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Archie Sonic Main Discussion


Toby

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Random thoughts as usual (I know I skipped last week, Musical Spectacular kept me busy lol, might get back around to it at another point).

-Snively comments that you'd think Eggman would just sick an army onto Sonic, but I feel like it defeats the purpose and actually lends itself closer to Eggman's failings. It was commonly agreed that Metal Sonic in Archie was pretty much a huge jobber who got his ass kicked and was brought out only to get destroyed, to the point he was practically being mass-produced by Eggman (To the point Metal Scourge was essentially a quick paintjob recolour of a pre-existing Metal Sonic unit). 

Metal Sonic only really became a threat when Eggman stopped mass-producing them and started just having one Metal Sonic, and continuing to repair and enhance it every time he fell. It was of course in response to a mandate by SEGA saying that there was to be just one Metal, and he had to stop being so effortlessly destroyed, but still, that's how it played out in-universe. Kind of funny that something that was supposed to be a comment by Snively about Eggman's intelligence and sanity was a big backfire.

-I keep saying it, but seeing Eggman continually just completely losing his marbles is still really cool. He's at the point that he's not even listening to reality anymore and tuning Snively out. Losing his 'victory', losing his empire, losing his Chaos Battery, and being reduced to just a handful of weak soldiers just shows how absolutely desperate Eggman is at this point. There's a line by Sonic in #200 that really sums the situation up (paraphrasing) - "How can you say you rule the planet when you're fighting every waking moment of your life to keep control of it?". It's a great build-up imo.

-Scourge and Sonic trying to sell each other out, and Sonic technically being the bigger asshole in the situation is one of the funniest things in this series so far. 

-I'm kind of eh on the traitor plotline myself. I really enjoy Silver in the comic, and I think they did way better than 06 did with Silver, but the plotline got tired and became obvious, and it got annoying how Silver began accusing everyone even when said answer became obvious to everyone.

-I know that Scourge says Anti Rob'O is dead, but honestly - part of me would feel like Anti Rob'O would end up taking on King John's role in the legend, and end up being a selfish and greedy king exploiting the poor for money. Would be interesting if Scourge had to fight Anti Rob'O to take control of the planet.

-It's honestly amazing how Scourge acts like a big man and mocks and taunts everyone, but as soon as Rosy enters the picture, it's either total fear, or just begging for her to go away and leave him alone.

-Super Scrouge is an insane idea, and I have no idea why no one even tried to use it before that point (Well, we do - because it was Penders and god forbid Penders have a decent idea for Anti Sonic). Everyone else already covered what I love about the design - the Metal Sonic eyes, the colour scheme, the outfit alterations, it's just neat all around.

-Tails' expression in the background of the first page in Hedgehog Havoc Part 2 is just a perfect Surprised Pikachu face tbh.

-The page itself is perfect. From the horrified expressions on both the Freedom Fighters and the Suppression Squad, to all the defeated hedgehogs on the ground, to Super Scourge holding Sonic by the throat. Even the caption box is just awesome by titling him 'King Super Scourge'.

-The way Scourge just tears through everyone goes to show how he just embodies Sonic's worst traits as well as all his good ones turned on his head. This is pure Sonic snark and wit, but it's different. Intentionally trying to hurt others, poking at their insecurities and their wants, brutalising them all the way. It's terrifying. Between him slapping Tails, threatening Ant and Patch, and so on.

-I find it interesting that the comic shows one of the biggest differences between Tails and Miles here. Miles acts adult, and tries to act like he's better than Tails in every way. He thinks he's smarter, he thinks he's more mature, and he thinks he's stronger, and the comic did a good job at showing it...

...yet when the going got tough, Tails manned up and saw that Sonic was in trouble, and immediately flew in to fight against someone he knew he stood no chance against, but still wanted to try to stop. Miles instead acted like a total coward, begging for mercy and claiming he had no hand in backstabbing Scourge. For all his boasts, Tails was brave, and Miles was a coward.

-Ngl, part of me wishes they used the logical argument of "You have to destroy Sonic, right? Well, Scourge is technically Sonic", and Metal just goes with that.

-Sally even thinking that dog-piling an invincible form would do diddly is beyond ridiculous.

-I think Scourge's mad rants and villain speeches is where we get the best show of who he really is. He's genuinely offended by the fact that Sonic wouldn't join him. Actually offended that he thought he might actually be able to find someone to relate to with Sonic, and Sonic threw it in his face. I think Scourge might've actually legitimately wanted Sonic to join him because despite thinking Sonic's his rival, if he could get Sonic to switch sides, he would have someone just like him, and to a narcissist like Scourge, that's the best friend of all.

But on top of that, he rants about how he just wants to destroy both Mobius and Moebius, and find a planet who actually respects him. After all is said and done, Scourge is still that little Sonic tugging at his dad's cape to try get attention. He basically just admits there and then, this is him still tugging to try get some kind of attention, some kind of admiration, at least some form of respect, and he's so desperate, he's willing to burn everything in his way to get it. This is the kind of things that makes Scourge such an interesting villain and contrast to Sonic.

-Miles being a figurehead of authority is a really interesting way to take things, honestly. It goes to show how he uses his intellect to manipulate his way into power. Although I'm surprised at how quickly they accept that Miles is the head honcho, given how quickly he was to cower in front of Scourge.

-Yeah, I'm just gonna be frank and say I don't like the council drama whatsoever. These bunch of dipshits were ready, willing, and able to let Scourge and co do as they damn well pleased right in their back doorstep, while going on the offensive against Eggman who's already extremely weakened and not able to do much of anything. Now here they are with a full issue dedicated to berating Sally and Elias for having half a mind to say "oh hey maybe those powerful bad guys in our own base could cause trouble" for it. 

Then you have Hamlin. Who explicitly basically abuses his power to get payback on Sally because he feels slighted as a Backup Freedom Fighter member. The fact that the council not only acts like such a huge roadblock for the group, but their members can vindictively decide to try and fuck over the Freedom Fighters like this is particularly infuriating. I really can't see how these guys can be considered any better than Max's bullshit. Rotor and Chuck are at least two shining beacons amongst them, but that's about it.

I do at least concede that seeing Sally reason with them and ultimately make the council take the right decision here is a good scene, but I don't think it actively should have gotten to this point to begin with, and it's only gonna get worse from here when Naugus comes into the scene.  

Hamlin here tries to say he's doing this to ensure things get done correctly, but the fact he's vindictively abusing his power for personal matters like this, and letting huge threats go around if it just means he gets to stonewall Sally and have some petty, pathetic power over her as a means of payback, I can't really say I sympathise with him, frankly. Feeling forgotten is one thing, and that sucks, but that doesn't excuse the bad actions he's doing now. He's blatantly abusing his power as a means of taking revenge on Sally, and it's really not cool IMO. Hamlin wasn't even really right. All he was right about was Sally went against the council's wishes, but again - how's that any better from Max ordering the FF to do dumb, awful, horrible stuff and them rebelling against him? Hamlin might be right that they didn't follow the wishes of the council, but that doesn't change the fact they made an awful decision that was about to cause heaps of trouble, and Hamlin got pissed about it because he felt slighted.

-I definitely agree that Zonic's excuse about why Eggman couldn't be taken was pretty dumb. I think it was Ian's attempt to clarify that Robo-Robotnik was pretty much 1:1 the original, and we should just treat him as such, which isn't a bad idea. But I would rather he just left it instead of making Zonic look like a jackass about it. Luckily for anyone who disliked that, the zone cops won't be getting off lightly for it.

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From what I've gathered, Eggman Nega's never been available to be used in the comics because Sega says no, but since they adapted Rush into the comics, he still exists and does stuff while not onscreen.

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At last, we're at the point in which I first discovered the Archie Sonic series and began following it. And evidently, Hedgehog Havoc was also many other's introduction to Archie Sonic lol Now I'm wondering if Hedgehog Havoc was a "newbie boom" for Archie Sonic, much in the same way SA2 and Heroes were the "newbie boom" for Sonic in the 2000's. Which makes sense, seeing how this story deliberately has all the hedgehog characters together (hedgehog characters being the most popular among fans), and does feature Silver as his formal debut. Though it's also hilarious, since Part 1 alone shows Sonic's robotic father, the conflict taking place in an "evil mirror" universe, and three of the hedgehogs being Sonic and Amy's Anti counterparts and Robin Hood the Hedgehog (who is also Amy's cousin). I can tell you, all that stuff took me aback lol 

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As Rosy tries to smash Scourge, Sonic earns both my and Amy’s ire by saying that she’s reminding him of his Amy. She naturally threatens to smash him if he keeps talking shit and Sonic with a shit-eating grin on his face just tells Amy to go help out Buns.

Ugh. I always hated that exchange of dialogue, and nearly came to hate the comics (and Ian himself) for this and similar moments. As bad as Amy's rep was at this time, due to SEGA's fumbling of her character, the one silver lining for us Amy fans was that Sonic didn't hate her like all the detractors thought. Flustered by her advances, and fearful when she's angered, for sure but never outright dislike. But then here comes the official comics having Sonic say "I take Amy's words with a shaker of salt" (essentially saying he's highly skeptical of anything Amy says), getting angry with Sally for partnering Amy with him for the Moebius invasion, and now stating "Gee, this psychotic hammer-wielding girl who can't catch a hint really reminds me of someone I know." Even if that last one is just Sonic playfully ribbing Amy, it nonetheless gave credence to the falsehood of Sonic disliking Amy. 🙄 Now, of course, I know Ian gets a whole lot better with Amy (and how Sonic regards her), but I still wish he didn't do this stupid shit to begin with...

Regarding Silver, if you ask me, I'd rather there be no time travel at all. No matter what mechanics are at play, time travel just leads to all sorts of confusion and time paradoxes, infinite time loops, and other things I'd like to not think about. With Silver being psychic, and future sight being a consistent ability of psychics, why not have him foresee future disasters and subsequently attempt to prevent them? This way you still have the "saving the future" niche for Silver but without the hassle of time travel, while also allowing Silver to be more readily available in the cast (or at least be so without causing headaches). 

As for the "traitor subplot", I pretty much agree with you: it's a solid idea that ended up becoming annoying later down the line (and ending on a then predictable and, for me, exasperating note). As of this issue, though, I thought it was a nice way of bringing over Silver's "time traveler out to kill Sonic" thing from Sonic 06. Just instead of trying to kill the Iblis Trigger, Silver was out to eliminate the founding Freedom Fighter who turns traitor and brings ruin to the world, and his sources pointed to Sonic, which turned out to be false. But I can hardly blame Silver for attempting to kill Sonic despite it being on a hunch: if I had grown up in a doomed world, which available sources say was due to this one guy, and I had the ability to time travel... Well, I'd do whatever it takes to undo my destroyed world. If anything, going from this logic, I found the way Silver was dissuaded from killing Sonic to be rushed in a bad way. All Rob says is "Sure, Sonic is powerful but that's outmatched by his heroism" and then Scourge spin dashes Silver in the stomach, and that's enough? Like, it would be more convincing if Amy and even Shadow at least backed up Rob's words about Sonic, and Sonic maybe then saves Silver's life despite the attempt on his life, which would make someone like Silver realize "Okay, this guy is definitely not the traitorous type". Although I think Silver's debut would've been better served as its own story rather than part of Hedgehog Havoc, that way it would've been the focus rather than a "distraction" in the fight against Scourge. But of course, I can understand that Ian wanted to do this "all hedgehog brawl" before Scourge would be put in interdimensional jail for an indeterminant amount of time and Silver had yet to be introduced in the comic yet, so may as well have him debut in that story. 

Don't have much to say about Super Scourge other than it's a cool design and was indeed a fearsome foe, due to the invulnerability. Though I was always bothered by the whole "Sonic gets a small boost upon powering down from Super Sonic", cause that's blatantly untrue in the games. As you pointed out, Unleashed had Sonic fall unconscious from exhaustion after running out his Super form. Shadow sure as hell didn't get a boost at the end of SA2. And taking actual gameplay into consideration, you become VERY vulnerable on running out the Super Form since you're then at zero rings (i.e. one hit away from death). I think it would've made more sense for Scourge's Super form to have a shorter duration, thus all Sonic had to do was dodge his attacks until he became vulnerable again. But then, that's not nearly as cool, so... I'll accept it lol And perhaps the "small boost" was established as true in the comic continuity (have yet to really look at all Super Sonic moments in previous issues). 

I want to say things about the Council of Acorn and the Zone Cops, but I've already typed so much over a long period of time, and it's getting late in my area >.< I'll just say that I agree with the overall consensus of fans regarding the Council being infuriating and ineffective, while also needlessly ruining Rosemary's character by having her be one of its more obstructive members (only less so in comparison to the vindictive Hamlin). Sure, they made good points at times and allowed for conflict necessary for stories, but they're ultimately more frustrating than enjoyable conflict. Which is a shame, as I know from BumbleKast that Ian intended for the council to be more nuanced than they turned out, and we probably would've gotten some kind of resolution to them had the reboot not needed to occur. But what's done is done. And for the Zone Cops... Well, okay, I got nothing ^_^; They existed, and that's all I feel about them and their strange little world.

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I can't really agree on Silver's actions being considered rational, even given the position that he's in. Whether or not his actions are understandable, however, might be a different argument all together. I do think he'd be a legitimately, almost mentally unhinged person if he just ignored the possibility that more research might be necessary after what took place there though. If he can time travel now, the barin records of the future are going to serve as less and less of a plausible excuse going forward and thankfully he does end up using the fact that he's in the past to his advantage eventually.

What Rob said wasn't all that happened after all. He didn't immediately decide to just leave in his warp ring then and there. After Rob said his piece, Scourge attacked him and then Sonic rallyed everyone together with the promise that both Metal and Silver could settle things with him after he was dealt with and they agreed. Then Super Scourge happened and all hell broke loose and then Sonic stopped him. I feel like that was when he finally decided to stand down and agreed with Rob's asertion enough to go and at least do more research. When he left, he very much still looked like he hadn't crossed Sonic off the list just yet.

Calling out his behavior as silly isn't me saying it's necessarily a bad start to this conflict but it's the inciting incident for how things will continue and I'm currently recalling the continuation as something a tad frustrating.

