Tails is one of the cutest characters in the Sonic franchise — but his life story has been anything but warm and fuzzy. From losing his parents to drowning in a swamp and even having his soul punched out, you won't believe what Tails has been through!
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00:00Tails is one of the cutest characters in the Sonic franchise, but his life story has been
00:05anything but warm and fuzzy.
00:07From losing his parents to drowning in a swamp and even having his soul punched out, you
00:12won't believe what Tails has been through.
00:15One common thread throughout various versions of the Sonic canon is how Tails got his nickname.
00:21Admittedly, this isn't the kind of thing that you'd think would actually need an origin
00:24story for, since there's a pretty direct line from having two tails to people calling you
00:29Tails.
00:30But if there's one thing you should know about Sonic, it's that no detail is too small to
00:34have an entire saga written about it.
00:37In real life, there's actually a pretty interesting story here.
00:40Originally, designer Yasushi Yamaguchi created Tails when Sonic Team decided that their spiny
00:45blue hero needed a sidekick.
00:48He wanted to just call him Miles Prower.
00:50The rest of Sonic Team, however, wanted a simpler name that was more reflective of the
00:55But eventually, they compromised and decided that Tails would be a nickname.
00:59And thus, gaming's most awful pun would remain as the handle his parents hung on him.
01:04Well, what's your name, pal?
01:06Miles Prower.
01:07Uh, but my friends call me Tails.
01:10In the British Sonic the Comic, however, along with Sonic X and a few other versions of the
01:15story, Tails was the name he got from bullies who picked on him for being a, quote,
01:19"...twin-tailed freak."
01:21In other words, Tails' name has the exact same origin as Daredevil from Marvel Comics,
01:26along with the added bonus that it's the only thing that Sonic, Tails' best friend and hero
01:30ever calls him.
01:32When it comes to referencing childhood trauma, Sega really does
01:35"...what Nintendon't."
01:37It probably won't surprise you to learn that the most complicated version of Sonic's history
01:41comes from the 290-issue comic book series that was published by Archie Comics from 1993
01:48to 2017.
01:50The comics originally started off as nothing more than a bunch of simple, cartoony gag
01:54strips.
01:55However, it wasn't long before Sonic's popularity led the series to have the kind of ridiculous,
02:00echidna-filled continuity that makes X-Men look like Nancy Drew.
02:04The original story of how Dr. Robotnik came into power is the kind of complex backstory
02:10that requires you to go at least five pages deep into a fan wiki if you really want to
02:14understand it.
02:15Trust us on that one, we know from experience, but here's the Sparknose version.
02:20After centuries of ill will, there was a five-year conflict between mutated humans and anthropomorphic
02:26animals called the Great War.
02:28During the course of the conflict, Robotnik rose to power as a human traitor who encouraged
02:34the big-eyed, fuzzy creatures to commit a full-on genocide.
02:37The day the war ended, he launched a full-scale coup, after which he took over the entire
02:42planet, installed himself as its absolute dictator, and used massive factories to convert
02:48animals into his obedient robot slaves.
02:51That's the context for Miles Tails' prowl's birth, like, that specific day.
02:56In the canon of the Archie series, Tails was born on the day of Robotnik's takeover.
03:00This means he has never, not for one day in his life, known a world without endless conflict.
03:06The horrors of war didn't end with Dr. Robotnik's coup d'etat, and neither did their toll on
03:12One of the first casualties of the New Order was Armideus Prower, Tails' father.
03:17At the moment of his son's birth, he was tossed into a roboticizer and turned into a cyborg.
03:23Before too long, Robotnik's Swatbot forces also showed up and dragged his wife, Rosemary,
03:28off for a similar fate, thus leaving Tails to be raised in an orphanage with the many
03:33other children who had lost their parents in the war.
03:36Except that Armideus and Rosemary didn't actually die.
03:39Instead, they were abducted at the last minute by aliens, who then kept them out in space
03:44for the next decade.
03:45That is, until Sonic stumbled across them while he was goofing around in the stars.
03:50Tails grew up merely believing they were dead, which, in its own way, might be worse.
03:54Rather than being allowed to deal with the loss and move on, Tails is instead dragged
03:58right back into those feelings of abandonment once his parents turn up.
04:02For all the good he's done alongside Sonic, his existence truly is a tragic one.
04:08The comics are far from the only version of Tails and his tragic origin, though.
04:12There are plenty of different takes, likely otherwise kid-friendly and incredibly bizarre
04:17adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog cartoon.
04:20It aired in 1993, starred Jaleel White as Sonic, and was apparently made by people who
04:25decided that just having dead parents wasn't quite bad enough for everyone's favorite two-tailed fox.
04:31In the second episode of the cartoon, Tails' new home, it's revealed that Tails had been
04:35homeless for quite some time.
04:37He wandered alone through the strange wilderness of Mobius.
04:40Just before meeting Sonic, he attempted to live with a family of birds because, since
04:44he could fly, he assumed he was one.
