Black Doom Set to Return as Shadow's Villain in Sonic X Shadow Generations

I'm guessing some Time Eater nonsense brought him back 

I’d never thought I’d be excited to see Black Doom of all characters again. My main question is that will the stages be just from Shadow the Hedgehog or will we get additional ones from SA2? 
 

And since the original game represented 06, does this mean Mephiles will return? The description does say “old foes”.

We've just got a figure from Jakks Pacific, so possibly?

If we're talking Mephiles, here's a point in his favour. Ian Flynn is involved. The dude wanted the Time Eater to be a version of Mephiles years ago. Dude wanted Mephiles in Archie but was denied. Now that Sega seem more willing to remember the crystal hog, Flynn might get his chance.

Not saying for sure but I'd not 100% rule it out.

2 minutes ago, The Tenth Doctor said:

If we're talking Mephiles, here's a point in his favour. Ian Flynn is involved. The dude wanted the Time Eater to be a version of Mephiles years ago. Dude wanted Mephiles in Archie but was denied. Now that Sega seem more willing to remember the crystal hog, Flynn might get his chance.

Not saying for sure but I'd not 100% rule it out.

I could see them bringing back Black Doom, while also retconning Mephiles as part of the Time Eater. Could serve as a way to bring Mephiles back as well when the Time Eater bites it.

If they can find a way to unwrite the entire black doom fanfic’mess in a time eater timely wimey way then I’m all for it.

I didn’t hate that game overall (despite its glaring flaws) but the narrative and true revelation almost tarnished Shadow as a character for me. 

That being said, it’s also my own fault for dreaming big after Sonic Adventure 2 and Heroes back in its heyday. It was never going to meet my expectations for solving the mystery behind Shadow’s return (and the “retcon” / expansion of his creation). 

Yet weirdly, I was very open to “it’s Aliens” as an explanation when they did exactly the same thing for Chaos in Frontiers. 

It's so wild to have Black Doom back as a villain, at least for this game.

It'd be great if Black Doom like, put together a whole "Legion of Black Doom" made up of all the baddies from across the series who hate Shadow's guts. Doom himself, Mephiles, Infinite...guy's kinda building up his own rogue's gallery at this point.

4 minutes ago, Crooked Croc CC14 said:

It'd be great if Black Doom like, put together a whole "Legion of Black Doom" made up of all the baddies from across the series who hate Shadow's guts. Doom himself, Mephiles, Infinite...guy's kinda building up his own rogue's gallery at this point.

Since Black Doom is most likely being brought back via time eater, my theory is that he finds out about his soon to be defeat and sets out to prevent it from happening while, as you said, bringing back enemies that Shadow beat in the past.

Personally, I figured the Time Eater was made from excess Nega Wisp energy from the explosion near the end of Sonic Colors, which would explain its proximity to Eggman and co in space to begin with. That and it "eats" Time being thematically in line with Frenzy and Void's consumption based powers. Makes me think if the events between the two versions of Generations will com into play if it all, or potentially give more insight as to why Shadow decided to challenge Sonic in the original instead of collaborating, assuming it wasn't a a past version of Shadow too. Then the big question of how Black Doom (and potentially Mephiles) will react to seeing Shadow again in a post 06 game. Since the Biolizard is also present again, it would be a missed opportunity to not clarify as to how exactly Gerald went from that to a hedgehog specifically, especially given it's a time travel game, it just showed up with little fanfare in the 3DS version and now with Black Doom's inclusion he could very well reveal any connections between them all,  strengthening continuity ties between games for a more cohesive backstory. It always bothered me in Shadow's game that for a title delving into Shadow's past, the Biolizard as the infamous final boss of SA2 was heavily sidelined there for whatever reason. At least Black Doom briefly acknowledged the Artificial Chaos within the Ark and made a vague claim about taking them for himself.

1 hour ago, Crooked Croc CC14 said:

It'd be great if Black Doom like, put together a whole "Legion of Black Doom" made up of all the baddies from across the series who hate Shadow's guts. Doom himself, Mephiles, Infinite...guy's kinda building up his own rogue's gallery at this point.

I'd love this. Shadow has always dealt with his enemies more sloppily than Sonic does; Sonic just turns most of his enemies into his friends, while Shadow usually outright beats them up and calls it a day. It'd be cool to see all of those loose ends come back to bite him.

So, Shadow famously debuted in SA2. He was a large part of the plot in Heroes, his titular game, and Sonic 06. He was also part of the largely forgotten Rivals duology. Then, aside from his miniboss status in the original Generations, there was a pretty huge gap where he had no significant roles. Eventually Forces came out where he got a short, but canon, DLC campaign, and that's about it.

That is at most 7 games to pull stages from, but realistically I think we can cap it to the first 4 I mentioned. I love Shadow as a character, and despite the jank I do think SA2 is a pretty great game, but is there really enough to draw from here to warrant this kind of treatment? Can they actually mine enough content from this relatively short and controversial (to put it mildly) portion of the franchise, and then polish it to the level of Generations so that fans will be excited to buy it? Why not spend this effort on a new game starring Shadow instead of dredging up his strange and contradictory past? And if they simply must just tack him on to a rerelease, why not do it for Unleashed or Colors instead where a side story starring him would make much more sense and allow for more creativity with story and stage design?