As for time travel, again, I feel like a lot of these issues would easily be fixed if he was from an alternate future and he was just looking for how to save his own timeline through observing anothers. I don't want to divorce time travel from Silver's character because it's such an integral part of who he is. It's not just the core of his character but it's all over his design too. I'd rather they just go the route that's the least hard to fuck up with it.

Lastly, as for the council, I have zero interest in defending them since whether or not you enjoy how they stir up conflict for the heroes comes down to your tolerance level and whether or not you're a fan of a specific type of conflict. 

I was not back when I read this initially. I had zero tolerance for it to the point where I ignored a lot of their scenes and got really mad when a certain scene happens down the line... but I did enjoy, and still do enjoy this scene. It was the first (and probably the only time based on memory) where I felt the back and forth was well done and well argued in such a way that it reminded me of an Ace Attorney scene. Seeing the hero actually overcome it by simply being persuasive was a nice touch too.

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My frustrations with the council lie in the very fact they made them obvious strawmen, mostly just characters to act as incompetent obstructions (and in cases like Hamlin outright admit they were just in it for petty bullshit) and the Freedom Fighters were perfectly entitled to ignore and show distain for. They may as well have just kept Max around for that job. Nothing really changed. Freedom Fighters push for someone to take power and then regret it when they turn out to be a delusional hinderance.

The idea of an even bigger 'rules lawyer' than Sally being critical of Sonic and even HER way of doing things was an interesting dynamic if they had let them have an ACTUAL POINT SOMETIMES, especially since SHE was the one who inducted them in the first place, very much implying she just expected them to be her yes men. Again I feel it's a shame they always debunked the concept of Sally ever getting valid criticism, only SHE is allowed to be Sonic's biggest critic, when she takes risks or breaks her own adherence to caution and strategies it is perfectly okay and people are just nitpicking or even being spiteful by implying she just MIGHT be a hypocrite.

My comfort with political debate in the Sonic franchise of all things is wearying in the first place. I think if they weren't even going to let the council be effective anyway, they may as well have just made them comic relief or something. At least they might be entertaining that way instead of just a dull and expositional 'never question the main characters' plot device.

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Wow, a bunch of fresh stuff in just a couple (actually 3) issues...

Hedgehog Havoc: Awesome couple of issues and great ending overall to the best Archie Arc ever :). I would've preferred Silver's introduction in a dedicated arc, but... eh, whatever, it worked kinda alright here.

Silver and the traitor: Actually, I think that the idea of having *SPOILER" as the traitor because of the circumstances was quite neat. Mainly because with the premise that the FF are good, it was quite difficult to make for a believable traitor. Of course, for us who followed the book closely it was quite evident (though, I'd like to know how many of those who NOW are saying "I knew it since the beginning" really realized it at the time...). Personally I always thought: "Wow, Ian really tied his own hands with this", so the traitor's disclosure wasn't that bad in my opinion. The pacing was a bit off, though, I agree with that.

The Council: Ah, always loved this scene. What a bunch of assholes, I think we all agree to that. And yet... well, they were technically right. They had decided to focus on Eggman, we all know that it was a stupid choice to ignore Scourge, but if authority decides something, groups affiliated with that authority have to obey. Imagine if a cop decides not to act against a dictator because he had decided that a generic criminal had to be prioritized. Sally is a hypocrite here, considering how she acted when she was the leader of the "Acorn Council" in the first 30 or so issues. So, yeah, they are technically right even if they are idiots.

Hamlin: Well, Hamlin not, not only he is not right, he also is a creepy psychopath. I mean: there's a WAR going on, and you're trying to actively sabotage the FF just because you're jealous?!? Seriously, basically it all amount to that, someone like him should be immediately kicked out of the Council, it's called conflict of interest. At least he's not falsifying (yet) papers or stuff like that to get what he wants, but his way of persecuting the FF is disturbing. Which made him a great character, btw.

Dilan: I despise Dilan: he's a coward who doesn't dare to take a position. I mean, at least Hamlin made his choices, even if they ended up being awful ones. This guy is just useless, he strikes me as the guy who lets other people decides and then go and follow them.

Zonic and Eggman: Well, I have to disagree with... everyone, I guess :). Of course, the way you interpreted the explanation I fully understand your position, but I remember Ian explaining more in detail in another "Ask Ian" the reason behind Zonic's stance: Eggaman had to be there because the original Robotnik DIDN'T TECHNICALLY DIE. If you remember it, he was ERASED FROM REALITY (which also mean that Eggman CAN be defeated, even if we know that it will never happen ;)). I remember Ian saying that THAT was the reason because he needed to be replaced. Though, I agree that the wording wasn't really clear in Issue 199...

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There were a fair deal of pacing issues by time the book hit reboot. The Genesis special screeched things to a halt, and the King Nagus, and yes Silver's stuff advanced in fits and spurts as I recall.

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Sonic X - Issue #40: The End!

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Looks like I did it. I’ve reached the end of all 40 issues of Sonic X. It truly was a very fun ride and I can’t help but feel that sad sense of finality wash over me just looking at this wonderful cover. This last issue is a special occasion because it crosses over with the main Archie books, taking place right after Shadow warped Metal Sonic away. I deliberately plotted all this out so that things would line up perfectly and I don’t regret it. It feels so good to finally be here. 

Spoiler

Writer: Ian Flynn
Pencils: David Hutchison
Inks: Terry Austin
Letters: Phil Felix
Colors: Jason Jensen
Editor & Managing editor: Mike Pellerito

This last issue of Sonic X isn’t about being epic or climactic in any way. It’s more of a warm goodbye. I remember liking it back in the day despite being cheesed off about the fact that I never got to see who the leader of S.O.N.I.C.X was. Even now that it’s been so long it still sticks in my craw a little bit but I feel as though these books have enough good will that I can easily let it slide for the sake of this particular issue.

The issue proper begins the way most events in Sonic’s life probably do. He’s busy having a tea party with Cream, Cheese, Vanilla, and the cleverly named “Mr. Bear” on one page.

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Then a hedgehog you thought was dead and a robotic version of yourself zap on top of the table in the middle of a fight that started in a completely different universe.

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The way Sonic just falls back like that is kind of priceless.

However, the thing that gets me is how awesome it is that Shadow literally Chaos Controlled right on top of the tea party table. He kicks Metal Sonic away from him and then Metal, realizing he’s in another zone, decides he needs to locate this world’s resident Dr. Robotnik.

At first, I thought this was a little odd since he didn’t feel the need to do this when he warped to Moebius but then I realized Metal Sonic specifically said this was an “undocumented zone” so that probably necessitated something a little more discreet.

That leaves Shadow to stick with Sonic for a bit.

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At least he’s got manners.

What’s also great about this is how Sonic doesn’t bat an eye at Shadow just being alive. He just goes “Hey Shadow. Mind getting off the table?” with his head in his palm. Sonic’s a master at being chill. I’m probably one of the few that thought his reaction to seeing Shadow alive in Heroes was appropriate for him.

Like somewhere deep down he had a feeling he might have lived. As if the voices of a thousand people crying out for the cool character they lost to come back was ringing in his ears or something. 

Although, to be fair, when Sonic races off with Shadow to give him a tour of the place he’s staying at, he’s brought up to speed by Shadow himself that he’s actually from another world. Sonic isn’t surprised to hear this since he’s also from another world too. 

Oh snap. That’s right. This Sonic is from another dimension that’s NOT this one as well, which is really funny to think about.

He also tells Shadow that in this world he’s supposed to be dead, which Shadow kind of grimaces at but tries to refocus on doing his mission.

Sonic insists on taking a tour though since he knows all too well that trouble will find them. 

Our first stop is the Chaotix Detective Agency, where we get to say our goodbyes to the Sonic X version of these characters as they’re in the middle of rebuilding their house.

This entire page is gold.

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Everything about the Sonic X universe is absurd to the nth degree so they take all this craziness in stride to the point where someone asks “Isn’t he supposed to be dead?” can be followed up with a legit, “Long story. He’s better now.” and that answer would get accepted with a “Cool.”

Charmy’s got two hammers in his hands, which is great because he’s a small child.

Also, I like how Shadow’s clarification that they weren’t detectives where he comes from zipped me back to the past when I initially read this. Hearing him say that for the first time kind of confused me a bit because it made me realize that I didn’t know exactly what the Chaotix in the original Archie verse were supposed to be.

I still don’t, honestly. They’re their own group of misfits that help the Freedom Fighters but don’t call themselves Freedom Fighters in any way. It’s hard to really nail down what’s special about them in their own unique way outside of not needing to really answer to the Acorn Kingdom.

Next stop is Station Square Elementary where Sonic shows Shadow all of Chris’ friends, his shocked as hell undercover teacher Mr. Stewart, and the very emotional Chris Thorndyke himself.

Upon seeing Shadow, he gives his entire body a squeeze hug. Like, his ENTIRE body. It’s like he’s hugging a plush toy.

Shadow is a little freaked out at first but does something the Shadow of today would never do… hug him back!

Then he reassures him of his return to nurture his feelings. Here’s Shadow doing this for a kid he just met. 

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God… it’s like… he’s so different.

Good vibes. Gotta keep the good vibes going.

There’s a harsh rapping on the door of Eggman’s base and Bokkun goes to answer it. He wants it to be someone who’s selling cookies but it’s a Robot Sonic instead. 

He promptly flies off screaming in fear towards where Bocoe and Decoe are busy polishing the case with the El Gran Gordo costume. That’ll be the last we see of that wonderful wrestling legend too… sigh.

Anyway, the three of them then bolt, screaming in terror as the Robot Sonic, known as Metal Sonic, follows.

However, it comes to a stop and bows before Eggman. 

Their reaction to seeing a Robot Sonic is very interesting.

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Dedicating time towards including Metal Sonic in the original Sonic X probably wouldn’t have taken a whole lot of time but it is stunningly easy to forget about him so I’m not too surprised.

It’s odd. When you really think about it, I’m a little taken aback by the prospect of a version of Eggman never once thinking to create a robot version of Sonic. Decoe straight up says that another world with a Robot Sonic sounds preposterous. However, Bocoe says that a world of talking animals and “creatures like Dr. Eggman” is probably just as strange though. 

Like, I’m not really sure why Decoe said such a thing. It’s a robot… shaped like a hedgehog.

Eggman could totally build that. I know a lot of his robot designs are based on old anime robots in Sonic X but some of them aren’t. There’s no in-universe reason he’d limit himself.

Eggman is delighted that it’s here to serve him and takes it upon himself to utilize it.

We then cut to our final scene with Sam Speed and the S-Team where Shadow has to once again say that he’s not dead. Sam then explains what his illogical police force is and does and when Shadow asks a logical question that demands a logical answer, Sam and Sonic look at him like he’s insane.

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Of course we need Formula 1 Race-Cars to chase speeders. What the fuck Shadow?

I love how almost offended Sonic looks in that bottom panel. He’s in mid-shrug, staring at Shadow like he’s just used a racial slur or something. 

“You’re suggesting he NOT go fast? How dare--!”

Everyone is insane and I love it.

That last panel is a camera. It was stuck there by the S.O.N.I.C.X group. In a two-page sequence where the organizer is only mentioned but not seen, we see these guys discussing a plan to nab Sonic but upon seeing Shadow they realize that they can’t do it and they scrap the plan.

That’s it. That’s the whole scene. We cut back to them so they can tell us in a two-page sequence that they will do nothing.

Wonderful.

Why mention the organizer and STILL not show him??? This is the LAST issue! Honestly, that move made me think that there was probably going to BE more just because of how strange a move it was.

Back with Eggman, he’s giving Metal Sonic a miniature tour of his base, making sure to say the word “genius” as many times as he can to the point where Bocoe gets fed up with him. 

He then heads off with him to defeat Sonic once and for all.

Meanwhile, at the boardwalk by the beach, Sonic and Shadow are resting with Big the Cat in the far off panel.

Shadow compliments Sonic’s world, saying it’s very peaceful. Sonic invites Shadow to stay and enjoy the peace if he wants but Shadow states that his mission is to make sure that his own world remains protected. He can’t rest until that happens.

Wow. How unlike how you are tod--Okay. That’s enough. Sorry.

Anyway, Eggman shows up with Metal Sonic.

In that previous conversation with Sonic, Shadow said that the only way for him to return home was to find the Metal Sonic and induce Chaos Control with it’s dimension hopping engine. So, it showing up here means he can go home! Hurray!

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Eggman stopped mid-rant to go “SHADOW???!”

Sonic, spotting a Metal version of himself for the first time, of course feels compelled to compliment how it looks.

Then Shadow and Metal clash and disappear in a flash, on their way to an entirely new book. 

Eggman, with the thing he came to sick on Sonic gone as fast as it came, putters off. 

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Sayonara, Shadow the Hedgehog.

It’ll never not be iconic, even if he is still alive.

When you say goodbye to Shadow, say it like that. 

Eggman has another reason for flying off though.

When he returns to the base he SLAMS the Egg-Mobile onto the deck and rushes off as fast as his legs can carry him to his basement where he keeps the pickled hedgehogs.

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I really appreciate that this page was included. Any scene where we can dedicate some time to clarifying that Eggman did indeed rescue Shadow the Hedgehog is a scene I’m grateful for.

That said, this definitely took place after the Adventure 2 arc and I know me pointing this out has gotten old but seriously, why the fuck are we still at the old Eggman base that was destroyed in episode 13? It’s Issue #40 so it no longer matters but holy fuck is it distracting.

Back with Sonic, all the characters we didn’t see make their final appearance yet show up with concerned looks, having heard that Eggman was attacking and Shadow was alive, apparently.

Sonic says it’s all been taken care of though. Rouge gets really upset, saying that if Shadow came back but couldn’t say hi to her before leaving then “Who needs him?” which is cute. She cares. Sonic returns to the Thorndyke residence where he confers with Chris about Shadow having taken off on his next adventure and as such, so must they.

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There you have it.

With a final splash page of some very wonky drawings and very oddly proportioned characters where scaling seems to literally be non-existent, we end Sonic X.