04:47In response, the birds physically threw him out of their nest, sending him crashing down
04:51onto Sonic, who just happened to be passing by.
04:54The good news, of course, is that this first meeting eventually led to Tails finding some
04:58form of acceptance and family with Sonic, leading to a long, enduring friendship.
05:03The bad news is that it took a while to actually get to that point, for after Tails relates
05:08his heartbreaking tale of woe, Sonic's immediate response was,
05:11"...well, I can't slow down for stuff like that."
05:14"...gotta juice, kid!"
05:16Sonic then runs off, leaving Tails, who is a straight-up baby, abandoned in the middle
05:20of the road to fend for himself.
05:23It's only after Tails proves he can keep up with Sonic by flying that the Hedgehog agrees
05:26to give him a home.
05:27Good thing he was useful to someone, right?
05:30If you think Tails' origin story is bad in the regular continuity, just wait until they
05:35start diving into alternate universes.
05:38That's where things really get dark.
05:40That's not exactly unexpected, though.
05:42Most alternate universe stories that you find in comics tend to present the main timeline
05:46as the only one where things even came close to working out okay.
05:50Pretty much every issue of Marble's What If series, for instance, ends in misery and despair
05:55— even the one about what would happen if the Punisher's family hadn't died.
05:59Spoiler warning.
06:01No, no, no, no, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait...
06:03They die anyway.
06:08For the British Sonic the Comic, the starting point is already grim.
06:11In this continuity, Tails' parents are very much alive, but they're in another dimension,
06:16with Tails trapped in Sonic's native reality instead.
06:20When that comic did a standard issue, What If The Bad Guy 1 story called Robotnik Reigns
06:24Supreme, however, it got way worse.
06:26In this reality, Tails still found himself transported to Sonic's dimension, and plopped
06:31down in the swamp from which Sonic rescued him.
06:34The thing is, it's true it's a wonderful life fashion.
06:36Sonic wasn't there to save him since he never existed, thus leaving Tails to drown in dirty
06:41swamp water without anyone ever knowing he was there.
06:45Have you ever wondered if there's such a thing as a fate worse than death?
06:49Well, you will if you read Sonic Universe, the archie comic that's focused on the larger
06:53supporting cast of Sonic rather than the speedy blue hedgehog himself.
06:58Not because the comic is bad in and of itself, but because the series actually raises that
07:02very question.
07:04Sonic Universe issue 25 kicked off a story about Silver, one of many different hedgehogs
07:09that have spin-dashed their way into the franchise over the years.
07:12Silver is a time traveler, and through a series of overly complicated events, he finds himself
07:17in an extremely bad timeline known as Dark Mobius.
07:21In this reality, Knuckles went full Doctor Doom, now calling himself Enerjack, and set
07:26about vaporizing Eggman and taking over the planet for himself.
07:30His preferred method of dealing with his enemies was, as you might expect from a comic for
07:34children, literally punching their souls out of their bodies and then displaying their
07:38lifeless husks as trophies.
07:40And guess who one of his victims was?
07:42That's right, Tails.
07:44So what's worse, living with the pain of being abandoned as a child, drowning in a swamp,
07:49or having your soul punched out by a bright red echidna?
07:52They're all about as equally depressing, so take your pick.
07:55Okay, so the comics can get dark, but those are just weird offshoots of the games, right?
08:00For most fans, it's the games that develop the Sonic mythos in ways that really matter,
08:05so all of the tragedy and drama that's been used to flesh out the characters in external
08:08media doesn't really count if you're a purist.
08:12It's not like there's a game where, for example, Tails is forced to watch Sonic die and then
08:16has a complete nervous breakdown while blaming himself for it, unless, of course, you count
08:202017's Sonic Forces, where Sonic forces him to do pretty much that.
08:25This all happens in the tutorial level, no less.
08:27The game opens with a new villain called Infinite showing up and joining forces with Eggman's
08:32army.
08:33As his name implies, Infinite has an incredible amount of power, and at the start of the game
08:37he utterly destroys Sonic in a fight.
08:39As that happens, Tails can only look on helplessly, convinced that he's just watched Sonic die.
08:45That's not the case, of course.
08:46Very few developers kill off the character whose name is literally in the title of the
08:50game.
08:51But with Sonic captured and apparently tortured by Infinite for six months, all of Sonic's
08:55friends truly believe he's dead.
08:57"'Sonic is gone, Amy, and Tails is...Tails has just lost it.'"
09:02Tails, of course, takes it the worst.
09:04When the Resistance gathers together after the six-month time jump, there's a conversation
09:08about how weak their forces are now that Sonic's dead, and how Tails has really lost his edge.
09:14When we finally see Tails, he's standing in a ruined city, trying to reprogram Eggman's
09:19robots while talking to himself about how he, quote, wasn't smart enough to save his
09:24friend.
09:25That's pretty grim by even Dark Souls standards, let alone Sonic the Hedgehog.