Recap / Sonic the Hedgehog (IDW): Imposter Syndrome

Meet the new "heroes", Surge and Kit! ^note Imposter Syndrome Issue #4 Cover RI by Nathalie Fourdraine.

Written by:	Ian Flynn
Year:	Four
Set Between:	Trial by Fire and Wound Up
Issue Count:	4

In order to prove to be Eggman's successor, Dr. Starline enacts "Operation: Remaster", for the purpose of breaking the status quo and establishing himself as the ruler of the entire world. But, in order to do so, Sonic and Tails must be dealt with, so Starline introduces Surge the Tenrec and Kit the Fennec to replace them. Throughout this story, we learn what levels Starline is willing to cross in order to make "Remaster" a success, and how ambitious Surge and Kit are to replace the Blue Blur and his most trusted lackey. But what happens when certain elements break at the seams, and awful truths are realized?

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Tropes

• Aesop Amnesia: Starline is hit with this pretty hard after the last mini-series involving him.
  • After spending much of Bad Guys learning to be his own villain and breaking away from Eggman, Issue 2 has Starline revert back to worshipping the doc after seeing how the latter's Egg Cave still has the action figure of himself.
  • In Issue 3, we see that Starline still vlogs everything he has done and planned to do, allowing his allies to find out and, when they do, causing them to turn on him. While Starline didn't know Mimic accessed his database in Bad Guys, he still should've learned his lesson back then, and not doing so proves his undoing this time around.
• All Your Base Are Belong to Us: Starline's overall plan of usurping the empire out from under Eggman's nose involves two examples of this trope. Starline's team first conquers another one of Eggman's bases as a warmup round before going on to invade Eggman's new HQ, Eggperial City, which Starline takes control of while Surge and Kit dispatch Metal Sonic.
• Ambiguously Human: Starline created Surge and Kit, but it's hinted they are not full robots despite being based off of Belle, given Starline refers to Belle as "Built from Scratch" when comparing the two to her. On the other hand in Issue two, Surge takes a hit that definitely should have killed her but doesn't even leave her with a scratch.
  • Issue #3 ditches the ambiguity and explains things—Surge and Kit were normal people whom Starline turned into cyborgs and granted false personalities, with a modified version of the Metal Virus being used to make them more durable and faster to heal.
• Arc Welding: Issue #3 explains how all of Starline's actions post-Metal Virus Saga tie together into his new master plan.
• Assassination Attempt: It's revealed that the forest fire that Surge and Kit set in the Trial by Fire arc was a deliberate attempt to kill Amy's group in the blaze.
• The Bad Guy Wins: Downplayed. The miniseries ends with Starline managing to succeed in his goal of usurping Eggman, but it's obvious that his victory is going to be short-lived as three opposing forces are about to ruin it for him: Sonic, Tails and Belle arriving at Eggperial City, Eggman activating one of his mechs and Surge and Kit enacting their plan of betrayal against Starline.
• Behind the Black: Metal Sonic makes yet another out-of-the-blue Dynamic Entry when he ambushes Surge and Kit, zooming past the latter while tackling the former with no advance warning at all; they don't even hear, let alone see, him coming until the moment he attacks them.
• Betrayal Insurance: Starline made it so Surge and Kit were both very weak and susceptible to his glove’s hypnotic abilities. He puts them both to sleep any time they show even an inkling of going against him, though there are moments when it's not so effective. When Surge temporarily fights off the hypnosis at one point before being put back to sleep again, Starline sees this as a "bug" he wasn't prepared for. Unfortunately for him, this was the only Restraining Bolt he bothered to apply to Surge and Kit, and once they learn to counter the Hypno Ray, he's practically defenseless.
• Big Bad Wannabe: Starline, again. Lampshaded by Surge, who openly calls him a "wannabe influencer".
• Brainwashed and Crazy: Starline overwrote Surge's and Kit's original personalities using Belle's soul code and made them Weak-Willed so he can control them via hypnosis, which along with further abuse scars the duo's psyches—eventually to the point where he loses control of them. Even worse, Starline left no record of Surge's and Kit's former identities, leaving them stuck with the villainous personas he "programmed" them with.
• The Bus Came Back: The final issue of this miniseries marks the return of Dr. Eggman and his main hench-bots after long absences from the comic.
  • Metal Sonic, absent since the climax of the Metal Virus Saga in Issues #29-30 of the main series, finally reappears to confront Surge and Kit, although they manage to defeat him.
  • Orbot and Cubot return after being on vacation since the end of Issue #40. Lampshaded by Eggman, who demands to know where they've been all this time as soon as they walk in.