What’s funny about this image is that the first two rows of characters look fine. It’s when you get to the Sonic characters in the back where shit goes haywire. Look at Rouge’s arm. Geez! I know what Hutchison was going for there but eww. No.

Anyway, these characters are on to their next adventure, whatever episode of the show that is. For us, the curtain closes on Sonic X.

As everyone on the Sonic X team thanked everyone for reading and keeping the book going for a cool 40 issues, I’d like to thank you all for seeing me through these books as well if you were so kind to engage with them. I had a lot of fun re-reading these and I gotta admit, it remains a bit weird that I’m finally here. These books were of a completely different flavor than what the regular Archie books were going for and I would say that they succeeded at what they were trying to do, give or take a few rough patches here and there. 

Of course, like they said at the very end there, it’s time for a new adventure and we’re about to catch up with Shadow once again to start that new adventure up.

First though, I must engage in my favorite past-time; list making!

 

Top 10 Favorite Sonic X Covers

Spoiler

10. Cover #15 - Bad Eggnog

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Despite the issue itself being a huge mess of shamelessly traced art from a hack and a fairly confused story to go along with it, this cover does a really good job of showcasing the Christmas spirit in a way that only Spaz could. He’s truly an excellent artist and the talent and SEGA references he brought to this cover was this issue’s only real saving grace. You’re a mean one, Mr. Eggman. You really are an ass.

 

9. Cover #37 - Switcheroo!

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There’s something about this cover image that screams peak Sonic the Hedgehog to me. I don’t know why it speaks to me so well. The image of Sonic riding Eggman’s Egg Mobile off to the clouds with Eggman hugging the ball and chain below him feels like it’d work as a normal cover for a regular issue but, with the added understanding of what it’s about there, it feels like it’s pulling double duty. I don’t know how to explain it. I like it a lot.

 

8. Cover #26 - La Layenda del Gran Gordo! (The Legend of the Great Big Guy!)

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This cover is dynamic as hell and it sells, sells, sells the ever loving shit out of El Gran Gordo. The pose he’s doing is practically iconic as far as I’m concerned but the thing that really sells it is how the ring is drawn. It looks so much like a glorious bright diamond rather than a regular square shaped ring. It’s great.


7. Cover #38 - Big Trouble in Little Station Square, Part 1

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Honorable mention shoutout to Big Trouble in Little Station Square, Part 2 for the cover with Kaiju Vector destroying the city and chasing after Sonic. It’s got the number 11 spot for sure. It was either that one or the Christmas cover and I can’t cut away Christmas. I just can’t. This one, however, is a marvel to look at. It’s such extreme overkill and the joke of Sonic not being impressed by it perfectly captures how frustrated those S.O.N.I.C.X guys must feel. This cover is like a political cartoon for them. It really is great.

 

6. Cover #40 - The End!

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I really do get a constant, warm, fuzzy feeling whenever I lay my eyes on this cover. There’s always something about looking at something and being reminded of it’s finality that makes you feel a little sad and happy at the same time. I think this cover captures that feeling well. I’m not saying goodbye to Sonic but in a way I sort of am. You know?

 

5. Cover #27 - Conquest is Like a Box of Chocolates

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I like it when these comics try to make a good poster. This is a really epic looking poster, to the point where it actually succeeds at making Bokkun look fucking terrifying. It’s honestly a little unsettling despite it being a goofy Sonic X issue. 


4. Cover #32 - Title Mismatch

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It’s Sonic in that outfit. Sonic being forced to wear that ridiculous outfit, after he said he wouldn’t with a shit-eating grin on his face, is such a great thing to witness. Yes, the red-sky Batman background is awesome and the Sonic and Eggman team-up being depicted here is great but Sonic looking befuddled in that outfit is the secret sauce that propelled this cover up to the Top 5 for me. Most definitely.

 

3. Cover #11 - No Thanks For the Memories, Part Two

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This cover is just a marvel to look at. The detail it exudes is so vibrant and well done that there’s still stuff about it I’m discovering just looking at it over again and again. I initially couldn’t even believe I had missed Eggman sneaking off in the background back when I first covered this issue and I can’t believe I’m just now seeing that “Self Destruct” screen. Sonic is standing right on top of it as it’s about to blow and he has no idea, which is WHY Eggman’s got that shit-eating grin on his face. It’s painstaking attention to detail at its absolute best.

 

2. Cover #13 - Hare-Um Scare-Um, Part 1

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Anyone who knows me knows I’m a sucker for Halloween and the Halloween aesthetic. I’m no fan of horror films but I love Halloween specials for cartoons or shows that aren’t usually spooky because it does what a good scary story does for me and takes an usually carefree thing and puts it in a zone where all the creepy monsters and ghoulies come out to disturb them. Also, the Halloween and horror aesthetic is something that seldom ever gets used in normal horror films the way I like to imagine it. Most of the time it’s just some dude with a knife killing people in some dark area. The great atmosphere of Halloween as exemplified by the colors popping on this cover comes alive to me in ways that have me salivating over something where I can witness Sonic and the gang diving deep into another Hang Castle where the world gets flipped upside down and giant skeletons can shift to impossible positions with the flip of a switch.This cover had me at hello. Or Hallow… ween. 

 

1. Cover #17 - March Madness

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Yeah. I’ve talked and gushed about this cover before but never truly realized that the reason I did it was because it might actually be my favorite of all of them. Sometimes you don’t realize it until you lay all them out on the table though. This cover truly is the cover I think of whenever I think of the Sonic X comics. I love how dynamic it manages to be with such a simple image. The colors are all perfect, everyone is drawn really well, Eggman trying to dig under the pot for the gold while Tails bends at an almost 90 degree angle with his ear to the ground and his butt in the air is hilarious. There’s also something about making Bokkun the focal point of it too that feels whimsical in the right way. I know it’s because he has a major part to play in the events but the way he’s portrayed here, sitting on the golden pot next to Sonic in that pose with the tip of his hat feels extremely inviting and cute. It’s perfect as far as I’m concerned. 

Those were my favorite covers.

However, the pure meat of any comic are the stories associated with them, so here’s my top 10 favorites for those!

 

Top 10 Favorite Sonic X Issues

Spoiler

10. Issue #26 - La Layenda del Gran Gordo! (The Legend of the Great Big Guy!)

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There are a lot of El Gran Gordo issues so there’s no need to be surprised by this one being at number 10. His debut issue isn’t the best of the El Gran Gordo issues but that’s fine. It’s still really great. You can’t undersell how great it is, witnessing Sonic getting into a wrestling match with a heroic Eggman luchador. It works beyond a shadow of a doubt and the man is a legend. Show some goddamn respect!

 

9. Issue #17 - March Madness

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The issue with my favorite cover only takes 9th place in my favorite issues list but that’s nothing to be ashamed of considering it’s still really good. In this issue, Eggman needs to find a leprechaun and Bokkun gets covered in green paint, making him think he is one. Then, of course, he attacks the Saint Patrick’s Day Parade with a giant leprechaun robot that screams “TOP OF THE MORNIN’ TO YA!” and is tricked into leaving when someone points to a rainbow and says he’s gotta dig for gold at the very end of it. Also, Amy ends up teasing Sonic for once with the pinching for not wearing green. It truly was March Madness.


8. Issue #19 - Muerta! Las Vegas!

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Eggman’s plans are at their best when they reach peak absurdity and the book knows it. His plan to threaten people by crushing their cars unless they load his truck full of Poker chips from a casino so that he can then exchange them for money makes little sense on multiple levels and it comes to fruition in a really cool way. We fight a giant slot machine robot that literally rings Tails and Amy’s bells and spits lemon juice into Sonic’s face. It almost kicked his ass completely too. Viva Las Vegas. 


7. Issue #32 - Title Mismatch

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Sonic and Eggman teaming up to retake Eggman’s base from Bokkun disguised as Eggman is a fun premise with a fun execution. Sonic’s exasperation at being forced to go along with the luchador stuff after renouncing it like the heathen he is for so long was gratifying as hell. Sonic needs to be humbled more often. It makes for great reading material.

 

6. Issue #6 - I Never Promised You a Chao Garden, Part Two

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This issue surprised the hell out of me when I first read it. The issues before it were of varying quality but when Issue #5 happened it was starting to ramp up into something really weird and then #6 carried it across that finish line in spades. Eggman turning all the chao into Dark Chao and sicking them on the city was one thing but the extreme harsh nature that these Dark Chao went to in order to create havoc was next level. Seeing them chase after our heroes with fucking chainsaws was one thing but then seeing Sonic juggle chainsaws when he snatched them away made it all feel that much more fun. Then there was Egg-Gantor facing off in a game of punch-out with a giant version of Chaos 0. On top of that, we got to see Action Tikal. Having her fight back to back with Knuckles like that scene with Cloud and Leon from Kingdom Hearts II was wild. Crazy shit was happening here man. 

 

5. Issue #25 - The Color Sonic

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I couldn’t not pick this one. It was my first Sonic X book and probably, aside from Issue #181 of the regular series, my first Sonic comic. Upon revisit, I found it was better than I remembered too. The harsh manner in which those other Sonic’s were brutally murdered was one thing but then Modern Sonic gets Classic Sonic gunned down and killed. It’s awesome!


4. Issue #27 - Conquest is Like a Box of Chocolates

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This issue was so much fun it had me spinning around in my chair. I loved it so much. Bokkun losing his goddamn mind over a sugar rush that had him taking over a wrestling stadium and declaring “fun-sized” candies outlawed was one thing but the climax literally being two rock-em-sock-em robots ripping off the roof and going at it? It’s like an episode of Aqua Teen. How did we get from A to B? Who cares?! It’s awesome!

 

3. Issue #21 - Sub Sonic

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This was the Toy Store of Doom issue where Sonic and Tails were shrunken to the size of toys and had to survive being chased by miniature robots in a toy store. This was just a really fun little Sonic and Tails adventure with a lot of neat set pieces and scenes that took advantage of its environment really well. Tails in particular gets a lot of moments in it, most of them involving him getting hurt, but it does have that iconic (to me) scene where he and Sonic are in a Skill Crane game full of plushies of themselves and Tails is shocked that the mean looking fox plushie in there is supposed to be him. 


2. Issue #23 - Hedgehoging Their Bets

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To anyone but me this pick might seem a bit weird. It’s the introduction to the S.O.N.I.C.X group. The entire issue is just these guys explaining who they are and why they’ve joined this shady underground group of losers who hate Sonic and that’s all. Despite how little they ended up amounting to the story, I loved the hell out of this issue. It was some of the most fun I ever had recapping a Sonic X issue because going back through my brain to recount where in the anime I had seen these people and recalling how their fallout with Sonic and his friends went was a neat game for me. Witnessing Ian take these guys, some of them who only appeared for a brief scene, and fleshing them out this way was astounding and clever. Especially when it came to Episode 2’s Dr. Narasu. I had a blast treating this like a nice round of Sonic X trivia. A who’s who of humans who hate Sonic, if you will. Good times.

 

1. Issue #13 - Hare-Um Scare-Um, Part One

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Yes, this is my favorite issue of Sonic X. Again, if you know me and how I feel about Halloween than this was fucking predictable to the point of it almost being sad. Christmas is great when it finally comes around but Halloween pretty much takes over the entire month of October for a month long holiday the likes of which time becomes more and more cherishable. It’s not just the fact that this is a Halloween issue though. It also just so happens to be the issue with my favorite event and the line that made me realize just how into the Sonic X comics I was. It’s the issue where Sonic and Tails get sent to prison, which ticks one of my boxes as a favorite plot element of mine in fiction already but the interrogation scene where both Sonic and Tails’ faces are split across the panel and they reiterate in unison, “Then Westwood is lying” with intense grit has always stuck in my head. I know it sounds like a mundane line of dialogue but to me it was the culmination of a long story that was building and building and finally reaching a head with this issue. It’s a shame Westwood ended up taking a bit of a backseat eventually but I’ll always cherish this issue for granting me that spark of emotion and making me realize just how into the narrative I was while on top of that doing so in an issue that had Halloween happening in the background. I couldn’t be more grateful for that perfect storm of things that Dr. Detective Mike loves in his stories.

We kicked it into Sonic Drive and raced across the Shining Road all the way to the T.O.P. Mi-Ra-I was blasting on the radio, of course, because it’s the best song. 

Off I go. A brand new book awaits!

 

Sonic Universe - Issue #1: The Shadow Saga - Part 1 of 4: Living Weapons

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It’s time for a new venture. An undertaking for the ages is about to get underway. If you thought Sonic X ending was going to free up a slot for more of the main series then I’m afraid not. This time, however, the new series takes place within the same universe so it’ll probably feel like it is. Kind of.

The thing about the main series of books that was always a massive problem for me is the fact that the main characters are the Freedom Fighters and everything around Sonic and Tails is condensed within the Acorn Kingdom and what they’re all going through. That’s fine for those who like that but as someone who grew up on Sonic Adventure 2: Battle, Sonic Heroes, and Sonic X my love is for the main modern cast of characters. Even when Ian came aboard, the attention the other main series game characters got remained extremely limited. Sonic, Tails, and Amy were all good because they were Freedom Fighters and Knuckles was afforded a lot of attention because of all the massive set-up and importance he and his kind had tethered to the book thanks to Ken Penderp. Of course, Eggman was the main villain so there was nothing to worry about there.

However, the rest were kind of shit out of luck. Shadow the Hedgehog is about to go from having once in a blue moon appearances to the most appearances within this new book. The Chaotix will… not have anything change about them all that much aside from backstory things for Espio and a little, tiny bit for Vector… until the reboot. Then all of a sudden they appear all the time. That uncomfortable baggage Charmy was carrying probably had a significant amount to do with it. Also helping is that there’d be a lot less characters to go around as a result of the cleansing that was to take place.

We also have Silver who just showed up and who’s stuff needs more exploration than the main book can provide. Then we have Blaze who has shown up exactly once and then never again until this point. 

Sonic Universe was an excellent idea and because of its insistence on focusing on shit that didn’t have to do with the Freedom Fighters and that goddamn kingdom (mostly) it quickly became my favorite of the Archie Books. Of course, because of its existence, a lot of these characters didn’t really NEED to show up in the main book anymore. The next time I think Shadow appears in the main book after this is a single panel of him, Rouge, and Omega watching the fights in the Champions Arc, which happens in the reboot. 

