(“Rage is a monster that will destroy you from within.” - Splinter 2003)

Shadow the Hedgehog, the Ultimate Lifeform with a tragic past from Paramount’s Sonic the Hedgehog film series.

Doll, the Worker Drone turned Solver-Afflicted with a vengeance from Murder Drones.

Anger, resentment, mistreatment, justice… we’ve all had that time when we felt wronged and wished to inflict harm back to someone or something else. But where do you draw the line at revenge vs justice? Pragmatism vs ethics? Cruelty vs compassion? The flames of hatred spread like wildfire, burning innocents while the evildoers who were the intended victims got away with their lives. Now, all they had left were the unending stars waiting to go supernova from the pits of their hearts.

In a chaotic dance of blades and energy, which revenge-driven extraterrestrial from the depths of space will succeed in a DEATH BATTLE?

Before We Start...

For Shadow, we’ll use the entire Sonic Cinematic Universe for his analysis, including the first three movies, the Knuckles miniseries, Sonic Drone Home, the Official Movie Novelizations (the first one I took pictures of, so credit to the author) and the Official Movie Pre-Quill comic by Kiel Phegley.

Shadow Generations had a DLC where canon Shadow appeared in the Paramount universe via a Warp Ring, taking the form of his movie counterpart. Despite Shun Nakamura confirming that it’s non-canon, it didn’t contradict events in either the games or movies; Shadow appeared and escaped Tokyo the same way he arrived without changing either story, and the DLC took place before his encounter with Team Sonic, loosely following what happened in the film where he was last seen engaging G.U.N. before their arrival. As such, it’ll be used as supporting material.

The Sonic x Shadow: TOKYO MISSION -Episode 0- manga was a one-shot released to commemorate the third movie, showing what Shadow was doing before his inevitable confrontation with Team Sonic. This will also be included since, like the Movie DLC, it didn’t stray too far from the original source and is inconsequential in terms of how different it is from the films and books.

A Very Sonic Christmas is obviously non-canon and doesn’t match up with the events of other related media. As funny as Team Sonic saving Christmas and Shadow stealing Santa’s sleigh are, I’ll have to exclude them.

Sonic Speed Simulator, while canon to the mainline games by Word of SEGA, isn't canon to the film series, so it won’t be used. It didn’t even have a plot connection to the films like the other examples. In fact, none of the main Sonic games will be considered canon despite the DLC’s existence, since none of them directly, canonically interacted with each other, and there’s no proof that they can scale to each other.

For Doll, we’ll use all 8 episodes of Murder Drones, interviews relevant to the debate, GLITCH’s official YouTube channel, and Word of God statements from Liam Vickers (the series creator) on Reddit. Dubious or non-canon materials, like the commercials and merchandising videos, won’t be used, though the Glitch Productions Store website will count as supporting material for more information.

Sources for Shadow:

Sonic the Hedgehog (2020)
Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (2022)
Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (2024)
Knuckles (six-episode miniseries)
Sonic Drone Home
Sonic the Hedgehog: The Official Movie Novelization (Credit goes to the writer and editor of the Novel and the physical copy for the screenshots)
Sonic the Hedgehog 2: The Official Movie Novelization
Sonic the Hedgehog 3: The Official Movie Novelization
Sonic the Hedgehog 2: The Official Movie Pre-Quill
Sonic x Shadow: TOKYO MISSION -Episode 0-
Shadow Generations (DLC Movie Pack)
Sonic Cinematic Universe Wiki
Sonic Wiki Zone
Sonic the Hedgehog (Paramount Continuity) VS Battles Wiki Page
Sonic the Hedgehog 3 Digital - All Extra Content (Interviews, Gag reel, BTS, Deleted Scenes)
Making Of SONIC THE HEDGEHOG 3 - Best Of Behind The Scenes, On Set Bloopers & Voice Cast Action
Mewtwo VS Shadow by ThoseGuysThatQuit Vs Blogs

Sources for Doll:

Glitch Productions Official Subreddit

Background

Paramount Shadow

(“The last time I sat beneath stars like this… I was with her. I felt this pain for so long… it’s all I know.”)

Name: Shadow the Hedgehog
Aliases: Movie Shadow, Popsicle, The Ultimate Lifeform, Hot Topic (by Sonic), Thermonuclear Gerbil (by Eggman), Demon Hamster, Rat
Gender: Male
Age: 50+ (chronologically; actual age unknown)
Species: Alien Hedgehog
Height: 3’0” (91.4 cm)
Weight: 62 lbs. (28 kg)
Affiliation: G.U.N. (formerly; against his will), Robotnik Family, himself (currently)
Occupation: Fugitive, Terrorist (formerly), Lab Experiment (formerly), Bowler(?)
Likes: Maria, Gerald (formerly), stars, motorcycles, soap operas, guacamole, Latinas
Dislikes: G.U.N., Commander Walters, humanity (formerly), misogyny, captivity, films about “alien freaks”
Debut: Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (film) (cameo)
Misc:

Best friends with Maria Robotnik.
Former subject of Project Shadow.
Rival and dark counterpart of Sonic the Hedgehog.
Implied to have participated in the Bowling Tournament of Champions in 1974.

50 years ago, a meteor crashed in Oklahoma, containing a lifeform… the Ultimate Lifeform. The Guardian Units of Nation—G.U.N.—took this alien and named him after the project he became the subject of; Shadow. The scientists, led by Gerald Robotnik, believed his Chaos Energy would revolutionize mankind, but during his stay, Shadow was feared and ostracized for his origin and abilities, except for Gerald’s granddaughter, Maria.

Unlike the others, Maria saw past Shadow’s exterior and forged a bond with him. She taught him how to dance and enjoy life in the sterile compound. While stargazing, Shadow expressed worry about not knowing where he was from and how humans saw him; a dangerous monster. Maria saw it differently; he was her friend, first and foremost, and Earth was his home, even if he had no memories of his past. Who Shadow was would be determined by his personality, not his powers.

However, deeming Shadow to be a threat, G.U.N. raided the facility and Gerald tried to take the kids to safety. Captain Walters, disgusted by the actions of his colleagues, tried to stop them, resulting in the accident that destroyed the facility and took Maria’s life. Gerald was blamed for the incident and put into custody, while Shadow was placed under indefinite stasis for being too powerful and valuable to be let free.

In 2024, Gerald hacked into G.U.N.’s systems and freed Shadow from Prison Island. Having spent the last 50 years stewing in anger and misery, Shadow rejoined Gerald and followed his plan to avenge Maria. With help from Gerald’s long lost grandson, Dr. Ivo “Eggman”, they stole Keycards from G.U.N. to launch the Eclipse Cannon, a weapon that could target anywhere on the planet, and overloaded it with Shadow’s energy, making it potent enough to destroy Earth and everything around it, including themselves.

With the fate of the world at their hands, Shadow fought and joined forces with Sonic the Hedgehog, who commiserated with Shadow over the shared pain of losing a loved one, reminding him of Maria’s words; even if the stars were gone, the light they left behind still remained, like how Shadow’s feelings for Maria were never gone despite her passing.

Reinvigorated with a sense of hope, Team Sonic, Shadow, and even Eggman teamed up to stop Gerald and the Eclipse Cannon, saving humanity and breaking the cycle of revenge to do what was right. The Robotniks were gone from the world, but their legacy lived on in Shadow, who roamed the Earth with a new chance in life.

A fugitive and terrorist-turned-antihero who saved the planet despite the pain it dealt him, this was who he was… Shadow the Hedgehog.

Doll

(“Dead. I watched them die.”/“Мертвы. Я видел, как они умирали.“)

Name: Doll
Aliases: Red-eyed Doll freak (by V), Yeva’s kid (by Nori), Babe-a-Tron Queenthousand (by Lizzy)
Gender: Female
Age: 18-20
Species: Worker Drone
Height: Unknown, at least 4’6” (136 cm)
Weight: Unknown
Affiliation: Herself, her parents, Outpost 3 (formerly)
Occupation: Student, Cheerleader, Solver Drone, Mass Murderer, Serial Killer, Cannibal
Likes: Lizzy, her parents, knives
Dislikes: Uzi (to a degree), Disassembly Drones (especially V), Absolute Solver, bugs, FNAF’s
Debut: MURDER DRONES - Episode 1: PILOT
Misc:

Former best friends with Lizzy.
Speaks Russian with a thick accent (or English with a Russian accent in the Russian audio).

In the 31st century, the interstellar conglomerate, JCJenson IN SPAAAAACEE!!!!, created Worker Drones to help mine exoplanets for profit. One of these planets, Copper 9, had a core collapse that wiped out all biological life and left the Worker Drones to establish their own society. However, a new type of Drones were sent, apparently by their parent company to hunt down “runaway AI”; Disassembly Drones, or as they were later also known as, Murder Drones. For decades, they slaughtered the populace and constructed corpse spires for all to see. The survivors hid behind doors made by Khan Doorman to live in peace and complacency, but Khan’s daughter, Uzi, left her colony to bring the fight to the Murder Drones.

After a failed attempt to kill them, Uzi inadvertently led the Disassembly Drones to the bunker. Though Serial Designation N had a change of heart after Uzi’s father left her for dead, his coworkers V and J attacked the colony, with V killing Doll’s parents while Doll watched. This awakened something in Doll; a mysterious program called the Absolute Solver, which granted new abilities to Worker Drones, but at the cost of having an insatiable urge to feed on oil from other Drones.

Uzi and N killed J and captured V, but Doll started her plan to get revenge on V. She went on a murder spree to remove potential candidates to ensure that V (whom Lizzy forced everyone else to forgive) would be crowned prom queen at the school dance, putting her in a position where Doll reminded V of her crime and attempted to execute her. Uzi and N put a stop to Doll, and together with V, forced her into retreating.

After learning Uzi had the same curse as she did, Doll’s goal shifted towards trying to find a cure for the Absolute Solver. Her search led her to stealing the Keybug from Uzi and enter Cabin Fever Labs where, unbeknownst to them, was the same facility where their mothers were experimented on when they were infected by the program.

Doll’s efforts came to an end when, while accosting “Tessa”, the latter revealed her true form as Cyn, the original Solver host, and mortally wounded Doll before eating her heart. Despite all the oil-shed, sacrifice, and betrayal, Doll’s story was tragic in that, despite everything, her search for a cure went nowhere and the same Drones she antagonized—Uzi, N, and V—were the ones who saved the universe from Cyn, with Doll unable to enjoy the newfound peace and freedom.

Experience & Skill

Paramount Shadow

Despite his limited experience due to having no memories of his life before Earth and being in stasis for 50 years, Shadow was an amazingly skilled combatant, taking out a group of G.U.N. soldiers with contemptuous ease after being freed and breaking his way out of Prison Island.

Even after G.U.N. sent a squad armed with energy weapons, military vehicles, and surrounded him in a residential area, Shadow proved his power by defeating them all at once, drawing the attention of Team Sonic, who were sent specifically to neutralize him. Despite having the advantage of numbers, they too were beaten by the Ultimate Lifeform and forced to regroup.

Team Sonic were a trio of aliens like Shadow who wielded Chaos Energy, composed of the fastest known creature alive, a tech genius who tracked signatures across the universe and hacked into G.U.N. database, and the surviving member of the Echidna Tribe who trained since birth in all forms of combat to become the most dangerous warrior in the galaxy. Yet, Shadow beat them multiple times, individually and when they were together, and they only survived due to luck and mercy from him.

Sonic declared that the only way to defeat Shadow was to use the Master Emerald, the most powerful object in the universe, to become Super Sonic and fought with the intent to kill. However, Shadow depowered him with a sneak attack long enough to use the Emerald himself, unlocking his own Super Form. Super Sonic only won by taking advantage of an opening and got enraged by Super Shadow taunting him for leaving his loved ones behind.

After they teamed up to stop the Eclipse Cannon, Shadow proved to be capable of maintaining his Super Form better than Sonic, despite being less experienced, and pushed the space station away from Earth before a nuclear fallout could befall it.

Shadow was perceptive, adaptable, and intuitive; after knocking the Chaos Emeralds out of Super Sonic, despite not knowing what they were, he dashed towards them at the same time as Sonic, becoming Super Shadow to counter Super Sonic’s godlike power. In the short time they fought, Shadow became proficient with the abilities granted by the form, including enhanced physicality, improved Chaos energy, flight, and firing energy attacks that most others (except Eggman, a world-class supergenius, and an Echidna warrior, who sought out such power) hadn’t demonstrated beforehand.

He also had no trouble adapting to modern culture despite the 50 year gap, because he’s based like that.

Doll

Doll was shown to be perceptive, able to recognize the illusion Eldritch J used to trick Lizzy into trying to open the door for it, before Doll used her power to keep Lizzy from doing so while hiding them from her peers.

Ruthless and cunning, Doll set up her plan by killing her peers and used carefully placed rebars to restrain V while her guard was down and would’ve killed her if Uzi and N hadn’t intervened. In their fight, she showed remarkable skill, creativity, and resourcefulness with her powers, keeping the Worker and Disassembly Drones on the defensive until Uzi’s Solver awakened.

Doll typically used her telekinesis to control the battlefield by flinging objects and foes alike and utilized bladed weapons from afar. If needed, she could hide from enemies, cover distances, and escape with her teleportation.

After being shot by V, Doll played dead until they arrived in her room, where she tried to snipe them with the same bullet before Uzi blocked it. Later, she stole the Keybug from Uzi because of her prioritizing N and V’s safety. Both of these show how devious and pragmatic Doll could be when aiming for her goals.

Her greatest display, however, was pretending to be bootlopped to lead the group (and Cyn as Tessa) into a false sense of security before using the Keybug to open the way to Cabin Fever Labs and unleashed the Sentinels upon them, jumping into the entrance before it was blocked by an elevator. Uzi, N, and V likely would’ve been doomed if the latter hadn’t stayed behind so the others could escape (she turned out to be alive, fortunately, which was more than what could be said for Doll).

Equipment

Paramount Shadow

Air Shoes

Shadow’s trademark shoes that produced blue jets that enhanced his speed and mobility. They were normally used to skate around, even across oceans or in tight corners, but also enabled flight and hovering (which his game counterpart also did in his debut). The exhaust was strong enough to lift him and Sonic 50 feet (15.24 meters) in the air like a rocket.

He could also use these jets to augment his kicks or expel flames into opponents.

Limiter Rings

Rings worn by Shadow around his wrists and ankles to limit his Chaos Energy. When taken off, they increased his power to an unknown degree, but enough that he could push the Eclipse Cannon, a large space station, to a safe distance away from Earth in his Super Form.

Unlike other continuities, it’s unconfirmed that removing them reduced his stamina, as he later appeared no worse for wear after surviving a fall from space, unlike his game counterpart.

Quills

Shadow’s quills contained samples of his Chaos Energy, even when removed from his body, which Gerald used to prolong his lifespan over a century old.

As Sonic demonstrated, alien hedgehogs could remove their quills to have them be used or carried by others, and he used one to grab a ring slightly out of his reach. Shadow never did this himself, but it was worth noting.

Dark Rider

(The ultimate product placement in the film, don’t deny it.)

Shadow’s personal bike that he took from G.U.N., which he used to drive through the streets of Tokyo while escaping Sonic. In addition to traveling in style, he could imbue it with his Chaos Energy to enhance its speed and performance, riding up the side of a building while fighting and keeping pace with Sonic.

It’s based on the 2024 BMW S1000RR, a superbike designed to be aerodynamic and lightweight for increased speed, performance, and handling. It has a curb weight of 437 lbs. and accelerates 0-60 mph in 3.21 seconds. Its high-performance, four-cylinder engine gives it 205 hp, complemented by the steering angle sensor to ensure Brake Slide Assist for deceleration and Slip/Slide Control assistance system for acceleration, providing optimum slip and dynamic performance at every turn.

It has a top speed of 188 mph and the front & side trim panels increase downforce generated by up to 37%; at 186 mph, this equates to 50 lbs, keeping the front wheel from lifting off the road surface when accelerating. It has a performance screen for knowing how much distance it traveled, the suitable top speed when the engine is cold, the bike’s current speed, and measuring time.

He also performed the AKIRA slide with it, because of course he would.

All in all, despite being slower than him, it was the perfect ride for the Ultimate Lifeform.

G.U.N. Laser Pistol

A discarded firearm taken from G.U.N. (for someone who hated them, Shadow stole a lot of shit from G.U.N.) that fired bolts of energy (or “lasers” as they were called in the novel) at targets. Similar weapons used by G.U.N. were referred to as “plasma rifles,” implying that this gun shot plasma.

Shadow was quite accurate with it, as he fired shots at Sonic that the latter had to dodge with his super speed, agility, and reflexes, even while riding a motorcycle.

Black Hole Orb

A device created by Gerald which, after being infused with Shadow’s Chaos Energy, created a vortex akin to a mini black hole, capable of ripping apart atoms and sucking an entire mountain base into nothing.

Afterwards, the black hole dissipated, as though the site never existed.

Master Emerald

A gem of ultimate power told in legends, it was forged by the Echidna Tribe to be their unstoppable weapon, capable of turning thoughts into reality and building or destroying civilizations.

It amplified whatever was in the user’s heart, good or evil, and could threaten all life in the universe if it fell to the wrong hands. Thus, an order of heroes was formed to take the Emerald away from the Echidnas, swearing a sacred oath to guard it from those who wished to use it until their mutual extinction by the Echidna Tribe. Now, the mantle had been passed down to their successors, Team Sonic.

Wielders could enter a Super Form that drastically enhanced their Chaos Energy and abilities, granting them additional powers beyond their base states. The traits of these forms seemed to vary depending on the user; Eggman and an Echidna gained green auras and color schemes, while Sonic and Shadow gained golden fur and red eyes.

The Master Emerald housed the Chaos Emeralds, so if it broke and lost its powers, they could be used as substitutes. It could also be repaired by users gathering the pieces and squeezing them together, presumably with Chaos Energy (Knuckles and Sonic had done this, so it’s likely Shadow could as well).

Afterwards, it became its own entity that enabled Sonic (and later Shadow) to access his Super Form in desperate situations and could call upon the Chaos Emeralds from across space and time.

Chaos Emeralds

Seven gems of extraordinary power gathered by the Echidna Tribe. When combined, they form the Master Emerald.

Little else was known about them other than being the components and fragments of the Master Emerald, but after the second film, they could exist independently from it, making them secondary power sources for the Super Forms.

In the novel, Sonic sent them through space and time where they were “lost forever,” but the third film and its novelization revealed that they could be summoned anytime with the Master Emerald. It was also revealed that the Chaos Emeralds could enable more than one user to enter their Super Forms, which Shadow used to his advantage against and alongside Sonic.

Doll

Cleaver
A large knife with a rectangular blade for cutting through small bones, thick flesh, and even Drones, as demonstrated against one of Doll’s peers and V.

Doll could create up to three of them with the Absolute Solver.

Rebars

Steel bars used in reinforced concrete to provide strength and support. Doll could set these as traps, capable of piercing and restraining Disassembly Drones.

She used up to four of them and could control them telekinetically.

Ceiling Fan

A regular ceiling fan Doll weaponized by turning it into a serrated saw.

Could create and use up to three of them, each capable of slicing Disassembly Drones.

Knife

Doll’s weapon of choice was a standard kitchen knife. Whereas chefs used it to prepare ingredients, Doll used it as an implement for murder and revenge, with a side dish of stabbyness.

While she mainly used it as a projectile or wielded it at long-range, she could also use it as a close-quarters weapon.

She could create multiple copies to launch a storm of blades at the opponent.

Eyepatch

After losing her eye to V, Doll wore an eyepatch with a button on it (appropriate, don’t you think?) to hide the wound left behind. Once removed, it was revealed that she didn’t heal herself, likely to avoid the Solver taking over her (more on that later).

Keybug

A mysterious robot cockroach that was the “key” to Cabin Fever Labs. It could scan facial features to recognize someone, communicate via holographic text and speech bubbles, and register whatever someone tells it through speech-to-text (which leads to “invalid responses” if it doesn’t understand what they were saying).

