Sonic’s World Has Its Own Version Of Dragon Ball’s Darkest Void

A void more terrifying than Garlic’s Dead Zone in Dragon Ball once existed in Archie Comics’ discontinued Sonic the Hedgehog series. Before becoming the Special Zone, the Zone of Silence was used to banish opponents in a similar manner as the void created by the villain Garlic, but those unfortunate enough to find themselves inside suffered a worse fate than in the Dead Zone as fewer sensations existed there.

In Dragon Ball, the ancient villain Garlic created a zone that he summoned to suck people into the hyperspace void within, where these poor souls would be damned to float in eternal darkness forever. Ironically, Garlic’s son and reincarnated self, Garlic Jr., would attempt to trap Earth’s heroes including Goku in this so-called Dead Zone but would only succeed in getting himself dragged into the nothingness himself. (Dragon Ball Z‘s horrible Garlic Jr. Saga won’t be mentioned.)

The version of the Dead Zone in Sonic’s world was created by the evil sorcerer Ixis Naugus, where sounds and vibrations ceased to exist after prolonged exposure, an unpleasant experience that caused many of those doomed inside its far reaches to succumb to madness. Ironically, much like Garlic Jr., the sorcerer’s invention would be used against him when Dr. Robotnik banished him there. Robotnik would later inflict the same fate on Sonic’s king, Max Acorn, after his successful coup of the Kingdom of Acorn that heralded his Egg Empire.

Unlike the Dead Zone that supposedly only imprisoned Garlic Jr., countless victims were forced to exist inside the Zone of Silence, an unfortunate occurrence that in turn yielded more characteristics of the mad-inducing void. Despite being trapped inside, Ixis was able to stave the madness that had begun to overwhelm King Acorn by wielding his unholy magic for his own personal gain. In exchange for promising Ixis the throne, Ixis replaced a portion of King Acorn’s body with an organic crystal that protected him from the effects of his void.

Unfortunately, after the death of Dr. Eggman’s son A.D.A.M., one of the void’s prisoners, a massive panda-like being called Feist, transformed this terrifying area into the Special Zone where he would guard the Chaos Emeralds he had there. Sharing an affinity for games, he would oftentimes create different types of obstacles for those who came in search of one of these powerful gems, including Sonic.

This change is one of the many unfortunate shifts that the series would later undergo after the departure of writer Ken Penders and would serve as a foreshadowing of what was to come. Undoubtedly an alteration to mirror the Special Zones in the lighthearted video games, everything else in Sonic the Hedgehog would follow the same fate as the Zone of Silence, following the Genesis Wave that completely revamped the entire setting and every character into a sorry replication of the games. But before this unwelcome change, Ken Penders’ Zone of Silence took inspiration, whether on purpose or not, from one of Dragon Ball‘s most iconic phenomena, and the series greatly benefited as a result.

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