To think that the main antagonist Shadow The Hedgehog would be straight up made the main villain of a side campaign of Generations in 2024 is so unexpected for what they're churning out today. With how relatively safe Frontiers and Superstars were in terms of refences and comebacks to characters from the Dark Era, this could possibly be SOME sort of return to form for the franchise, major or minor. The Black Doom lore had a lot of potential to go farther then what it was in ShTH, to see it possibly be expanded more beyond what we know is extremely exciting for me.

I'd love to see Black Doom reimagined as someone akin to Raven Beak from Metroid Dread.

Considering it's been over 20 years since Shadow's debut, it's probably a good time for a refresher course on his origins. Especially since a lot of newer fans who have come into the fandom since then haven't really played Adventure 2, Heroes or Shadow. 

This is probably the best way to get caught up on him.

I think it's great that they want to bring back old enemies, we hadn't seen them in a while, I hope that the development time has been long to give us a good remastering and this Shadow story that will be told to us.

Makes me wonder of Black Doom.will be in the film if they've brlught him back for this.

18 hours ago, Johnny Boy said:

I’d never thought I’d be excited to see Black Doom of all characters again. My main question is that will the stages be just from Shadow the Hedgehog or will we get additional ones from SA2? 
 

And since the original game represented 06, does this mean Mephiles will return? The description does say “old foes”.

Makes me wonder if that old fan theory Ian had about Mephlis being connected to the Time Eater is going to become canon if he does return?

15 hours ago, Crooked Croc CC14 said:

It'd be great if Black Doom like, put together a whole "Legion of Black Doom" made up of all the baddies from across the series who hate Shadow's guts. Doom himself, Mephiles, Infinite...guy's kinda building up his own rogue's gallery at this point.

That would be great, sans Infinite, he shouldn't exist yet.

13 hours ago, Metal said:

That is at most 7 games to pull stages from, but realistically I think we can cap it to the first 4 I mentioned. I love Shadow as a character, and despite the jank I do think SA2 is a pretty great game, but is there really enough to draw from here to warrant this kind of treatment? Can they actually mine enough content from this relatively short and controversial (to put it mildly) portion of the franchise, and then polish it to the level of Generations so that fans will be excited to buy it? Why not spend this effort on a new game starring Shadow instead of dredging up his strange and contradictory past? And if they simply must just tack him on to a rerelease, why not do it for Unleashed or Colors instead where a side story starring him would make much more sense and allow for more creativity with story and stage design?

Considering Generations proper only pulled one stage per game, thus leaving many levels untouched and how deep Shadow's character is, I'd say even if they only pulled from the 4 games instead 7 there is more than enough to make a side mode out of. As for fans being excited to buy it, we already see that some do but even then controversial does not mean that something is agreed to be fully negative, its stuck in a eternal disagreement, meaning some fans would be excited regardless by that definition. I'm confused what part of Shadow's past is contradictory? (Even the Black Arms have a blink and you'll miss it mention in SA2) Colors DS is canon so they'd be tied to his appearance there, which only leaves Unleashed but both games don't fit the stated goal. They basically want to use Generations as refresher course and reestablishing of who Shadow is going forward.

While I don't have too much a fond opinion of Black Doom as a villain, I at least hope that this will give him a better chance to serve as an antagonist to torment Shadow and build up as a far better boss fight than in his home game, maybe even an extra form beyond Devil Doom, but that's honestly it.

I also feel that in terms of stages, they'll likely pull a couple from Shadow's spinoff game since at least asthetically it had a few creative ones like the cyberspace and black comet ones, but for the rest it would likely be SA2-themed.

Yo, I'm curious to these new powers.

It's gonna be more than just Chaos Control and Chaos Blast, I'm assuming. I suggested they trade ShTH's guns for more Chaos Powers as one way of making that game better.

I wonder who they'll bring in to voice him. They could easily get Sean Schemmel back since he's now part of the same voice actor pool who does the Sonic games. If they don't, I could see another LA-based actor like Paul St. Peter portraying him. He's kind of the go-to "Dr. Claw"-esque voice guy, having used a similar voice in shows like Naruto and Digimon.

13 hours ago, The Swordsman said:

(Even the Black Arms have a blink and you'll miss it mention in SA2)

This is the first I've ever heard of this. And frankly I'm very skeptical it's true. What are you referring to?

But aside from Shadow being made with alien blood, there's the officially unexplained reason a hedgehog was chosen to be the ultimate immortal lifeform after a lizard, the fact that Shadow resembled the Black Arms even before Black Doom gave him some blood, the thought process Gerald had that giving animals a big engine and new organs that can enables them to perform Chaos Control somehow would lead to a cure for NIDS, and just in general Shadow's repeated amnesia and the timeline of the raid on the ARK.