The Keybug could be used for non-verbal communication, with messages that match whatever the user wanted to say or feel. It also communicated with others the same way.

When placed on the proximity reader, an elevator leading to Cabin Fever Labs came down to transport passengers… or trap them in a room of Sentinels, as Doll did.

According to Liam Vickers, the robot bugs shown throughout the series were “cleanup crew” or scavengers that eat scrap metal and self-replicate until they became a pest species.

Abilities

Paramount Shadow

Extraterrestrial Physiology

Shadow, like Sonic, is an anthropomorphic alien hedgehog from an unknown world. More specifically, he’s based on the Erinaceinae, a family of hedgehogs in the order Eulipotyphla. This means he can curl himself into a ball as a defense mechanism, as well as for stealth, mobility, and combat. Combined with his Chaos Energy, Shadow can perform a technique known as the Spin Dash, where he becomes a high-speed projectile that smashes whatever is in his way.

Despite his small size, Shadow has superhuman strength, speed, agility, reflexes, durability, endurance, stamina, etc, even by the standards of other aliens, who are universally shown to have enhanced physical prowess. He can survive extreme and hostile conditions without protection, such as deserts, blizzards, and outer space, the latter of which he can somehow breathe and talk in.

Shadow is among the rare individuals in the universe who can innately channel and harness Chaos Energy, to a far greater extent than other living beings, hence his title “Ultimate Lifeform.” With this, he charges himself with bioelectricity that enhances his overall capabilities. Even discarded quills can harness Chaos Energy indefinitely and can be used to empower machines, weapons, and beings.

Since they’re similar enough to draw comparisons to each other, his biology can be compared with Sonic’s, who is stated to be more complex and unlike any animal on Earth, with foot pads adapted for running. Their metabolism is fast enough to burn through tranquilizers designed for bears in minutes and their pulse is naturally super fast, even while unconscious, which may contribute to their speed and reflexes.

Mobians (Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles’ kind) also seem to have regenerative healing factors. Knuckles states that arrangements between Echidnas require the removal and reinsertion of internal organs within each other’s chest cavity and he heals his wrist after it was broken by Shadow.

Chaos Energy

A force of extremely powerful energy described to be eerie, unstable, disorderly, and using the “power of chaos” itself. It enhanced the users’ physical attributes, including speed, strength, and durability, manifesting as bio-electricity that carried properties, i.e., powering technology or generating lightning. It was stated to be capable of scientific breakthroughs such as clean energy, medicine, and even time manipulation. Even lost body parts like quills carried and generated portions of the user’s Chaos Energy.

However, because of this, unscrupulous individuals and groups sought to abuse it by hunting down users. Those who harnessed Chaos Energy were noted to be rare, unlike anything most had seen before. It was tied to the user’s emotions, as experiencing intense feelings (sadness, anger, nervousness, determination, love, etc.) amplified their power to the point of matching or surpassing those who originally overpowered them.

It was stated that users could generate unlimited amounts of Chaos Energy, meaning they never run out during battle.

Applications:

Statistic Amplification: Chaos Energy could enhance the user’s physicality. The more they had, the more powerful they became. Humans enhanced by it could fight on par with the likes of Sonic and Knuckles.
Aura: When channeling Chaos Energy, users were enveloped in a bioelectric aura, either for their whole body or select sections, such as their hands. This could protect them from enemies and attacks by shocking and knocking them back, and also by cushioning against impacts.
Electricity Manipulation: Chaos Energy had properties similar to electricity, creating arcs and lightning bolts. These could extend meters away from the user and be channeled through their actions and movements. The electricity had enough energy to send humans flying and potentially vaporize them.
Heat Manipulation: Chaos Energy was hot enough to turn sand into glass. Users were described as “thermonuclear,” with even their shed quills being on par with nuclear weapons, which reach up to 100 million degrees Celsius.
Radiation Manipulation: Chaos Energy was described as thermonuclear, with a powerful enough explosion of it able to pollute the atmosphere and cause radioactive rains that kill crops and melt flesh.
Light Manipulation: Chaos Energy produced shimmering light from its user when channeled, bright enough to hurt the eyes of those watching.
Technology Manipulation: Chaos Energy could empower machines and the scientists of Project Shadow believed Shadow’s Chaos Energy could lead to a new technological era for humanity. However, it could also short-circuit electric grids and electronics.
EMP Generation: Users could generate EMPs that knocked out electricity over hundreds of miles and could even reach satellites. Often used in tandem with the shockwaves. They could also produce smaller scale EMPs to disable immediate electronics.
Shockwave Generation: Users could generate shockwaves that shattered glass and spread for hundreds of miles, even reaching outer space. These could be concentrated with thunderclaps and users could produce smaller shockwaves to propel themselves into the air, knock opponents off their feet, or launch debris.
Sound Manipulation: Chaos lightning and shockwaves could produce sound comparable to thunder.
Explosion Manipulation: Chaos Energy generated lethal explosions.
Regeneration: Sonic’s Chaos Energy healed him, despite being injured to the point where Eggman and Tom thought he was dead.
Longevity: Gerald lived to be 110-years-old by using the residual energy of Shadow’s quills to prolong his lifespan and was still capable for his age due to its revitalizing effects.
Emotional Empowerment: Users had their power amplified temporarily by experiencing strong emotions. Examples included Sonic defeating Eggman after the latter nearly killed him, Sonic contending with Knuckles despite being far weaker and less skilled, and Super Sonic punching Super Shadow to the Moon despite barely matching him earlier. Shadow’s rage and grief at Maria’s death also allowed him to power the Eclipse Cannon.
Energy Absorption: Users could absorb their Chaos Energy from residual sources, such as Sonic from his quill and Knuckles from the Buyer’s mech after it absorbed his power.
Weapon Enhancement: Chaos Energy could be imbued into weapons, as seen with Amy with her hammer.
Non-Physical Interaction: Chaos Energy allowed one to interact with objects in ways they normally wouldn’t, like Sonic pushing a Warp Ring (which acted as an interdimensional portal) and Super Sonic and Super Shadow holding back the Eclipse Cannon’s laser (which was also made of Chaos Energy). Emerald Eggman dispelled Tails’ holograms.
Surface Scaling: With their speed, users could scale walls and ceilings, with Shadow making a bike do the same by imbuing it with his Chaos Energy.
Vector Manipulation: Users could control their momentum and direction in mid-air to land consecutive attacks on opponents. The recoil of Chaos Energy could launch them.
Black Hole Creation: With certain devices, users could create artificial black holes that suck in matter over a large radius, enough to consume a mountain into nothing, before dissipating.
Matter Manipulation: The black hole could “scramble atoms,” and since it was a product of Chaos Energy, it could potentially apply to the user’s other abilities.

Chaos Control

Shadow’s Chaos Energy allowed him to manipulate time, glitching from one location to another and back instantly. This could be used to remateralize around opponents, target weak points, catch them by surprise, avoid attacks and obstacles, and travel long distances (at least a city block’s worth).

From an outside perspective, Shadow seemed to be moving impossibly fast, but in truth, he was using “time jumps” to teleport in short bursts. He could chain them to knock opponents as fast as Team Sonic around before they could react. Anything he touched (like a motorcycle and Sonic) also got teleported with him.

In Shadow Generations, it was stated that Paramount Shadow had similar abilities to his game counterpart (except for the Doom Powers, which only the latter unlocked), meaning he could warp in front of enemies for a homing attack and stop time for 5-6 seconds (potentially longer). This allowed him to clear stages and defeat enemies more easily.

Chaos Spear

Super Shadow could create and launch dozens of spear-like projectiles called Chaos Spears, which destroyed a platoon of G.U.N. Hunters. In video games, he could use it in his base form with enough force to knock back a G.U.N. Helicopter.

It could also paralyze enemies, leaving them open for Shadow to attack.

Super Speed

Shadow and other aliens were capable of moving at inhuman speeds, able to move faster than the eye could see, dodge bullets and missiles, and cover vast distances in seconds. Sonic even once traveled around the world in 80 seconds before returning to Green Hills (no, he didn’t use Warp Rings, as he was reluctant to use them except as last resorts).

Being their primary method of mobility, they naturally had many uses of it in all kinds of situations, including:

Fire and Heat Generation: The friction produced by Sonic left flame trails and boiled water.
Water Walking: Sonic and Shadow ran across bodies of water.
Surface Scaling: Sonic ran on the side of buildings and on ceilings without falling.
Afterimage Creation: Sonic created afterimages of himself to be in multiple places at once, even creating up to 9 of them to play baseball with.
Vertigo Inducement: Sonic spun fast enough to make a crowd dizzy, to the point of collapsing to the floor and going to the bathroom to puke. Presumably, the same could be done by spinning foes at high speeds.
Enhanced Throw: Sonic tossed snowballs with enough speed and force to destroy Egg Drones.

Perception Manipulation

With their Chaos Energy, Sonic and the others could alter their perception of time to enter a state of “hyperspeed,” slowing the world to a standstill from their point of view. This allowed them to keep track of every detail and motion, no matter how chaotic the situation was. It was stated to be an automatic response whenever dangerous situations arose.

They could influence their environment while moving faster than most could react to, from setting up pranks, redirecting projectiles, to bypassing security.

Sonic and Shadow’s perception and reaction speeds were directly proportional to how fast they were, making a single moment feel like a month to them.

However, if they lost focus by taking a hit, their perceptions returned to normal.

Boost

In Shadow Generations, like his game counterpart, Shadow could surround himself in a yellow aura (presumably Chaos Energy) to increase his speed and hover above the ground. This allowed him to ram through enemies and obstacles while maintaining his top speed.

It could also be used as pseudo-flight, launching him through the air horizontally or vertically.

It should be noted that Shadow did a similar move in the films while being tested by G.U.N. scientists.

Wind Manipulation

With his speed, Sonic generated blasts of wind to prank and blow away others, created dust devils to blind opponents, and created a whirlwind enhanced by his Chaos Energy to lift a Warp Ring.

He also spun a bank vault fast enough to create a tornado that lifted cars into the air and planned for him, Tails, and Knuckles to suck up Eggman’s hacked drones in a whirlwind to protect the Chao Garden restaurant.

Shadow should be capable of the same as he was as fast as Sonic.

Enhanced Agility & Acrobatics

Shadow is maneuverable and acrobatic enough to clear obstacles, hazards, and terrains at breakneck speed.

He took out a group of G.U.N. soldiers with teleported strikes, including a flash kick, without hitting the floor, skidded down the Rainbow Bridge’s suspension cable, rode his bike up the Tokyo Skytree and leaped off of it while it was upside-down in the air to collide with Sonic, and could use his speed to leap greater distances.

In Shadow Generations, he could dodge and slide beneath missiles before kicking and flying one to reach a G.U.N. Helicopter. Then, he grinded and shifted between rails up the side of a building while dodging a barrage of missiles. He and Sonic also fell back-first from a building and landed on their feet. In the TOKYO MISSION -Episode 0- manga, he stepped atop a bullet after it was fired to punch a G.U.N. Soldier.

It should be noted that, since Sonic was treated as the pinnacle of speed and agility in the Paramount films, and Shadow kept up with him as his equal, he should mimic all of the stunts and performances he had done.

These included bouncing between walls to cover crevasses, sliding beneath a truck to evade an explosion, wall jumping in rapid succession, reaching aerial targets by ricocheting between enemies, dodging a swarm of Egg Drones while riding a snowboard and in the air, skydiving from a helicopter, doing a 360 degree dive roll through the windows of a moving truck, and dropping down a hoop like a basketball.

For comparison, one of his simpler stunts, grinding on a tree after doing a flip, took a real-life parkour athlete over 200 tries to do something similar, but Sonic achieved it on his first try while racing Tails and Knuckles.

In Tails’ simulation of G.U.N. HQ’s security system, Sonic temporarily dodged hallway lasers with a series of acrobatic movements until he was overwhelmed.

Hand-to-Hand Combat

Shadow was an accomplished hand-to-hand fighter, combining martial arts with his chaos abilities to overwhelm a variety of foes, including specially trained soldiers and aliens with similar powers.

In their rematch in their Super Forms, Shadow still got the upper hand over Sonic, even though he put up a better fight than in their previous encounters. Sonic only won by taking advantage of Shadow’s taunting to get an opening and also because Shadow wanted to be killed by him.

During an exchange, he performed hand movements akin to Wing Chun, a martial art focused on close-contact combat, rapid-fire punches, straightforward efficiency, and disrupting the enemy’s centerline to leave them vulnerable. Practitioners maintain a relaxed, flexible posture for quick and responsive movements and countering high power attacks. Techniques often involve simultaneous attack and defense, constant forward pressure, and targeting vulnerable areas of the body.

It might be dubious to assume Shadow was a trained martial artist (that we know of, at least), but it fits his fighting style. He relied on his speed and power to overwhelm opponents, targeted their weak or blind spots, utilized attack and defense efficiently, pressured opponents constantly, and when faced by a stronger opponent in Super Sonic, Shadow turned his strength against him to plummet them towards Earth to leave him vulnerable for a counterattack.

Stealth Mastery

(“Boo.”)

Unsurprising, given his color scheme, but Shadow was able to hide in the mountain base where he and Maria had lived to pick off Team Sonic and Agent Stone, using the dark corners to sneak up on them, disorient and confuse them, and knock them out by surprise.

Later, when they crash-landed on Earth, Shadow hid from Super Sonic to ambush the golden hedgehog, stripping him of the Chaos Emeralds to use them himself.

Sonic himself hid from humans for a decade and spied on the Wachowskis for years without them knowing (creepy, but well-meaning). He also used his ball form to hide in the attic and he and Tails disguised themselves by stealing clothes.

Non-Physical Interaction (Limited)

In Knuckles, ghosts could be obstructed by windows, despite being able to phase through objects and people. This was a rule in the series, not an actual ability of Shadow.

Theoretically, he could take advantage of it by using glass objects (like the windshield of his bike), but since he never encountered ghosts before, it’s unlikely he would think of this.

Resistances

Sedatives: Sonic’s accelerated metabolism helped him shrug off the effects of a tranquilizer dart for bears, though was debilitated afterwards.
Possibly Poison Manipulation: Hedgehogs have natural immunity to snake venom due to erinacin in their muscles. This was never shown in the series, but given their explicit comparisons to hedgehogs and Sonic shrugging off a tranquilizer due to his metabolism, it shouldn’t be too far off.
Possibly Acid Manipulation: Shadow was unharmed by a tank of liquid that dissolved the meteorite he was in.
Energy Absorption: Chaos Energy users could reabsorb their Chaos Energy after it was stolen by the opponent.
Age Manipulation: Chaos Energy could delay and reverse the user’s aging process, which allowed Gerald to live over a century.
Electricity Manipulation: Withstood his and other characters’ Chaos Energy, even Super Sonic’s.
Heat Manipulation: Withstood the heat of reentry several times as well as his own Chaos Energy. Super Shadow and Super Sonic withstood blows powerful enough to turn earth into lava, as well as the Eclipse Cannon, which was said to be able to turn Earth into a “flaming pile of rubble.”
Extreme Cold: Survived being in outer space and scales to Sonic and Tails, who walked through a blizzard naked in Siberia. Shadow survived cryostasis for 50 years without ill-effects.
Light Manipulation: Shadow was unfazed by the light emitted by his and Sonic’s Super Forms, which were bright enough to hurt the eyes of others. Super Shadow wasn’t blinded by the light emitted by him and Super Sonic that could be seen from orbit.
Radiation Manipulation: Withstood his Chaos Energy, which was described as thermonuclear, and as Super Shadow, survived an explosion that would’ve irradiated Earth’s atmosphere. Base Shadow and Sonic also survived outer space without protection.
Explosion Manipulation: Sonic stated that his Super Form would’ve blown up Tom and Maddie from contact and Chaos Energy had repeatedly caused explosions, but Shadow was unharmed by these. Super Shadow tanked the Eclipse Cannon, which would’ve caused an explosion from Earth in a 25,000-mile radius.
Matter Manipulation: Withstood his Chaos Energy, which powered a black hole that could scramble atoms, and Super Shadow should scale to the Giant Eggman Robot, which shrugged off the Tornado’s laser cannons, which were made from the same tech as Tails’ blaster, which atomized a wedding cake.
Gravity Manipulation: Scales to Sonic, who overcame increased gravity to save the Wachowskis from falling debris. As Super Shadow and with his Air Shoes, he should also counter antigravity. Stronger than Knuckles, who resisted the pull of an artificial black hole.
Time Manipulation (Debatable): In Shadow Generations (which Paramount Shadow appeared in via DLC), it was revealed Chaos Control could counter time stops from other users. Given that the DLC was non-canon, though, and Paramount Shadow never fought another time manipulator, it’s unknown if he could replicate this.

Doll

Worker Drone Physiology

Worker Drones are autonomous robots designed to mine exoplanets. Despite their small size, they’re industrial machinery strong enough to squeeze the life out of someone, crush steel with one hand, and bite through chains. They’re durable enough to survive an explosion that rendered an entire planet uninhabitable to organic life.

After the “Great Yeetening,” WDs used the machines and assembly lines that created them to make containers (informally called “baby pills” or “pill babies”) where they put their code into untrained neural networks, akin to human children. After maturing and being educated enough, their AI is transferred into a workable body. This, along with their adaptive AI, gave them sentience and personalities based on their environment while favoring self-preservation.

Doll speaks Russian, but other Drones can understand her, implying they have a built-in linguistic database or translator. She’s also heard briefly speaking English in the pilot episode, implying they can change whatever language they speak, which is supported by the fact that, if one changes the audio language of Murder Drones to Russian, Doll is the only character to speak English, when it’s the other way around in the English audio.

Their visors act as their vision, but can be used to show and access images, icons, gifs, apps, alarm clocks, text messages, calculations, etc. These include games like solitaire or Tetris. They can change their eyes into shapes like sunglasses, generate expressions like angry marks, sweat, tears, shock, etc., and glow their eyes brighter at will; Doll, in particular, turns her eyes red when angry. They can also scan written messages.

Their visors show their conditions, such as when they die, get infected by virus programs, get disabled by EMP, enter Sleep Mode, get emotional, get knocked out, or overheat.

They can download and play audio files such as MP3, recorded sounds, and music.

Crude oil is their analog to human blood and they can temporarily survive wounds like dismemberment, bisection, and heavy bleeding.

Being machines, they’re shown feeding on oil and batteries. It’s unknown if these are for sustenance, pleasure, or traits they adopted from humans. They don’t need oxygen, though, which allowed them to survive in space.

Absolute Solver

A mysterious, enigmatic symbol embodying a strange power that manifests within a Worker Drone. Being an auto-run program, it mutates and spreads across damaged AI, with its influence shown by the symbol appearing over their eye. Described as an “eternal eternity” and “Solver of the Absolute Fabric, the Void, the Exponential End,” it has a mind of its own, overriding, possessing, and mutating its hosts to speak and act through them, whether they’d be infected Worker Drones or their descendants.

The Solver and its hosts produce holographic code and programming that seemingly control reality itself and have physical presence, knocking aside Worker Drones that make contact with them. By making a certain sign with their hands, users can project the symbols of the Absolute Solver to control matter in various ways through telekinesis, matter manipulation, creation, replication, transmutation, etc., as well as energy such as fire, light, kinetic, and gravitational.

The downside to having the Solver, however, is that users gain an urge to consume oil, including from other Drones, to the point where they may lose control and eat the corpses of bystanders, or in the case of Doll, turn towards serial killing to stave off said hunger. If they don’t consume oil, they’ll overheat and die. They’re susceptible to sunlight and UV radiation, which burns them until nothing remains but a black hole core, which is the essence of the Absolute Solver itself. Entities created by the Solver (such as the Disassembly Drones) are also susceptible to overheating and sunlight.

Solver Core

When a Drone afflicted by the Solver loses their body, their AI is transferred to their heart/core. It can move, grab, and even strike with its crab-like appendages. Users retain their Solver powers in this form, so they can still fight and contend with other, able-bodied Solver Drones, keeping pace with them alongside a Disassembly Drone.