Either way, we’re finally here. This isn’t an especially great cover since it’s just a collage of characters slapped onto a space background but it is an iconic one since it’s the very first one for this new book. Let’s finally get into Sonic Universe!

Spoiler

Writer: Ian Flynn
Pencils: Tracy Yardley
Inks: Jim Amash
Colors: Jason Jensen
Letters: Teresa Davidson
Editor & Managing Editor: Mike Pellerito

After their little adventure in Sonic X Issue #40, Shadow and Metal Sonic end up zipping across dimensions and end up over the ocean of another plane of existence.

It’s here where Shadow takes it upon himself to try and appeal to Metal Sonic for some common ground, from living weapon to living weapon.

His response is a boot to the head.

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You know, it’s funny how time does things to your perception of certain story elements and character beats.

I’ll be completely honest with you all, back in the day when I was reading these Archie comics, I found Shadow’s characterization to be a bit off. 

I never thought of him as a heartless motherfucker or anything like that but I think I wasn’t used to seeing Shadow make appeals like this or smile as often as he did like he will a bit later. He smiled of course but whenever he did it was always a playful, “I’m currently having fun” or “I feel so awesome right now” kind of way. The warm, fuzzy smiles that he does when he’s offering to shake Metal’s hand or when Hope is hugging him never felt quite right to me.

The line you have to walk when it comes to how Shadow expresses kindness and happiness probably is a bit tougher to navigate than you’d think. I’d imagine I was alone on this though. People probably thought he was being perfectly natural whenever those moments happened and that’s cool. It’s not like I’m saying he doesn’t still feel like himself. I do really like this scene where he’s picked up by Blaze and Marine and he’s all business.

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He just instantly knows which person he needs to speak to and tosses a towel into the face of the one he’s not going to like for the duration of the mini-adventure he’s about to embark on. He’s still Shadow.

What do I feel about his character portrayal here nowadays though? Well, honestly, even though that little nagging feeling that it’s a tad off remains, I do have a LOT more of an appreciation for how open and free his usage is here because of how much more flexible he’s allowed to be with his emotions. Even if I don’t feel it quite hits the equilibrium I’m used to for Shadow, the fact that he can act like this at all is a bit of a godsend.

Back in the day, SEGA or Sonic Team or whoever is making these decisions did not give a single iota of a fuck about the Archie Comics. 

Then the Archie V. Penders lawsuit forced them to care and the old contract that allowed them to get away with a bunch of shit that would never be allowed today was tossed out. Granted, despite more attention being paid to the books, that doesn’t mean a lot of good didn’t come from it too.

There’s peaks and troughs to something like that after all. Archie being allowed to do WHATEVER the fuck it wanted allowed them to get away with a lot of bullshit that should NEVER have wandered it’s fucking way into a Sonic comic in the first place. Or at least not handled the way it was. The amount of Nazi stand-ins this book had before Ian came aboard was ridiculous.The amount of echidnas and echidna lore that was being shoveled into the book without anyone being around to tell Penders to stop turned Knuckles into the exact opposite of what his initial premise was; the last of his kind.

Then, of course, all the romance and love triangle nonsense that I don’t associate with Sonic that saw him going back and forth between all these girls which eventually culminated in the plot points that came to be in the infamous Issue #150 with Evil Sonic and… blegh.

There’s no bigger demonstration of how important it actually is for someone to make sure an author doesn’t just get to do whatever the fuck they want than Penders’ tenure on the book. Absolutely.

However, you DO tend to lose access to a few things because of the careful, watchful eye as well. The biggest thing being the hit Shadow’s personality has taken in recent years. There are actually things about his new direction that I do like but those things are now being represented so few and far between that it’s seldom worth it. The last time we saw him, he was handled a little bit better, probably because Evan Stanley figured out a way to navigate him that Ian has admitted that he just can’t, but regardless it’s a thing that makes his appearances a hesitant one to look forward to.

Thank Christ that SEGA actually seems to be a bit of an outlier when it comes to allowing things that other companies never would in a million fucking years. The fact that we got something as crazy and insane as the Metal Virus in association with Sonic still kind of floors me. I’m trying to imagine Nintendo allowing something like that for Mario but when their Paper Mario series doesn’t even allow for Bomb-Ombs and Toads to get different names it’s a fat chance of it even reaching the brain storming stage.
So, as I said, you take the good with the bad. The current writers always do their absolute best to deliver something they think and hope we’ll enjoy to the best of their ability, no matter what parameters are set before them though. Yes, there are things that need fixing but we’re honestly luckier than we realize.

Even if I don’t care about the Acorn Kingdom or particularly want to watch the adventures of the Freedom Fighters in their humble city, I’ve ended up enjoying a vast majority of these stories despite that because what Ian handles well, he handles really fucking well.

Even Marine he manages to get down for as good as that’ll get you.

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She looks insane.

Shadow clearly doesn’t like her and right after tossing a towel into her face and being told her name twice, he immediately gets it wrong when he addresses her as “Marie” and tells her to head towards the nearest port.

I could talk about Shadow’s insane luck, falling into the ocean at the exact point where Blaze and Marine just happened to be riding the Ocean Tornado but I guess I could talk a bit about Marine the Raccoon.

She’s appeared in the book before during the Rush Adventure adaptation but this is a bit more of an actual, prominent Archie Sonic story for her. 

So, I’ve gone on the record saying that I don’t hate any of the characters a part of the main cast. I’ve also talked about how I don’t consider Marine a part of the main cast.

She’s appeared once, in a game where she wasn’t even playable, and hasn’t shown up in any substantial way since. She was a sticker in Smash Bros. Brawl and had a costume or two in some of the Olympics. She gets mentioned in Colors DS. She might have had a card in Rivals. I’m not sure. Fucking everything got a card in Rivals though so probably. 

Uhm… and she showed up in those 25th anniversary comics for a cameo or two. She didn’t get her own comic though. 

Other than Sonic Rush Adventure, her only other story contribution has been these Archie Comics. She’s never been playable in anything, not even a mobile game. She’s remembered mostly thanks to her association with Blaze in the Sol Dimension. There are people who genuinely like her too of course.

Do I hate her?

I don’t think I do? Honestly, it feels like it depends on my mood. I definitely don’t like her though.

Blaze remarked at one point that Shadow looked familiar and asked him if he knew Sonic. He said their paths had crossed but then asks her how she knows Sonic.

Blaze then tells the story in a nice, succinct two pages. The first page is the Archie original storyline where she, as the protector of the Sol Emeralds, lost them like a pair of socks… no, just kidding. They disappeared.

Somehow.

She got visions of Sonic and what looks like the cleanest shot of Eggman Nega that’s ever going to exist in these books.

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She then walked along the road of perpendicular highways and what not until she ended up in Sonic’s world and got into an ultimately rather pointless fight with him. Then Sonic Rush Adventure happened.

They show a re-drawn set of panels from the Rush Adventure adaptation a while back and Blaze recounts how they worked together to recover the Chaos Emeralds from Johnny and Captain Whisker.

The book gets it wrong and calls him Captain Whiskers, which is funny because everyone on the internet was doing that by mistake when he was first name dropped as the villain.

Then Marine finishes the story with the power of fan-fiction and crayon drawings.

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This is fun, at least.

I do appreciate that the second to last panel was basically a run-on sentence; very much like a child would say. Although, it’s astonishing how wild it is that she’s imagining Tails bowing to her like that. You know that’s ambition for what she strives to have happen on open display right there.

Blaze tells Marine to shut the fuck up and pull them into port. Marine complains by saying “You try to tell a good story and they crawl all over you.”

You know, at least with this accent and these sayings of hers, the complaints she dishes out are always interesting to read.

So, they return and the castle’s on fire because Metal Sonic is insane and is demanding that these poor koala people tell him where the resident Dr. Robotnik is.

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I would think that would have been Eggman Nega before the SEGA meddling came in and said “No, actually he’s from the future” so… I dunno.

Either way, none of them have a Robotnik up their ass so they can’t give him what he wants. Shadow wishes to reason with him but Blaze says “Fuck that!” and charges at him, fully intending on whooping his metal ass.

She does some impressive flaming foot work but ultimately, Metal Sonic takes the advantage.

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Like a literal tag-out in a tag-team match, Blaze gets caught by an apologetic Shadow and he dutifully goes to take care of it himself by trying to force Chaos Control to happen again.

Metal Sonic says, “LOL NOPE!” to that as well.

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I’ll say once again that for as messed up as Eggman’s brain is, he’s still got the chops to pump out some bangers in these Metal Hedgehogs of his. He can’t see that with the haze of insanity continuing to cloud his mind though.

Shadow is on a mission to recover a Chaos Emerald from the special zone at the moment. Why he’s trying to do this isn’t currently known but as long as they keep zone hopping, I’m sure he’ll manage to eventually get where he wants to go. 

That said, it’s going to be really rough if he has this Metal Sonic to contend with the whole time.

Not helping is Marine, who takes it upon herself to ride uselessly on the back of Metal Sonic’s head and continuously gets in the way of Blaze and Shadow’s opportunities to attack.

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This Marie-Go-Round just won’t stop eh?

It keeps on spinning, even when Shadow tells it to move the fuck away.

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Thank God I’m more tolerant of this stuff than most people are.

The internet is a place where a lot of impatient people dwell; where a single line of dialogue will be the basis for an entire discussion, foregoing any other lines of dialogue that manage to be the thing that these complainers may want to actually hear. It wouldn’t surprise me if this was something that they’d have less than zero patience for.

I can’t even really say it’s funny because there’s no joke here aside from, “She’s in the way and she’s useless.”

So if you find that funny I hope you enjoyed it.

Metal Sonic tosses her off and Blaze rushes to her out of concern and helps her up. She then orders her to do something in the background as Shadow tries to make an appeal for peace to Metal Sonic once again.

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Context is always key and this is very much a move I can see Archie Shadow attempting to make. 

The circumstances behind this can be nitpicked to death probably. I’m sure someone would find it mystifying trying to imagine Shadow holding his hand out for peace with an ordinary Egg Pawn for instance. 

Metal Sonic is a bit of a different story… or at least he’s supposed to be.

This book isn’t quite ready to treat Metal Sonic as though he’s an actual character just yet. The only reason this scene is here is so that Shadow can showcase HIS growth and development and not so that you can witness any origins of character focus for Metal Sonic.

Metal Sonic’s answer is the appropriate one for his character, of course.

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However, unlike in that one side-story for the IDW comics or that one recent Sonic Channel story he got, this isn’t really going to act as a vehicle for exploring what it is about Metal Sonic’s character that truly keeps him tied to his function and how he copes with being what he is.

Instead he just gets ambushed by Blaze, knocked into the air by Shadow, and blown the fuck up by Marine.

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There goes another one.

Yup.

So, I’ve talked about this once before a long while back but it’s actually been a significantly long while since I’ve brought this up. I was not a huge fan of how Metal Sonic was being treated in the book by this point. 

It’s not as though he’s one of my favorite characters or anything but I like him as I do with the whole cast and as such I would very much appreciate it if he were treated a little better than this. At this point in my readings, he’s been destroyed quite a number of times. There’s not really an avenue for him to feel like much of an individual at this point because of how often it’s happened. Each new one is a brand, spanking new one. There’s no getting around it.

He’s basically just a glorified Egg Pawn in the Archie Comics. 

When you’re facing off against those rooms of robots in Sonic Heroes, he’s that giant dude with the hammer. That’s about it. 

The criticism leveled at this will eventually be addressed in Issue #50 of Sonic Universe. Not in a way that I personally feel is completely ideal from what I remember but it showed promise for something better… and then the reboot happened so it didn’t really matter. 

The reboot had him as something much closer to the games anyway, like most things that were changed, so thankfully I didn’t have to worry about him blowing up all the time like some sort of weird running joke. 

Pretty much for the remainder of the pre-reboot stuff, Metal Sonic is just more of this though.

As for Shadow, he’s stuck in the Sol Dimension because Marine blew him up along with the dimensional engine that could get him back.

That’s when the meme happens. 

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That meme.

You know the one.

It’s still funny.

It’s also the last we see of Marine so I guess that was Shadow’s goodbye to her.

Blaze vouches for her as she hands him a Chaos Emerald.

So I guess this is where the second Chaos Emerald Sonic was talking about was. The little conversation they have before they shake hands and depart is also a bit interesting.

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Where Knuckles would have vehemently denied being friends with Sonic, Shadow just kind of questions it a bit and goes “I suppose” with a melancholy look on his face. He seems to not be too bothered by the idea that it’d be possible.

With a flash of green light, Shadow is out of there.

It’s here where we finally find out what Shadow’s deal is.

He was sent on a mission to recover a Chaos Emerald from the Special Zone by G.U.N with the help of Hope Kintobor and the Commander from Shadow the Hedgehog, named here as Commander Tower.

It’s nice when characters actually have names.

Anyway, Hope asks Shadow how his trip to the Special Zone was and Shadow says he wouldn’t know and that her transporter needs work. 

So, she sent him to Moebius? Interesting. You would think Shadow did it himself since he blasted in the middle of Sonic and Scourge’s fight shouting “--CONTROL!” like he just did normal Chaos Control. Maybe the machine has to function with them working together?

Well, either way, Shadow is back and when asked if there was any trouble, and confirming the trouble that there was, he’s told to rest up because he’ll immediately be going on another mission that same night.

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This sounds like a hellish existence. I couldn’t handle coming home from work and being told that I had to go back that same day. Yeesh.

Anyway, it’s G.U.N! They’re getting more prominent within the book now. The utilization of an organization like this to tell some really cool and possibly messed up stories has always been evident and obvious to me so now that they’re pretty much gone from the main series it kind of feels like another easy opportunity for stories to exploit was flushed down the drain, yet again.

Unless the animal world has some sort of G.U.N equivalent that we haven’t heard of and that didn’t lift a finger to help when Eggman took over the world in Forces then I’m afraid I’ll have to make due.