  • Eggman himself shows up again, too, after being largely absent since Issue #41.^note discounting flashbacks, the 30th Anniversary Special, and the chronologically-ambiguous FCBD 2022 one-off story "Deep Trouble"
• Call-Back:
  • Starline talked to Orbot, back in the Metal Virus saga, about Eggman's obsession with Sonic and how he never adapts to his schemes. After witnessing the fallout firsthand before Eggman "fired" him, Starline hopes to break, what he dubs, the "Sonic Cycle".
  • Starline once again uses a plan of Eggman's, this time from Sonic Forces, to show him "how you do it", by making Surge and Kit.^note i.e., his own Infinites, minus the strange gem
  • When Orbot and Cubot show up in Issue #4, they're returning to Eggman after their impromptu vacation at the end of the main comic's Test Run arc.
  • Motobud, the friendly Badnik Belle met while camping, is one of the Badniks shown affected by Starline's virus.
• Canon Foreigner: Following their Early-Bird Cameo in the 46th issue of the main series, this miniseries marks the proper debut(s) of Surge and Kit.
• Cerebus Syndrome: Arguably the comic's darkest Story Arc since the Metal Virus Saga, this miniseries deals with some unpleasant subject matter including emotional abuse, existential crisis, live experimentation, and Gaslighting—all of which are real things.invoked
• Cliffhanger: Dr. Starline successfully takes over Dr. Eggman's Eggperial City base and rallies all of the badniks in the vicinity, while Eggman escapes capture and makes preparations to retaliate with a Humongous Mecha. Surge and Kit await their fated battle against Sonic and Tails, as well as the opportunity to betray Starline. The question of who comes out on top would be answered in the 50th issue of the main series.
• Clone Angst: Despite Surge and Kit not being actual clones of Sonic and Tails, they still embody the spirit of this trope, shaken by the revelation of who they are: two people who Starline had taken in, given them fake memories in order to do his bidding, overwriting their original personality to more closely resemble Sonic and Tails, and giving them abilities that will help keep up with them. When Surge discovers the truth, she breaks in front of Starline, screaming at him that everything about her revolves around surpassing Sonic.
  Surge: [My past] is not "irrelevant"! I need context! If I have no past, all I have is this! And "this" is nothing! I'm nobody! I-I-I'm just a knockoff! Everything that I want — that I think I want — is a lie!
• Continuity Nod: The second issue features one to the 2020 annual story, Eggman's Day Off, where the base Starline raid is the one Eggman and he were using during the Metal Virus arc. Starline visit the "Egg Cave" where Eggman spent his off hour playing with dolls of his enemies and allies. Upon seeing the doll of himself, Starline snatches it off the shelf in anger while throwing aside the Eggman bot.
• Covers Always Lie: Despite several covers for this series feature Surge and Kit facing off against Sonic and Tails, the pairs never actually meet in this miniseries, with their big fight being saved for issue 50, and the latter pair don’t make a physical appearance until the last issue in two panels rehashing moments from issue 49. Most notably, cover A for the last issue shows Sonic and Surge both fighting Metal Sonic, while in the actual issue, Metal only fights Surge.
• Crippling Overspecialization: Metal Sonic is programmed to primarily rival and surpass Sonic, so taking down a faker like Surge should have been no problem. As Surge stated in issue #4, Metal lacks the heart and soul of the real Sonic, and fails to count on others backing the speedsters up; in her case, Kit. This leads to an upset against the robot.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: The imposters' conquest of Egg Base Alpha in the second issue. Surge does struggle against the Egg Breaker for a while, but Kit's intervention turns the tables in no time.
• Driving Question: In issue #3, Surge and Kit discover through video files that they were converted to cyborgs and programmed into being Starline's enforcers with specific traits; Surge with an Irrational Hatred towards Sonic, someone she claims to have never met in her life, and Kit with an Undying Loyalty to Surge. However, while they wonder why these traits are necessary, the biggest question that frustrates them is who they were originally; if they actually volunteered to join Starline or were abducted against their will. The files they search for relating to their origin aren't available and Starline considered such information "irrelevant" to his own goal.
• Egopolis: Eggperial City, Dr. Eggman's new headquarters following the Zombot Apocalypse.
• Evil Versus Evil: Starline's plan to overthrow Eggman reaches its final stages in this miniseries, while Surge and Kit, after getting wise, plot to hijack his Evil Plan and kill him along with Eggman and the heroes.
  • Starline finally reveals himself to Eggman at the climax and takes control of his HQ, while Surge and Kit fight against Metal Sonic and win. Likewise, Eggman makes a beeline for his Humongous Mecha garage so he can strike back in Issue #50.