When destroyed, it turns into a black hole that creates another, larger black hole that surrounds whatever is around it, entrapping them (including likely the host) from the outside world. While this is active, time slows to a crawl, affecting everything except Solver and Disassembly Drones. Meanwhile, the host’s body will try to consume their core to reintegrate it, but opponents (as Uzi can attest to) can take advantage of this by eating or assimilating the core themselves, leaving the user’s body to rot and melt.

Unfortunately, heat renders them sluggish, as Alice demonstrates (but they can still survive reentry? What secrets are you hiding Liam?).

Immortality & Regeneration

Solver Drones can heal from wounds normally fatal or debilitating to Worker Drones, including headshots, damaged visors, amputation, dismemberment, and impalement. A pickaxe through the head by another Solver Drone barely slows them down.

If their core is removed from their body, it can return through the cavity to bring them back to life.
It’s implied that they (at least to some extent) could heal from melting and decaying, as Cyn tried to consume her black hole core before her body broke down until Uzi did it first.

That being said, these abilities have limits, as decapitation is implied to be fatal to Uzi (though, it might’ve been a trick to torture N) and Nori didn’t heal or regrow her body after it was killed by Disassembly Drones, instead needing to continue as her core.

Destruction

Alluding to their vampire motifs, Solver Drones could cause mirrors or glass to break by looking at them. Doll also caused a mechanical bug to burst, showing that it wasn’t limited to only glassy objects.

This could be used in conjunction with their telekinesis, as shown by Uzi destroying a door, and while possessed by the Solver, crumbled the Crucifix Patch into pieces.

Telekinesis

One of the main powers of the Solver (and Doll’s favorite) is moving objects without the need to touch them. Doll could manipulate multiple surrounding objects at once, including wielding and throwing knives for long-range combat, keeping her distance while pressuring opponents.

This ability has enough force to dismember Worker Drones, crush them into paste, or make them explode casually. Doll could hurl heavy objects like doors, tables, or rocks as additional weapons, usually when backed to a corner. It can cause direct damage, as shown with Doll bending industrial-strength doors and Uzi splitting a boulder.

She once shot a bullet with the same speed and power as a gun, meaning Doll could launch projectiles at supersonic speeds, which is consistent with other Solver Drone feats.

On the other hand, it can be used precisely and (relatively) delicately, targeting body parts like the neck for a choke grab or destroying accessories on a moving target (a vision-impaired person’s worst nightmare). It could be used to stack and read papers without damaging them or open a hallway of doors with a gesture. It could even slam and lock doors in people’s faces, to Khan’s dismay. Fortunately, it could unlock doors too.

In microgravity environments, Solver Drones could use their telekinesis to manipulate objects like asteroids, allowing them to control their movement and direction.

Stealth Mastery

(She’s just standing there… menacingly!)

Doll was skilled at stealth, likely helped by her dark color scheme. She was able to kill most of the prom court and turn away surrounding cameras without being caught to avoid suspicion. Later, she teleported behind Uzi, N, and V while they were in her room, nearly shooting them if it weren’t for Uzi’s Solver.

During the field trip at Camp 98.7, she snuck behind Uzi while she was interacting with the Keybug and teleported away before she noticed her. She isn’t above sneak attacks either, as she launched a knife at “Tessa” in the caverns while her back was turned.

Electricity Generation

Doll could generate red electricity when using her Solver. They’re never shown damaging objects or opponents, so they were likely for show.

Teleportation

Doll could teleport rapidly, catching others off-guard and leaving behind glitch effects. She used this for both travel and escape, but could also enhance her mobility and evasion over short distances.

At most, she teleported from the school to her room, which was in a different bunker.

Memory Manipulation

As part of her revenge, Doll made V remember when she killed her parents in front of her. It’s unknown if she could use this on biological targets, since she only used it on a fellow Drone.

Forcefield Creation

Solver hosts could create forcefields to block and deflect projectiles, including bullets, knives, missiles, etc. Solver projections could also be used as shields.

Weapon Manifestation

Doll could manifest her cleaver and knives in battle. Her mother Yeva did the same by creating a knife to slice off Nori’s arm.

Duplication

Doll could create replicas of her weapons, as she made two copies of her cleaver to kill one of her peers and six additional knives to throw at Uzi.

Matter Manipulation

Doll turned a ceiling fan into a circular saw to use as a throwing weapon.

Kinetic Energy Manipulation

Doll could stop incoming objects and apply kinetic energy to them, before releasing it onto the opponent with greater force.

Restoration

The Absolute Solver could be used to heal mechanical beings, such as a bug that Uzi accidentally squashed. She also fixed a wooden door.

It should be noted, however, that Solver users relied on their regeneration instead of this ability to heal them, so it’s unlikely they could stack on top of each other (they’re like Crazy Diamond, fr).

Plot Armor (yes, really)

As facetious as it seemed, Plot Armor really seems to be a thing in the Murder Drones universe.

In the pilot, N’s scanners detected Plot Armor from Uzi before she blasted his head off. Afterwards, Uzi ran off before two other Disassembly Drones could come after her. Despite chasing her with the intent to kill, N spared Uzi after her father, Khan, left her for dead. N then got injected with J’s virus program, which became imperative for him and Uzi to team up and defeat V and J, saving Uzi’s colony (and Doll by proxy).

This wasn’t limited to the main cast, as the side cast (Thad, Lizzy, Khan, Nori, J, and the Teacher) also survived to the end of the series, despite close encounters with a macabre array of foes like the Absolute Solver and Disassembly Drones. By contrast, minor to background characters (even those with connections to the main cast like Tessa and Alice) were killed without a chance to save themselves.

How did this apply to Doll? In addition to surviving J and V’s attack on Output 3, she fought V, N, and Uzi in the school prom and got shot through the head, only to appear again due to the enhanced survivability granted by the Solver, then escaped with her teleportation. She would later steal the Keybug from Uzi, escape from J and “Tessa”, and trap everyone in a room full of Sentinels to make her escape without them being able to stop her.

However, her luck ran out by the time she encountered Cyn, who mauled and ate her heart with Doll only living long enough to give words of encouragement to Uzi. Since Doll served her role in the story, her Plot Armor no longer protects her from certain death.

On a side note, despite being crushed by Doll in the sixth episode, the Keybug was shown to be alive in the credits, meaning that a robot bug had more plot armor than Doll did.

Resistances

Extreme Cold: Drones could survive on Copper 9 after it became an ice planet that froze skeletons and lakes. They could also survive outer space without issue.
Extreme Heat: Drones could survive atmospheric reentry, even as a core. Solver Drones could consume sizzling oil.
Poison Manipulation: Drones survived toxic storms that rendered the planet inhospitable to biological life. They were also unbothered by Copper 9’s toxic atmosphere.
Fire Manipulation: Worker Drones could survive being on fire without notable damage, even across multiple days.
Pain: Solver Drones are resistant to pain, able to laugh off being stabbed. Doll didn’t even wince from pulling a bullet out of her head wound. Uzi endured her chest being punctured by her own core.
Power Nullification: The Solver was unaffected by magnets that sedated and kept hosts from using their powers. Given that Doll was adamant about not being possessed by it, though (and never had been), it’s unlikely she would ever resort to this. Solver Drones still kept their abilities even after receiving the Crucifix Patch, which exorcised the Solver’s influence and may contain a variant of a virus program designed to terminate a Drone’s core data and shut down their system.
Corruption & Possession: Doll’s mother, Yeva, received a USB patch that prevented her from being controlled by the Solver, which explained why Doll never got possessed by it. That being said, Doll was shown oozing blood out of her eye wound and it was stated that she had the potential to be controlled, so her resistance was inferior (perhaps due to only having half of her mother’s code).
Spatial & Gravity Manipulation: Comparable to N, who resisted being near black holes. Should also be comparable to Uzi, who withstood a black hole’s implosion. Note, however, that Worker Drones could be incapacitated under high gravity, so the former feat should only be downscaled to Doll (though, Uzi and Cyn surviving in the latter’s black hole core might speak otherwise).
Cosmic Radiation: Drones could survive in space, which contained high amounts of charged particles and radiation.
Time Manipulation: Solver and Disassembly Drones could move normally while time was slowed to a crawl.
Mind & Soul Manipulation (Debatable): Being robots artificially created by humanity, the consciousness and life of a Drone is run by adaptable AI and mechanical processes, so they could likely resist mind and soul haxes (at least those tailored towards organic beings).

Forms

Paramount Shadow

Super Shadow

(“You were right about one thing… this ends now…!”)

After Shadow merged with the Chaos Emeralds (and the Master Emerald by proxy), he gained a golden, red-eyed form that drastically increased his overall abilities and granted him new powers that bordered on godlike. In this state, he became the most powerful being in the universe and could do virtually anything by turning his thoughts into reality.

He fought on par with Super Sonic, another Super Form, and helped save the Earth from the Eclipse Cannon, a superweapon powered by his base form’s accumulated Chaos Energy.

Any injuries Shadow sustained were healed upon transforming, as shown by Sonic returning to full condition after turning into and back from Super Sonic, despite barely being able to walk earlier.

Unlike the games, Super Forms lacked a time limit, returning to their base forms only by choice or if forced by external factors, usually by taking damage or being attacked while their guard was down. If depowered this way, the Emeralds become vulnerable to being stolen or destroyed by others.

Abilities granted by this form included:

Enhanced Energy Manipulation: Users could project lightning, beams, and explosions to attack opponents. Super Shadow created numerous Chaos Spears to finish off the G.U.N. Hunters. An Echidna warrior powered by the Master Emerald unleashed lightning from the sky to wipe out armies.
Enhanced Aura: Knuckles and Sonic stated that Super Sonic (and possibly Super Shadow by extension) was too dangerous for normal people to touch, with Sonic claiming that Tom and Maddie would’ve exploded if they did. They could control it, though, as Super Shadow touched Eggman without harming him.
Flight: Super Forms could fly and levitate at high speeds.
Enhanced Light Manipulation: The Master Emerald created a column of light that could be seen for hundreds of miles. Super Forms could emit glows bright enough to hurt the eyes of those looking in their direction. Super Sonic and Super Shadow’s fight emitted flashes and trails visible from orbit.
Enhanced Heat Manipulation: Super Sonic melted through the Giant Eggman Robot by touching and ramming it. His fight with Super Shadow caused lava to erupt with their blows.
Teleportation: Super Forms could teleport across large distances at will, at least from the Pacific Ocean hundreds of miles away from Hawaii to Green Hills, Montana. The novel stated that they do so by becoming energy data.
Energy Transformation: Super Forms could convert their bodies into energy and reconstitute somewhere else.
Enhanced Senses and Extrasensory Perception: Emerald Eggman was able to smell the electricity in a person’s brain and claimed to be “all-knowing, all-seeing,” with the novel postulating that his senses extended across the entire universe. At the very least, he zeroed in on Tom and Walters’ location on a high-speed plane to spy on their plan and could tell Team Sonic were flying towards him from Hawaii.
Subjective Reality: Users of the Master Emerald could turn their thoughts into reality, which allowed them to create objects out of their imagination, like Eggman with the Giant Eggman Robot and Sonic with chili dogs.
Battlefield Removal: Super Sonic and Super Shadow’s blows knocked each other across the planet at high speeds. Sonic even punched Shadow to the Moon and Shadow pushed the Eclipse Cannon away from Earth to keep its overloaded reactor core from irradiating it.
Forcefield Creation: Super Sonic and Super Shadow blocked the Eclipse Cannon with a barrier.
Power Bestowal/Sharing: Users could enable others to enter their Super Forms.

These abilities were more contentious, as Shadow never used them, but it should be within his capabilities due to being empowered by the Emeralds. He was also a quick learner of the Super Form, as shown with his battle and team up with Super Sonic, and the Master Emerald explicitly turned the user’s thoughts into reality; it shouldn't be too difficult for him to replicate abilities shown by other Super Form users.

Data Manipulation: Emerald Eggman was said to have reconstituted himself “like a bit of binary code” after converting himself into energy and teleported.
Holographic Projection: Emerald Eggman produced data-like projections while showing off his newfound powers.
Transmutation: Emerald Eggman turned a display bagel into energy before consuming it. Likewise, Super Sonic seemingly converted lightning into a chili dog.
Energy Absorption: Emerald Eggman stated that he could consume the electricity in a human’s brain. He also consumed a display bagel after turning it into energy.
Telekinesis & Enhanced Matter Manipulation: Emerald Eggman pulled in and dismantled a large amount of metal objects like tanks, helicopters, cars, and trains across Green Hills to construct the Giant Eggman Robot. He could also undo restraints without touching them.
Enhanced Technology Manipulation: Emerald Eggman controlled the Giant Eggman Robot with his thoughts and movements and granted his Egg Drones samples of the Master Emerald’s power, presumably to enhance them. In the novel, he controlled every bit of tech across human civilization, including the smallest circuits and spark plugs, and caused interference by manipulating phone calls.
Storm Creation: Super Forms could create storms and tornadoes, with Super Sonic calling down lightning at his command and creating clouds that reached the horizon.
Restoration: In the novelization, Emerald Eggman caused the Giant Eggman Robot to reattach its leg after it was blown off by Sonic redirecting its missile.
Enhanced Sound Manipulation: Super Sonic’s yell shook trees and his arm pits had the decibels of bomb blasts.
Reality Warping: Knuckles stated that the Master Emerald could rebuild the Echidna Tribe from the brink of extinction and Eggman claimed that he could control all negative forces in the universe and recreate existence.
Resurrection (Tentative): According to Knuckles, the Master Emerald could restore Echidna society by bringing back his people.
Space-Time Manipulation: In the second novel, Super Sonic sent the Chaos Emeralds through space-time, making them lost forever, though they could be resummoned with the Master Emerald or Super Form.

Doll

Zombie Drone

If a Worker Drone died or was incompletely disassembled, they might occasionally reboot from software death at a 0.01% rate, corrupting its AI to carry increased risk of errors and hazardous mutation(s), such as the Absolute Solver. Their lights also changed to yellow for some reason.

Potential causes included their core being improperly disconnected, their hardware not being destroyed, or if wdOS_606 (a virus program) had been interrupted or rejected immediately or up to five years later.

When Doll died, she didn’t become a Zombie Drone (possibly because her AI would be transferred to her core instead), but it’s still worth noting.

Possessed (Debatable)

The Solver could override the sentience of its hosts, taking control of them. Constant use of it puts them at greater risk of being possessed. Despite the cost, the “benefit” was that, since the Solver itself took control, it could access and utilize its powers with greater skill and ease than the host, like using black holes as Nori and Uzi despite neither of them having that ability before the finale.

The Solver also acted to preserve its hosts if it had use for them, even if it had no personal attachment to them.

However, it should be noted that Doll has resistance towards being controlled due to the patch her mother took, so she never “accessed” this state at any point, though it was implied that she would’ve eventually succumbed if Cyn hadn’t killed her.

Other hosts, including Cyn, Nori, and Uzi, fell prey to the Solver’s control, so this will only be a hypothetical scenario if Doll’s immunity were to falter during a DEATH BATTLE (see Before the Verdict for more information).

The abilities granted by this state included:

Memory Manipulation: The Solver tampered with the memories of the Disassembly Drones to make them believe JCJenson sent them instead of Cyn and prevented them from remembering their time at Elliot Manor.
Heat Manipulation: The Absolute Solver’s projections burned text into steel walls.
Gravity Manipulation: The Solver could “turn off” gravity in a localized area to make objects and enemies to float helplessly in mid-air.
Matter and Biological Manipulation: The Solver created flesh pits that could lead directly to a planet’s core in a short amount of time.
Shapeshifting: The Solver produced organic growths from its hosts, including clawed hands, pincers, prehensile wings, tentacles, human hands, etc. These appendages could extend meters away from them.
Body Control: The Solver could control the host’s body even after they die. Should scale to Disassembly Drones, who could control severed body parts. They could also turn their heads a full 180 degrees.
Fusionism: The Solver fused Cyn with Tessa’s corpse, to the point where she even had her skeleton.
Illusion Creation: The Solver could create holographic illusions to fool and manipulate foes. These could range from low-resolution to indistinguishable from reality, with even smart opponents like Uzi unable to tell them apart.
Matter Absorption: If the host couldn’t regenerate, the Solver could consume materials from its surroundings, whether from Drones or possibly humans, to rebuild their body.
Text Generation: The Solver could transmit holographic messages (including from indirect extensions, such as Cyn’s energy tendrils).
Assimilation: The Solver could assimilate victims into its code, as shown with Uzi assimilating Cyn/the Absolute Solver after eating their core (who became part of her tail).
Surface Scaling: Solver Drones or Drones possessed by the Solver could climb walls and ceilings.
Flight and Natural Weaponry: Solver Drones could grow organic wings that allowed them to fly, grab and rip Worker Drones apart, block attacks, and cut opponents.
Callback Ping: Users could forcibly hack Solver or Disassembly Drones for possession, make them recall traumatic memories, or predict their location (Uzi’s eyes briefly turned yellow when she struck Cyn).
Scanning: The user could optically scan their surroundings for foes (it was unclear if this was unique to Solver hosts or a general ability of Drones).
Eldritch Form: Users could take the form of a massive, worm/centipede-like monstrosity with cameras/lights for eyes and projectors. It was equipped with numerous tendrils, claws, and hands for grabbing prey and could hide itself via illusions and invisibility unless exposed by lightning flashes or ultraviolet radiation. Due to its slender frame, it could slither in and out of hiding or climb onto buildings with horrifying grace without being noticed. The Solver could seemingly create a copy of it that acted independently from the host.
Solver Form: Users could enter a winged form that granted them increased strength, speed, agility, flight, and a tail with a mouth.
Black Hole Creation: The Solver and its hosts could create black holes with [Null] in the center. They could grow large enough to consume a planet’s core in an unknown timeframe and even smaller ones could cause a core collapse that wiped out all biological life. They could be produced in quick succession and act as buzzsaws that slice through objects. They could also stop anything in a large radius, including the below-mentioned energy tendrils. Despite their unusual properties, they were indeed black holes in the official storyboard.
Energy Tendrils: The Solver and its hosts could create tendrils of light that could extend hundreds to thousands of kilometers in length, fast enough to tag interstellar ships, and strong enough to grab large chunks of a planet and sink entire buildings.

Heart/Core

If a Solver Drone is killed or takes too much damage, their AI gets transferred to their core to continue functioning, acting as an emergency state for fatal situations.

While physically inferior to their original form, they still required multiple stabs from a Disassembly Drone’s tail (which contained nanite acid) to be killed and could survive hits from a Solver Drone.

Its capabilities were mentioned under Solver Core in the Abilities section.

Feats

Paramount Shadow

Accomplishments

Had the most Chaos Energy out of any known living being.
Escaped Prison Island after a 50 year stasis with Gerald’s help.
Fought and beaten Team Sonic multiple times and nearly killed them and their adoptive father, Tom Wachowski.
Helped the Robotniks steal the Keycards needed for the Eclipse Cannon from Team Sonic and G.U.N.
Fought Super Sonic and teamed up with him to stop the Eclipse Cannon.
Alongside Eggman, prevented the Eclipse Cannon’s destruction from dooming Earth and humanity, with the seeming cost of their lives (though, Shadow turned out to be alive).
Defeated G.U.N. Soldiers, Team Sonic, Agent Stone, Tom Wachowski, and G.U.N. Hunters.
Had a crossover with his canon counterpart in Sonic X Shadow Generations via DLC.
Ended the Year of Shadow with a banger movie.
Sonic the Hedgehog 3 became the #1 rated movie in theaters for a time, beating out Mufasa twice (take that Disney!).

Power

Base

In the novelization, the vehicle was launched so fast that Sonic and Tails couldn't dodge it, forcing Knuckles to save them. (4.217 Kilotons of TNT - 588.239 Teratons of TNT)

In the novelization, he did it by throwing Sonic into Tails and Knuckles.

Knocked Super Sonic to his base form with a sneak attack.