But besides that, Shadow is in the title of this game. He is being advertised as a main character alongside both forms of Sonic. Even if we throw in all 7 of the games I listed and, like, Sonic Battle and Sonic Chronicles and maybe even Black Knight there simply isn't enough stages to fill out a campaign like the Sonics have. Either they are going to have to, like, triple dip some of these games, or much more likely it isn't going to compare with the Sonic portion of the game. It's just a really weird choice for what they decided to develop when there are lots more options they could have gone for.

Plus it looks like some of the level designers watched Doctor Strange a few too many times, and I'm absolutely loving that transition!

9 hours ago, Metal said:

This is the first I've ever heard of this. And frankly I'm very skeptical it's true. What are you referring to?

 

But aside from Shadow being made with alien blood, there's the officially unexplained reason a hedgehog was chosen to be the ultimate immortal lifeform after a lizard, the fact that Shadow resembled the Black Arms even before Black Doom gave him some blood, the thought process Gerald had that giving animals a big engine and new organs that can enables them to perform Chaos Control somehow would lead to a cure for NIDS, and just in general Shadow's repeated amnesia and the timeline of the raid on the ARK.

 

But besides that, Shadow is in the title of this game. He is being advertised as a main character alongside both forms of Sonic. Even if we throw in all 7 of the games I listed and, like, Sonic Battle and Sonic Chronicles and maybe even Black Knight there simply isn't enough stages to fill out a campaign like the Sonics have. Either they are going to have to, like, triple dip some of these games, or much more likely it isn't going to compare with the Sonic portion of the game. It's just a really weird choice for what they decided to develop when there are lots more options they could have gone for.

As taken from the wiki, the vertical sentence in yellow at the bottom computer monitor reads "ASTRONOMERS ARE CONCLUDING THAT MONSTROUSBLACKS" in engrish.  (https://sonic.fandom.com/wiki/Black_Arms#Trivia)

As for the lizard to hedgehog and Chaos Control, just because something isn't said outright to you doesn't make it a contradiction, the game provides several hints for speculation. Legend of Zelda and Dark Souls in particular heavily rely on this method for world building. Gerald spent most of his time researching Angel Island to fulfill his goal, which was to save Maria under the guise of satisfying the President and GUN's motives who wanted immortality. To the point of replicating the surface Master Emerald shrine, storing Chaos Emerald energy in Chaos Drives (IDW made them no longer a game mechanic, which makes Ian's hesitance on rings odd) and creating artificial versions of Chaos. (which are powered by Chaos Drives, meaning GUN took Gerald's power source for themselves, instead of being behind it) Chaos Control is easy, it can stop time, meaning if Maria reaches critical condition and the cure is ready there is more of a opportunity to transfer it to her, while stopping time is from a certain point of view a form of immortality, just ask Merlina. (Though the Biolizard's ability comes from a organ, the machine is its life support.)Considering the Chao can be and Chaos is effectively immortal and the power of the 7 emeralds allows you to resurrect the dead, the Biolizard is most likely a attempt on trying to replicate Perfect Chaos. However, as shown in it's reports it was a massive failure, which leads us to the most famous theory to spawn from SA2, (Aside from maybe that GUN is just framing Sonic as coverup for their involvement with Shadow) Shadow's design is based off of Super Sonic from the Angel Island Mural. As state far more refined and controlled.

As for Black Doom's deal and repeated amnesia, I rewatched the deal scene and its pretty clear Shadow was done by that point, Shadow opens his eyes, the capsule changed position and he was about to get out of it. The repeated amnesia just confuses me as he only got it once in his life. Are you referring to Battle? If so that takes place after Shadow's game, release order doesn't necessarily define timeline placement. The timeline as I understand it is,

President and GUN assembles research team with Gerald at the helm > Construction of Space Colony Ark > Gerald begins research into Angel Island > creates Artificial Chaos and Chaos Drives > Finds Gemerl > Biolizard is created > While at first it showed promise due to being able to preform Chaos Control, it is deemed a failure due to needing life support > Gerald goes back to the drawing board > Starts development on Shadow > Makes a deal with Black Doom > Eclipse Canon is created > Creation of Shadow is complete, the future GUN commander observes and is freaked out and warns GUN > GUN debates if Gerald truly did betray humanity, start of Shadow's bond with Maria >As GUN prepares a full assault on the space station which will take time, Shadow continues to bond with Maria > GUN assault, Maria murdered > Gerald and Shadow's capsule captured > President allows Gerald to "complete" Shadow in hubris out a desire for immortality > Gerald's final words and death.

Huh I just assumed they were double or triple dipping since the stated goal is tell Shadow's story which would require several stages from the same game but you're right in that case. They can't use SCDB either since its non canon and Ken Penders would reopen his petty lawsuit.

Honestly, Black Doom is one of my favorite characters. As someone that enjoys edge, I loved the black arms and Black Doom. I am sort of excited, but I hope they won't screw him over. They may tone down it a bit, since this isn't 2005, but hopefully...! 

I just don't know how'd they do it, though. Black Doom's story ended, so it seems a little difficult to incorporate [edgy/]serious lore into a game that happened little to none to begin with.