See Sonic Channel Marvel’s Multiverse In New Series First Look
Sonic returns in the new Sonic Prime series for Netflix, which debuts in December on the streaming platform.
A trailer for the new Sonic the Hedgehog animated series, Sonic Prime, just dropped on YouTube. It seems like the famous Blue Blur will be taking a page from the Marvel multiverse, as the new series appears to involve traveling through multiple dimensions (or as Tails calls them in the trailer, “Shatter Spaces”) after an encounter with Dr. Eggman leads to the destruction of the so-called “Paradox Prism.” With the worldwide box office success Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, it’s hard to blame them for following in Marvel’s footsteps.
Long before Sonic Prime even started production, The Marvel Cinematic Universe first began dabbling in the idea of a multiverse in Avengers: Endgame, which involved alternate timelines and ended with a showdown with a version of Thanos from another dimension. They’ve since added the multiverse as a plot point in multiple Marvel titles, including Spider-Man: No Way Home, the Disney+ series Loki, and the anthology series What If…?.
Of course, it’s not certain that Sonic Prime is modeling itself after the MCU. Marvel is far from the first piece of media to deal with the idea of multiple dimensions. The popular animated series Rick and Morty has revolved around multi-dimensional travel since its first episode, released in 2013. Before then, the 2008 TV series Fringe dealt with dimensional travel, and the 1995 series Sliders centered around the concept.
The idea goes back even further, meaning Sonic Prime’s multi-dimensional travel has deep roots in Science Fiction media. The 1967 Star Trek episode Mirror Mirror features an evil alternate reality, complete with a version of Spock sporting a goatee. The opening of the 1959 Twilight Zone series described itself as transporting viewers to “another dimension.”
Like most tropes, the idea has even deeper roots in literature — C.S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia series, which began in 1950, features Narnia as a parallel dimension. Perhaps the oldest clear version of a multiverse can be seen in the 1934 science fiction short story Sidewise in Time, though the 1666 satire The Blazing World arguably takes place in an alternate dimension.
Sonic Prime won’t even be the first time that Sonic himself has visited alternate universes. The idea has been explored in Sonic comics, video games, and even earlier animated series. As far back as 1993, the Sonic the Hedgehog animated series used banishing characters to another dimension as a plot point.
Sonic Prime will be the sixth animated series that the titular speedy hedgehog has starred in over the years. It all began with the light-hearted Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog in 1992, followed by 1993’s story-focused Sonic the Hedgehog (popularly known as Sonic SatAM, because of its Saturday Morning time slot. When Sonic SatAM went off the air in 1994, fans had to wait until 1999 for another Sonic series, the poorly received Sonic Underground. The better-received Japanese series Sonic X was released in 2003, though its American localization was critically panned.
Sonic Boom, the first computer-animated Sonic series, ran from 2014 until 2017. Sonic Prime, which will launch on Netflix in December 2022, will be the second computer-animated series featuring Sonic.