Super Shadow

Blocked a charging strike from Super Sonic with one arm from a standing position.
He and Super Sonic traded blows so intensely that they caused mountains and fissures to burst into lava.
With Super Sonic, blocked and held back the Eclipse Cannon’s laser for over a minute. (281.7025 Zettatons of TNT - 21.522 Yottatons of TNT) (Debatable High-End)
After removing his Limiter Rings, pushed the Eclipse Cannon away from Earth far enough to save it from its explosion. (2.5838 million metric tons & 2.951 Gigatons of TNT)

It’s possible Shadow was weakened before this, as Sonic fainted from blocking the Eclipse Cannon alongside him.

Arguably comparable to the Eclipse Cannon’s full power with his Limiter Rings off. (Up to 43.044 Yottatons of TNT) (Debatable)

Speed

Base

Super Shadow

Durability

Base

Super Shadow

Doll

Accomplishments

Killed and cannibalized many Worker Drones, including her peers.
Set up a trap for V with Lizzy’s (temporary) help.
Fought Uzi Doorman several times.
Successfully acquired the Keybug from Uzi.
Tricked and outsmarted Uzi and her friends before making it into Cabin Fever Labs.
Defeated V, Lizzy, N, and Khan Doorman.
May still be alive in some form? (Either as a “ghost” or as a part of Uzi’s code after the latter assimilated Cyn’s core)

Power

Speed

Durability

Her shields deflected V’s bullets and Uzi’s knife.
Tanked the explosion of N’s missile. (See above)
Got kicked in the face by Uzi.
Survived getting shot through the head by V.
Survived having a hole through her chest and bled until she found Uzi, though she died moments later.

Scaling

Paramount Shadow

Team Sonic

Everyone’s favorite colorful bunch tasked with protecting the world and the Master Emerald from threats.

Shadow fought Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles various times throughout the film, and Team Sonic were always on the back foot, to the point where Sonic was willing to break their vow and declared the Master Emerald to be their only chance to defeat Shadow.

By the third film, Tom and Maddie considered them capable of causing global cataclysmic events.
All of them had dodged or reacted to lasers.
Agent Willoughby stated that their quills (and likely Tails’ fur) have the destructive power of thermonuclear weapons.
Withstood the pull of an artificial black hole.
Sonic was referred to as the fastest creature in the galaxy, if not the universe.
Sonic claimed that even as a toddler, he could run across the entirety of his home island in under 2 seconds (Mach 118.562 - 0.884% c).
Sonic was stated to be faster than lightning.
Sonic believed he could dash across the Great Wall of China “in a heartbeat,” and did so in his fight with Eggman (8.8379% c).
Sonic’s Chaos Energy created a shockwave that knocked out power across the Pacific Northwest (35.6186 Megatons of TNT).

The shockwave reached Tails’ home planet from across the universe (109.6733 trillion c). (See Before the Verdict)

Sonic ran from Montana to the Pacific Ocean and back in a few seconds.
Sonic casually blitzed an entire bar full of people (Mach 500).
Sonic was so fast that bullets and missiles seemed frozen from his point of view (1.69 to 7.53 c - 4.157 to 28.771 c).
Sonic claimed that he could move at the speed of light. (1 c)
Sonic quickly traveled from Green Hills, Montana to Wally Wally, Washington, which was 350 miles away.
A single of Sonic’s quills generated a massive explosion visible from space (31.23876 Gigatons of TNT).

Assuming Sonic (and therefore Shadow) had the number of quills real hedgehogs do, it could be multiplied between 3000 to 7000 (93.7163 - 218.6713 Teratons of TNT).

Taking into account Sonic's height would put the results proportionate to his size (285.6722 - 666.5101 Teratons of TNT). (Debatable)

Sonic dismantled an armored truck in seconds while it was in motion.

In the novelization, he perceived a moment as a month while taking off its wheels.

Sonic and Knuckles survived being knocked back by the Master Emerald’s energy.
Sonic survived the Giant Eggman Robot’s snot rocket and eye lasers, which were powered by the Master Emerald, though he was severely injured.
Tails dazed Knuckles by ramming him with a police cruiser.
Tails survived the explosion of two missiles, though was knocked out.
Tails’ blaster atomized a wedding cake.
Tails survived Emerald Eggman’s energy explosion.
Sonic and Tails’ fight with Knuckles and Eggman caused an avalanche.
Knuckles blocked and overpowered Sonic’s Spin Dash with one hand.
Knuckles shattered a large boulder with a punch.
Knuckles inflicted pain to the Giant Eggman Robot (which Emerald Eggman also felt), despite failing to damage it.
Knuckles survived being punted over several blocks by the Giant Eggman Robot (note that it was only 100 ft tall in this iteration instead of many hundreds as implied in the film).
Knuckles intercepted and caught chain strikes from the Buyer’s mech after it absorbed his Chaos Energy.
Knuckles split a G.U.N. vehicle that was too fast for Sonic and Tails to dodge.
Knuckles casually punched down a pair of 6 inch thick steel doors.
Knuckles kept them and the post they were chained to from getting sucked into an artificial black hole by biting on a cable. (See Before the Verdict)

Said black hole sucked in the matter of an entire mountain facility. (163.756 million metric tons)

Knuckles broke through an energy shield that would’ve incinerated Sonic if he had failed to bypass it. (4.56 - 25.26 Kilotons of TNT, likely far higher)

Humans

(What the dog doin’?)

Aliens, including Team Sonic, were portrayed as superior to unpowered humans, and Shadow was the most powerful one encountered by them. He brutally demonstrated it by nearly killing Tom, Sonic’s adoptive father, with a single punch when he mistook him for Walters.

Tom knocked out Eggman with a sucker punch and fought him physically later on.

Eggman casually threw the Roundhouse Thug through a window.

The Roundhouse Thug weighed 300 lbs.

Tom survived getting knocked back by Eggman’s Chaos lightning, which was fueled by Sonic’s quill (this seemed like an outlier, but Eggman himself tanked the energy of said quill in the sequel).
Maddie ducked beneath Tails’ high-tech boomerang, which tagged several G.U.N. Agents.
The Roundhouse Thug no-sold casual punches from Sonic in the first film and rammed through a window by accident.
Tom destroyed two Egg Drones with a fishing rod (14.766 Kilojoules).
Randall’s groomsmen survived being buried under a metric ton of snow and dug their way out.
A G.U.N. Agent survived floating over buildings and then fell onto a table.
Randall intercepted and survived getting shocked by a taser.
Wade tanked an explosion that wrecked an entire resort.

Said explosion was fueled by Knuckles’ quill, which should be at least comparable to Sonic’s.
Agent Willoughby, who was next to the explosion, only got knocked out.

A bounty hunter survived getting punched out of a house by Knuckles.
Wade survived getting shocked by 20,000 volts twice.
Wade smashed his way out of a cage and leaped several meters in one go (albeit, through its unreinforced roof).
Tom survived the aforementioned punch from Shadow, though he had to be hospitalized and wore a cast afterwards.

Robotnik Family & Associates

The pinnacles of mankind’s intellect, the Robotniks took pride in their all seeming knowledge of scientific subjects, manifested mainly as a procession of robots and equipment that put the rest of their kind to shame.

Shadow never directly fought them besides Agent Stone (whom he captured along with Tails), but since he defeated Team Sonic, who defeated Eggman, who in turn fought Gerald in the third film, he should scale to the rest by proxy. In addition, he powered the Eclipse Cannon, Gerald’s greatest creation, and the Master Emerald created the Giant Eggman Robot, Eggman’s strongest mech, so he should scale to their tech.

Eggman stated that three of his Egg Drones could destroy Tom’s apartment.

Each member of Team Sonic could fend off dozens at once.

Eggman moved his finger faster than bullets and missiles to press a button during Sonic’s accelerated perception (Mach 430.256).
The Eggpod destroyed the Great Sphinx and part of the Great Pyramid of Giza (8.6 - 11.2 Tons of TNT).
Three Egg Drones lifted and carried a vault through a bank’s roof.
Eggman survived being flung by the lightning and shockwave from Sonic’s quill.
Eggman moved out of the way of a charging Sonic so Knuckles could punch him.
Eggman survived falling from the top of the Giant Eggman Robot, though it’s unclear if he used a gadget or not.

A deleted scene would’ve revealed that he was severely injured by the fall and had to be nursed back to health, though it’s unknown if this is still canon.

The Buyer’s mech, after absorbing Knuckles’ Chaos Energy, withstood Wade throwing bowling balls at it while he was wearing gauntlets that granted him strength comparable to Knuckles, necessitating Knuckles to unleash the Flames of Disaster to overpower it.
Agent Stone casually dodged a missile.
The Mecha Crab flew from Gerald’s lab to London in 4 hours.
Eggman withstood getting smacked repeatedly by Gerald’s nanotech gauntlet.
Eggman resisted being pulled out of a space station from rapid depressurization.

He also briefly survived outer space without protection despite lacking Sonic and Shadow’s alien biology.

Gerald survived getting stung in the butt by Super Sonic’s quill (albeit, he died to Shadow’s Chaos Energy immediately after).

Master Emerald & Super Forms

Despite being ultimately weaker, Shadow contended with Super Sonic and knocked him back to base form, and as Super Shadow, they fought on par with each other with Shadow having the initial edge. Finally, he was the one who lasted his Super Form longer and remained conscious from stopping the Eclipse Cannon, whereas Sonic needed to be saved by Tails and Knuckles after exhausting himself.

Since all Super Forms in this continuity shared the same power source, the Master Emerald, Shadow should scale to every other use of it, or even upscale given his position as the Ultimate Lifeform and superiority over Super Sonic.

The Master Emerald created a giant pillar of light that split the ocean.
The Master Emerald’s acquisition collapsed an entire temple.
Sonic stated that those who acquired the Master Emerald could conquer the universe.
A single Echidna warrior empowered by the Master Emerald defeated entire armies.
Eggman planned to control all of the negative forces in the universe upon gaining the Master Emerald.
Emerald Eggman claimed that he could recreate all of existence (likely over time).
The Giant Eggman Robot towered over buildings and trees in Green Hills, with Eggman stating that it’s 700 times Sonic’s size.

The mech not seeming that big in the film may be due to the creative staff not having the best sense of scale or needing to make sure it and the heroes were both visible onscreen. The credits and concept arts displayed its alleged size more accurately.

Emerald Eggman believed he could eventually rule the multiverse.
Sonic considered the team’s victory over Eggman and recovering the Master Emerald to be saving the universe. Supported by Tom in the third novel.
Super Sonic caught and lifted the Giant Eggman Robot’s foot (105.783 million metric tons of force, likely slightly less due to inaccurate sizes).
Super Sonic effortlessly blocked rocket-powered punches from the Giant Eggman Robot, then destroyed its arms (44.531 Kilotons of TNT and 999.542 million metric tons of force, likely slightly less due to inaccurate sizes).

Team Sonic were unable to damage the mech with their attacks, or even when Sonic redirected its own missile at it.

Super Sonic casually created a storm to create chili dogs. (5.03 Kilotons of TNT - 2.847 Megatons of TNT).
Super Sonic blasted the Chaos Emeralds at “ungodly speed” across space and time. (Immeasurable) (Debatable, See Before the Verdict)
Super Sonic created another storm over Green Hills that reached the horizon upon transforming.
Super Sonic punched Super Shadow to the Moon and followed him shortly after.
Super Sonic avoided and moved in tandem with Super Shadow’s Chaos Spear barrage.

Misc

As the current top dog (er, hedgehog) of the films, Shadow should upscale everything introduced in the Sonic Cinematic Universe thus far.

Doll

Uzi Doorman

Doll and Uzi fought a couple of times, and both being Solver Drones meant they were comparable, as shown when they matched each other in telekinetic strength.

Survived an explosion that dented a metal door. (122.488 Megajoules).
Threw a pen hard enough to pierce one of J’s eyes and later kicked it into her visor.
Ducked beneath a laser. (7.32% - 17.39% c)
Tossed a knife as fast as one of N’s missiles.
Caught the bullet fired at her by Doll with her own telekinesis instinctively.
Stopped and transmuted an arrow fired at her accidentally.
Decapitated a Worker Drone.
Read through a survival guide book by the time she found one of her classmates.
Bit off Alice’s finger.
Created black holes (See Before the Verdict):

One that made a hole through a wall (while possessed by Cyn). (320.68 Zettatons of TNT)
One larger than herself and multiple other ones in rapid succession (while possessed by Cyn again). (8.71 Yottatons of TNT)
One that blasted a hole through Copper 9 (as herself this time). (1.5 Ronnatons of TNT - 4.9507 Foe)

Also made a pillar of light in the process. (1.52 c - 45.2107 c)

Uzi (along with N and Cyn/Tessa) withstood the implosion of a mini black hole. (217.975 Zettatons of TNT - 8.877 Foe) (Debatable, See Before the Verdict)
Tanked being in the epicenter of Copper 9’s second core collapse. (139.52 Zettatons of TNT - 61.2735 Quettatons of TNT) (See Before the Verdict)
Matched Cyn in a black hole quickdraw.
Swallowed Cyn’s black hole core.

Worker Drones

Being one herself, Doll naturally scales to feats done by her fellow Worker Drones, and she effortlessly slaughtered them in her scheme to get revenge on V, cementing her superiority via the Absolute Solver.

Disassembly Drones

The eponymous Murder Drones created by Cyn to hunt down Worker Drones. Doll restrained and could’ve killed V if Uzi and N hadn’t arrived and sliced N into pieces, then later outran and escaped J, while blocking and deflecting their projectiles. Uzi also proved that Worker Drones could harm and keep up with them, despite being portrayed as inferior, so Doll downscales even without the Solver.

Slaughtered and ate Worker Drones on the regular.
Can fire their lasers in a wave before they end.
Their wings are durable enough to block bullets and the explosion of Uzi’s railgun.

N also moved in tandem with said explosion to protect Uzi.

V stated she could bend Worker Drones like balloon animals.
N pried open a metal door (187.734 metric tons, likely higher).
N sliced a Worker Drone in half with his laser.
N kicked V hard enough to crater concrete.
V decapitated N in one strike.
N fired arrows fast enough to set them on fire (Mach 5).
N threw Uzi above the clouds and flew to her in seconds (18.9 Megajoules and Mach 2.963, likely higher for AP).

N also withstood landing feet-first while carrying Uzi, making a large dust cloud upon impact (16.96 tons of TNT).

V reacted and moved in tandem with a Sentinel’s flash before it could bootloop her. (5.92% c).
V caught a bullet. (Mach 1.09)
N, alongside Nori, fought against a Solver-possessed Uzi. (See Before the Verdict)
N dodged and resisted being near black holes (2.721 - 34.494 Gigatons of TNT, 72.986% - 97.886% c, and 655.929 trillion - 1.509 quadrillion metric tons).
N intercepted Nori’s pickaxe to save Uzi in cinematic time (Mach 73.91).
N manually piloted the interstellar landing pod, maneuvering around space debris. (442.23 c)
V flipped an island by kicking J into it.
J could reportedly destroy a planet. (Debatable, See Before the Verdict)

Humans

Surprisingly, despite being long extinct, humanity had some noteworthy feats to go over. Drones were depicted as superior to them; tanking the explosion that killed their population, the Elliots and their guests being helplessly slaughtered by Cyn and her hacked Drones, and doing things that ordinary humans couldn’t. Upscaling from them is indubitable.

A human reacted and moved in tandem with Copper 9’s core collapse, given the position of their skeleton (<=2.737 c).
James Elliot killed a Worker Drone by tossing a fork into their head.
Tessa swung around Worker Drone N as if he were lightweight (263.866 kg).
Mitchell withstood a sonic boom to the face.
(Debatable) Cyn while pretending to be an adult Tessa had:

Piloted a landing pod well enough to perform parkour.
Sliced off Reid’s head with a sword faster than he could react.
Kept up with Doll as she was running away.
Survived getting bitten by a Sentinel, which killed Worker and Disassembly Drones.
Dodged a sneak attack from Doll and grabbed her knife mid-flight.

Yeva and Nori

Doll and Uzi’s mothers, respectively, and the ones whom they inherited the Solver from. There was no indication that either were incomparable to their daughters and while they died to Disassembly Drones, that was because they had amnesia from Copper 9’s core collapse and couldn’t use the Solver to defend themselves.

Nori (or possibly another Solver Drone) reportedly generated gravitational waves. (1 Foe - 340 Foe - 320 KiloFoe) (Debatable, See Before the Verdict)
Yeva got a Tetris score of over 16.6 septillion within 4 seconds. (802 billion c - 53.6 trillion c) (Debatable, See Before the Verdict)
Nori’s black hole was what caused Copper 9’s core collapse and the resulting explosion. (7.3179 Foe)
Both tanked Copper 9’s first core collapse. (1.2 Zettatons of TNT - 154.46 Ronnatons of TNT).
After being reduced to her core, Nori had:

Cyn/Absolute Solver (Debatable)

While Cyn was the one who killed her, with Doll unable to defend herself against her, Cyn was ultimately another Worker Drone possessed by the Absolute Solver, which Nori made clear to Uzi in the final episode.

Theoretically, feats performed by Cyn were replicable by any Solver host, though it was clear that she was more adept at her powers than Doll, Uzi, and their mothers were, due to having it longer and using it more actively. Cyn also benefited from being already possessed by it, so she didn’t worry about losing control or needing a patch to save herself like the others, making her far more deadly.

See Before the Verdict for more information.

Created multiple black holes, including:

One large enough to fill the sky. (279.42 Yottatons of TNT - 11.417 Quettatons of TNT)
One that destroyed Earth. (3.118 - 97.91 Foe) (See Before the Verdict)

Stated to be a threat to the universe.
Entered Copper 9’s core in what seemed to be under a second.
Emitted a column of energy that split clouds. (51.95 Gigatons of TNT)
One of her energy tendrils caught N’s ship as it was flying.
Caught and crushed Uzi’s black hole with one hand (most likely via her Solver given storyboard intentions).
Reacted and moved in tandem with her and Uzi’s black holes, even making a V-sign around one.
Her core contained a black hole. (Debatable, See Before the Verdict)

Said core created another black hole around Cyn and Uzi. (Debatable)

Said to be able to eventually consume and destroy reality in a Big Crunch in 87 days. (375.825 QuettaGigaFoe, possibly Universal, and 390.436 billion c) (Debatable, See Before the Verdict)

Weaknesses

Paramount Shadow

Shadow was traumatized by the death of his friend Maria and relived that moment ever since he was put into stasis. In addition to developing a temper, he was also manipulated by Gerald, who convinced him that destroying the world (and G.U.N. in particular) would be what Maria wanted, up until Sonic convinced him otherwise. While it’s likely that this was alleviated due to receiving positive support and a chance to move on, it’s still notable enough to point out.

He was also notably weaker and more vulnerable when not using Chaos Energy, as he was forced into stasis by G.U.N. with human-made weapons and tools. He and other aliens were harmed by electroshock devices and Knuckles tried to kill Sonic with a boulder, emphasizing how weak they were in their base states.

Note that with Chaos Energy, they could take and dish back punishment, but they were still susceptible to injury and exhaustion. It’s essentially Ki from Dragon Ball, being a source of energy relied upon for abilities and becoming weaker when not actively using it to defend themselves.

Finally, while Super Shadow is incredibly powerful, a strong enough hit from enemies close to his power level could knock him back to base form, in which Shadow needed to return to his Super Form before they could either kill him or steal the Emeralds for themselves.

Doll

Doll was traumatized by the death of her parents, so much so that the mere mention of them triggered flashbacks. She also got distracted in her fight with Uzi after she knocked off her bracelet, which was her mother’s collar.

While the Absolute Solver was powerful and dangerous, it wasn’t without drawbacks. Solver Drones need to consume oil or else they would overheat, which usually meant cannibalizing fellow Drones. Exposure to sunlight or UV radiation could harm and kill them, with the flashes from Sentinels being able to bootloop her. If a Solver Drone’s hands were disabled or severed, they can’t use their powers effectively, especially when sedated by magnets. The Solver couldn’t directly interact with other Solver Drones (though, separated body parts were fair game), but it could still harm indirectly (i.e., using telekinetic debris on them).