• Extreme Doormat: Kit is extremely weak-willed and easily pushed around. Admittedly, this is how Starline programmed him, but considering that the vlogs in Issue #3 show that it took a lot less time to program him than it did Surge...
• Failure Montage: Surge and Kit's below-mentioned Training from Hell is depicted as this in Issue #3.
• Fake Memories: Discussed by Starline, who contemplates using these to better control Surge and Kit.
• Gaslighting: Part of Starline's control of Surge and Kit is him knocking them out when they disobey him, then feeding them carefully worded lies when they're disoriented upon waking, to make them think that what he wants them to do is what they wanted to do all along. However, by the second issue, Surge - already showing resistance to his hypnosis - knows he's lying and sets out to find out what he's up to. By Issue #3, Surge manages to hypnotize Starline with his own Hypno Glove, pretending that she and Kit are still loyal to him.
• Gilligan Cut: Near the end of Issue 4, Starline says that even though Eggman escaped, he is defenseless due to his program taking control of any machine he might use. Cut to Eggman in one of his robots with an offline mode on, allowing him to get around the program.
• Glad You Thought of It: Throughout Issue 1, Surge is begging/demanding to face Sonic, but Starline wants to stick to his main plan while further testing her and Kit to ensure they are functioning properly. After knocking them out again, he exploits this by telling Surge, after waking up, that she wanted the testing to take place. Confused at first, she buys his claim thanks to Kit.
• Hoist by His Own Petard:
  • Kit's water tendrils get him electrocuted by Starline's electro-spur attack, though he isn't down for long due to his Healing Factor.
  • After learning the truth, Surge and Kit turn on Starline, and after overpowering him they turn his own hypnosis on him. They then manipulate him into continuing to carry out his plan, with the two of them now intending to hijack it to eliminate Starline and Eggman in addition to the heroes.
• Hijacked by Ganon: Inverted: By the end of the third issue, Surge and Kit manage to overpower Starline and (once Surge gets his glove) hypnotize him into unconsciousness. Surge, still furious over what they have learned, decides to "burn it all down," before Kit puts forth a suggestion: since Starline's plan involves getting everyone together in the same place, they should pretend to go along with Starline's plan... before "[taking] it in [their] own direction", to get rid of Sonic, Tails, and both Doctors.
  Surge: Let the doc go to all this trouble just to set himself up for the fall? (stares at Starline's Hypno Glove with malicious intent) I can work with that.
• Idiosyncratic Cover Art: Each issue's main cover is one-quarter of a bigger image showing the imposters racing their counterparts (or in Starline's case, Eggman and Metal Sonic) before coming together in a Mêlée à Trois. Too bad most of the confrontations don't happen in the miniseries (see Covers Always Lie above).
• It Has Been an Honor: Played for Laughs when Orbot tells Cubot it's been nice knowing him if Eggman noticed they went on vacation unauthorized (which he did).
• Jump Scare: In-universe example. In the first issue, when Surge and Kit start questioning why they're doing their actions (Surge wanting to fight Sonic and Kit being so loyal to her). Starline makes them fall asleep once more. Just as he begins recording his log, a not quite knocked out Surge suddenly leaps at him demanding what he just did to the two to Starline's horror before he frantically hits her with another hypno-blast.
• Lured into a Trap: Starline's plan involves luring Sonic and Tails to Eggperial City so Surge and Kit can kill them.
• Meaningful Name:
  • Kitsunami's name is a mash-up of two Japanese words that actually describe him fairly well, "kitsune" is Japanese for fox, and "nami" means wave, hinting at his water based tail powers. It also contains the whole word "tsunami", a term for a particularly large type of wave that English borrowed.
  • While not quite on the same level Surge's name alludes to her Shock and Awe electric powers.
  • The title relates to Surge and Kit being made as "replacements" for Sonic and Tails, right down to having super speed and multiple tails (where as Tails flies representing wind, Kit is boosted by water). And focuses on Starline's attempts to usurp Eggman as the mad scientist threat to the world. Essentially they're the "imposters" to the main characters.
• Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: A betrayal that occurs after several cases of being mistreated — Starline had forced both Surge and Kit into servitude, hypnotizing them when they get out of line, and having them participate in deadly tests in order to make them strong enough to surpass Sonic and his friends. However, he doesn't treat his creations particularly well, even when they get the results he asked for, and is ineffectual when they have an existential crisis. By the time Surge and Kit develop a resistance to his Hypno Glove and discover the truth, they are fed up with how the doctor had treated them over a long period of time, both of them deciding to destroy Starline, Eggman, Sonic, his friends, and everyone else who supported them.
