Okay, this story is a big one. The art is still iffy, but this was the first strip to be written by Nigel Kitching, who would become head writer and bring STC into something to rival the very best video game themed comics of the time. This isn’t Sonic (obviously), but a Badnik meant to look like him and he is fucking FREAKED
Issue 4 was published on 10 July 1993, so this was of course before Metal Sonic, and even before Pseudo Sonic (the AoStH episode was released in September 1993, and his appearance in Archie wasn’t until 1994). So besides Sonic 2’s Mecha Sonic, this was the first Sonic robot, and the first one to actually be blue. This is also the first story to take place in the Emerald Hill Zone, which would become the main zone where Sonic and his friends would live from here on out