That was Sonic Universe’s first issue and boy did it feel like quite the old story. It’s amazing how this technically newer stuff feels ancient in comparison to the actually ancient stuff I just left behind but that’s the nature of nostalgia I suppose. This issue was simple, clear, and to the point. It was a nice little excursion that gave us a good excuse to see Blaze again and allowed for Marine to get her second, more proper introduction. 

This won’t be the best Sonic Universe has to offer of course. Not even this first arc itself will hit the peak of what’s left to look forward to with this new series but that’s a good thing. It means there’s more concentrated awesome to look forward to. I can’t wait to revisit some of this stuff because we’re going to get into the thick of the main stuff I remember from the book and my opinions on what I hated were very STRONG. Seeing whether I’ve changed my mind is going to be interesting. There are things I’m still convinced I’ll never change my mind on and even then, when I thought that was the case, I ended up surprising myself. I truly don’t know what I’ll think and feel going forward and it’s an exciting feeling, to be sure.

 

Archie Sonic the Hedgehog - Issue #198: Phoenix Down

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Okay. First of all, this is a cool cover. I’ve always liked this one quite a bit. The fire is cool. The colors are cool. The only thing that slightly bugs me looking at it now is how none of the fiery illumination seems to actually be on Sonic’s body. There’s like 4 little orange lines on the bottom of his quills but those are hard to make out. Second, I recall this being another filler issue back in the day, with art that I wasn’t fond of. It’ll be interesting to see if my opinion changes like it did for #197 though. I’ve been surprising myself when it comes to realizing how little of the story beats I understood back in the day, making me re-evaluate how some of these stories tended to make me upset. This I remember just being a big fight though. Let’s go.

Spoiler

Writer: Ian Flynn
Layouts: Tracy Yardley
Pencils: Renae De Liz
Inks: Jim Amash
Colors: Jason Jensen
Letters: Teresa Davidson
Editor/Managing Editor: Mike Pellerito

Already, I’m looking at the person in charge of pencils and I’m not recognizing the name. Before I’m even opening the book I’m worried. Let’s see.

It begins with Sonic running beside Rotor driving a jeep, back in the field and being taunted a bit by the idea of probably not liking it. I guess they really needed a guy to drive the jeep.

Sally’s in the jeep and tells Sonic to stop so that Amy and Antoine can clear the area, which means beating up some of the Dark Egg Legion. Bunnie provides cover with a shield too. All this happens while Lien-Da observes, wondering why they stopped their advance.

One of the Dark Egg Legionaries points and goes “The blue hedgehog is making faces at us, ma’am” and I guess Lien-Da takes this and the fact that they stopped for a second that the tide has turned in their favor.

But then they get immediately ambushed by the Chaotix from behind.

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Lien-Da is… really eager to pull the win card isn’t she? Anything to prove she’s doing good and didn’t make a massive fucking mistake joining this robot terrorist, eh?

I like your grit and ambition but Dimitri is so much smarter than you lady. I don’t even really want to ask how eight random mother fuckers, one of them as large as Vector, managed to sneak up behind you like that.

Uh, anyway, as for the art, three pages in and it’s completely fine. I can see why I didn’t like it back in the day though. It’s still not something I’m a huge fan of. It’s got this squiggly feel to it that I’m not too fond of, especially when it comes to people’s hair and stuff. The echidna noses bother me a little and so does the way Ray grits his teeth.

Looking at the Chaotix together always, always, always reminds me that they’re still mostly just the 32-X versions with more modern designs. Even under Ian’s pen, this far in, they’ve got barely anything to them and what little focus I feel has been of importance is stuff like Charmy’s memory loss which he’s intentionally not going to focus on ever again until a single panel in #212 where he has one of the characters state that they’re going to continue ignoring that plot point.

So yeah, I wasn’t a fan of how the Chaotix were handled back in the day and I’m still not. Even now I can’t help but wonder how much cooler and more fun this would be if this was just the modern Chaotix attacking, showing off their weirdness and bumbling charm. 

Now, despite what I said about the art, I do really like how that squiggly motion it presents does make for some good dynamic poses and attacks.

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Sorry Lien-Da. I’m totally judging you.

I mean, I like you. Don’t get me wrong. You haven’t annoyed the shit out of me like your sister but your ego is like a nuke that’s about ready to malfunction. Yeah it might hurt your enemies but your allies are very open to being taken down with you.

Lien-Da hilariously runs the fuck away after saying this line. Charmy, whom I’m actually shocked is allowed to be in the issue let alone have lines, says to Sally that the Dark Egg Legion is in retreat. Lien-Da did indeed tell them to fall back and call for support. It’d be hilarious if they did and Snively was just like, “Seriously, what part of YOU ARE IT do you mother fuckers not understand?!”

Tails reports in on the Nicole 3DS and says he’s “done” ahead of schedule.

Then Sally tells him to meet up with them.

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Ooo~! I almost got chills there. This panel really does exude a sense of finality. Again, another good use of the flowing hair as well… although, it does make me realize that the hairdo Sally got when she was making her declaration that she’s back in full Freedom Fighter form has kind of gone undone a bit. Not that I care. Making that declaration with a haircut isn’t something that made much sense to me anyway.

Dimitri goes up to Eggman, seemingly looking for him for a while now, and says his Legion is being punished and they need some support. 

Instead of yelling at him, Eggman gets on his white scarf and says “Ho-HO! That’s my cue!” before heading towards his awesome looking Phoenix. The question of sending reserve badniks instead is raised by Dimitri and Eggman vetoes the idea, saying that Enerjak saw to it that there weren’t and also that he wouldn’t use them even if he had them, explaining why he doesn’t just make more.

His eyes have zeroed in on Sonic and his desire to handle him by himself has taken the helm. He wants to end him by his own hands. 

There’s also the fact that he probably doesn’t have the resources to make more either but the idea that he’s willingly choosing to send himself in a single robot after Sonic, while not the most practical thing as Snively and Dimitri are pointing out, is totally the thing Eggman would do at this juncture. His mind has been preoccupied with nothing but thoughts about taking care of Sonic himself. He’s obsessed with it at this point. Doing him in any other way than a personal touch with a robot piloted single-handedly by him won’t bring him any satisfaction, and he desperately needs it for the mental stability of his mind right now.

If Eggman got the news tomorrow that Sonic died because he slipped and bashed his head open on a rock, Eggman would probably go on a rampage in complete denial and probably end up going crazy from the loss of his satisfying conclusion and reassurance that he totally could beat Sonic one on one.

It’s funny because he’s proven he totally can but because he’s Eggman and he’s got a flair for the dramatic he leaves doors open for Sonic to retaliate. That robot from #175 never seeing use again could almost be seen as Eggman making the declaration that he can do better, despite a lot of these newer robots not having the same kind of optics. He’s got no problem going back to old models and junk considering how many Metal Sonics and Egg Pawns he’s made but something about his big bosses I think he feels less inclined to recycle and I get that.

Like, this phoenix robot, for as cool as it looks, probably can’t be stated to be a machine designed specifically to match Sonic’s attributes one by one. It’s just going to spew a shit ton of fire at them. That’s dangerous, sure, but it’s a definite example of how the Eggster isn’t aware that he’s just kind of hurling whatever new idea he has at them without much thought at this point.

The benefits of the flame phoenix and the later Spider Riders Robot won’t be as impressive but I feel that works for the narrative here a lot more.

It might also be because that robot in #175 was created specifically to give Sonic a decisive loss and SEGA, despite not paying much attention to the book, paid attention to THAT and only gave them the chance for that ONE win.

Granted, that one win is still more than a lot of other companies would have given. 

Back with the heroes, Lien-Da has all her Legionnaires lined up and demands they fire on the heroes. Sally tells Tails to activate the thing he’s been setting up and it short-circuits their weapons.

Sally tells them what they just did and says if they surrender, they can end this peacefully.

Before they can respond, a huge fucking fireball gets launched at them and they all have to take cover.

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I gotta admit, watching this phoenix do it’s thing makes me wonder if Eggman’s thinking might be correct. I mean, who needs a Sonic specific robot or a robot specifically made for every Freedom Fighter if the good old, tried and true, NUKE EM WITH ENDLESS FIRE can do the trick?

It’s hard analyzing Eggman and the things he does. One second you're like, “That’s cool but probably not as effective as that other thing” and the next you’re like, “Oh wait a second…! Maybe he’s onto something. Fire IS bad after all…”

I like that too. Even in this unhinged state, Eggman’s still got it, sort of.

Snively is watching this, just as flabbergasted that I am that Eggman just swooped in and turned the tide of battle to his favor in a single instant. He’s winning. 

Dimitri says “How wondrous for him”, clearly not giving a shit, and points out that he almost toasted his people too. Snively, for some fucking reason, says “Collateral damage, which I don’t care about” right to this dude’s face.

Like goddamn. The balls on this man. Dimitri may just be a head in a bubble but he can take you no problem little man.

Dimitri doesn’t go for that as his trump card though. Instead, he points out that he knows about Snively’s traitorous plans and conversations with Regina.

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Snively is offering to help that “collateral damage” now that he’s been found out. He’s doing it with a smirk on his face but the flip from, “Oh, they can die” to “Oh, we can help each other” makes it kind of funny. 

The heroes continue to take cover from the overwhelming flames of this massive fire bird. I know it’s a comic but imagining hiding behind a rock with huge flames blasting it from behind like they do kind of puts me on edge. Fire is hot and it’s easier imagining just HOW hot now that I’m older. Seeing Tails, Sally, and Knuckles all singed from it just makes me wince a bit. I hope those marks don’t all scab up on them.

Anyway, Tails proposes they use the neutralizing mines on the phoenix.It would have to be literally on the thing to pack enough punch which gives Sally her cue to actually do her field leader thing and devise a plan on the spot. Hopefully, it’ll be something a little better than “DOGPILE ON SCOURGE!”

So, Sonic gets Eggman’s attention by pointing out that the flames haven’t hit him yet. He runs with it chasing him from behind. Vector tosses Sonic at Knuckles who tosses Sonic even higher at Tails who tosses Sonic at Bunnie who tosses him into the fucking stratosphere it looks like.

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Very nice.

Again, despite not being a fan of how the characters themselves look in comparison to some of the other artists, the way Renae is managing to handle fluid movement is extremely impressive. It’s honestly a lot better than what we’ve seen Tracey Yardley do up to this point in the book.

I especially love this scene of the phoenix plummeting back down and how you can really feel how heavy and fast the descent is for both Sonic and Eggman as well as the three flyers planting the neutralizing mines on the phoenix.

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It looks really cool.

As it hovers just above the ground it flies right towards Tails and Sally. Tails says he needs to be close enough to it in order for it to work. Sally shouts “TAILS…!” when it gets too close for comfort but Tails keeps cool and doesn’t activate it before he’s ready like a good, non-panicking boy who knows what he’s doing. Thank you very much Sally.

He activates them and then the phoenix sparks with electricity and then crashes into a wall.

Eggman has no actual sentences to say. He’s just rambling out garbled words of frustration before he flies off and the phoenix explodes before Sonic can stop him.

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If you look closely you can pinpoint the exact moment where Eggman’s brain crosses the point of no return as far as any sort of sanity stability.

After this scene, we cut to a nice, comfy looking sunset where everyone is cooling down after the battle. I really like scenes like this. It feels nice.

Sonic tries to ruin it with his smug attitude, saying “That’s it?” when Sally orders Rotor to unload the Shield Generator and then says that he supposes what they did makes for a full day “for YOU people”.

He actually says “YOU people.” Sonic… HOW DARE--!

No, I get that he’s playing around but I was the kind of kid who took people playing around more seriously than others. Everytime I read dialogue like this I can’t help but get a little upset. Sonic’s snark is great when handled correctly but what I consider handling it correctly tends to vary a lot. Sometimes I don’t even feel like I’m able to properly explain why it works in other areas and not so often in these Archie books. I don’t think I’d be able to be Archie Sonic’s friend. I’d take the teasing personally and get into screaming matches with him all the time, most likely.

Sonic does know when to be comforting and cool though. He sees Tails huddled up on his sleeping bag and takes time to offer him some reassurance.

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When I first read this, I remember being confused as to how they knew the war was going to be over tomorrow. Again, it might be because I paid so little attention to Eggman’s mental state and how truly in the red he was as far as manpower but I’ll admit it still sort of snuck up on me here.

Talks of pushing an advantage have been happening for sure but I think this is the first time anyone’s mentioned them being at the crossroads of the war flat out ending. It makes sense looking at what’s going on of course but I guess this is one of those situations where I had to be told it in order for it to truly sink in. This scene did a good job of finally managing to do that but I feel like a bit more emphasis on it from the hero’s side could have been more warranted beforehand.

I mean, before this, we were fucking around with Scourge. This is the first time Eggman’s been the direct MAIN focus in quite some time and it’s the issue before the final battle with him starts.

Now, of course, we know that it isn’t REALLY the final battle. It’s more the beginning of a long hiatus for the doctor but still.

Anyway, the doctor comes back home and reaffirms for everyone that he’s also aware that tomorrow is IT. Both sides have come to this agreement mutually that this is the final, the very last straw!

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That last page was really fun to read for some reason. Just, Eggman stomping in, all smokey, getting the name of the Legion wrong, and snapping at them for asking if he’s all right. Then that final glance of understanding between the two schemers really sells it as well.

We’re in for another momentous occasion folks.

I truly can’t believe how close we are, not just to Issue #200, but to the Iron Dominion Arc. That arc was the first long arc I got to follow from start to finish with Archie Sonic so it’s going to be quite the nostalgic re-visit for me. As for this issue, yeah, it was a big fight like I remembered but it was a really fucking cool fight. Again, fights in this book work best when they’re given a ton of room to breathe and having it be the culmination of a nice strategy on either side helps a lot. Also good is that everyone got a chance to contribute something. 

Back in the day I saw this as a filler issue but I feel it’s a lot more important now, considering how little focus Eggman has had as of late and us needing something to drop us back into the thick of things concerning the doctor. It wouldn’t feel right immediately jumping to the final battle, I don’t think. So, good call. 
 