Beyond her powers, Doll wasn’t very skilled in hand-to-hand combat, having lost her fights with Uzi and Cyn when they got close. Without them, she wasn’t different from other Worker Drones, leaving her defenseless without the Absolute Solver.

She also doesn’t have special resistance towards acids, nanites, or EMP, and piercing weapons like bullets or blades could easily harm her.

While not shown onscreen, it was stated that Worker Drones could die from contact with water; you’d think that being designed to mine exoplanets, JCJenson would make them waterproof, but I guess not…

Finally, it had to be said that Doll was very self-centered and aloof, refusing to accept help from others and being dedicated to her goals at the expense of everything else, which ultimately led to her death by Cyn, as she had no one to pull her out of the dark path she chose or help her when she needed it.

Before the Verdicts

(Note: This section will be extremely long, so you can skip and read when you have the time, but if you think you can read and have time to spare, go ahead. You could also just read the TLDRs to get a quick summary of each analysis.)

Paramount Shadow

Is Shadow’s black hole legit?

(Credits to TVTropes and VSBattlesWiki for making this easier to discuss.)

Sonic the Hedgehog 3 introduced multiple upgrades to the series, chief among them (aside from the Eclipse Cannon) was the black hole Shadow created in an attempt to kill Team Sonic after he captured them. But was this black hole legitimate? Let’s find out.

The black hole was repeatedly described as a “vortex” in the novelization and actual black holes do have spin to them. Sonic couldn’t counteract the black hole’s gravity, so he applied centrifugal force instead to launch himself towards Tails and Knuckles, which is actually the recommended way to survive a black hole’s gravity; it’s also how the Moon maintains its orbit around the Earth without falling. It was also described as a “mini black hole” by Tails, a technological genius who traveled across the universe to track Sonic’s energy signature, reverse-engineered military hardware, and hacked into G.U.N. database.

I gathered information from the novel that pointed to it being a real black hole due to showing realistic, if sensationalized, properties of such. Pretty clear cut, right?

Unfortunately, there were also errors and inconsistencies I had to address.

As with many black holes in fiction, the one created by Shadow sucked up objects beyond its event horizon (the black circle that you see), when in truth, black holes acted no differently from celestial objects in how they attract and pull things around them. The “black hole vacuum cleaner” effect is a tired, scientifically-inaccurate cliche used due to misconceptions about them. Black holes only absorb matter and energy if they touched the event horizon; even the accretion disk, despite being situated next to them, only got pulled gradually from orbital decay instead of being spiraled inward instantly.

We also see that the black hole had a definitive lifespan, lasting for roughly a minute after being created before dissipating. Black holes last depending on their size and Hawking radiation, gradually losing mass by producing energy at the border of their event horizon while losing it due to negative energy until they evaporate. Estimates generally put Shadow’s black hole at several meters, but even just a 1 meter black hole would take at least 1e56 years—older than the universe—to dissipate. Shadow’s black hole wouldn’t have disappeared like some sort of time bomb, it would have to lose its mass-energy at a rapid rate, and when it did dissipated, it just fizzled out in a flash of light rather than emit ultra-deadly radiation and energy that would make the Tsar Bomba look like a firecracker in comparison. This could be overlooked, though, as fiction often portrayed even legitimate black holes the same way.

A defining trait of black holes is the fact that they bend light around them and gather materials for the accretion disk around their event horizon. However, if you look at the scene where it dissipated closely, the black hole’s “accretion disk” disappeared along with it, implying that it wasn’t superheated material, but byproducts of Chaos Energy (hence, the lightning the black hole was generating throughout the whole scene). The only accurate part of it was light visibly distorting around the black hole, though not to the same extreme as real black holes.

Plus, there was the issue with scaling it to the rest of the verse. By calculating the energy needed to create black holes of similar size, Shadow’s would require 14-19 Yottatons of TNT. The problem? That would make it superior to the Eclipse Cannon, Gerald’s “Masterpiece of Malevolence,” which only got 59 Zettatons of TNT if taking into account its planet-busting potential. Even attempts to get higher values, like using Work to estimate the energy needed to eject Earth’s mass over a certain distance or applying Joules per Second for the Eclipse Cannon’s laser, only got results ranging from 563 Zettatons to 43 Yottatons of TNT.

That’s a 24 to 246x difference for the mid-to-low ends, and only a 2.94x difference for the highest end you could get for the Eclipse Cannon in comparison to the black hole. It made no sense for Shadow to be this close to the cannon’s output, as it took 10 minutes for his Chaos Energy to power it, and his much stronger Super Form with Super Sonic’s help struggled to hold it back long enough for the beam to be steered away from Earth, and even then, Super Sonic fainted from the strain of doing so and had to be saved by his friends before plummeting to his death.

Sure, base Shadow knocked Super Sonic to his base form in a single strike, but that was only by catching him off-guard. The moment he reverted to base form, Shadow was completely overpowered and was at his mercy, with Sonic only refusing to kill him at the last second.

Perhaps future films or spin-offs could clarify things, like showing natural black holes behave similarly to Shadow’s or giving enough feats and context to scale base form characters to Planet to Large Planet Level feats to make it more consistent, but for right now, it was an outlier.

TLDR: Due to being incongruent with both physics and the powerscaling of the series, Shadow’s black hole won’t be considered legitimate. He could, however, scale to the black hole destroying a mountain due to his energy being what created it and the mass of said mountain in Lifting Strength via scaling to Knuckles, who briefly resisted its pull before Team Sonic could get sucked in.

Should Super Shadow be standard?

Yes. For starters, it represented the peak of Shadow’s character arc from a bitter rival of Sonic to the one who stopped the Eclipse Cannon—a weapon that he powered—from destroying the world and broke the cycle of vengeance that plagued him and the Robotniks.

Shadow earned the form by snatching the Chaos Emeralds from Sonic, harnessing their power until the end of the film, where he only depowered after the main villain (Gerald) was defeated and their plans were foiled. Despite the brief time he had it, it became an iconic staple of his character, partially due to his other versions also having it.

In a no-holds barred fight to the death that DEATH BATTLE represented, it only made sense to include the form where Shadow could be at his best, both narratively and versus-wise.

Should Shadow have access to the Eclipse Cannon?

While Shadow retrieved the cannon under Gerald’s orders and was the power source of it, he never actually used it himself. In fact, he was reluctant to go along with the plan to destroy Earth for Maria’s (supposed) sake, to the point where Sonic was able to convince Shadow to help him stop and destroy the cannon in the climax. His initial drive to help the Robotniks retrieve it was due to misguided hatred and grief that he didn’t know how to process, combined with emotional manipulation by a trusted figure (Gerald, in his case).

Unlike the games, where the Eclipse Cannon was part of the Space Colony ARK where Shadow was born, the Paramount Eclipse Cannon was just that; a weapon of mass destruction used for attempted genocide by a far more villainous Gerald (who, unlike his game counterpart, always intended for the cannon to be used for revenge instead of benign purposes). Paramount Shadow had no personal attachment to the weapon like Game Shadow had for the ARK, hence why he was the one to push it away from Earth, whereas Game Shadow only put it back into orbit.

Not to mention, firing the Eclipse Cannon even once resulted in its reactor core going critical and would’ve irradiated Earth with its explosion. Shadow was forced to push it away where it couldn’t do harm, which convinced everyone that he sacrificed his life doing so (he didn’t, but nobody knows that yet).

It wouldn’t be in-character, nor practical, for Shadow to use the Eclipse Cannon at all. He already matched half of its firepower as Super Shadow (and beyond, depending if you believed Ringless Shadow could scale to its full power or if you accept the use of Wattage for Chaos Energy), which gave him a lot more options than just nuking entire planets unnecessarily.

So no, Shadow won’t be having the Eclipse Cannon in this fight, nor does he need to.

Massively FTL Paramount Sonic?

A contentious issue when it came to scaling Paramount Sonic was whether or not the speed of the shockwaves produced by Sonic in the first film could be scaled to the characters. Common arguments against it were how it was far faster than their other feats, and should only apply to Attack Speed via Chaos Energy. Super Forms like Super Sonic were usually exempt from this, as they were treated as the God Tiers of the verse absolutely above their base forms.

However, I do have arguments for why these could be scaled to the main cast, with or without the Super Forms.

Firstly, Sonic in the first film casually performed an FTL feat with his famous dodging of missiles and bullets in slow-motion, so he already breached the baseline for FTL speed. Secondly, Sonic made a statement in an official comic that he casually moved at lightspeed before he was discovered by the Wachowskis and the U.S. government, so he had experience with similar speeds in his earlier childhood. Sonic as a toddler was already fast enough to run across the entirety of an island (or so he claimed) in less than 2 seconds for fun, which could reach just under 1% lightspeed depending on which end you use. Whether as a child or a teenager, Sonic’s early feats made it clear that he could achieve even higher levels of speed whenever he felt like it.

Which led to my next argument.

Sonic notably became more powerful after each film. In the first one, he nearly died twice to small explosions that merely damaged rock, whereas in the second one, he could soak hits from Knuckles, someone who could smash through boulders like they were nothing, and required attacks from a Master Emerald-empowered Eggman to be severely injured. By the third film, he survived being at the center of a shockwave that expanded over a city, similar to the one Sonic himself produced in the first film. He also went from being unable to beat a human without his super speed to holding his own against the Greatest Warrior in the Galaxy and the Ultimate Lifeform, further showcasing the jump in power over time.

What should be noted about Sonic’s shockwave was that it was done in his base form, in the first film, and when he was at his weakest in the entire series. Sonic was possibly malnourished, could only afford discarded trash nobody else wanted, and ran so much that holes were made in his shoes, hurting his feet in the process. This meant everything he did during the film was in a weakened state, with each later installment showing what he could do in his physical prime.

(The Pre-Quill comic implied that Sonic and Tails’ planets were in the same galaxy as Earth, but this was contradicted by statements that Earth was in the far side of the universe and was even considered a backwater planet in the novelization, so it was most likely an error.)

Power Levels in the Paramount films correlated to the quality and quantity of one’s Chaos Energy, as cemented by the Super Forms and Shadow’s origin, so it would make sense that a healthier, stronger, older, and more skilled Sonic scaled to the best feats performed by his younger self.

As for scaling to the speed feat itself, while it was indeed questionable that the film cast could compare to it, we have evidence that they could downscale from it to a certain degree.

Recall Shadow’s fight with Super Sonic—before using his own Super Form—where he caught him by surprise and landed a blow on him. Super Sonic was empowered by the Master Emerald, which was considered the most powerful thing in the universe and could enhance one’s Chaos Energy beyond their natural limits, thus should scale to Sonic’s universal-range shockwave. Despite that, Shadow was still close enough in speed to move in tandem with Super Sonic and struck him before he could retaliate. You couldn’t even argue that it was an outlier either, as Shadow reacted and moved in tandem with Super Sonic again on the Moon, while Sonic was still at the zenith of his vendetta towards Shadow.

Sonic and Shadow kept up with each other during their fight in Tokyo, with the novel stating that they were equal, and a deleted scene would’ve had Sonic fight Shadow again in G.U.N. HQ, barely avoiding and fending him long enough to escape with Tails’ help. As such, anything Shadow did, Sonic could do as well, and vice-versa.

As further evidence of Super Sonic scaling to the speed of the shockwaves, he was able to avoid and move in tandem with Super Shadow’s Chaos Spears while flying towards them, which were projections of Chaos Energy, the same as base Sonic’s EMP and shockwaves. The fact that they were used in Shadow’s Super Form, which granted a speed boost to its users, should make them superior by default, yet the film didn’t portray them as faster than Super Sonic. Sonic’s cheeky attitude while weaving around them indicated that he wasn’t impressed by their speed.

It should also be noted that the G.U.N. Hunters, which were designed 50 years ago before the start of the third film, were able to react and keep up with Super Sonic and Super Shadow, despite being trashed by them in droves. It wouldn’t make sense for outdated robots—even those designed by top-class scientists like Gerald—to be any faster than base Sonic and Shadow, who were consistently the fastest of the cast.

Finally, at the end of the day, the shockwaves produced by Sonic were products of Chaos Energy… Sonic’s Chaos Energy, the same force responsible for his speed and amplified abilities. Whether through chain-scaling or downscaling, Sonic (and Shadow) should compare to the shockwaves the former produced.

TDLR: Paramount Sonic characters scaling to MFTL+ shockwaves (especially the fastest ones like Sonic and Shadow) is valid, due to the feat being done by a much weaker Sonic in the past; the shockwaves being produced by Chaos Energy, which fueled Sonic and Shadow’s super speed, as well as Sonic’s notable improvement across the films mitigate if not eliminate whatever speed gap existed between the shockwaves traveling to the ends of the universe in one night and the alien animals who wield the same kind of energy in battle. Even if you don’t agree that their Travel Speeds should be comparable to the shockwaves, Shadow (who was proven to be Sonic’s equal in speed) being able to contend and react to Super Sonic, who was narratively superior to the shockwaves, gave arguments that they could scale in terms of

Combat, Reaction, and Attack Speed.

So yes, MFTL+ Paramount Sonic is valid for this analysis (only for those who wield Chaos Energy, though).

All in all, the hierarchy of speed in the films went like this.

Super Sonic/Shadow > Shockwaves >= Sonic and Shadow >= Everyone Else

Addressing Super Form Capabilities

You can’t have a Sonic VS Debate without discussing Super Forms (unless involving stuff like Sonic Boom, but whatever). This will be a straightforward section that will discuss the ins and outs of super transformations in the Paramount continuity.

Multipliers

This is the easiest one. I already did calculations on what the approximate multipliers for the Super Forms could be, but in case you haven’t read it, it went like this.

Shadow charged enough Chaos Energy to power the Eclipse Cannon in 10 minutes. Assuming Wattage, or Joules per Second, this would put the Eclipse Cannon at least 600x more powerful than base Shadow. Super Sonic and Super Shadow blocked the beam together, so they individually would be 300x stronger than base Shadow.

This could be pushed further, though, by taking into account how long the two Supers held back the cannon. Chaos Energy had shown properties akin to electricity, so with a timeframe of 76.4 seconds, the multiplier could reach up to 22,920x base form.

Personally, I would use the lower end as a safe conservative while the higher end will be seen as a “what-if” factor in results. Either way, the Super Form grants a general increase to all of the user’s stats, including strength, speed, and durability.

Statements & Limitations

This one required critical thinking and analysis. You might’ve noticed various cosmic statements of the Master Emerald in the above sections, including:

Longclaw stated that the Master Emerald could threaten all life in the universe.
The Master Emerald was said to be the source of ultimate power and could enable one to conquer the universe.
Eggman stated that with the Master Emerald, he could control the negative forces of the universe and recreate existence, though it was unclear if he meant immediately or over a period of time. He even made a bold claim to eventually rule the multiverse with its power.
Eggman claimed to be all knowing, all seeing, and the novelization implied that his newfound senses extended across the universe.
Super Sonic sent the Chaos Emeralds across space and time at “ungodly speed”. This at least showed that Super Forms had control over spacetime to some degree, but the true extent is of yet unknown.
Tails described Super Forms as the most powerful beings in the universe.
Sonic described the team retrieving the Master Emerald from Eggman as akin to saving the universe, a statement supported by Tom in the third novel.

Even base form characters could lay claim to technically cosmic feats, such as Sonic generating an energy surge that reached the other side of the universe and Knuckles becoming the greatest warrior in the galaxy.

Does this mean Super Forms are truly universal?

Well… no.

Throughout the series, we had never seen an instance of universal power that the Master Emerald and its users were acclaimed to have. In fact, the best feats shown onscreen were wiping out entire (mortal) armies, Eggman building a giant robot out of parts found in a small town and military vehicles, and Sonic launching the Chaos Emeralds through space-time at “ungodly” speed, which was a huge outlier due to the lack of supporting feats and evidence.

Sure, there were repeated statements of users being universal or even multiversal threats, but these were most likely referring to processes that could take place over time, conquering the universe bit by bit until there was nothing left to rule or destroy. Characters far weaker than them like the Owls, Knuckles, and Shadow himself were able to knock the Master and Chaos Emeralds out of them, so it seemed unlikely that they could truly possess universal power, unless they were all glass cannons whose AP surpassed their durability, which Super Sonic and Super Shadow’s fight debunked.

It was more likely that the various grandiose statements were meant to convey that, due to being the most powerful artifact in the universe and could turn users into the strongest beings in their reality, those who abused the Master/Chaos Emeralds were unstoppable and could do virtually anything they wanted, with almost no one able to challenge them. At most, they could have universal range with below universal AP.

The final nail in the coffin was the fact that Super Sonic and Super Shadow couldn’t fully stop the Eclipse Cannon without the former getting exhausted, as I stated many times above, which couldn’t even break past Large Planet Level at its best.

So no, Super Forms aren’t universal as of yet.

TLDR: Super Form multipliers could be validly quantified, but universal statements for Attack Potency were frauds.

Superhuman… Humans?

This wasn’t as relevant as the other topics, but you might have noticed in the scaling section that Paramount Sonic humans had surprisingly decent stats. Not as much as the aliens, of course, but enough to generate discussions about the franchise.

To be brief, Sonic humans being abnormally capable wasn’t new to the brand. All the way back to the Classic era games, Eggman consistently outran Sonic, which he justified by working out… no enhancements, no prosthetics, not even a retcon. He pulled something you’d expect to see in Shonen media and had it acknowledged as canon, unironically. There was no indication that Eggman was an outlier for humanity or his own family other than his intellect, so this implied that any humans in the Sonic verse could do the same.

In fact, in the flashback levels of Shadow’s self-titled game, Maria, an ill young girl, could keep up with Shadow as he was racing through the ARK. These were illusions created by Black Doom, but Shadow himself never commented on it, there was no real explanation for this, and everything from the gameplay to enemies to Shadow’s powers remained the same, so we could assume that the intent was that humans, especially the Robotniks, were built different.

On a side note, Shadow could knock out G.U.N. soldiers in the game without killing them. While they were one-shotted by the black hedgehog and Shadow was likely pulling his punches, he still notably put his weight into those strikes and Shadow’s casual strength alone was enough to overturn buses, so realistically, those soldiers should’ve been dead.

Believe it or not, even outside of G.U.N. and the Robotniks, this was consistent with the other humans in the franchise. Princess Elise III in the infamous Sonic 06 ran as fast as Sonic just by Sonic briefly teaching her how, even though she never ran that fast before in her life.

In Sonic X, Chris Thorndyke, an elementary schooler, broke his way free out of metal restraints put on him by Eggman after watching Sonic received the beatdown of his life; you could argue that was adrenaline, but all humans, whether real or fiction, could only get a certain amount of strength from adrenaline alone, so for Chris to be anywhere near that strong at all still required him to be superhuman.

There was also a memorial moment in the Post-Super Genesis Wave Archie Comics where Sonic fought Segata Sanshiro, Sega’s former mascot, and defeated him by kicking him really hard in the face. Sonic fought Chaos, who could control all of the world’s oceans, so even a portion of his strength should transfer some of that power into the opponent, but Segata was fine and bowed respectfully to Sonic afterwards. Segata himself was superhuman, but not to the same extent as Sonic, as their match showed, and technically, humans in the “real world” survived hits from Segata, even though they were portrayed as inferior to him.

(No, Chuck Norris VS Segata Sanshiro didn’t count, it was basically a glorified fan fiction by DEATH BATTLE, even though it did help boost Segata’s popularity in the west.)

TDLR: Humans in all Sonic continuities thus far, even the Paramount films despite being the most “realistic,” were superhumanly capable to some degree. Anti-feats like being harmed by bullets or missiles shouldn’t debunk them, since obviously, those weapons were made to harm other humans to begin with, so it wouldn’t make sense narratively for, say, Maria to be bulletproof or Tom to shrug off Shadow’s punches in those settings.

Doll

Cosmic Level Murder Drones

Cosmic feats in Murder Drones had always been a contentious topic in VS Debates. There were as many sources that disregarded and downplayed them as there were those that accepted them as legitimate. My goal was to find a stance where I decided which was viable or not and explained why. A common complaint about feats in the series was how “inconsistent” they were, how they were contradicted by anti-feats (e.g., J being harmed by a pen), etc. Some even argued Murder Drones should be tiered at Street to Town Level due to seeming to be the safest range they could scale them. Now, let me explain why I disagree with this.

