Black Doom

Black Doom (ブラックドゥーム, Burakku Dūmu), is a fictional character and antagonist of the Sonic the Hedgehog series created by Yuji Naka. He is the leader of the Black Arms, the oldest member of his species, and a former partner of Professor Gerald Robotnik. The Black Arms are Black Doom's own spawn and appear to operate with an insect-like hive intelligence, seemingly preventing any attempts to challenge Black Doom for leadership. He presents an almost religious front and shows little respect for humanity due to its sins against each other and its planet.

In fact, his philosophy is little more than egotistical justification for his own dark deeds. Following his return to earth in the present day, he in order to enslave its inhabitants and consume them as food for him and his army. However, but met his defeat at the hands of Shadow the Hedgehog, likely meant that he serves as Shadow's arch-nemesis, similar to what Dr. Eggman is for Sonic. However, the Black Arms survived his defeat due to the existence of a lesser hive mind known as Black Death.

"I gave you life, and yet you continue to defy me, so THIS is how you repay me?! The irony of it all... is that I was the one who had given you life 50 years then... but now,... so be it! I will take that life back, as you shall pay for your ingratitude with relentless pain!"
 * —Black Doom.

Appearance & Biography

 * Voice Actor: Sean Schemmel (English), Ryūzaburō Ōtomo (Japanese), Not Known (Albanian), Not Known (Arabic), Not Known (Basque), Not Known (Brazilian), Not Known (Cantonese), Not Known (Catalan), Not Known (Chinese), Not Known (Dutch), Not Known (Finnish), Not Known (French), Not Known (Galician), Not Known (German), Not Known (Greek), Not Known (Hebrew), Not Known (Hong Kong), Not Known (Hungarian), Not Known (Indonesian), Not Known (Isralian), Not Known (Italian), Not Known (Korean), Not Known (Mandarin), Not Known (Norwegian), Not Known (Polish), Not Known (Portuguese), Not Known (Romanian), Not Known (Russian), Not Known (Serbian), Not Known (Spanish), Not Known (Swedish), Not Known (Tagalog), Not Known (Thai), Not Known (Valencian), Not Known (Brazilian Portuguese), Not Known (European Spanish), Not Known (European Portuguese), Not Known (Latin American Spanish), Not Known (Latin Spanish)

Appearance
In his general appearance, Black Doom is pretty menacing and unaging with his species having otherworldy demon-esque traits. He has a legless body with three red bestial eyes, a set of twin wide horns that have spines on his scalp, three-fingered paws, and no lips. For his attire, he wears a dark colored and gold robe with two drapes hanging from the back, a set of spiked ornaments, and having jewels adorned on a loose necklace. His telepathic voice has an echo-effect to it and he emits an unnatural aura around himself.

The differences is that in cutscenes, his size is about half the same as his own kin but when battling face-to-face, he appears quite larger than that.


 * Hair Color: N/A
 * Skin Color: Black and Red
 * Eye Color: Red-orange
 * Age: 2,000+
 * Birthday: Not Known
 * Height: Not Known
 * Weight: Not Known

Personality
Black Doom is presented as a highly ruthless, sadistic, manipulative, and power-hungry tyrant. He regards humans as pathetic creatures that have led to the destruction of their own planet. Black Doom has neither affection nor sympathy for anybody or anything, including his own army and his creation, Shadow. He gladly took the lives of his own army in order to destroy Central City, the city he choose for the site of the comet when it was teleported down via Chaos Control. Black Doom has a dark lord persona in which he committed horrible atrocities throughout the story, such as attacking six cities and killing millions, blowing up Central City, and torturing the humans and having his army consume their bodies. He also does not forgive any mistakes or failure, no matter how difficult the task on Shadow's part may be.

Black Doom's plans for the planet earth extend much further than simply controlling the planet. His main goal is to take control of the planet and then have him and his armies feed off the humans, which he states are a great energy source for them. According to Doom, once the planet is under his control, the humans will never see the sun again and the planet will cease to be blue. It seems Doom wants to conquer the planet as a step closer to conquering the entire universe. He has no respect for humans, as he sees them as fools who have committed crimes against themselves, and believes that he is doing them a favor by using them as a food supply for his race.