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Sonic X: Differently from most people, I never really appreciated the Sonic X comics, so I'm happy that's over. O mean, there were some good stories (mainly the Flynn and Tracy ones), but being a huge fan of continuity, I always considered them... "fillers", can we call them that? So... yeah, luckily it's over. Covers were amazing though, thanks Spaz.

Sonic's characterization: I could never understand how people could not like Sonic's characterization under Flynn. I mean: Sonic has to be bold and a little bit egocentric, those are totally his traits, otherwise he would've been a totally different character. That said, Flynn made him an extremely likeable characters, you can totally see that in some lines. Like in the Sonic the Fighters adaptation, when he realize that Knuckles need to look for the ME shards he immediately offers to lose the match. THAT scene I think sums up perfectly how Sonic is characterized in the comic. Also, don't forget that most people who diss on Archie Sonic are actually fan of StC Sonic which is an insufferable ass. Like, literally, I don't know how someone may like StC Sonic. Bad, bad, bad :).

Shadow's characterization: For me, Archie Shadow is the best Shadow. IDW Shadow is... quite boring/bad actually. We all know the circumstances that led to that but, seriously SEGA, after seeing how likeable Flynn can make your characters, just let him do whatever he wants. Personally, I never found Shadow OOC in these comics (Flynn era), though I find it OOC in Issue 132 when Shadow was so, so forcefully edgy that he resulted totally OOC (in my opinion). Too bad all of Shadow's characterization went down the drain thanks to Sega.

Sonic Universe: I've already said it, but the idea that Sonic had to be in every issue was a big handicap in my opinion. That's why I usually consider SOnic Universe better than the main comic, it grants freedom to tell more stories. And more interesting.

P.S: The design of the Egg Phoenix is actually different from the one showed at the end of the last issue. Renae De Liz actually made an apologize because she didn't realize there was already another design.

P.P.S: I remember Flynn describing Marine this way: "Cream is nice, Marine needs to be hit with a rock".

P.P.P.S: I found the Marine-riding-Metal-Sonic part really funny :)

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And there goes one of the more interesting Metal Sonics over the pre-reboot years. Shame we'll never see that one again...

Yup

Neeeeeveeeer again...

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It's always weird going back and seeing how Metal Sonic was treated in pre reboot. He was basically seen as just another Eggman robot that just gets destroyed and rebuilt rather than his own unique character with his own history like in the games. I'm glad the reboot fixed that.

Anyway I definitely agree that Sonic Universe book was a great idea. It allowed for other Sonic characters to have their time in the spotlight and help expand the universe more. I really hope that the current IDW comics allow for something like this in the future. I get that's what the miniseries are for but I would rather have something ongoing.

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And now, you're officially at the point when I jumped onto the comics. Needless to say, jumping onto what was meant at the time, to be their final battle with Eggman, was hella jarring. I had dipped into Sonic comics long before, but never really held interest for too long. I found this one day at my local comic story down by Union Square after a dentist cleaning, loved the artwork and the rest was history. 

I was still hella confused though by all of that was going on, but I think its a testament to Flynn's writing that none of it felt too alien to me. You don't actually need to read the other 198 issues to get invested, but it certainly helps. 

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19 hours ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

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And I'm sure we'll neeeeever see that Metal Sonic again.

 

19 hours ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

H0XQH1tX4Dy8JZdM3UYfeooCnzFXgjmtuCSe2p5NZpZantWu7Tj4BOUD80D7_WORg2KbohfniS0vQV9T2M4M-q1bsxEKqt7vq67xoyq1l6iQtBI8jU6KsrJZRnRsQE7x6BmKLMgk

Boy would it suck if Shadow would repay her by basically attacking her when she needs her Sol Emerald to fix her world boy would that suck.

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Hoo boy. I guess we got a lot to run through...

-I don't really have much to say about Sonic X, tbh. I've been going through the reviews, but it always ends up as just a goofy slice of life bit that is hard to really discuss, at least compared to the main series. But I think I'll make exception for this as it does tie into a ongoing Archie arc.

-I think it's interesting that Archie Shadow was the kind of person who had an inkling about emotions and while being stotic and as to the point as normal, he knew when to break out of it. I could see him relating Chris' pain of losing Shadow to his own pain of losing Maria, and deciding to give him some comfort by letting him truly believe he was the real deal. It's a nice touch IMO.

-It really is pretty funny how the Chaotix are just a nothing group in Archie. They use the Chaotix as a name, but you could more accurately sum it up as 'Knuckles' friends' more than anything else lol.

-The art in X #40 is weird in general, but it really throws me off how Metal is drawn far closer to his STC counterpart than Archie:

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I think it's how Metal's quills are drawn sticking out to the sides, like Dr. Wily's hair or something. It looks weird IMO.

-I feel like X #40 is both a good issue for using Shadow as a way to conclude most of it's points, but it's also heavily limited due to their decision to do so. You can't conclude actual plotlines going through the comic like S.O.N.I.C X because it needs to remain focused in on Archie Shadow, so it just serves as a quick bullet points intro of X to Shadow, and covering some characters, and that's it. I feel like this would've been an actual conclusion involving S.O.N.I.C X if it didn't need to tie into SU #1.

-Eggman being confirmed to save the real Shadow was interesting at least. It works more than X!Eggman is at least shown to be less spiteful than the other incarnations, as shown when he berates the Metarex for their underhanded methods of dealing with Sonic and friends, so I could see him having at least a smidge of mercy to save Shadow and keep him in stasis instead of using him for another grand scheme of some sort.

-I really like how SU#1 was clearly written off the heels of Rush Adventure when everyone still really hated Marine. The total distain just about everyone has for her here is really prevalent, and it's also well-written enough to be really damn funny. 

-I'm gonna disagree about Metal Sonic here not being a good outlook on who Metal is as a character, at least to the degree of IDW. I think it's really interesting that this is the first time we really get to see a Metal Sonic engage in discussion and talk about why he feels the need to do what he does. He isn't just 'THE DOCTOR'S WORD IS LAW, I SHALL OBEY' - he's listening to the points Shadow is making, and rationalising them in a way that makes sense to him. 

Metal Sonic is a purely robotic being who's designed to be a killing machine. His personality is cold, ruthless, and objective-driven. He could just sit here and keep fighting, but he takes the time to stop and explain why he will do as commanded, and why he sees Shadow's point as ultimately worthless - because Shadow admitted both were 'living weapons', Metal Sonic rationalised it to mean that Shadow was no different to himself, he simply had another function to fulfill. 

It's the same line of reasoning that Ian would later use to make Archie Mega Man so damn interesting. Robots may be able to realise what they're doing and if they wanna do something else, but they're still stuck obeying their coding and having to rationalise things based upon it. Mega Man tries to throw out the same idea of 'If I could go from a helper robot to a fighting robot, then you fighting robots could become peaceful!" but it's also pointed out that Mega Man had a easy purpose and function - to help others. The Robot Masters - Wily's at least - were built with one function in mind - destroy Mega Man, and several were designed for that express purpose, heavily limiting their functional usage in other means. 

That's the kind of thing I see for Metal Sonic here. Shadow may be a living weapon, but he has a function that lets him do more than he can. He can just protect Mobius, which means Shadow can work in his best interests. Metal Sonic's function is singular - obey Dr. Robotnik, and destroy Sonic at all costs. That's it, and that's all he can do because that's how Eggman built him. We'll see it further explored later on down the line, but for now, that's it and that's something I find interesting, personally.

-Shadow's expression to Marine is amazing and nothing will convince me otherwise.

-That ending is gonna be a loooot harsher in hindsight when we get to Treasure Team Tango.

-It's honestly weird to me how I keep forgetting about #197 and #198 outside of some moments. I think it's because #199 and #200 is far more memorable with the lead-up and actual fight. 

-I do admit, I feel mixed about the art. Some art looks off, but on the other hand, I love how the art-style leads to some super dynamic shots. Things like Lien-Da's hair blowing in the wind and the panel of everyone falling back to earth looks so insanely cool.

-I think the Egg Phoenix just goes to show how desperate Eggman is getting. There's no real gimmick to it, there's no real 'fight' like his other mechs, the whole idea is just to scorch the Freedom Fighters and the Chaotix off the face of the earth immediately. No tricks, no mockery, no banter, just immediate death. He wants them dead and he's not playing any longer. I imagine after the FF dismantled his latest and greatest mech in #178, Eggman really lost it and decided to make a mech specially for Sonic, and make one specially for the FF, with the Egg Phoenix being the one designed to dispatch the FF as easily as possible, and if Sonic gets caught in the crossfire, at least Eggman got the satisfaction of killing him personally.

-Dimitri shoving the treasonous talk back into Snively's face is so good. Snively knows that in Eggman's state, one more betrayal would be enough to send him over the deep end. Hell, we see that later on during Scrambled when Snively goes against Eggman one time too many and pays the cost for it.

-Minor detail, I like Sonic mentioning that he's flown the Tornado before.

-Eggman getting so caught up in the fight and being so desperate to wipe out everyone else that he forgets bare basic details of flight is pretty entertaining. I also love Sonic just picking the most sassiest pose he could for falling back down. 

-That last page is pretty badass between the burnt up Eggman vowing it ends tomorrow and Snively/Dimitri sharing a knowing look, but the weird art on both Eggman and Snively kind of take away from it a little.

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3 hours ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

-Minor detail, I like Sonic mentioning that he's flown the Tornado before.

 

Oh, you're right. Never forget that it's Sonic's plane :)

...even Sega forgot about it in Unleashed...

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I haven't been doing the quote thing I've been doing because...well frankly I'm lazy as fuck but I did want to point out something neat. Renae De Liz is the wife of colorist Ray Dillon who did the Silver Saga's colors in Sonic Universe and they both worked together on an adaptation of the movie "The Last Unicorn" for IDW.

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So it turns out that the Sonic Man Heroes had a villain

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Quote

Lastly, there was to a Professor Robotnic character that I never got around to designing, but that’s about it for the visuals. I don’t expect this concept to come up in the new book since humans don’t seem to be a thing anymore.

Aha! I found the design for Professor Robotnic. I forgot completely, but he's a mix of Satam, modern Eggman, and he has the chest buttons (bolt thingies?) from '06 Eggman

 

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9 hours ago, Sonictrainer said:

So it turns out that the Sonic Man Heroes had a villain

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I hate the SatAM design but honestly this kinda works. He looks like a Sentai or Power Rangers villain so it really works. I also love the bald cap. I can just picture the cruddy electricity or laser effects that would shoot out of his robot hand. 

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Sonic Universe - Issue #2: The Shadow Saga - Part 2 of 4: Time & Again

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This cover is just Sonic, Shadow, and Rouge standing in a circle with guns pointed at them. It ain’t great. I’m a little surprised something a little more creative wasn’t done considering the Adventure 2 stuff that’s in it but oh well. The issue itself I remember being really confusing to read back in the day. I think I must have assumed that Adventure 2 happened in the comic universe the same way it did in the games and when I read this, I realized that it must not have… but then, at the same time, if it already happened then why were we being shown it all again? I didn’t really understand just how needlessly dumb and hard to explain the way Archie handled Adventure 2 was but I do now so that’s going to make re-reading this a trip.

Spoiler

Writer: Ian Flynn
Pencils: Tracy Yardley
Inks: Jim Amash
Colors: Jason Jensen
Letters: Teresa Davidson
Editor & Managing editor: Mike Pellerito

With this comic in hand again after some ten or so years of not getting why it existed or why it was structured like this, like with most of the things I was frustrated by or confused with, I have the context that makes this make sense now.

The Adventure 2 adaptation in the original book and the fallout of what happened was confusing as hell and full of gaps. It started out with something that seemed like it was going to go into an arc but then it told you to go play the game to find out what happened next… only, because of the structure of the book and the literal events that were happening in the book at the time, it made no sense to just shove Adventure 2’s plot line in the middle of the proceedings like it tried to do.

Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy, Shadow, Rouge, and Eggman do not have the same connections and dynamic that they do in the games and the positions all those characters were in at the time made it a hard sell to just say that Adventure 2 just happened where it did. On top of that, the absence of the Freedom Fighters, while do-able, would have needed some kind of explanation that the book just wasn’t interested in providing.

Then, some time later, Shadow just shows up alive and falls to the Earth after being picked up by some aliens and they do this weird thing where they’re sort of following his journey to re-discover himself but also not…? His writing was so inconsistent because he kept changing hands and when Penders came onto the book it fell off a cliff as he was just used to pointlessly scuffle with Sonic.

You know; the SAME shit he was doing with Geoffrey back in the earlier days of the book. 

So, knowing all this now, I can finally see what this particular issue of Sonic Universe is attempting to do; it’s trying to fill in the gaps and have all that shit finally make a modicum of sense. This would be the point where I can finally ignore the “for the rest of the story, go play the game” thing they tried to pull.

That said, is the issue any good on it’s own still? 

Dunno. Time to revisit it and see.

We begin with everyone’s favorite quotes from that one scene where these two rivals meet for a second time.

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The game followed the rule of three, where, in their individual stories they cross paths three times. Then, of course, in the last story they end up working together.

I never quoted these lines in particular like everyone else. For a time, way back when, I was also confused as to why Sonic was constantly calling Shadow “Faker” in fan-fictions and fan-comics and stuff when I was certain this was the only scene where they referred to each other as such. I guess now that I’m older I understand it’s more of a cultural impact sort of thing but I tend to prefer it when they just talk normally. It’s shown up in some of the official comics since then because of how remembered it is but I still think of Sonic as referring to Shadow as “Shadow” because that’s pretty much the way he actually did address him for the vast majority of their relationship.

It was one of those things I couldn’t exactly get behind, but then again, I’m a weirdo. My favorite lines to quote from Adventure were mundane things like “THEN I’LL SET THE TIMER ON THESE DYNAMITE PACKS AND BLOW UP THE WHOLE ISLAND” just because of how excited Eggman sounds when he says it. Or that wonderful Crazy Gadget quote that’s read so hilariously by Deem Bristow. “Well done Sonic. But you’ll never leave this room alive! HAHAA!”

It’s that kind of shit that I liked.

Anyway, this encounter with Shadow in Green Forest before the island blows up with them on it and the awesome guitar riff kicks in and you’re running down the slope with a timer ticking down (you know, cool shit that they don’t do anymore) is just a dream Sonic’s having until he’s woken up by Shadow here on some serious business.