Plenty of feats in fiction don’t always play out as realistically or consistently as they should. One example being Wally West punching Reverse-Flash with the force of a white-dwarf star, which should be enough to destroy Earth, but all it did was knock out RF and left the planet intact, even the people around them were unharmed. There was also Barry hitting Thawne with the power of the entire Speed Force, an extra-dimensional plane of existence responsible for all of the vibrations of the DC lower realms, and it didn’t destroy the DC Universe upon impact, even though RF alone could do so with his vibration manipulation.

Likewise, DC’s Doomsday and Marvel’s The Hulk don’t usually destroy planets during their rampages immediately, even though they’re realistically strong enough to do so many times over (World War Hulk, one of Hulk’s strongest forms, needed to be at full power to destroy a planet in his fight with another Worldbreaker, even though Hulk in a weaker form destroyed an asteroid twice the size of Earth).

Just because a feat doesn’t always have a consistent display of Destructive Capacity, that doesn’t mean the Attack Potency (and by extension, Speed, Durability, etc.) should be disregarded. Otherwise, you’ll have RPG or video game characters blow up whatever map they were on every time they use one of their overpowered attacks and inventory. Destructive Capacity by itself is also an unreliable gauge of how strong a character is, due to the nuances and context among feats, hence Environmental Destruction was made to highlight this nuance. A hurricane, for instance, is stronger than a nuclear bomb, but causes comparatively less destruction since its energy is distributed over a wider area.

Stories can have inconsistent showings of characters in order to build up suspense or prevent them from solving the plot and conflict too easily. Murder Drones is guilty of that, as a crucial moment in Episode 4 had Uzi transmute an arrow fired at her by one of her classmates, otherwise it would’ve hit her… even though the first episode had her dodge lasers from a Disassembly Drone, meaning she could’ve avoided that shot anyways by getting out of the way (especially considering the distance between them). But because the plot demanded it, Uzi (and everyone in that episode besides N) fell victim to Plot-Induced Stupidity (PIS) to maintain the horror and drama. Liam Vickers and Glitch Productions were most likely aware of it too, since they added humorous meta jokes that lampshaded the cliches and tropes used in horror stories.

Liam himself basically confirmed it in his interview where he admitted that he and his team were coming up with ideas and plot threads as they went along, meaning they didn’t have a cohesive vision for the series until the “Eldritch horror” aspects became apparent. He also said that he focused more on the plot than the ideas or what went on in the background, and that they had to drop certain ideas as the story went along (hence, Thad becoming a non-entity throughout episodes 3-6), which explained the plot holes and inconsistencies of Murder Drones (i.e., why didn’t Doll use her Solver to kill V before the prom? Was she stupid?). There were even parts of the story that he didn’t plan out, like how long Disassembly Drones could last without oil, instead changing the topic about how the vampire motifs influenced their creative decision making.

Look at Doll’s feats and scaling section and you’d see just how varied and oftentimes “inconsistent” power levels in Murder Drones could be. Over the span of 8 episodes, it jumped from Country to Continent Level, to Small Building Level, to Wall Level, City Block Level, Planet Level, Large Planet Level, Large Star Level, and potentially even up to Solar System Level… sometimes in the same episode! From a VS perspective, this made it unreliable to scale characters consistently or have an organic escalation of power levels like in Shonen works such as One Piece, MHA, Dragon Ball, etc. Yet, the series won the hearts of fans and got a dedicated community, so it worked out in the end, thus the need for consistent power levels became redundant.

Wiz and Boomstick put it best in Flash VS Sonic and Goku VS Superman (2023) that, when writing stories concerning overpowered characters, often, you need to prioritize the story, themes, and interactions over emphasizing how strong they were, otherwise stories around them would revolve around power scaling, drawn out fight scenes, power systems, Battle IQ, etc. I’ve known a few media that had their stories watered down by putting action and fight scenes over other essential aspects, such as worldbuilding and character development (cough Digimon Adventure 2020 cough), which actually made them boring and unfulfilling.

If Murder Drones had characters blowing up planets, tossing black holes, and traveling between star systems, etc., from start to finish like some Dragon Ball, DC, or Marvel rip-off… would you still love the series as you did before, or would it become another power scaling fodder for “fans” who care more about arguing which of their favorite series and characters can win and why?

This conundrum is why writers don’t always have their characters be as powerful as they should be, as annoying as it could be to VS debaters. Scooby-Doo is a notable example, as characters there could vary between Street to Universe Level at the drop of a hat according to the plot and circumstances (Scooby-Doo VS Courage the Cowardly Dog had a few examples, I recommend it).

TLDR: Murder Drones’ inconsistent and often nebulous power levels could be blamed on the inconsistent or capricious writing of the creator and storytelling. As per the rules of DEATH BATTLE, I will be judging them at their best instead of arbitrarily limiting them to lower-end showings.

Murder Drones’ Weird Cosmology

Another contentious point of Murder Drones was how big Copper 9, the main setting, was supposed to be. It’s generally assumed to be around the same size as Earth due to having similar features and could support human life before the core collapse. This had a wrinkle, however, by the fact Copper 9’s moon (which also had its own moon) had a ring around it. Celestial objects the size of Earth or below couldn’t maintain rings for a long period of time and there was no indication that the moon’s ring was artificial, so the logical assumption would be that Copper 9’s moon was simply much larger than Earth.

Fortunately, Media Mania VS Blog’s Agent Smith VS Cyn battle had a link that led me to a calculation of Copper 9’s largest possible size. By using a combination of angular sizing and Roche limit, Copper 9’s diameter would be 516,344 kilometers, 40x bigger than Earth’s. Because of this, I did a series of calculations (and found some done by others, kudos to them) that took into account Copper 9’s newfound size to find the true value of Murder Drones feats. Surprisingly, for a series where even the toughest characters get torn apart by everyday objects, feats involving Super-Earths are pretty common, especially towards the end.

Ironically, Earth itself is implied to be mụch bigger than it should be in real life, based on an overlooked scene in Episode 6, where Tessa/Cyn showed N a satellite footage of Earth being destroyed by a black hole. Many estimate the size of the black hole by using fragmented pieces of the Earth, which seemed to be the most accurate way at first… until you look at the bottom of the screen. The footage was said to be 501,831 kilometers away, meaning the black hole—and Earth by proxy—should be massive to take up as much space on the screen as it did. In fact, I took the time to calculate Murder Drones’ version of Earth to be between 337,937 to 406,428 km in diameter, 26 to 31x times bigger than real life Earth. This makes no logical sense at all, until you realize one thing…

Most things in Murder Drones… don’t make sense when you think about it. How can Worker Drones be killed by forks if they can survive extinction-level explosions? How can Disassembly Drones be injured by a pen when they were designed to slaughter humanity and Worker Drones? How can a teenage Worker Drone with no training or experience best them in combat when the rest of her people had to hide to begin with? How can swords, revolvers, and Apache helicopters coexist in a setting where interstellar ships, sentient AI robots, and reality-threatening programs are common occurrences due to being the 31st century? How can Solver-afflicted Drones survive the heat of reentry when it’s established that they can die from overheating, shouldn’t that put them even more at risk of dying?

Trying to make (total) sense out of Murder Drones is a rabbit hole, due to how nonsensical and incomplete the story is in its world building and requires suspension of disbelief to pass itself along. Other fictions and media do the same, and if you can’t accept that, you may as well debunk every feat in existence for going against what is “consistent” or “plausible”. You wouldn’t have GOATed peeps like Goku, Superman, Sonic, Mario, Simon, Flash, Guts, Dante, Vergil, Hulk, Thor, Spider-Man, etc., and that doesn’t even cover Toon Force or Reality Warping characters, who can ignore physics entirely and do whatever they want, just because they can.

TDLR: The feats happened. We have calculations for them. Logic and consistency in fiction can and have been different from real life. You can try to apply consistency as writers or researchers all you want, but if the creators want to, the story can destroy its own logic so many times it’s not funny (or it is funny, but in a messed up sort of way). Peace. That being said, I will try to the best of my abilities to be authentic when presenting the characters.

Why isn’t Doll given all of the abilities of the Absolute Solver?

Because she hasn’t demonstrated every single one of them, calling into question if she’s aware she can use them or if she’s skilled with them in a fight or whatnot. The closest you can get to her having a full skill set would be the Solver itself taking control of her, but as mentioned above, Doll has innate resistance towards it due to inheriting Yeva’s code.

While it’s implied that it may be able to do so with enough time, Doll died before that can happen, meaning it’s an inaccessible state as far as her history is concerned and not something she can fall back on (nor would she ever want to, as she died saying she’ll never let it use her to consume the planet, which was mere minutes before her death).

Can Doll really scale to Cyn?

(The average MD scaling chain/argument.)

Given that Cyn was the one who killed Doll without apparent difficulty, shouldn’t that mean Doll was far below than Cyn and thus couldn’t scale to her? It doesn’t help that Cyn was built up as the ultimate antagonist of Murder Drones, needing the combined efforts of the protagonists and their allies to put a stop to. Firstly, this isn’t Dragon Ball Z where fighting prowess determines the strength of a character, context and information are just as important for this series.

A recurring weakness Doll had was that she sucked as a melee fighter. Uzi, before she even learned how to use her own Absolute Solver, pressured Doll and notably made her afraid when she proved immune to direct control and deflected her projectiles, before beating her in a single kick when she got close. Likewise, this was how Cyn beat her; they were in the caverns, where there wasn’t room for Doll to maneuver or escape (the opposite way was a destroyed console), and when the Solver failed to work on Cyn due to her being a Solver Drone, Doll panicked and resorted to throwing a rock at her in a desperate attempt to defend herself, which proved useless.

What should be noted here was that, rather than being some kind of super-advanced model who was special somehow, Cyn was an ordinary Worker Drone discarded and found in a scrapyard full of improperly disposed units. The only thing “special” about her was that she was the first known patient of the Absolute Solver, which as far as we saw, didn’t deviate too much, if at all, from its original host, as many others like Uzi, Doll, Nori, and Yeva had similar ranges of abilities like telekinesis, regeneration, and transmutation. The difference came down to the skill and expertise of the user, as Uzi learned how to create black holes after being possessed and breaking free of the Solver’s control.

This meant that all Solver Drones were comparable and had the same potential as each other, which was why Cyn went through the trouble of sending the Disassembly Drones to massacre the Worker Drones on Copper 9 in the first place instead of bombarding the planet herself; she didn’t want to risk facing those with the same power as her and get killed or foiled. Note her shocked reaction when her attempt to hack Uzi failed and was now forced to engage her in conventional combat.

Cyn/Absolute Solver’s fears were warranted, as Yeva quickly defeated Nori when the latter was possessed by it and was exorcised by Yeva implanting the USB Patch into Nori’s head. Later, Nori as a core with N’s help fended off a possessed Uzi and even defeated her with a mere slap to the head, which allowed Uzi to break free from the Solver. Finally, in the final episode and battle, Uzi was able to fight Cyn on equal footing, matching her blow for blow and ultimately killing her by ripping out her core and consuming it, ironically how Cyn herself killed Doll.

Doll fought Uzi and is Yeva’s daughter, so she scales to both of them prior to Uzi assimilating Cyn’s core, which basically just gave her a wider variety of powers from little we saw in the finale (her actual AP/statistical upgrade is unknown as of yet).

So, in addition to them being close in stats (with Cyn having the upper hand via her performance against the main trio compared to Doll’s own), Doll was just unlucky enough to be caught in a mismatch with an opponent with more skill with the same power set as her and being forced to confront her in an unideal environment. If the gap between them was as large as their encounter implied, Uzi wouldn’t have held her own against Cyn as well as she did, let alone be the one to defeat her for good.

There were also N and V, whom Doll nearly killed, contributing to Uzi’s fight with Cyn, including harming her, intercepting and tanking hits from her, keeping up with her in close-quarters, and severing her body parts. The fact that characters proven to be less powerful than Doll could contend with Cyn implied that Doll herself could do the same, possibly better due to having a multitude of abilities that N and V didn’t, due to them having weaker and restricted versions of the Solver.

Doll stated that she won’t allow the Absolute Solver to use her to consume the planet, which was exactly what it made Cyn do to Earth and tried the same with Copper 9. This meant, in a hypothetical scenario where it used Doll as its main host instead of Cyn, then the series would progress mostly the same as it did, just with Doll as its main body instead of Cyn (Silly Goober was a fraud, unfortunately 😭).

TLDR: Scaling Doll to Cyn should be viable, because even though she died to her, Solver Drones were comparable when it came to their abilities, and since they were all Worker Drones at some point, their stats should be comparable too. Doll getting no-diffed by Cyn had as much to do with her deficiency in CQC as, if not more than raw stats, as Uzi fought Cyn on equal ground after mastering her own powers, and unlike Doll, she actually knew how to throw hands (and feet) before getting them.

Even the black hole feats, despite Doll never displaying the ability to use Null, should be viable, as we’ve seen instances of characters matching the raw power and speed of the black holes, even though they can’t survive its event horizon (except for maybe Solver Drones, as demonstrated by Uzi and Cyn), with N and Nori even surviving being near them unharmed (one also grinded against N’s wings, but didn’t harm or slow him down).

If you’re wondering why characters never explicitly tanked or survived a black hole’s event horizon despite allegedly scaling to them, there’s two words for you: Durability Negation. Long story short, black holes can disintegrate matter down to a subatomic level and produce immense heat and friction to create their accretion disks, and since Murder Drones characters have never shown resistance that great (hmm….) and are weak to extreme heat, it’s unlikely they can survive a direct hit even if they tried.

Why is Solver Core listed as Abilities and not Equipment or Forms?

To be frank, I considered putting it under those two, until a conundrum came to me. If I listed it under Equipment, it might give the implication that it’s a piece of tech able to be stolen and lost in battle, when it’s an intrinsic part of a Solver Drone’s physiology, akin to a heart or CPU. If I listed it under Forms, the time-warping black hole created upon death might seem restricted to said form, even though Cyn was still in her WD form when it happened and even tried to consume said black hole after her core had been destroyed. As such, it made the most sense to put it under Abilities, where it’s not restricted to functionality or availability, but regarded as a standard trait for Solver Drones.

Cyn was the only one who showed the black hole ability from her core, but as I said before, there’s nothing really separating her from other Solver hosts other than being the first one and the main antagonist. The only real difference lies in the skill and experience with one’s powers, as shown by Uzi gaining Null after a whole series of it being associated with Cyn and forming tendrils similar to the ones used by Cyn after assimilating her core.

High-End Murder Drones Feats

(Luigi is drawing upon the cosmic forces in the universe to solve this riddle. Press the B/X button to give him answers.)

This will be a section going over miscellaneous feats and statements. As such, it’ll be the most controversial and in-depth section by far, since some of them are the highest grade feats the series could go on if taken at face value and couldn’t be proven through calculations alone, requiring speculation and evidence.

Planet Buster J

Yes, you read that right. While pretty laughable if you watched the series, the Glitch Production Store website stated that J is capable of destroying a planet. But is this a reliable source? Depends, Glitch merchandise mainly add flavor text or mention special features, like Solver Uzi’s plush having glow-in-the-dark eyes and teeth. Others, however, give a bit of lore, like the Uzi Acrylic Stand and Murder Drones Deskmat referring to the Absolute Solver as an “eternal eternity” (the latter in binary code around the “DIE MAD” text).

We know next to nothing about the Solver in canon, like where it came from, what its true nature is, or if it’s man-made, so we can take this with a grain of salt, since there’s nothing contradicting it. The Amazon Prime Video description of Cyn’s profile also stated that the Solver mutated within her when it possessed her. Again, not contradicted by canon, and in fact supported by the fact when we’re introduced to Cyn (outside of N’s flashback/dream), she appeared in a scrapyard and the Absolute Solver gave a message to her before taking over her program (I suggest going frame by frame, these videos go fast).

So with all this evidence, does this prove that J is a planet buster? Well, in the words of Bugs Bunny:

Ironically, while J has the AP to rival legitimate planet busters (as seen in the scaling section above), her actual DC clearly isn’t on that level. N, a fellow Murder Drone and likely the strongest we’ve seen, couldn’t blast through a pile of boulders in his way, even demanding for Uzi to help him before he relented.

I mentioned before that DC and AP aren’t always 1-to-1 with each other and Murder Drones embodies that perfectly; characters can survive forces that punch through planets, but the next moment, they struggle to get past reinforced doors without the aid of Eldritch powers or messing with security systems.

So no, J can’t planet bust. So sad. 😞

The “planet destroying force” is most likely a joke referring to how J sold out the rest of her kind and the universe at large to side with Cyn, who was destroying Copper 9 at the time.

Massively FTL+ Yeva and Cyn

When you think of Murder Drones speed feats, the first things that come to mind are Uzi dodging lasers, V catching a bullet, and N piloting an interstellar spaceship. The latter of which can get triple digit FTL reaction speeds depending on what timeframe you use.

But there are two other feats that stick out like a pair of sore thumbs, and those are Yeva playing Tetris really fast and Cyn allegedly being able to destroy the universe in what is presumed to be 87 days, which arguably translates to her being fast enough to cover the entirety of it within that time. These can get billions to trillions of times FTL when taken at face value.

Here’s where the problem lies, though; both of these come from obscure sources. Yeva’s feat was a visual gag that took place in a flashback and Cyn’s came from a background Easter Egg that can be easily overlooked in an already packed episode. Cyn’s feat wasn’t even proven like Yeva’s, and no one replicated anything close to Yeva’s Tetris score, so they seemed to be outliers.

Despite that, I will present arguments in favor of these feats and if they can be used in a debate.

Firstly, in concern with Yeva’s feat, we have to remember that the series takes place in the 31st century. Yes, the technology level isn’t always consistent (who still uses an Apache helicopter in battle during this time, was humanity stupid?), but it still enabled breakthroughs like creating ships that travel between star systems, sentient robots with AI advanced enough to create a society independent of humans, and come up with a handheld USB capable of exorcising the Solver’s influence. Even in the 21st century, we have supercomputers that can run at the exaFLOP scale, compared to modern computers only running from gigaFLOPs to teraFLOPs, which is a processing speed difference of millions to billions of times.

In fact, as of June 2021, Japan’s Fugaku has a speed of 442 PetaFLOPS, whereas the Cray-1 back in 1976 only ran at 160 megaFLOPS. That’s a difference of 2.76 billion times in only 45 years. Murder Drones’ setting takes place over a millennium from now. Technology at that point should put anything we have nowadays to shame.

Granted, Worker Drones were mass produced products that were treated as slaves and disposable tools, but a recurring theme in the show is how humans treated them like garbage and were ungrateful of the work they did it for them, which is sadly true of real life (ask anyone who’s been part of a union or abusive work environment and they’ll tell you many similar horror stories, or look up notorious business practices like at Activision Blizzard, Rooster Teeth, or the manga industry in general).

A 31st century piece of tech like Worker Drones having processing speeds superior to any computer we have right now (except for maybe quantum computers) shouldn’t be that hard to think about.

Now for Cyn’s feat, a major plot point in the series is that Solver Drones like her are potential threats to the universe, with this line addressed by Cyn herself disguised as Tessa (granted, she might’ve been lying to manipulate N, which N himself accused her of, but given their ability to create black holes and destroy planets, there’s likely an element of truth to that, especially since Cyn partially gave the Solver’s backstory and how it spread beyond her in the same scene). The idea that the Solver is a threat to the universe is repeated officially several times, giving further credence to this claim.

Realistically, unless you follow the idea that the Solver would eventually create a Big Crunch (read below), for Cyn to destroy the universe under a manageable timeline (e.g., a year, decade, or even century) and ensure that no advanced civilization can come up with a means to fight back, she would need to travel significantly faster than N’s piloting feat because a ship that takes days to travel between star systems would only succeed in helping Cyn destroy a galaxy, at best, under the stated timeframe of the universe’s destruction (87 days).