While Doom claims that he has Shadow's best interest at heart, he does not care for him at all and is only interested in his power. He often tried to manipulate Shadow in order to turn him against humanity, but this caused Shadow to see Black Doom as his ultimate enemy in the end. Doom sees Shadow as his gateway to the Chaos Emeralds and his unusual skills would make him a great addition to the army. Doom often used Shadow to do tasks that would give him an advantage, such as destroying the human's data servers so information could no longer be transferred among the humans, awaking the temples to be used as weapons, and even attempting to assassinate the president.

Unlike other Sonic villains such as Eggman, Black Doom is completely devoid of any sense of humor. He is quite arrogant, claiming that he not only rules the universe, but that he is the strongest being in the universe as well (to the point of saying he is immortal). Despite all this power, he is still defeated by Super Shadow, which ironically was his fault, as he left the Chaos Emeralds with Shadow when he warped away to transform to Devil Doom, believing their power was useless against him. He reconsiders this belief during the final battle, admitting he'd underestimated the Emeralds' powers.

Family

 * Black Arms ("Offsprings")
 * Black Death
 * Eclipse the Darkling
 * Dark Arms
 * Shadow the Hedgehog (biological "son"/biologically engineered with the aid of Black Doom's DNA)

Neutral

 * Gerald Robotnik

Rivals

 * Metarex
 * Dark Oak
 * Pale Bayleaf
 * Black Narcissus
 * Red Pine

Enemies

 * Eggman Empire
 * Dr. Eggman
 * Bocoe
 * Decoe
 * Bokkun
 * Orbot
 * Cubot
 * G.U.N.
 * Team Sonic
 * Sonic the Hedgehog
 * Knuckles the Echidna
 * Miles "Tails" Prower
 * Rouge the Bat
 * The President
 * Team Chaotix
 * Vector the Crocodile
 * Espio the Chameleon
 * Charmy the Bee
 * Amy Rose the Hedgehog
 * All of humanity

Abilities and Powers
Whilst few would challenge Black Doom, he has numerous abilities which make him a fearsome foe for those who would dare. For important long range communication, Black Doom can send his third eye (simply known as "Doom's Eye") forth to do various tasks that would require him while he is away. Doom's Eye can speak, and can project holograms of Black Doom, which possess many of Doom's abilities, as well.

Black Doom can levitate/float which seems to be his primary method of mobility as he appears to have no legs, even when transformed into Devil Doom. One of his main abilities is to use the Chaos Emeralds to induce Chaos Control, which he can use with just as much proficiency as Shadow. He could transport Shadow to various locations on earth and even into cyberspace, and when using all seven Chaos Emeralds he could teleport the Black Comet down to earth from space. He also seems to be able to phase right through solid objects.

Black Doom possesses a large amount of mystical abilities. He can telepathically give someone like Shadow the illusion of going back to another time and place, and can sense energies, a person's presence, and their inner thoughts and emotions. He also possesses a mental link with Shadow due to Shadow being created from him; he failed in his attempt to use mind control on Shadow. He is also capable of telepathy, as there were a few incidents where he communicated with Shadow or multiple people yet was no where to be seen, and he also uses telepathy through Doom's Eye.

While engaged in battle, Black Doom can summon and throw flaming meteors towards enemies with devastating force and use a vertical disc attack that can slice partially through large obstacles. His aim with these weapons is recognized by many characters as having deadly precision, along with "swift strike", a long, sideways, light-blade boomerang which spins around at floor level and bounces against obstacles.

Attacks

 * Chaos Control
 * Swift Strike

Miscellaneous Skills

 * Levitation
 * Energy projection
 * Fire beam emission
 * Meteor summoning
 * Intangibility
 * Hologram projection
 * Anatomical liberation and reattachment
 * Immortality
 * Hive mind-control over the Black Arms
 * Chaos Powers
 * Devil Doom transformation

Devil Doom

 * Main article: Devil Doom

Devil Doom (デビル ドゥーム, Debiru Dūmu) is the true form of Black Doom, who appears as the final boss of Shadow the Hedgehog. Black Doom can transform seemingly without needing the Chaos Emeralds or any other external power source to do so. While he is in Devil Doom form, he still can use the Chaos Emeralds for Chaos Control, but adds the abilities to seemingly telekinetically rip up entire roads and buildings and hurl them at Super Shadow. He can also breathe fire and summon floating, rock-like spheres that fire lasers.

Early Life
Black Doom claims that he and the Black Arms have visited earth for at least as far back as two thousand years. It is currently unknown just how much of an effect he has had on earth's history, although the bird-shaped ruins in Glyphic Canyon and Sky Troops are revealed to be flying temples transported to earth by Black Doom over two thousand years ago to be used as weapons by the Black Arms for taking over the world.