• Mysterious Past: Surge and Kit remember nothing of their pasts before Starline altered them, and Starline considered who they were before he got his fingers on them so unimportant that, despite making detailed recordings of his monologues, he made no reference of who they were because he didn't consider it to be worth anything.
• Mythology Gag:
  • In Issue #2, Kit and Surge encounter the Egg Breaker from Shadow the Hedgehog. Unlike its game counterpart, this Egg Breaker is all-robotic instead of a piloted mech.
  • Eggman's new home base, Eggperial City, is a reference to his Archie and Satam counterpart's home city of Robotropolis.
  • While viewing Starline's logs with Kit, Surge remarks "Sweet Gaia below!", referring to Light Gaia (Chip) and Dark Gaia from Sonic Unleashed.
  • The panel where Surge and Metal Sonic go literally head-to-head mirrors the famous "Strange, isn't it?!" scene from the Sonic OVA.
    • Upon Metal's defeat, Surge repeats, verbatim, Shadow's taunt before his first fight with Sonic in Sonic Adventure 2: "You're not even good enough to be my fake."
• "Not So Different" Remark: Played for Laughs. When Dr. Starline sees that Tails' house is shaped like his own head, Starline notes that he might have more in common with Eggman than he's willing to admit.
• Never Say "Die": Averted. At the end of the second issue, Kit literally says "That hit should've killed you!" while worrying over Surge's injuries from the Egg Breaker fight.
• New Era Speech: Starline makes one just before the storming of Eggperial City, though Surge and Kit aren't that impressed since they plan on offing him once the plan is complete.
• "Not So Different" Remark: When trying to break into Tails' lab, Starline comments that Tails and Dr. Eggman might not be that different, given Tails made his lab in the shape of his own face, something Eggman does with a lot of his buildings.
• Off with His Head!: How Surge finishes off the Egg Breaker after Kit weakens it.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • Starline gets this three times: the aforementioned Jump Scare moment, when Surge and Kit overpower him, and finally when Cubot reveals Eggman managed to escape as Eggperial City was overtaken.
  • Surge and Kit get a minor one when the Egg Breaker shows up.
  • Orbot and Cubot, as usual, have this reaction upon finding out Eggman knew they've been gone.
  • Kit's expression when Metal Sonic tackles Surge from out of nowhere.
  • Averted with Eggman, who seems to react this way upon realizing what Starline's up to but hardly flinches as all his Badniks turn on him.
• Operation: [Blank]: Starline dubs his plan "Operation: Remaster".
• Our Clones Are Different: Imposter Syndrome introduces Surge and Kit as if they are robotic clones created by Dr. Starline to serve as his minions. They demonstrate some extreme amounts of independence from their source, having separate names, memories, powers, genders, and even species from their source characters. It's then subverted when it is revealed that they were not created at all, but were rather brainwashed by Starline and modified with cybernetic implants, Fake Memories, and the Metal Virus to make them believe they are his creations.
• Pummeling the Corpse: Justified; Surge was hurt by the Eggbreaker's Mace fist and despite finishing off (see Off with His Head! above). She aggressively stomps on it’s carcass, while taunting it.
  Surge: That's what you get! See what happens when you mess with the best?! Huh?! Huh?!
• Put Them All Out of My Misery: Surge's reaction to learning the truth about what Starline did to them is to decide to just kill all the heroes and villains, on the grounds that "if we don't have a past, they don't get a future".
• Say My Name: Kit screams out Surge's name in horror as he watches the Egg Breaker crush her with its mace.
• Simultaneous Arcs: The miniseries occurs parallel to main series Issues 45-49, with both subplots coming together in Issue #50.
• Shout-Out: Before the attack on Central City, Surge says that she aims to misbehave.
  • In issue #3, one of the review footage shots shows Surge in Peter Griffin's death position.
• Skewed Priorities: Eggman is more concerned with the fact that Surge and Kit are messing with his stuff than who they are and why his systems can't tell them apart properly from Sonic and Tails.
• Snap Back: After learning to strike out on his own at the end of the previous miniseries, Starline goes back to wanting to be Eggman's equal after admiring the latter's Egg Cave.
• Spotting the Thread: After Surge survives being smashed through a wall without a scratch, she and Kit realize that they don't actually know what Starline did to them, and they start secretly looking for answers.
