Trivia / Sonic the Hedgehog/Mega Man: Worlds Unite

• Executive Meddling:
  • Editor Paul Kaminski had Ian kill someone off to show the stakes were high and include Xander Payne to such a degree that he nearly overshadowed the rest of the cast.
  • The main reason Chun-Li wasn't shown in full upon meeting Sticks was due to the terms of contract stating she couldn't be until the other heroes showed up.
  • Reason Breath of Fire III was used was because Capcom requested they put the cast from that game in.
  • Per word of Ian Flynn, during a Bumblekast, Gore Magala and Monster Hunter in general were included at Capcom's request.
• Exiled from Continuity: Characters from Resident Evil and Devil May Cry (presumably along with their SEGA counterparts House of the Dead and Bayonetta) do not appear in this comic. Ian Flynn states that their dark and violent nature would've clashed horribly with the bright and colorful tones of Sonic and Mega Man.
• Franchise Killer: The lukewarm response to the event led to middling sales which Archie was barely able to recover from, and forced them to make cuts to pay off the licensing fees for the other characters that joined in on the crossover. Eventually, they were forced to put the Mega Man comic into permanent hiatus, and the Sonic Boom comic was cancelled soon after. The main Sonic comic and Sonic Universe also went under a year later due to Archie's struggling finances and putting more focus on their own properties. Then the property rights for the Sonic comics were snatched up by IDW, and everyone who worked on the series jumped ship, pretty much ensuring the Mega Man comics could never continue either.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: Without even putting all the other properties represented into account, Archie losing the Sonic license to IDW pretty much killed any hopes of further reprints. Made worse by the fact that Archie only managed to release the first two volumes of the trade paperback collections, with the third and final instalment never seeing the light of day. With Sega and IDW wanting to move on from the Archie material, combined with all the properties represented, it would be quite a legal challenge for a reprint to happen.
• Milestone Celebration: Sonic the Hedgehog #275 and Mega Man #50 ran through this storyline with Sonic Universe #75 being the last issue of its title before the jump. These would be the final milestone issues for all three comic books before they were cancelled.
• Money, Dear Boy: If not for the previous crossover Archie would have canceled the Mega Man comic due to low sales. Thus, making a second one was about the money as much as it was the coolness factor. This also contributed to Archie putting Mega Man on indefinite hiatus within a few months of the crossover's conclusion.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Ian wanted to have X go Super using the Force Armor, but Sega said he couldn't.
  • Ian also stated that his first draft included Phoenix Wright from the Ace Attorney games, but was shot down by Capcom themselves due to him not fitting in with the big fight at the end.
  • Another franchise that he wanted to use is Phantasy Star Online, but SEGA rejected it for reasons unknown, probably due the sequel's then-Development Hell of the western localization.
  • According to Ian Flynn on his “BumbleKast” #91, a third crossover was planned for 2017, but was scrapped when Archie lost the licenses to Sonic and possibly Mega Man that same year. Also in an earlier interview, then-editor Paul Kaminski claimed that the third crossover would have Mario appearing in the third act, implying that Archie was not only still pursuing Nintendo to get the comic book rights for their IPs but hoping to use a crossover as a springboard for a line of Nintendo comics. (When Archie lost interest in that, Flynn instead approached Nintendo and Dark Horse Comics for an ARMS graphic novel which is stuck in Development Hell as of 2023.)
    • Additionally, the Nexus (also known as Genesis Nexus) that Sticks talked about at the end was meant to be a meeting place for the crossovers. Ian described as a simple place to let characters crossing over meet whenever it happens. And in the end, they would return to their world.

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