Creating Shadow
Fifty years prior to the world's present, Black Doom was approached by Professor Gerald Robotnik, who had reached a dead end in his Project Shadow. After learning about Professor Robotnik's intentions, Black Doom formed a sort of alliance with him. He and Gerald worked together on the project, in order to expand Gerald's research and help Black Doom retrieve the Chaos Emeralds. Seeking to create an agent to prepare earth for the eventual invasion of the Black Arms, Black Doom willingly provided Gerald with some of his genetic material. This agent would be created from Black Doom's blood, giving him access to Black Doom's Chaos Control abilities.

The result was the creation of the Ultimate Lifeform, Shadow, whom Black Doom hoped would prove the undoing of his intended victims on Sonic's World. However, Gerald realized the threat his new alliance presented to earth and secretly planned to use Shadow and the newly built Eclipse Cannon to destroy the Black Comet when it made its next regular fifty year visit. However, soon after the events detailed in Sonic Adventure 2 occurred, Gerald's initial plan was forgotten as he sunk into grief and madness after his granddaughter, Maria Robotnik, died during the raid on the ARK to shut down Project Shadow by GUN.

Invasion of Sonic's world
Black Doom appeared at the beginning of the game as a hologram projected by Doom's Eye (his third eye) to inform Shadow the Hedgehog as he was thinking to himself about his troubled past. Black Doom claimed that "the day of reckoning" has arrived. Just then, a massive invasion of the Black Arms began as a vortex of dark, swirling storm clouds drop Black Arms soldiers on Westopolis. Shadow figures that Black Doom will reveal his past if he follows Black Doom's orders, so he rushes into the city to seek out Black Doom. Shadow listens to Black Doom all around the game. Black Doom uses Shadow throughout the game in order to retrieve the seven Chaos Emeralds for him. He commanded his army to attack six major cities around the world in search of the emeralds and in order to weaken earth's defenses. He continuously pressures Shadow to denounce the home he has made on earth and swear allegiance to the Black Arms and their goals. He often tries to accomplish this by trying to manipulate Shadow into believing that no good can come from the continued existence of humanity, offering to tell him about his past, and even goes so far as to put Shadow into a recreation of what happened to him on the Space Colony ARK 50 years ago to better justify the evil humans are capable of. Black Doom's plans included taking control of the ARK for his nefarious desires. Once the ARK was seized control of, Black Doom used the Eclipse Cannon to destroy Central City, capital of the United Federation, where the President was currently residing. He did this so that it may be used as the site for the Black Comet to take root with the planet. His other plans included strengthening his armies by reawakening the temples, which were actually flying fortresses left behind from a past age. Also, he planned on destroying the human's data networks, several military bases, their world leaders, and planting Black Arms plants around the world to slowly transform the planet into a blood-ridden wasteland.

Legacy
Before his apparent death, Black Doom telepathically reached out to one of his subordinates on a different planetary conquest, Black Death, informing him of what events had transpired and leaving the role of leadership and the fate of their species with him. Black Death then lead a new Black Arms colony to Sonic's World in another Black Comet for a second invasion.

Notes & Trivia

 * Black Doom (as Devil Doom) is the first and only villain Super Shadow battles and defeats on his own.
 * Black Doom, and likely the rest of the Black Arms, do not know what lightning is. During the thunderstorm segment of Sky Troops, Doom's Eye will see the lightning strikes in the distance and comment "What is that massive electric shock? Is it an attack from one of the battleships?".
 * Black Doom still appears to aid Shadow even when he takes the hero's side of the story up to the point where he fights him, despite Doom's stated intolerance for insubordination. This is due to the game's choose-your-own-path structure, which often causes storyline inconsistencies.
 * Black Doom's clothing and necklace somewhat bear a resemblance to Wizeman the Wicked from another Sonic Team franchise, NiGHTS into Dreams. They also share a "blood relation" to their respective protagonists. In Wizeman's appearance a few years later, in NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams, he had a voice very similar to Black Doom. The two also share a similar power, in that Black Doom can send his third eye to watch people, whereas Wizeman uses one of his many hands, which have eyes in the palms.
 * The way Devil Doom falls after he is defeated by Shadow is similar to Metal Overlord's defeat in Sonic Heroes. Although Metal Sonic has survived, Black Doom's fate in the battle remains a mystery.