This article contains spoilers for Sonic the Hedgehog #52!

Extraneous events are hinting that the prospective battle against Dr. Eggman's Metal Sonic and Dr. Starline's Surge the Tenrec cyborg is about to transpire in IDW Publishing's Sonic the Hedgehog. Leading up to this moment, fans who had been keeping up with the series were only expecting to see if Surge could actually defeat Sonic because of why Dr. Starline created Surge.

When Starline finally lost hope that his hero Eggman could actually defeat Sonic in the Bad Guys miniseries, the former Eggman fanboy decided to take matters into his own hands by planning to do the exact opposite of everything that Eggman had ever done. This included deconstructing everything about Eggman's best Badnik, Metal Sonic. Starline saw that Metal Sonic wasn't lifelike and didn't possess Sonic's raw attitude and personality. So he constructed a cyborg Sonic double from a living tenrec and made it so his creation would be just like Sonic as much as possible to ensure the Blue Blur's destruction. Knowing this, the question on everyone's mind was whether Starline's hypothesis was sound. That answer finally came in issue #50 when Sonic clashed with Surge.

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But now it's clear that the battle no one was expecting between Surge and Metal Sonic is about to happen, as revealed in Sonic the Hedgehog #52 by writer and artist Evan Stanley, inkers Maria Keane and Rik Mack, colorist Reggie Graham and letterer Shawn Lee. During a confrontation between Metal Sonic and the Blue Blur, an explosion from Eggman's main tower forces the mechanized hedgehog to run over to, as Sonic says, "Daddy Dearest." And it turns out that the explosion, which made Metal Sonic to rush towards dear old daddy was caused by none other than Surge.

Metal Sonic dashes away from the real Sonic.

Although fans are undoubtedly interested in how Eggman will deal with Surge, especially since she's now jacked up on a new power-boosting item, how Metal Sonic fares against Starline's cyborg should be the focus. What Sonic #50 accomplished was to disprove Starline's hypothesis that creating an inverted Metal Sonic was the answer to defeating Sonic. Whether Surge actually did worse than Metal Sonic or just failed to do enough has yet to be seen. But what this upcoming fight between Metal Sonic and Surge will hopefully prove is which invention is stronger. Surge is the exact opposite of Metal Sonic, after all, so does that make Surge more capable or less? The only problem, however, is that Surge is equipped with that aforementioned item, so Metal Sonic is coming into this battle at a major disadvantage. However, if Metal Sonic triumphs regardless, it would prove without a shadow of a doubt that his opposite can't destroy him or Sonic.

Of course, a one-on-one battle between Surge and Metal Sonic can only occur if Eggman stops fighting against Surge himself. Luckily, his track record usually has Eggman making his Badniks do all the dirty work for him, though, Eggman did just relish in completely dominating Starline himself in Sonic #50. But since he doesn't have anything against Surge, he'll most likely be more than happy to allow Metal Sonic to take over for him. No doubt, it will be interesting to see what Surge will say to Metal Sonic since she was quite voluble during her confrontation with Sonic about what she believed they both represented. Hopefully, readers will get something similar with Metal Sonic. Regardless, even though Dr. Starline specifically created Surge the Tenrec to fix Metal Sonic's inability to defeat Sonic the Hedgehog, the question the doctor didn't intend to answer, which was whether Surge could win against Metal Sonic, is just as relevant and intriguing.

Sonic the Hedgehog #52 is available now from IDW!