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Yeah. Shadow approaches the force field that he and the Freedom Fighters laid outside of Eggman’s base and wakes him up in the middle of his sleep. This would kind of worry me a bit seeing as how, I’d assume, Sonic would need all the sleep he can get if tomorrow is truly the final battle but based on my recollection of what happens, it probably is a bit of an unfounded fear seeing as how… barely there Eggman is at this point.

Sonic is up and outright addresses Shadow as “Faker” here which, again, threw me for a loop because I’m out of the semi-circle of people who recognize it as a thing Sonic calls him all the time. Shadow is here to exclusively invite Sonic on a support mission with him and Rouge. Sonic agrees to do so and spin-dashes under the ground and pops out on the other side of the force-field.

He doesn’t bother covering the hole up either so… I guess there’s just a tiny underground tunnel that leads into the force-field where the sleeping Freedom Fighters are for the duration of this issue.

Oh man. It’s time for the Motobugs to shine. Go get em!

Shadow tells Sonic where to go and Sonic speeds off in a way that has Shadow grimacing for a split second before smirking and going after him. The Shadow of today would have just grimaced and then grimaced harder.

We then cut back to… a year ago eh? Wow. Adventure 2 took place a year ago here? I guess so huh. Sonic was in space for that time so I guess it adds up.

Anyway, the way this Green Forest scene plays out isn’t like the game. When Sonic hears “blows up” he doesn’t rush off to get Amy and Tails to safety, presumably because they aren’t here. Instead he approaches Shadow and offers to help him rescue Rouge.

I’m not… entirely sure how Sonic got here or how he escaped if Amy and Tails aren’t here but… 

… Actually, I don’t have a “but”. I’m not sure what the circumstances are here.

Like, Adventure 2 isn’t like one of the modern stories where you can take the characters out and nothing changes. Amy and Tails not being here affects the plot and leaves a bit of a gap in how Sonic gets from A to B. I guess it’s not too big of a deal though.

Anyway, Sonic overhears Eggman saying that he wants Shadow to come back to him and that they’ll just dig the Emeralds out of the ashes of the island when it blows up with Rouge still there. Sonic says to Shadow that they’ll do a temporary truce and Shadow shakes his hand while making a disgusted face at him.

The two of them rush off together, break into the Security Hall, presumably while the “I’m A Spy” music is still playing, and warp out of there with Shadow’s Chaos Control.

Instead of warping to the Ark, he instead warps them to the desert…? I guess outside of the pyramid base Eggman had in the game.

Then Rouge is about to say her line about being surprised that Shadow rescued her but then he cuts her off to say his line about only doing it for the emeralds before fucking off and leaving them there.

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It’s a very weird way of doing this. I guess Rouge’s final line and that pyramid that’s overlooking them IS supposed to insinuate that this is Eggman’s base.

We cut back to the present where the parallel to this scene is supposed to be taking place. Sonic and Rouge are about to break into another facility together, only this time, Shadow ends up joining them instead of leaving them behind.

They’re standing before a telescope thing that got turned into a tower that’ll be able to vaporize not only the Freedom Fighter’s force field and their camp but half the Egg Dome too.

When Sonic says that sounds over the top, even for Eggman, Shadow skids onto the scene and says that he believes that Eggman is losing the last of his marbles and is officially going cuckoo for cocoa puffs. How he knows this, I’ve not one iota of a clue. I guess G.U.N is just really good at intel. Or Rouge is. Yeah, I’d buy that actually.

For some reason, Sonic doesn’t believe him.

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I’m not entirely sure why Sonic has so much faith in Robo-Hitler’s sanity but… dyehabanagauh?

Well, anyway, they break in and fight a room full of laser cannons and cover Rouge while she disables the thing.

As this happens we intercut between the past and present in ways that… honestly feel a little sloppy. It was a little jarring jumping from Sonic and Rouge in one point in time to them being at another point in time in the literal next panel as opposed to the next page. That feels like it works a bit better for something like this. At least to me.

In the Adventure 2 adaptation, they raided the Death Chamber, Death Chamber, Death Chambeeeeerrrr together to find the key to access the shuttle that would take them to space. It’s kind of funny that they have to do this because Shadow didn’t just warp them to the Ark. I know he wouldn’t do that because Sonic was with him but the fact that he left Rouge behind is something I find kind of hilarious. It would make a good comedy bit in an internet sketch somewhere.

Back in the present, Rouge has failed to take the cannon apart, instead activating some sort of self-destruct mode that’s going to fire the cannon? 

She says “Self-Destruction Mode” which, to me, would imply it’s going to explode but no. She says the cannon is just going to continue firing. Maybe I’m missing something.

Eggman’s laser cannon is resistant to Sonic’s spin attacks and Shadow’s Chaos Spears also. Sonic even says “What’s this thing made of?!” in shock. Whatever it IS made of, he probably should use more of it. Like, maybe use some of it on a Spider-Robot for example. Just throwing ideas out there.

It does beg the question of, if he can make something this resilient, why doesn’t he do so more often? I guess the answer for this particular situation is that he’s going crazy but I’ve no reason to assume he didn’t have access to spin-dash and chaos spear resistant metal before this so…

Rouge says they have to work together to break where the canon joins together and throw off the angle of the shot. 

The point is that this is a parallel to Sonic and Shadow rushing towards the Eclipse Cannon right as it’s about to fire.

Only here Rouge interrupts the fight over the speaker to tell Shadow that she found a video he needs to see. I’m guessing it’s the Gerald execution video? If so, I’m not sure how that’s supposed to help in any way since the only thing on that video is him reiterating the mission Shadow is already trying to achieve.

It COULD be the video from Shadow the Hedgehog though; the one that Charmy found by slamming his butt into the computer. Maybe Rouge did that too and found it as well. That would probably explain his change of heart when the Biolizard shows up and fuses it’s ass with the Ark.

I can only speculate because we don’t see which video it is but the one from Shadow the Hedgehog would make the most sense.

In the present, our heroes do what Rouge tells them too but fuck it up even worse by angling the cannon directly where it needs to be to fire.

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So yeah. That ain’t good.

Things are coming down to the wire in both these scenarios now. Only, the one in Adventure 2 is far cooler because a giant bio-lizard fused itself to the cannon of a giant space station and is trying to lead it on a crash course towards the planet to shatter it to pieces… and in the comic, it’s just a less impressive Eclipse Cannon equivalent.

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It’s still cool seeing this scene drawn in the comic though. Honestly, to me it’s the most iconic final boss fight in the Sonic series but this is coming from a guy who didn’t grow up with the classics so take that only as a personal opinion and nothing else.

Shadow does the thing that he’s apparently not supposed to do anymore and removes his inhibitor rings to give himself enough power to divert the laser.

We’re shown both Shadows inducing Chaos Control in what’s easily the best handled parallel this book has done so far.

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I can’t help but chuckle at this. Looking at this scene reminded me of an old fan-fic I read where Shadow was trying to kill Sonic because he found out that the reason he fell to Earth in Adventure 2 was because Sonic drained him of his power on purpose. Then Sonic admits it and apologizes, saying that the reason he did it was because he wanted to be the only super fast, powerful hedgehog in the world. It was fucking stupid but it makes me laugh every time so I can’t exactly claim it to be a bad memory.

This scene was nice though. It’s nice seeing Shadow be more business-like without coming off as an asshole and getting to actually say Maria’s name and all that. I know he put the past behind him but a mention or two of her would go a long way every 10 or so years. You know?

Shadow apparently used Chaos Control to “divert” the laser but we don’t actually see it getting diverted to any particular location. It’s just a scene of a lot of flashing, sparkling energy. 

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SOMETHING is happening but I can’t tell what so I’ll just assume he used Chaos Control to send the laser blast into space or something.

The point is, it worked. 

WIth that done, Sonic and Shadow shake hands and bid each other farewell as Shadow has decided that this is Sonic’s fight and he wants to offer him the respect and courtesy of allowing him to finish it himself.

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This is a scene you’d only see in fan-art nowadays.

After that, Sonic races back to the force-field, no doubt unprepared to find that tons of motobugs have rolled their asses under the tunnel he made and stabbed all his friends in their sleep while he was gone. So, he’ll have to live with that as we see Shadow and Rouge head off together.

Rouge has some final words for us that spell out the friendly relationship the two of them now have after all they’ve been through together.

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I remember not being too big on hearing her say this. You know, after Knuckles was a rival turned mostly friend, I was a bit cynical about the idea of it happening to Shadow too. I figured there was definitely more of an angle to take with their relationship that could have been not NEEDLESSLY antagonistic like how Penders was portraying it but something a little more conflict driven now and again.

The idea of Sonic and Shadow wanting to both protect the world is correct but I like the idea of them having different ways of thinking towards accomplishing that and seeing their points of view clashing a bit more. I find the idea of that more interesting, which is why I actually liked the whole thing with Shadow and Mr. Tinker in IDW at the start. But then, Shadow just turned into an idiot and it became less about the conflict and started to feel more like Shadow was just an angry boy for the sake of it.

Archie Shadow is a bit of a different beast altogether though. Because of how Archie Sonic is structured from here on in, he won’t be having ANY actual important confrontations or meetings with Sonic going forward. At least nothing significant is jumping out at me at the top of my head. Archie Shadow from this point on is regulated as more of an agent living his own life and coming across colorful characters when it’s necessary. 

He doesn’t really need to be tied to Sonic in any way after this point so, in that case, why not have them be friends? It doesn’t really matter as far as where he’s going in the Archie canon.

At this point in time, Sonic and Shadow don’t have a reason to be clashing and it’s better for it to just be that way instead of lazily forming a reason for them to fight like Penders did.

Well, no. I gave the man too much credit. He couldn’t even be bothered to give a reason they fought. They just DID because Shadow was the rival character and that’s what he do.

So, I guess what I’m saying is that, when it comes to Shadow, I still prefer something with a bit more of a bite to him than this but that doesn’t mean this was the wrong way to go about utilizing him in these comics. This works for who he is HERE and what he’ll be doing going forward… give or take a few times where he falters a little bit but we’re not there yet.

Re-reading this did very little to move the needle as far as my opinion on this issue is concerned. I’m no longer confused as to why it exists but that feeling of this being a bit of a throw away story still kind of lingers. The gaps in the Adventure 2 story haven’t all been completely filled in. I’m still not sure how or where Eggman fits in with all this outside of that one line of digging the emeralds out of the ashes. How Sonic plans to stop the Eclipse Cannon from firing when he doesn’t have that fake emerald that Tails made is beyond me. I don't particularly feel like the cutting between the past and present was handled as well as it could have been some of the time. 

This issue feels like an experimental thing that was also trying to pull double duty as a way of fixing the narrative and it didn’t really work for me. It’s hard to even feel like I’m articulating my final thoughts here well. Things just feel so jumbled.

 

Sonic Universe - Issue #3: The Shadow Saga - Part 3 of 4: Old Soldiers

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Good God. The entire middle section of this arc is just “Adventure Adaptation Spring Cleaning” isn’t it? I was also extremely confused as to why Gamma was just… alive when I first read this. If Adventure happened, he shouldn’t have been right? Well, turns out he just… disappeared and no one writing the book either realized it or cared. So here he is again, starring in an issue where we finally, FINALLY introduce one of my all time favorite characters, E-123 Omega. That said, I remember… REALLY hating this issue and how it ended up incorporating him into the story. Going back to this is going to be interesting because while I have context for why Gamma is still alive, my problems with this issue had nothing to do with that so… we’ll see.

Beautiful cover though. Definitely the best of this arc so far.

Spoiler

Writer: Ian Flynn
Pencils: Tracy Yardley
Inks: Jim Amash
Colors: Jason Jensen
Letters: Teresa Davidson
Editor & Managing editor: Mike Pellerito

We begin with Commander Abraham Tower and Dr. Eggman debriefing the field agents they’re about to send on a mission of one E-102 Gamma. Yes, it’s the robot from Sonic Adventure that should have long since been dead by this point. This comic came out in 2009, a year after Sonic Unleashed. That’s a long ass time.

Eggman is very upset with Gamma. He explains to his latest creation that if an outpost was guarded by an E-100 unit then Gamma would show up and destroy it. He even laments the loss of Beta and admits it showed promise. Although, one could maybe see this as him just lamenting the time wasted on upgrading Beta if he was just going to die anyway but I’m sure Beta would have been happy to get any kind of praise from Papa regardless.

Anyway, Commander Tower makes the third mission he has for Shadow and Rouge clear. Gamma, ever since the end of the Adventure arc, is a rebel that helps the Freedom Fighters and allies in the war effort against Eggman in silence. He strikes from afar but doesn’t openly help or ally with anyone and because he’s an old ass robot in need of some server upgrades, he’s wearing down. 

This panel of the commander from Shadow the Hedgehog saying this about Gamma with that far off look in his eyes feels like it’s meme material, honestly.

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“Gamma is so cool. I love Sonic Adventure.”

Anyway, Shadow’s mission is to find Gamma and recruit him into G.U.N. Shadow says that should be simple enough.

I guess so. Though, if Gamma isn’t willingly allying with anyone it could stand to reason that he doesn’t want to join up with anyone. 

It’s here where we get our first, proper introduction to E-123 Omega!

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There are a couple of things I want to talk about at this juncture.

First, obviously, is the fact that my boy Omega is finally in the comic. Well, he’s finally in one of the Sonic comics at least. He won’t appear in the main series for… ever. 

Maybe it truly is just that single panel of Team Dark watching the fights in Champions…

Anyway, Omega is a part of the Archie canon now. Why it took so long, we’ll never know outside of “it was the typical whims of SEGA/Sonic Team” at play once more. The plea that it wasn’t Team Dark without the big guy did eventually convince them so that’s good.