In the end, however, both of these are arguable, and it really depends on if you think they’re legitimate (maybe the graphic novel can give us some answers…).

Black Hole Scaling

This one may seem controversial, but as I mentioned under scaling Doll to Cyn, there are surprisingly instances where a character can match the speed and power of black holes used by the Absolute Solver, even though nobody aside from its hosts directly interacted with them.

The most notable example being Uzi launching a black hole at Cyn through Copper 9 in Episode 8, creating a beam of light that—depending on which end you use for the planet’s size—moved at 1.52 to 45.21 times the speed of light. In addition, the impact made a shockwave that traveled across the planet’s surface and blasted debris from one side of Copper 9 to the other.

Yet, Cyn not only caught this black hole, but played around with it and then crushed it like a beach ball. While Cyn is one of the top tiers of the series, she wasn’t infallible as J believed, as the main trio were able to contend with her, both individually and as a team. Uzi, in particular, fought mostly in her Worker Drone form and stabbed her hand through Cyn’s body, so this can be scaled or downscaled to the rest of the cast, Doll included.

Even if you argued Cyn used her Solver to block the force of the black hole and didn’t directly tank it, she would still need to withstand the shockwaves produced by it, and since she was the intended target, she would have to take the full brunt of it.

The most arguable ones are the giant black holes Cyn created to destroy Elliot Manor and Earth, but seeing as how black holes are created by concentrating enough mass or energy to induce gravitational collapse, it’s entirely possible that the energy of the users are what create these black holes, with the Absolute Solver acting as a conduit to enable the creation and destruction of Nulls. We see that using the Solver can put physical strain on the user and affect their physiology, so they can potentially scale to it, especially since Cyn deliberately gave the Disassembly Drones inferior versions of the Solver to control them and could physically overpower them in a confrontation.

We get even more evidence by the fact Cyn’s core, after being destroyed, revealed the Solver’s true form as a black hole, which was likely “the Singularity” prophesied by Nori. This thing inhabited the essence of Cyn’s being and used her as an avatar to interact with the material world, meaning it powered her life and abilities. That’s plenty of reasons Solver Drones can scale to their powers (though, their base states should only downscale, as they’re shown to be as weak as normal Worker Drones).

Finally, there’s also the crucial point in the series established since the beginning, the core collapse of Copper 9, which was caused by Nori’s black hole that fell into a flesh pit after Yeva cut her arm off. The two were near the epicenter of this explosion and came out unscathed (except for Nori having amnesia, but even that could’ve been caused by the head injury Yeva gave her). Nori’s daughter Uzi also caused a black hole of similar size to collapse over her hand, which made a pulse of energy that visibly pushed her, N, and Cyn back, so this is far from an outlier.

TLDR: Everyone can scale or downscale from the Solver’s black holes in the series.

Gravitational Waves

(Coincidence? I think NOT!)

An easy-to-miss “feat” that appeared at the end of Episode 2 and the start of Episode 3, when Uzi stared at her ceiling. I came across an argument that, since gravitational waves were detected on “Site 48”, and the Solver was related to black holes, it gave reasons that Solver Drones could scale to gravitational waves based on a paper Uzi had in her room as part of her research on the Solver.

What are gravitational waves, you might ask? They are ripples in spacetime caused by extremely energetic events, like a supernova, the collision between two stars, and black holes orbiting and merging with each other; all three of these events are what caused the most powerful gravitational waves ever detected, but required sensors that detect spacetime disturbances within fractions of the width of an atom.

Did the line in italics ring a bell? It should because we saw what happened if Solver Drones clashed their black holes; Uzi and Cyn’s black holes spun around each other at high speeds before ejecting into different directions. While they didn’t merge, this showed that not only do they (somewhat) follow the laws of physics, but it’s possible for Solver Drones to recreate catastrophic events found in nature and astronomy.

What is Site 48? We don’t know, since the story didn’t go into detail about it (it was literally just another Easter Egg by the animators, possibly to foreshadow the Solver). What we do know is that a site can be defined as a location of a planned structure or a set of structures… like Camp 98.7, which was the research facility where Nori and Yeva and discarded test subjects were at before they were discovered by Outpost 3. The Keybug, which was required to enter Cabin Fever Labs, was even found at the campsite and recognized Uzi as Nori due to their family resemblance (002 was Nori’s code number before the core collapse).

We know that JCJenson conducted research and experiments on Worker Drones afflicted by the Absolute Solver, even having an entire catalogue of them, and were a megaconglomerate whose influence extended across multiple planets (at least Earth and Copper 9, if not their entire star systems). So it’s possible that Site 48 and Camp 98.7 were related, but distinct facilities used to research Solver Drones, resulting in the gravitational waves detected (most of the things owned by the Copper 9 Worker Drones were remnants of human civilization, so it’s possible for the article Uzi found to be made prior to the core collapse, or, just as likely, as GWs can last for millions to billions of years, someone might’ve detected the remnants of the gravitational waves produced at those sites).

This wasn’t impossible, as Yeva fought a Solver-possessed Nori and even those with free will, like Doll and Uzi, were still prone to fighting each other. Some like Alice even held grudges against their fellow test subjects (especially Nori), so there was bound to be infighting between Solver hosts.

As for how the planet could still be standing despite such a catastrophic event taking place on it… this is the same planet that survived multiple core collapses and black holes being blasted both on and through it. Copper 9 is made of tough stuff, which might be the reason JCJenson sent Worker Drones there (and also why Cyn went through all the trouble to devour it).

Technically, these couldn’t be argued as outliers, as the series had a slew of Large Star to Solar System Level feats, so the gravitational waves were just extreme versions of that.

TLDR: Despite being arguable, there was substantial information that could point to Solver Drones being comparable to gravitational waves akin to the ones produced by natural energetic events, like supernovae, neutron stars, and especially black holes.

Universal Solver

(This f@$%*!& Easter Egg everybody hates.)

And here is the goldmine of Murder Drones scaling and probably the most infamous feat or statement in the series.

In the background of Episode 6 (which is also posted on Glitch’s twitter), there are posters on the walls of Cabin Fever Labs that speak of a dire consequence if the protagonists fail to defeat Cyn; “the Singularity” (which is a nickname given to the Solver) actively consumes “everything” and next to it is what appears to be a doomsday clock counting how many days the Solver can create a Big Crunch, a hypothetical scenario where the universe collapses into a singularity, essentially the polar opposite to the Big Bang.

Note the semantic term that connects both the in-universe statement and the out-of-universe one; singularity, the region of spacetime infinitely distorted by gravity and what the Big Crunch can turn the universe into. The Solver is said to be a threat to the universe and actively crumbles it by existing. What was Cyn’s stated motivation for trying to destroy Copper 9? She was “starving,” fulfilling what the poster warned; that the Singularity (aka the Solver) wants to consume everything and won’t stop until the end of everything.

Where did the count for the doomsday clock come from? How would JCJenson know to measure the exact time for the end of creation? Because they were the ones who researched the Solver and its capabilities, coming up with counter-measures like UV rays to control its hosts and pitting them against another Solver Drone as a last resort (as shown with Ridley ordering Mitchell to get Yeva when they had difficulty controlling Solver Nori). It was probably a motivation/fear poster used to remind everybody that if they fail to control the Solver, it’s the end of everything, including them. Full stop.

Out-of-universe, though, it becomes clear that this is really Liam and Glitch telling us, the viewers, how high the stakes were. They added multiple scenes throughout the series lampshading tropes and cliches used in fiction, like Heel Face Turn, Final Girl, the “amorous couple gets killed by a slasher/monster”, etc. In particular, there was a moment in Episode 4 where Uzi’s peers split up to run away from her, believing that’s what the “Final Girl Survival Guide” told them, only for the book to turn to a chapter titled “That’s Not What the Book Said” to no one in particular, except for the viewers.

Through these narrative tools and devices, they convey information to us subliminally without explicitly giving them out, relying on the viewers’ attention to fine details and rewatching to draw out more clues and depth that would otherwise be lost or dismissed in the story (you have no idea how long it took me to get everything about Doll because of that).

So the next question becomes, “can anybody scale to this?”

The answer… no.

Despite it being within the Solver’s capabilities, as mentioned and implicitly confirmed in the story, this is treated as narratively fatal to the cast, even for possibly Cyn, as the Solver viewed all of its hosts as means to an end. All of the above feats already pushed the boundaries of what’s acceptable in the series as well as the limits of what the characters can do within the narrative.

Even if we divided the Big Crunch between the 87 days it’s stated to take, and divide that by the number of seconds that goes in a day, it would still be worth 375.82481 QuettaGigaFoe… 1.17 million vigintillion times greater than the gravitational waves (that’s 71 digits, by the way), which were the highest calculated results next to the potential universal reset.

So not only would it be impossible to scale any of the characters to this, it would be an enormous outlier if it was. On top of that, we don’t know how this process would be done. Will Cyn just spam black holes and eat planets until the universe collapses on itself? Does she erase the universe à la El Hermano? Will she control spacetime to force a Big Crunch? Does eating planets add to her strength until she can get to that tier of power?

Answers we never got and probably never will (Season 2 cope).

You know who gets to scale to this, though? The Absolute Solver, which is portrayed as a demonic, eldritch, and potentially devilish entity so above the cast and possibly their plane of existence that it may as well be a god, even referring to its vessels as “cute puppets.”

And that’s the tale of Cosmic Level Murder Drones.

TLDR: The Absolute Solver is Multi-Galaxy to Universe Level when given enough time via causing a Big Crunch through an unknown method, but nobody else scales to this.

Verdicts

Stats

It goes without saying that Shadow and Doll are both powerhouses within their respective works.

Starting with Shadow, one of his personal feats involved him launching a G.U.N. vehicle at such speeds that Sonic—the self-proclaimed “fastest creature in the universe”—couldn’t dodge it, forcing Knuckles to save him and Tails. This feat would require him to muster between 4.127 Kilotons to 588.239 Teratons of TNT, so off the bat, we already we have Small Town to Large Country Level+ strength from the alien hedgehog. That’s small potatoes, though, compared to when Shadow created a black hole that sucked in and tore apart a mountain base down to the subatomic level, which would put it 287.39 to 442.39 Petatons of TNT. That’s Multi-Continental Level, meaning Shadow can casually obliterate entire landmasses with samplings of his Chaos Energy. Speaking of which…

By far the most infamous feat he’s done is powering the Eclipse Cannon, charging it with enough Chaos Energy for it to fire a planet-destroying laser within 10 minutes. The planet-busting itself would require 59.441 - 563.405 Zettatons of TNT, the latter of which by taking into account the distance the debris would travel from the explosion with Earth at its center. 10 minutes equals 600 seconds, so assuming Chaos Energy works in Wattage (Joules per Second), this would make the Eclipse Cannon 600x stronger than Shadow. As such, Shadow himself should scale to about 99.07 - 939.01 Exatons of TNT, Moon to Small Planet Level. Given how long the cannon fired, though (76.4 seconds), Shadow can be pushed further up to 35.87 Zettatons of TNT, Small Planet Level+. All in his base form.

With his Super Form, Shadow withstood a direct hit from the Eclipse Cannon with Super Sonic’s help; assuming an even distribution, this means Super Shadow scales to 29.7204 - 281.7025 Zettatons of TNT, Small Planet to Planet Level. Going a bit further, though, given the timeframe of how long the Super Hedgehogs held back the Eclipse Cannon until Super Sonic fainted, Super Shadow’s peak can potentially skyrocket at 21.522 Yottatons of TNT, and potentially 43.044 Yottatons of TNT with his Limiter Rings off; Large Planet Level. So how does Doll stack up to this?

Surprisingly well, despite the Sonic films rarely holding back on showing how powerful its cast is compared to Murder Drones… being fairly inconsistent (does this sound familiar to you?).

Obviously, being a Worker Drone herself, Doll should scale to other members of her kind tanking Copper 9’s core collapse. Given the possible distance and the surface area of Worker Drones, they would need to survive the equivalent of 8.42 Teratons to 167.501 Petatons of TNT, and since Doll can violently murder them with her Absolute Solver, this scales to her Attack Potency. Her classmate Uzi also bit off Alice’s finger and harmed Disassembly Drones, which were depicted as stronger than Worker Drones, so even Doll’s physical strength should be around this level. This puts her comparable to Shadow’s vehicle launching and mountain-busting black hole feats, even with feats taken from fodders in her verse.

Climbing higher into Murder Drones’ power ceiling, Doll should be comparable to Nori and Yeva, the former of whom created a black hole powerful enough to cause the core collapse in the first place, reaching a potency of 7.3179 Foe. Both tanked being near the center of this explosion, getting results up to 154.46 Ronnatons of TNT. Nori’s daughter Uzi also took the implosion of a similar black hole from point-blank range, ranging between 217.975 Zettatons of TNT to 8.877 Foe, so this is consistent for all parties involved. Already, Doll surpassed the benchmark left by Shadow even at his best, but we’re not done here.

Going into the higher-end feats, there’s Cyn creating a black hole big enough to destroy Earth at 3.118 - 97.91 Foe, Uzi blasting through Copper 9 at 1.5 Ronnatons of TNT to 4.9507 Foe, and Solver Drones allegedly creating gravitational waves, the most powerful of which can reach 320 KiloFoe. While it’s dubious to scale Doll to these since she’s never used black holes herself, as I mentioned above, other Drones (specifically Cyn, Uzi, Nori, and N) have matched the speed and power of black holes without needing one themselves, as seen with Cyn being unharmed by the shockwaves made by Uzi’s black hole and making a hand sign around one launched by another black hole (god, she’s such a silly goober).

No matter how you look at it, when comparing their best, Doll can get anywhere from 2 trillion to 213 quadrillion times stronger than base Shadow and 1.73 billion to 177 trillion times stronger than Super Shadow. There’s no way Shadow can overpower Doll in a direct confrontation, so Doll has the advantage in power.

When it comes to speed, Shadow has many impressive feats at his disposal, such as blitzing soldiers while dodging bullets, riding up a skyscraper, mopping the floor with Team Sonic before they can even defend themselves, and contending with the likes of Super Sonic, who is faster than his base form (albeit, by catching him off-guard, but even then, base Shadow can at least react to his speed, as shown with their confrontation on the Moon). To put this into perspective, base Sonic moved so fast that bullets and missiles were frozen in his point-of-view, reaching 1.69 (nice, lol) to 28.771 times the speed of light, depending on which method you use, which is consistent with his statements of moving at the speed of light and covering islands as a small child in less than 2 seconds.

His greatest speed feat of all, however, was generating an energy surge that not only reached satellites, but the other side of the universe in one night, which was how Tails found and met Sonic in the first place. This can reach 109.67 trillion times the speed of light, and while there is contention with scaling Sonic to this feat, I consider it legitimate due to the fact it was done by a much weaker, younger version of him in the first movie. Shadow was more than a match for a more powerful Sonic in the third movie and was flat-out shown and stated to be equal to him in speed, so he should upscale by a hefty amount (or at least have stronger arguments for scaling to it).

Adding in the multipliers for the Super Form, Super Shadow should be capable of moving at over 32.9 quadrillion times the speed of light and potentially 2.5 quintillion times if one takes the high-end estimate seriously.

On Doll’s end, she’s able to consistently keep up with Uzi and the Disassembly Drones. Uzi has dodged lasers at 7.32 to 17.39 percent lightspeed while N can fly around black holes at 72.97 to 97.89 percent lightspeed, Sub-Relativistic+ to Relativistic+. There’s also Uzi launching a black hole through Copper 9 at 1.52 to 45.21 times the speed of light and N piloting a spaceship at 442.23 times. Even background Drones like Reid (finally have a name for that guy) have dodged said spaceships at 13.48 to 127.32 c, so Massively FTL reactions and combat speed is consistent across the board.

The fastest scaling you can argue for Doll are her mother Yeva playing Tetris at impossible speeds and Cyn apparently ending the universe in 87 days. Both of which can get triple digit billions of times faster than light as a conservative estimate, while Yeva’s gets a higher end of 53.6 trillion c. The problem is that they have weaker/vaguer arguments for scaling to Doll compared to Shadow scaling to Sonic’s shockwaves, even taking into account the technology level of Murder Drones, but even if accepted, they’re not going to surpass the aforementioned feat, especially with Super Shadow’s multiplier involved.

Shadow would technically be only twice as fast as Doll if taking their best speed scalings at face value, but it’s important to remember that he upscales from 1st Movie Sonic whereas Doll only scales directly to her mother, potentially widening the gap. That’s not even getting to his Boost and Perception Manipulation, respectively, further increasing his movement and reaction speeds and Super Shadow being over 600 to 46000 times faster than Doll at her best. He can literally fly circles around her without getting hit once, and unlike the games, Super Forms don’t have a time limit, so Shadow can maintain his speed advantage for the whole fight.

Shadow takes the edge in speed.

Arsenal & Abilities

For all of their power, both also have a fair share of tools of destruction up their non-existence sleeves.

Shadow’s Air Shoes combined with his Super Speed allow him to cross terrains more easily than Doll, like on the side of buildings, ceilings, the ocean, and limited flight/hovering for aerial control. Doll can’t survive in water while Shadow can take a casual stroll through it. His Dark Rider grants most of the same benefits except for flight by channeling his Chaos Energy through it, giving him two options for mobility. Doll doesn’t have any vehicles or mobility equipment, so she would have to rely on her natural speed and other powers to keep up, but Shadow being faster means he can stay a step ahead, especially since he can race around tight corners while towing a child whereas Doll can’t even maneuver in a dark cave to save her life (literally, in this case).

The Black Hole orb, with its large area-of-effect and breaking down matter at the atomic level, instantly defeats Doll if it hits, however, it also remains stationary after use and strong enough beings like Knuckles can resist its pull. Given that Doll is stronger than Shadow, who is stronger than Knuckles, she can easily do this and escape with her teleportation, since that’s exactly how Team Sonic survived.

The Limiter Rings and Laser Pistol are worthless, as Doll is so much stronger than Shadow that a rudimentary power boost won’t do anything, and Doll’s durability and shields mean that the firearm isn’t a threat to her. Shadow is honestly better off with his other powers and equipment.

Speaking of which, the Master and Chaos Emeralds are easily his biggest boon in this fight, since, obviously, they grant him his Super Form, which amplifies his already existing speed advantage, plus grants additional powers like flight and improved Chaos Energy (which we’ll get into later). Due to how much of a threat Doll is, Shadow is going to need them and probably will use them early on after he finds out how much Doll outguns him.

Doll’s kit can be summed up in one phrase; kill on sight. She has a collection of blades, rebars, and ceilings fans that can dice or stab foes like jello. With her telekinesis, they turn into a flechette volley that can defeat about any opponent they hit. But that’s the issue; they specialize in dealing damage and little else.

The cleavers and knives are pretty much interchangeable and serve the same function while the ceiling fan blades are just bigger, meaner versions of them. The rebars are slightly more versatile, in that Doll can set them up as traps to inhibit Shadow’s mobility, but she’s only shown four of them, and while she can duplicate them with the Absolute Solver, Shadow has dodged bullets and kept up with Sonic, who can dash around a hallway of lasers more numerous than what Doll can dish out, among other acrobatic feats like clearing crevasses, diving through a moving truck, jumping between buildings, gaining height by ricocheting between enemies, etc.

Shadow can easily evade them and possibly use them against Doll like Uzi had, and since Murder Drones characters are shown to have lackluster piercing durability, they’re going to hurt despite the strength gap. Regular people with no powers have injured and even killed Worker Drones with forks before, so it’s a good way for Shadow to bypass Doll’s durability.

The Keybug is useless in this fight… all it does is receive and send messages in holographic text boxes. Not even great ones either, as autocorrect can mess up someone’s words, even if they speak directly to it.

Overall, Shadow’s equipment—despite being weaker—cover more ground in versatility and adaptability, while Doll’s focus more on combat and lethality, which are redundant against a foe she can already one-shot with brute force alone.

But what about their abilities? Do they change the outcome of the match? Let’s see.