• Status Quo Is God: Tired of the aptly-named "Sonic Cycle"^note  a nonstop repetitive process of Eggman scheming and Sonic stopping him, just to repeat this over and over again, Starline hopes to defy this. To that end, he begins "Operation: Remaster", where he plans to replace Eggman, as well as Sonic and Tails, with himself and his creations, Surge the Tenrec and Kitsunami the Fennec. After that, he can engineer the "hero vs villain" dynamic and rule the world that has been seen as too complacent of this trope.
• Storming the Castle: Issue #4 sees Starline taking the fight to Eggman, invading his base of operations in order to take control of his entire Badnik army and his forces.
• Sunk Cost Fallacy: Despite Surge and Kit's unstable behaviors making them difficult to control, Starline decides that he has spent too much time and effort in their creations to start over and proceeds with his plan anyhow. He pays dearly for it.
• Take That!: Starline's "Sonic Cycle" theory is named after, and similar to, a popular meme/discussion of the Sonic fanbase frequently anticipating an upcoming game entry, only to be [often] disappointed at the final product, but hopeful for the next entry.
• Taught by Experience: Starline attempts to break into Tails home in the first issue, fearing Tails may have learned about his plan from examining Belle and wanting to erase any possible data. However, after the events of the Metal Virus where his home was broken into by the Zombots, Tails reinforced his doors so they couldn't easily be broken into or pried open. This ends up preventing Starline from getting in, even with the Power setting on the Tricore and having Kit attempt to use his water tails to open it from the inside.
• Throat-Slitting Gesture: Surge makes one behind Starline's back at the beginning of the last issue.
• To Be Continued: The miniseries ends not with a "The End" but rather to catch the finale in Issue 50.
• Token Competent Minion: Metal Sonic is the only one of Eggman's robots who gives Surge and Kit a serious challenge before being defeated.
• Too Dumb to Live: Once again, Starline, attempting to succeed where Eggman fails, only makes more or less the exact same mistakes he criticized his ex-idol for, where he abused his powerful cyborgs while overlooking a number of key areas as they grew in strength and mental fortitude. Surge even calls him out on his idiocy before she and Kit overpower him.
  • He continues his bad habit of recording himself monologuing about his plans, allowing Surge and Kit to find him out just like Mimic and Zavok did in Bad Guys.
  • Starline created Kit for the express purpose protecting Surge—including from Starline himself, if need be.
  • Surge and Kit weren't that stable to begin with, but Starline's verbal abuse and attempts to keep them in line via borderline Mind Rape destabilizes them even further. Inevitably, they snap and turn against him.
  • To make Surge and Kit more survivable, Starline injected them with a modified strain of the Metal Virus. While safer than the original version, the modded strain still enhances the aggression of its infectees as well as granting them the Zombots' Healing Factor. This puts Starline at a disadvantage when Surge and Kit rebel: they attack so ferociously that he's barely able to dodge them, and hitting them with his heel spurs stuns them for only a few seconds.
  • Even knowing how intelligent Eggman is, when the latter escapes capture he assumes that there's no need to worry because of his virus, not realizing that Eggman is working around it with his mecha.
• Training from Hell: Starline put Surge and Kit through this, and his remark about having to revive them implies that they died multiple times in the process.
• Underestimating Badassery: Even knowing how intelligent Eggman can be, in Issue #4 Starline assumes that he'll be helpless because all of his technology will be affected by Starline's virus as soon as it gets booted up. The issue ends with Eggman booting up a mech in offline mode, presumably circumventing the virus's transmission.
• Un-person: Not only did Starline wipe Surge and Kit's memories, he also didn't bother keeping records of who they were before he abducted them.
• Villain Episode: Like Bad Guys, this miniseries focuses on a Villain Team-Up led by Starline, only this time his "teammates" are Surge and Kit. Eggman, Metal Sonic, Orbot, and Cubot also have major roles at the climax. In contrast, the heroes' appearances are limited to cameos by Sonic, Tails, and Belle, plus a picture of Shadow in one of Starline's vlogs.
• Villain: Exit, Stage Left: When Starline seizes control of Eggperial City, Eggman flees through an escape chute to reach a hangar full of Humongous Mechas so he can fight back.
• Villainous Breakdown: A retroactive example for Starline after the events of All or Nothing. As revealed in one of his vlogs, Starline lost it after Eggman fired him, plus his Humiliation Conga preceding that; it took him a while to calm down before Bad Guys began.
• Would Hurt a Child: As shown in Issue #3, Kit and Surge were shown suffering in agony as Starline was installing cybernetics into them. After discovering the truth, the duo attack Starline. However, Starline manages to temporarily incapacitate Kit by electrifying his water tendrils, as well as briefly stun Surge by injecting her with a neurotoxin.

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