Sonic the Hedgehog Sonic the Hedgehog Sonic the Hedgehog is a video game franchise produced by Sega centering on a series of high-speed platform games. Sonic, the protagonist, is an anthropomorphic blue hedgehog with supersonic speed. Typically, Sonic must stop antagonist Doctor Eggman's plans for world domination, often helped by his friends, such as Tails, Amy, and Knuckles. The first "Sonic the Hedgehog" game, released in 1991, was conceived by Sega's Sonic Team division after Sega requested a mascot character to compete with Nintendo's mascot Mario. Its success spawned many sequels and helped Sega become one of the leading video game companies during
Sonic the Hedgehog (character) British publications, including "Sega handbook" "Stay Sonic" (1993), four novels published by Virgin Books (1993–1994) and the comic book "Sonic the Comic" (1993–2001), published by Fleetway Publications/Egmont Publishing, used this premise as their basis. The American comics published by Archie Comics, "Sonic the Hedgehog" (1993–2017), "Sonic X" (2005–2008), and "Sonic Universe" (2009–2017) are based on the settings established by earlier animated TV series, the ABC "SatAM" cartoon, the "Sonic X" anime, and an expansion to the series, respectively. The former series is currently the second longest-running licensed comic series in the history of American comic books, second only to Marvel's