The most amazing part of this verdict was how Shadow’s Chaos Energy by itself provides him so many benefits against Doll. Despite their power and toughness, Drones are never shown to resist electric attacks, so even the basic application of Chaos Energy can shock them into submission (the sparks created by Solver Drones are never depicted causing damage or destruction, so they’re just fancy light shows by comparison). Chaos Energy can also envelop its user in a bioelectric aura for both offense and defense, so Shadow has a passive armor for both harming Doll and fending off her blades and rebars, which are her main methods of attack.

But that’s not all. Chaos Energy is described as thermonuclear by both a world-class scientist and a government agent, and the fact Chaos Energy is treated as the holy grail in the series backs this up, making it comparable if not superior to nuclear weapons reaching temperatures of 100,000,000 degrees Celsius. The hottest we’ve seen Drones survived was atmospheric reentry, which can only reach thousands of degrees or even 50,000 Kelvin (49,725.85 Celsius) at most; Doll can survive and regenerate lost body parts, but that means nothing if Shadow were to vaporize every inch of her, leaving her with nothing to regenerate from.

Exacerbated by the fact Chaos Energy has emitted shockwaves large and powerful enough to expand over a city and reach satellites in orbit, disabling all electronics and technology within their vicinity; these same shockwaves traveled to the ends of the universe in the course of one night, so not only would Doll be disabled and likely vaporized, she can’t outrun or dodge the omnidirectional EMP that can fry her circuits and leave her vulnerable to the killing blow. Even Disassembly Drones, who were designed to resist EMPs effective on Worker Drones, can be affected by stronger dosages, as proven by Alice and Beau’s capture of N and V.

Remember the black hole Shadow made with the aid of Gerald’s device? In the novelization, it was made with a basic Egg Drone, meaning any advanced technology he can get his hands on can be converted into an artificial singularity via his Chaos Energy… exactly like Doll herself. Murder Drones characters have never shown resistance towards subatomic destruction, so this is pretty much an instant win move if Shadow were to successfully pull it off, which should be relatively easy due to his speed and agility. On top of Chaos Control teleporting him faster than Doll could react (even Sonic, who was even with Shadow, couldn’t react to it in time) and ZA WARUDO time briefly, Doll can’t do anything to avoid this.

All of this without adding his Super Form, which enhances all of the above advantages while also adding new ones for him, such as flight to complement his mobility, even longer teleportation, and more potent Chaos Energy. Super Shadow has also shown the ability to launch individuals across the world in single blows, and Super Sonic once punched him to the Moon in a fit of rage; Shadow can easily force Doll into areas with sunlight or large bodies of water, taking her out in one fell swoop.

But in Doll’s defense, she has plenty of useful powers herself. Her telekinesis grants her a means to combat Shadow from a distance even without her weapons, restrain and capture him with a gesture and turn him into gore in the next second, since it can mutilate Drones even tougher than Super Shadow. She can also shut down his Air Shoes with her technology manipulation, limiting the hedgehog’s speed and mobility. While her regeneration and immortality are hard countered by Shadow’s Chaos Energy, it at least meant that she can survive injuries better than he can; Shadow has never shrugged off amputation, dismemberment, or decapitation like Solver and Disassembly Drones have, and Sonic, a fellow alien hedgehog, nearly died to a blast that merely singed him, so even just one injury or glancing blow is going to be fatal to him.

There’s also her ability to destroy things with her telekinesis or a glance, especially glassy objects like the Master and Chaos Emeralds. One little glare or telekinetic hold, and those powered gems are going to be reduced to shards, and since Super Shadow is Shadow’s biggest win-con alongside his Chaos Energy, this will be important for Doll. Finally, while Shadow is still faster in his base form, the speed gap between him and Doll isn’t substantial, so Doll can feasibly wear him down or hold him in place and give a sharp glare to his direction. Hook, line, and sinker…

If not for some caveats we have to point out. While telekinesis and destruction are both useful powers, they have glaring weaknesses in practice. With telekinesis, the Absolute Solver symbol manifests around the interacted item and acts as an extension of the user. Doll can’t just make things move or explode with her mind, she needs a specific target to manifest her Solver around. Otherwise, in her tug-of-war with Uzi, she could’ve distracted her by flinging objects in the room to make way with the Keybug or thrown anything other than just a boulder at Cyn in their encounter in Cabin Fever Labs. Shadow, with his superior speed, reflexes, and of course, teleportation and time stops with Chaos Control, can feasibly avoid this.

For the same reason, destruction isn’t going to be an instant win button as I described. In order to use it, Doll needs to manifest her Solver through her eye while staring at something; it took a few seconds for a robot bug that she can easily squash to explode, so it’s possible for Shadow to react in time and escape. Sure, Doll can teleport herself, but Shadow’s comes with the bonus of stopping time and enemies, including Doll, for a precious amount of seconds to throw her off.

While the Master and Chaos Emeralds are susceptible to destruction, as shown with the Master Emerald breaking after Emerald Eggman depowered, Doll doesn’t know what they are or what they can do; Shadow himself only knew because he fought Super Sonic, but without that sort of background knowledge, she’ll likely assume they’re just colorful rocks and won’t bother trying to destroy them, which will give Shadow ample time to reclaim them before they do get destroyed. The Emeralds also fuse with Super Shadow, obscuring them from view, meaning Doll can’t break them like she could normally, her only option at that point would be to kill Super Shadow before he can kill her… which is easier said than done due to his haxes and superior-as-Hell speed.

Doll’s other powers aren’t all that useful. Fire and light manipulation have done no more than put out fires and light up dark areas (very poorly, mind you), memory manipulation—which would normally be game-winning against the likes of Shadow—is only ever used against Drones like V, making it unlikely it can affect organic beings (granted, Disassembly Drones are at least techno-organic, given J’s remains, but they’re more machine to the point where Uzi can hack them, not at all comparable to a flesh-and-blood creature like Shadow), and matter manipulation was only ever used to create the ceiling fan blades; there’s no evidence that Doll can, say, turn Shadow into a stuffed bunny.

Plot Armor is irrelevant, since Doll dying in canon showed she’s no longer protected after serving her role in the story. God rest her code.

Forcefields and kinetic energy manipulation seemed to be useful, but even they have their faults. We see on numerous occasions that Solver Drones can be harmed by physical attacks, implying either it doesn’t work against melee attacks (which makes no sense, as it can work on knives and glass cups) or users need to consciously defend themselves, as shown with V taking out Doll while she was distracted despite her firearms unable to touch her earlier. Kinetic energy manipulation runs into the same problem, as Doll only using it once implies that, like the forcefields, they can only be activated consciously.

Once again, Shadow’s speed, mobility, Chaos Control, and the statistical increase he gets as Super Shadow capitalize on these weaknesses, crumbling Doll’s defenses while he presses on.

But what about the Solver program, you may ask? What if the Solver takes over Doll and fights in her stead, with the additional abilities and haxes at its disposal? There are pros and cons to this, and the latter outweighs the former.

On one hand, the Solver taking over Doll can possibly defeat Shadow with abilities like creating illusions, countering Super Shadow’s flight by growing wings, using the Eldritch form as a proxy or double, creating black holes, and the energy tendrils capable of tearing apart planets bit by bit for area-of-effect. On the other hand… Doll can’t access any of that. Her mother, Yeva, received a patch specifically designed to counteract the Solver’s influence and exorcise it from her system, and Doll has a similar, albeit inferior, resistance by never being possessed by it even near the end of the series, whereas Uzi and Nori had been possessed multiple times and needed outside help to overcome it.

There’s also the issue of Doll not wanting to be controlled by the Solver, which was literally her main goal in the series other than getting revenge on V. Letting the Solver take control of her is not only unlikely, but a betrayal of her character by letting herself be subsumed by the very thing she wished to be rid off in the first place. Plus, she died before she even got possessed, so it’s non-standard to her. If you were looking forward to a potential Solver Doll vs Super Shadow fight, I hate to disappoint you, but it’s not happening.

For the Zombie Drone and Heart/Core states, well… I already discussed the real possibility of Shadow just incinerating Doll’s profile—AI, chassis, and core—so that she wouldn’t be able to come back from anything.

The final obstacle Shadow would need to face is the Solver Core and the time-warping black hole it creates upon death. In addition to slowing Shadow down, the Solver can possess Doll’s body to reintegrate itself and take control of it without Doll’s interference, since assimilating the black hole core was how the Solver/Cyn became integrated with Uzi’s tail. What does Shadow have that can counter this? Two words, say it with me: “CHAOS CONTROL!”

The Solver Core may be able to slow down time, but it can’t stop it entirely like Chaos Control can; if you look closely at the background when it happened, you can see “snowflakes” (really silicon particles and asbestos, according to Liam) still falling in slow-motion. Chaos Control’s counter of other time stops is questionable as of yet, but it can definitely overcome the Solver’s slowed time, as the latter is a step below the former. Alice also showed that Disassembly Drone cores, which are similar to Solver Drone cores, can be disabled by extreme heat, which Chaos Energy can easily replicate (man, this woman keeps proving that DDs and SDs are frauds). As such, Shadow can counter the Solver Core’s time slow, destroy its host body, and leave it harmless for the time being.

The Absolute Solver can continue existing due to being an “eternal entity” and can always possess another host, with the Paramount Sonic series having plenty of potential candidates (like Unit from Sonic Drone Home), but neither the Solver nor the new host are Doll, meaning if it comes down to that, Shadow wins by default.

Shadow wins out in arsenal and abilities.

Tertiary Factors

While neither of them are exactly what you’d call “experienced” combatants (Shadow was a lab rat who doesn’t remember his past life and was put under ice for 50 years while Doll was a high school cheerleader before she got her powers), they more than made up for it by being truly formidable in combat. However, when you compare them directly, it’s clear who has the better resume.

Despite his lack of known training, Shadow has experience defeating foes with a fair amount of combat training and experience over him; the first thing he did after being freed was taking out a group of G.U.N. soldiers without breaking a sweat and without resorting to lethal force. Then, he took out another group of soldiers armed with weapons and vehicles before leaving Tokyo a war zone. He even bested Team Sonic twice, whose strongest member Knuckles had trained his entire life, learned from the best warriors of his tribe, and built up his reputation as the single best warrior in the galaxy, something reiterated several times, including by Tails, who scoured the universe for Sonic and feared what Knuckles could do to him despite being aware of Sonic’s feats and capabilities.

By comparison… I’m not going to sugarcoat it, most characters in Murder Drones aren’t that great in combat, especially from a general viewpoint. On paper, you’d think Cyn’s murder pets slaughtering humanity and later the Worker Drones would be a decent experience/skill feat but… the most we’ve seen are them hunting down hapless civilians on Earth and Copper 9, with the flesh bags “fighting back” by siccing an Apache helicopter on them while the barely sentient toasters spent the next 20 years or so hiding behind doors like cowards, something Uzi even called them out for.

The Apache helicopter was made in the 20th century, Murder Drones’ setting takes place in the 31st. That’s like if you were to take a 15th century cavalry and pit it against a main battle tank; the tank is going win because it has the better technology. No wonder humanity went extinct when they made such terrible choices!

The Worker Drones are hardly better; throughout the series, they’re shown to have terribly low common sense, self-preservation, and survival instincts. Their decision to hide behind doors is as foolish as it gets, as the Disassembly Drones had other means to get past it besides brute force (as shown with N flying straight through the ceiling with Uzi and V), they can be tricked by low-resolution holograms, they ignore and misinterpret common tropes and cliches to the point where their deaths are just as much their own fault as it is anyone else’s, they can kill their own peers by accident due to mishandling tools and weapons, and so on.

With this in mind, the characters killing them en masse is about as “impressive” as a bunch of bullies punching down on the mentally disabled. The Solver Drones, Disassembly Drones, and the Sentinels are the only real fighters in the series, and even then, they’re prone to folding like a stack of cards when up against someone their level or above. Perhaps best seen with V “vs” Doll and Doll “vs” Cyn. Even Cyn herself lost and died to Uzi, despite being the more experienced Solver Drone.

Compare this to Shadow’s own experience with an opponent stronger than him. Super Sonic can easily crush and blitz Shadow into oblivion, but Shadow—through nothing but pure wit and skill—ambushed and depowered him with a well-placed strike before using Super Sonic’s own power source against him. Certainly a better performance than Doll futilely throwing a rock in Cyn’s face.

While Doll is a ruthless schemer and is capable of planning ahead of her competition, Shadow is a combat genius who’s better at on-the-fly adaptation and pinpointing his opponent’s strengths and weaknesses. Most of Doll’s planning requires her to take time formulating ideas, setting up traps, and having knowledge of her enemies beforehand. Without these, she tends to go down in fights, like the ones against Uzi and Cyn. Shadow’s plethora of mobility-enhancing abilities and time stops would ensure that she doesn’t have time to think or plan ahead. Meanwhile, Shadow can capitalize on his superior fighting skills, particularly hand-to-hand, which happens to be Doll’s shortcoming.

Overall, Shadow has the superior Skill.

Conclusion

Paramount Shadow

(“The light shines… even though the star is gone.”)

Advantages:

Far faster and more mobile, especially as Super Shadow.
Far more skilled in close-quarters combat.
More varied and useful equipment, particularly the Master and Chaos Emeralds.
Could bypass Doll’s power advantage and ranged fighting style via his speed, agility, flight, Chaos Energy, and time stops.
His Chaos Energy alone provided various haxes and win conditions against Doll, such as overpowering her heat resistance, short-circuiting her, or disabling her with EMP.
Superior range and area-of-effect.
Could overcome Doll’s immortality, regeneration, and resurrection options by obliterating every part of her.
Battlefield Removal via Chaos Control and Super Shadow could force Doll into an unideal environment, such as a sunny area or the ocean…
Due to Doll’s weakness to sunlight and her need to consume oil, he could potentially outlast her in a battle of attrition (or accelerate it via his Chaos abilities).
Could counter the Solver Core’s time slow with Chaos Control.
The Master Emerald’s haxes like technopathy could instantly defeat Doll…
Supports women’s rights…
Loves Latinas
Has a gun (sadly only one, though)…
Keanu Reeves
Had a more fulfilling character arc in one movie than Doll did in 8 episodes.

Equal:

Equally skilled at stealth.
Could counter Doll’s teleportation with his own.

Disadvantages:

Far less powerful than Doll, to the point of being one-shotted if he isn’t careful.
Doll could potentially steal or destroy the Master and Chaos Emeralds.
Inferior regeneration and can’t survive the same severity of wounds as Doll could.
…Though, he won’t figure out her weakness right away.
…But he would need time to find out he that could use them and they’re not something he would typically use in a fight.
…But the one female he’s shown supporting (besides Maria) was actually pretty toxic and unhelpful.
…But it’s useless against Doll.
His surrogate family is dead (though, Gerald had it coming).

Doll

(“FIGHT BACK”/“ДАЙ ОТПОР”)

Advantages:

Far stronger and more powerful, to the point of one-shotting even Super Shadow.
More ruthless, pragmatic, and cunning…
Superior regeneration and survivability
Could disable Shadow’s Air Shoes with her telekinesis and/or technopathy…
Could continue the fight as a Zombie Drone or as her core if Shadow kills her…
Her long-range fighting style could keep Shadow on his toes…
Could destroy or steal the Master and Chaos Emeralds once she figured what they could do…
The Absolute Solver possessing her would grant her new abilities to defeat Shadow, such as illusions and black hole creation…
Sapphic/Lesbian Icon (at least in the Murder Drones fanbase)…
Has knives… plenty of knives…
Emma Breezy
Has a graphic novel adaptation coming out in September. (Oh boy…)

Equal:

Equally skilled at stealth.
Could counter Shadow’s teleportation with her own…

Disadvantages:

Far slower and less mobile, especially compared to Super Shadow.
Far less skilled in close-quarters combat.
Her weapons are far less versatile than Shadow’s.
No resistance or counters to Chaos Control, even with the Absolute Solver.
Because she can’t fly, Super Shadow could easily launch her into space, a sunny area, or even the ocean with no reliable means to go back.
Vulnerable to the haxes of Shadow’s Chaos Energy, such as Heat, Electricity, EMP, etc.
Ironically inferior range and area-of-effect.
Is the one fighting on a time limit no matter what (e.g., either dies to sunlight or overheating from being unable to drink oil).
…Shadow’s speed, haxes, and combat skills pretty much nullify her scheming tendencies.
…But Shadow is still faster than her, with or without them, and he can potentially repair them as Super Shadow.
…Unless Shadow destroys her entire body, preventing her from resurrecting.
…But Shadow’s mobility, skill, and especially time stops meant he had ways to bypass her range.
…But it’s unlikely she would find out or capitalize on it in time.
…But Doll passively and actively resists the Solver’s control, making it highly unlikely.
…But her best friend dumped her for her parents’ murderer (WTH Lizzy?).
…Doesn’t have a gun.
…But Shadow’s was superior as he could also stop time.
Her character was wasted and cut short as Cyn fodder.
Canonically died to a Five Nights at Freddy’s reference and getting vored… no, I’m not joking.
~~Still doesn’t have her own plush.~~

Wow, this did not age well.

Her parents are dead and she died for nothing for their sake.

All in all, despite her cutthroat tendencies and being willing to sever ties to do what she needed to achieve her goals, Doll’s power was overcome by Shadow’s speed, versatility, skill, and abilities. In this chaotic baile, the убийственный Solver Drone met her match with the black hedgehog.

The winner is Paramount Shadow the Hedgehog.

Paramount Shadow VS Doll (Sonic the Hedgehog VS Murder Drones)

Before We Start...

Background

Paramount Shadow

Doll

Experience & Skill

Paramount Shadow

Doll

Equipment

Paramount Shadow

Air Shoes

Limiter Rings

Quills

Dark Rider

G.U.N. Laser Pistol

Black Hole Orb

Master Emerald

Chaos Emeralds

Doll

CleaverA large knife with a rectangular blade for cutting through small bones, thick flesh, and even Drones, as demonstrated against one of Doll’s peers and V.Doll could create up to three of them with the Absolute Solver.

Cleaver

Rebars

Steel bars used in reinforced concrete to provide strength and support. Doll could set these as traps, capable of piercing and restraining Disassembly Drones.She used up to four of them and could control them telekinetically.

Ceiling Fan

A regular ceiling fan Doll weaponized by turning it into a serrated saw.Could create and use up to three of them, each capable of slicing Disassembly Drones.

Knife

Eyepatch

After losing her eye to V, Doll wore an eyepatch with a button on it (appropriate, don’t you think?) to hide the wound left behind. Once removed, it was revealed that she didn’t heal herself, likely to avoid the Solver taking over her (more on that later).

Keybug

Abilities

Paramount Shadow

Extraterrestrial Physiology

Chaos Energy

Chaos Control

Chaos Spear

Super Speed

Perception Manipulation

Boost

Wind Manipulation

Enhanced Agility & Acrobatics

Hand-to-Hand Combat

Stealth Mastery

Non-Physical Interaction (Limited)

Resistances

Doll

Worker Drone Physiology

Absolute Solver

Solver Core

Immortality & Regeneration

Destruction

Telekinesis

Stealth Mastery

Electricity Generation

Teleportation

Memory Manipulation

Forcefield Creation

Weapon Manifestation

Duplication

Matter Manipulation

Kinetic Energy Manipulation

Restoration

Transmutation

Technology Manipulation

Fire Manipulation

Light Manipulation

Plot Armor (yes, really)

Resistances

Forms

Paramount Shadow

Super Shadow

Doll

Zombie Drone

Possessed (Debatable)

Heart/Core

Feats

Paramount Shadow

Accomplishments

Power

Base

Super Shadow

Cleaver
A large knife with a rectangular blade for cutting through small bones, thick flesh, and even Drones, as demonstrated against one of Doll’s peers and V.

Doll could create up to three of them with the Absolute Solver.

Steel bars used in reinforced concrete to provide strength and support. Doll could set these as traps, capable of piercing and restraining Disassembly Drones.

She used up to four of them and could control them telekinetically.

A regular ceiling fan Doll weaponized by turning it into a serrated saw.

Could create and use up to three of them, each capable of slicing Disassembly Drones.