Classic Badnik

Badniks were small robots created by Dr. Ivo Robotnik, and later by Dr. Eggman, with the purpose of disposing of Sonic the Hedgehog. Badniks also seemed to be sort of pets to the villainous tyrant, as all of the Robians and SWATbots were mindless pawns. Even when working together, the Badniks proved no match for Sonic or the Freedom Fighters. After the demise of Robotnik, several of the surviving Badniks continued to thrive on the Island of Misfit Badniks. However, after being discovered by Sonic and later the Forty Fathom Freedom Fighters the majority of them were compacted and seemingly destroyed. However, they later reemerged to menace Sonic once again in a new world.

Fighting Sonic
In 3235, the Badniks were Robotnik's main bots used against Sonic and his friends, along with SWATbots. In fact, the Badnik Crabmeat seemed to act as Robotnik's main lackey, sometimes having higher rank than Snively. Some of the missions Badniks were employed in included the Buzzbombers attack on Knothole, Burrobot's attempt to destroy the Great Forest and Scratch and Grounder's attempt to kill Sonic. The Badniks also participated in the Robotropolis Olympic Games, in which all of them managed to beat each member of the Knothole Freedom Fighters at each particular sport, until Sonic got his real sneakers back and won the games. The Badniks were also used in the destruction of the Mobius Natural Park. (StH: #1, #2, #3, #5, #7)

Robo Hobo Jungle
Following the incident of Sonic's roboticization into Mecha Sonic, the blue blur was given a time frame to prove his innocents before being sentenced to imprisonment. Sonic went to the Robo Hobo Jungle to find information on Nack the Weasel's whereabouts from the obsolete and unused Badniks. Rather than simply giving Sonic the information he wanted, the badniks all converged on Sonic, hoping to redeem themselves in the eyes of their creator by taking Sonic down once and for all. Despite all of them converging on Sonic at once, the Badniks were no match and were taken out of commission. After threatening to drag Caterkiller by his face across the ground at sonic speeds, the bot informed Sonic of Nack's location. (StH: #40)

Island of Misfit Badniks
During a stroll, Sonic found one of Robotnik's old lookout posts, which had the blueprints for an island where the old badniks were repaired/retired. Sonic decided to investigate, and was promptly attacked. He took down most of the misfit badniks, but was evenly matched against Pseudo Sonic, until the two decided to ram each other, and caused the island to sink. Unknown to Sonic, these rogue badniks simply moved the island underwater. (StH #170)

Later, the misfit badniks learned that Pseudo Sonic could be enlarged, and attempted to do that. Unfortunately for them, the Forty Fathom Freedom Fighters fought off all of the Badniks except for Burrobot, who woke up an enlarged Pseudo Sonic, which led to Pseudo Sonic defeating everyone- until Big Fluke sat on him and crushed all of the badniks and the island into a cube. Only Coconuts managed to escape. (StH: #185, #187)

Employed by Mammoth Mogul
Badnik refugees from the Robo Hobo Jungle were later taken in by Mammoth Mogul to working for him at his new Casion Night Club, along with the only misfit Badnik still functioning Coconuts, who was now working as a butler directly for Mogul while his old partners, Scratch and Grounder, had jobs as a concierge and chef respectively. (StH: #187, #188)

Re-emergence
When Dr. Eggman resetted the timeline of Mobius, he made use of badniks, each of contained an encased animal that powered it. This was in stark contrast to roboticizing the creatures into Robians, that were first implemented by the prime version of Dr. Robotnik. (StH: #226)

Background information

 * Badniks were originally basic enemies appearing in some of the very first Sonic games.
 * The classic Badniks have the ninth longest running "non-appearance gap" of 130 issues (StH: #40-#170).