knuckles to get him to even try to resist.
• Interquel: The Battles mini-series is usually set at certain points in the main story and showcases battles that were only touched upon but had to be rushed to keep the plot moving.
• No-Sell: Sonic Man predictably is completely unaffected by Time Man's Time Slow.
• Let's You and Him Fight: The basis of the mini-series which is just focused on fighting.
• Psychic-Assisted Suicide: The Zeti, when first capturing Mega Man, defeat him by using their inherent robot-controlling powers to make Mega Man shoot himself.
• Senseless Sacrifice: Proto Man initally insists that the best way to fix a bad situation as his body is taken over by the Deadly Six is to blow himself up. Knuckles barely manages to convince him to fight back the mind control.
• Taking the Bullet: The Zeti get an upper hand on Sonic by shooting into a crowd of civilians so Sonic has to block the shots with his body.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Mega Man dissuades X from asking Dr. Light not to create him on the basis that he should protect the world in the future and that someone should be there to counter Dr. Wily's plans.
• Why Won't You Die?: Zero asks Vile this during their fight (since in the games he keep coming back after being destroyed numerous times) who turns it right back on him.
• Worthy Opponent: Knuckles to Break Man after he manages to beat him.
• Zerg Rush: How Sonic is beaten when he goes against Zevok, Zeena and Zor. They wind up portal jumping to a Eggman junkyard where they take control of the broken badniks and rush him with numbers till he's beaten.

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