Metal Sonic

"Sonic, I was created for the sole purpose of destroying you. But I can never seem to defeat you! That is why I transformed my own body with my own hands!"

- Metal Sonic 2003

Metal Sonic is the secondary antagonist in the Sonic series. He is a badnik built in Sonic's image by Dr. Eggman to ultimately destroy the blue blur.

Why He's Metal (Both figuratively and literally)

 * 1) His design is pretty spot on, with the most notable features of it being his red eyes with black sclera, which allows him to give a sinister, piercing gaze and his blue metal representing Sonic's fur.
 * 2) He has many badass quotes, such as "There-is-only-one-Sonic.", "I shall become the ultimate overlord, ruling as the world's most supreme being!" and "This victory shall soon turn into despair!".
 * 3) With his ability to nearly perfectly match Sonic's speed and power and his capacity to think for himself, he's earned the title of "Eggman's most powerful creation".
 * 4) Despite his subtle insecurity, he isn't afraid to taunt his arch-rival or mess with him at times. One example is when he kidnapped Amy in Sonic CD (his debut game, by the way), with Sonic being unable to do jack squat about it. No wonder why he left such an impression in that game, right?
 * 5) Gary Dehan and Ryan Drummond did very well at portraying the character.
 * 6) When he's not being voice acted (Like in Sonic Rivals and Generations), he does some nice robotic noises.
 * 7) Just like Dr. Eggman, he can find it in his non-existent heart to trust his enemies when there's no other option left.
 * 8) He always has a strong determination to take down Sonic, even when Eggman doesn't want him to do so.
 * 9) For a robot, he is surprisingly expressive and able to show lots of emotions.
 * 10) While obedient and loyal to Eggman for the most part, he is sometimes able to realize his creator is not good enough to take over the world. Case in point: Sonic Heroes, where he puts casualties in his own hands and decides to go on a journey to power himself up by capturing data from the heroes, the ultimate lifeform and Chaos (the fabled "god of destruction"). After that, the metallic copy uses Eggman's airship fleet to turn himself into the kaijuesque Metal Overlord, a fan-favorite transformation of his.
 * 11) * That being said, he has other cool and powerful forms, including Metal Sonic Kai and Neo Metal Sonic.
 * 12) He has plenty of awesome theme songs, like Never Let it Go from Sonic the Fighters, What I'm Made Of from Heroes (which is considered to be both his and Super Sonic's theme in that game) and Metal Sonic by Howard Drossin.
 * 13) Despite being specifically built to fight Sonic, he can have scuffles against other characters such as Knuckles and Tails.
 * 14) He has some moves and techniques that his organic foil can't perform (although some of them can hinder or even outright damage him), like the Black Shield, the Ring Spark Field and Copycat, which allows him to copy attacks from other lifeforms.
 * 15) He has a heroic moment in Sonic OVA, where he saves Old Man Owl and the South Island President despite being heavily damaged, even refusing Sonic's help.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) What was a simple goal for him has turned into a long-time obsession.
 * 2) Similar to most Sonic characters, he became a one-note stereotype of himself along the years, going from a cold-hearted killer robot to just a Sonic copycat.
 * 3) Some fans consider his Metal Overlord design to be overkill and claim that it makes Metal look inferior by comparison.
 * 4) He can be very reckless during the pursue of his goals, like when he uses attacks that can damaged him if they go on for too long (eg.: th V. Maximum Overdrive).
 * 5) He sometimes refers to himself as the "real Sonic" and to Sonic as his "loathsome copy", despite being very aware that he's the counterfeit.

Trivia

 * In Sonic CD, Metal Sonic's boss fight played like a race than an actual fight.
 * The concept of Metal Sonic came to form Naoto Oshima, who wanted to come up with a new rival for Sonic. Once Kazuyuki Hoshino was briefed, the keyword "menacing" struck his head.
 * Metal is the first and so far, an only rival for Sonic to not redeem himself.
 * Before Metal, other Sonic-like robots were created, like Mecha Sonic from Sonic 2 Genesis and Silver Sonic from Sonic 2 8-bit.