Table of contents

1 History 2 Abilities 3 Character Analysis & Popular Theories

History

Shadow is known as the ultimate life form. He was created by Dr. Gerard Robotnik, the grandfather of Dr. Ivo Robotnik (aka Dr. Eggman) aboard the space colony ARK. He developed a fast friendship with the doctor's niece, Maria Robotnik, and often looked down to Earth, wondering what the purpose to his life was. When the military attacked ARK, hoping to shut down the Ultimate Life Form project, Maria sacrificed herself in order to let Shadow escape to Earth in an escape pod. On Earth, Shadow was captured by the military and placed in suspended animation until Dr. Robotnik attacked the complex looking for "his grandfather's legacy" and freed him. As a reward for freeing him, Shadow granted the doctor one wish, which was the domination of Earth. Shadow also has an alternative motive- to fulfill Maria's last wish, which was revenge on Earth for causing her death.

Shadow led Robotnik to the ARK and the ultimate weapon: the Eclipse Cannon, which required seven Chaos Emeralds to reach full power. Joined by a treasure hunter named Rouge, the three succeed in breaking into a military base and managing to gather six Emeralds, which was enough power to destroy half the moon. They retrieve the last Emerald from Tails when Sonic leads an assault on the ARK and is captured. In their final duel, Shadow is defeated by Sonic, and the Eclipse Cannon is destroyed. However, the ARK is set on a collision course with Earth, which means that Maria's revenge would be carried out anyway.

That is, until Amy Rose manages to remind Shadow that Maria's true last wish was for the people of Earth to be happy. (Note: Exactly why Shadow did not remember this promise is never revealed. Some argue that Shadow's memories were altered by Gerard Robotnik, but I disagree. I believe that the stress of seeing Maria die and Shadow's own thrist for vengance caused Shadow to subconsciously re-write history in his own mind in order to justify his actions.) Shadow rushes to help Sonic and Knuckles seal the power of the Chaos Emeralds by battling the Bio-Lizard, the prototype of the Ultimate Life Form. Though he wins, he cannot stop it from merging with ARK and continuing ARK's path towards Earth as the Final Hazard. Using the power of the Chaos Emeralds, he transforms with Sonic into Hyper Shadow, and together they destroy Final Hazard and use Chaos Control to stop the free-falling ARK from destroying the Earth. However, Shadow uses the last of his energy to do so, and falls to Earth. He is assumed to be dead.

In the next game, Sonic Heroes, Rouge discovers that Shadow is alive, and in a statis tube located in the deepest part of one of Dr. Eggman's bases. After saving Rouge from a rampaging robot called E-123 Omega, it is revealed that Shadow has amensia and cannot remember anything before his release from the statis tube. He joins forces with Rouge and Omega to form Team Dark and hunt down Dr. Eggman.

After battling the Egg Albatross, and hearing Dr. Eggman proclaim that he "has no past to remember", Shadow discovers a half destroyed Shadow robot and realises that he too might just be a robot. Despite this, he continues his mission, proclaming that although "I might not be real, I'm still the ultimate life form! I'm still Shadow The Hedgehog!" They defeat Dr. Eggman's Egg Emperor and discover that the person they have been chasing is a fake Dr. Eggman. Meanwhile, Rouge sneaks off to look for Dr. Eggman's treasure, and discovers a whole room filled with hundreds of cloned Shadow robots. Omega arrives to destroy the room and everything in it, and Rouge finally confirms that the Shadow of Sonic Heroes is just a robot. However, Omega reassures her that when you clone something, there is always an original, and the original may still exist.

When Metal Sonic transforms into Metal Madness, Shadow works with Rouge and Omega to distract Metal Madness long enough for Sonic to power up into his Super Form. At the end of the game, he is last seen with Omega and the defeated Metal Sonic.

Abilities

Shadow's trademark move is called Chaos Control. Using the power of a single Chaos Emerald, he can freeze time and warp through space (teleportation). He is never seen freezing time in Sonic Adventure 2, but in Sonic Heroes the time freeze is an effect of Team Dark's Team Attack. He uses the teleportation ability three times in Sonic Adventure 2: once to escape from Sonic with the green emerald, once to rescue Rouge from the military base before it blows up, and during the final duel against Sonic. Chaos Control is not an in-game ability of Shadow. In the Gamecube remake, Sonic Adventure 2 Battle, Shadow is able to use Chaos Control in the two player versus mode, where he can freeze time for the other player. Sonic can also use Chaos Control, though he doesn't know it at first.

Shadow shares every ability of Sonic, meaning that they are truly rivals. His light trail is gold instead of blue.

Character Analysis & Popular Theories

The opinions expressed below are those of Redkun and cannot be considered any higher than thus.

A popular opinion is that Shadow is an evil clone of Sonic. This is never stated in any of the games. The facts are that Shadow is the ultimate life form and that he was created by Dr. Gerard Robotnik. His resemblance to Sonic (storyline-wise, not marketing-wise) is a pure coincendence. In fact, taking into account the age of Sonic (15 years old) and the time Shadow was created (more than 15 years ago), it would be impossible for Gerard Robotnik to clone Sonic!

The Shadow in Sonic Heroes is revealed to be a robot. This raises the questions: has Shadow always been a robot, or is that only true of his clones? I cannot give a definite answer, but in my opinion, the latter is true. It doesn't make sense to call Shadow "the ultimate life form" when he was only aritifical. Also, there is every implication that the Bio-Lizard is organic, and since that is the prototype of Shadow, it follows on to assume that the original Shadow is also organic. Finally, it must be easier to mass-produce artifical Shadows as weapons instead of cloning them. With his skills at mass producing large numbers of robots, it's logical that Dr. Eggman used this same technology to mass produce Shadow.

What exactly is the ultimate life form that Gerard Robotnik was working on? We know that the Bio-Lizard (originally codenamed "Shadow") is the prototype and that Shadow himself is an incarnation, but there could exist a mysterious third ultimate lifeform. In the speech before his execution at the end of Sonic Adventure 2, Gerard explains how the Ultimate Life Form project was supposed to be for the good of mankind. Unfortunatly, the military interpreted it as a weapon which led to the attack that killed Maria and supposably destroyed the Ultimate Life Form. Gerard goes on to claim that, filled with hatred for the military for killing Maria, he completed the Ultimate Life Form based on what he remembered and programmed it to carry out his revenge. He also implores the listener to free it.

This speech is quite confusing. We know that Shadow escaped ARK in an escape pod, and that same Shadow was the one freed by Dr. Eggman. But based on his speech, Gerard does not know that Shadow has survived. Surely he would have realised that Shadow had survived if the military had delivered Shadow to him so he could continue his work. And why would the military continue to allow Gerard to work on Shadow if they already percieved him as a threat?

From what I have examined, there are three options. Firstly, that Shadow is the only true Ultimate Life Form and that the doctor improved Shadow even further after he was captured by the military. Secondly, there is a third, more powerful Ultimate Life Form in existance which has not been discovered.