Omega is one of my favorite characters. Top 5, easily. Relentlessly entertaining to the point where he’s one of the few characters that I’ve found can easily pull off being monstrous and unapologetically harsh. That’s no easy feat for my overly sensitive self. It’s entertaining as hell whenever he does it and because the nature of his character I find so fascinating, I’m a lot more receptive to it. The anti-hero nature of the members of Team Dark hits home with me the best when it comes to Rouge and Omega. I think Omega’s stems from the clear and obvious fact that Shadow and Rouge are the only ones he really gives a shit about and the rest are ignorable at best and collateral damage at worst. That makes them not his enemies but they’re not his friends either. 

Characters like that are fun and seeing any writer able to handle them is a treat. Honestly, Sonic Team is in the hands of characters and character archetypes that demand proper writing talent to get the most out of and as such their commitment to being as simple as humanly possible with their narratives is seeing their potential gather dust.

The intrigue behind someone as prideful and as boastful as Omega and how he ended up where he is I always found really interesting. He was double stuffed with so much goddamn pride that him being relegated to inactive guard duty for an undetermined amount of time, wasting away in some dank, dark hidey-hole of Eggmans while the rest of the doctor’s toys got to go out there and be gruesome machines of destruction made him turn traitor.

His ambition is something that’s 100% purely motivated by sheer selfishness and having a character a part of the core cast whose desire is rooted in revenge is an incredibly interesting thing for a series like this to do.

You can understand then why I, as a huge Omega fan, wouldn't really like to see that side of him re-worked or messed with in any way. 

I know Ian kind of relegated Omega’s ambition in Heroes to simply being mad because Eggman “locked him in the broom closet” but I really do feel like that’s an oversimplification of his situation and it kind of ignores just how monstrous and unapologetically prideful Omega is. He’s an Eggman robot at his core so his motivations being so petty line up perfectly with something created by Dr. Eggman to me.

Ian has talked about how he’s a huge fan of this issue in particular, which I’ve always found to be the biggest butting heads moment between us… though, it’s not as if we’ve ever met or talked about it. I mean that hypothetically. 

How Omega is handled in this comic got a lot of praise from a ton of people, for his pure entertainment value concerning the writing. For a lot of people, I heard it said that it made them like him… however, I’m in the camp of people who thought he was fine the way he was so the mileage had a higher risk of varying extravagantly when it came to me. 

I think he’s absolutely fucking perfect in the IDW comics. That panel of him turning to Sonic and saying “WE ARE NOT FRIENDS. YOU ARE IN THE WAY OF MY MASSACRE” is something I just quote out of context to myself nowadays and the fact that it got posted all over Twitter and Reddit made me a happy boy too. I think here in the year 2021, Omega as he was is a lot more respected and beloved then it was back in 2009. 

Sonic Heroes was only 6 years old at the time. A considerable amount of time but not enough to really change a significant amount of people’s minds after his first impression did little to sway them. He was seen mostly as a filler character for Team Dark. True or not, he was a good character to me so having that be all he was seen as made me upset. 

Nowadays, I hardly ever hear or see a bad word spoken about him, which is great. Honestly, it feels true for pretty much all the characters. It’s shockingly easy to find people who love Modern Team Chaotix or Omega or whoever on the internet today. Not so much back then.

I haven’t combed through the rest of this issue yet but I’ve a sneaking suspicion my opinion on this one isn’t going to change.

Another thing I want to bring up is how interesting it is to actually witness Eggman, first, speaking about Gamma’s betrayal. In Adventure, I don’t believe he ever even found out about it. As far as he was concerned, Gamma was a loyal soldier that he left to deal with Sonic and never saw or heard from again. Those Chaos Gammas in Adventure 2 and even Omega himself were probably designed and created as a sort of tribute to him, I like to think.

So hearing Eggman calling him a traitor and telling Omega that his first mission is to destroy him is quite the development. It’s a little sad too. 

Second, seeing Omega and Eggman conversing like this at all is strange, much less Eggman giving him an order and Omega actually DOING what he’s told by him. It’s so weird seeing Omega in the presence of Eggman and having him not want to rip the doctor in half. That’s not something he’ll REALLY want to do in the Archie books either because of the nature of where this story goes. It’s something that makes him significantly less… vindictive.

Omega will pay lip-service to wanting to do it but it’ll never feel quite right.

The last thing I want to bring up is Omega’s size.

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As funny as this image is of Omega going “Oh dear. I’m sorry sir!” with his eyes in the second panel, it’s really distracting just how much he towers over the doctor like this. 

One of the things about Omega that I also liked is how, whenever the subject of his size came up, people were often surprised when they actually compared his size to the other characters. He’s actually not that tall at all. Obviously, Big the Cat is the tallest and biggest character in the series but Omega also doesn’t even reach the height of Eggman or Vector. 

It always throws people off when it gets shown to them and that’s GREAT! Omega is a character who FEELS huge! You look at him by the way he acts and the presence he commands and your mind tricks you into thinking he’s supposed to tower over everyone but he doesn’t! It’s one of the more intriguing facets of his design. He’s big in the horizontal sense rather than the vertical, for sure, but that bulk still only goes one way. 

I’ve gone on for a while about this but I suppose it’s only natural that I be more long winded when it comes to my personal favorite characters. 

The point is, I’m not a fan of Archie Omega. Him being so different from his game counterpart is what got a lot of people to like him here back in the day but that naturally doesn’t work for me, as a fan of his game counterpart. I suppose the same can be said for a lot of the characters in this book though. The Archie Chaotix, despite still being the Chaotix, I’ve had no qualms calling useless and uninteresting and they’re literally my favorite characters in the fucking series so…

Let it never be said that I’ll eat something up just because you put my favorite character in it. It’s a good way of getting my attention though.

Back to the story, Shadow heads off… by himself. He doesn’t want any support. Not even Rouge. At first he makes it seem like an ego thing by mentioning the Ultimate Lifeform thing again but in his mind he’s still thinking about Metal Sonic and how he was unable to save him.

I still maintain my position on Metal Sonic’s handling in this series and in the earlier issue but because of that experience, his destruction has done exactly what it was designed to do; allow for Shadow’s character to have an emotional crisis of sorts. He was the perfect person to send on this mission because of that. He’d naturally be more open-minded to Gamma, or Omega in this sense.

Snively asks Eggman if he’s sure about sending Omega out on this mission since he’s got more firepower than all of the old badnik horde combined. Something like that could be useful for the final battle against Sonic but, as Eggman stated in the above panel, “THE RODENT IS MINE!”.

So, the only reason he got his strongest weapon out of cold storage was so that he could sick it on Gamma because he doesn’t want any “distractions” before his final battle with Sonic. 

It’s an incredibly roundabout way of thinking and it’s exactly the kind of messed up thought process befitting an Eggman at the edge of losing the last of his marbles.

Shadow hitches a ride with the, in my mind, infamous “Attempting Marvel Banter G.U.N Agent” and ribs the guy for daring to try that shit with him.

Such a weird scene. I’ll never forget it for the remainder of my days. It’s hard recalling a time where someone attempted to do the Marvel Movie banter and was just shut down like that.

Anyway, Shadow drops into the forest and finds tracks in the snow that obviously belong to Gamma. Shadow calls Gamma sloppy for leaving these tracks behind but Gamma appears behind him and recounts everything he knows about Shadow, adding a nice little burn about Shadow being surprisingly gullible for falling for his “tracks left in the snow” trap.

Shadow thanks Gamma for not blowing his head off and then proceeds to have cordial negotiations with him. Gamma, of course, refuses at first, saying that he works alone and any help would slow him down. In these upcoming panels where he gives his response, Shadow comes off looking a lot more like Sonic than he ever has before.

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They’re about to head for the extraction point where Gamma is to be restocked and repaired but he starts to sense an Eggman Empire radio signal and a hostile presence.

The two of them somehow get ambushed by the hulking, massive frame that is Omega. He towers over both of them and is no doubt loud as fuck so I’m not sure how he does this but he does.

He fends off Shadow for a bit but Shadow retaliates and tells Gamma to run.

Gamma does and because his design is so spindly he looks goofy running away.

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He looks like a muppet when he runs.

Shadow and Omega square off. 

Or rather, Omega tricks Shadow into thinking they’re going to square off but tricks him into challenging him with a spin-dash so that he can zip into Omega’s arm cannon and then get blasted away.

Nice.

After that, Omega goes after Gamma and starts taunting him about how old and weak he is. He even makes fun of the jet disk upgrade from Adventure. That shit was fun to use, Omega. Although, I guess it isn’t as overpowered as your broken jet pack from 06 that allowed for an almost infinite hover.

Gamma responds to all the things Omega says with the benefits of how good he can be compared to something like Omega. He’s downloaded Omega’s file… somehow.

Anyway, he says Omega’s armor is heavy but so is he which I guess is supposed to mean he’s slower…? Oh wait no. In the next sentence he says his speed is great… but he’s unwieldy. How is he unwieldy? I dunno. They don’t really demonstrate that.

Gamma also says that Omega’s jets are stronger but he’s louder because of it. Now, while that’s supposedly true, he still managed to sneak up on you and burst through the trees while both you and Shadow were aware something was headed your way. I don’t quite know if him being louder matters as much as you say it does if he can do that.

Then the matter of weaponry comes up. Omega made fun of Gamma’s gun earlier but Gamma proves that it can still be useful.

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See? Gamma’s gun can knock Omega down. That proves he’s an assassin somehow.

I mean, it didn’t hurt Omega in any way but you know… if there was a cliff or something perhaps firing at him at the edge of it and getting him to fall that way would have been more impressive. Then again, Gamma isn’t trying to kill him and he couldn’t if he wanted to anyway.

I get what Gamma is trying to say of course. He’s more nimble. He can hide and fire from a distance more easily. He doesn’t STOMP his way into a battlefield and blow the shit out of everything like Mr. Walking Arsenal here. He delivers precise strikes from far off hiding places. That’s what makes him an assassin.

I get it… but, as Gamma points out on the next page, it doesn’t really mean much because compared to Omega he’s outdated and his strikes don’t do anything to him.

Omega is happy that Gamma is ready to surrender and says he’ll give him a glorious destruction. Gamma then starts talking like some kind of soulful nomad and says “You will never destroy all of me, brother. You cannot destroy my soul.”

He puts on some white robes and starts to glow a majestic white. Gamma Jesus is about to die for Omega’s sins everybody.

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Shadow is too late. Omega didn’t bother with tying him to the cross. He just obliterated him.

But not so.

Gamma uploaded his “soul” into Omega’s body. Omega is scared and wants to purge him because he’s making him feel things. Icky things like “remorse” and “uneasiness” at the thought of crushing all life. 

Gamma, however, says that it’s his gift to him. He basically did the Piccolo and Nail thing where he fused himself into Omega’s body. His consciousness will dissipate but his mission will live on.

So now, Omega just kind of… slumps in the snow and goes “Well, shit.”

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This lip-service to Omega’s original game counterpart's desire for revenge at Eggman wasting his potential doesn’t exactly work for me, nor does my memory serve to recollect any real instances of him making good on this notion aside from maybe one issue of Scrambled…? I think?

Yeah.

I don’t know what the reception to my opinion on this issue is going to be but I guess I’ll just say it. I think this is sort of lame. 

I take umbrage with the idea that Omega didn’t have a “soul” before Gamma implanted himself into his body, first and foremost. Omega was definitely exhibiting “thoughts” before this. They were much more selfish and mean thoughts but those were still there.

It feels like that Metal Sonic thing again where, even though Shadow considers them “living” weapons the narrative itself doesn’t unless there are these weird conditions to it.

Like, yeah, robots can have souls but it only counts if they do good things apparently? Is that why Metal Sonic keeps getting blown up? What it thinks and feels about its function doesn’t count as it having a soul? I guess not. According to this issue, Omega was the same way until Gamma went into him and gave him a “soul”. Robots only have souls if they’re good? What does this mean?

I don’t know. I’ve always thought that the robots in the Sonic universe already had this to them. It feels evident not just with Omega, Gamma, and Metal Sonic but especially with characters like Orbot, Cubot, and Gemerl. 

I know Ian loves this issue and what he’s done with it but in my opinion it just feels like a slapdash way of slotting Omega into a position he needs to be in so that he can serve a function within the story without too much development. 

Why bother when you can just have Gamma plant himself into Omega and say he’s a new man? Most of the rest of these stories involving Team Dark are going to be focusing on Shadow so we can’t exactly waste time developing Omega. 

Cynical way of looking at it, I know. It feels true that all of Omega’s development was just crammed into this single introductory issue for him though. Perhaps I’m forgetting something though. Maybe my memory is failing me again and I’ll be surprised by something he says, does, or learns later down the line but as of right now I continue to not be a fan of this.

I’m not as livid about it as I was back in the day but I’ll admit, even now, it’s hard to accept that this is how he’s going to be.

Omega making a grave marker for Gamma and whining about his place in the world is hard to buy him doing and at the very least, he lampshades it in a pretty amusing way.

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Well, the mission is accomplished, sort of.

Later, Hope, Shadow, and Rouge are lounging on the couch in the rec room and talking about what just happened. Hope is astonished that half of Omega’s weight is pure ammo. He’s a monster, no doubt.

Shadow mopes on the couch because he’s sad Gamma is gone. Rouge teases him for this while patting his head and then asks for the new orders.

Hope’s Zone-Breaching platform is working properly now!

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God, the look on Hope’s face. 

Also, this scene where they’re all floating here looks really odd. I know they’re supposed to be getting off the couch but the way they’re doing it feels a bit off. 

Oh well. Team Dark is here now so next time, they’re going to go on their first mission together.

It’s a shame. I was really hoping that this issue would be one of the ones I’d change my mind on. Especially since reading it I’ve heard Ian gush about how much he loves it. Unfortunately, this reread didn’t change my opinion a single iota. I’m not a fan of the direction Omega’s character takes here. I “get” what he’s going for with the living weapon thing but the way the book seems to be exempting robots with a function towards something more sinister from having “souls” is something I’m really not fond of.

I understand it’s supposed to be a hold over from Gamma’s story in Adventure where he betrays his function and goes against Eggman to “save” his brothers but I don’t think that was necessarily a one to one situation of Gamma gaining a “soul”. I’d argue Beta and the others also had souls too, even if they couldn’t betray their programming like Gamma managed to. I feel it’s a bit more complicated than just being like “robot is good now, therefore have soul”. 

Talks of Gamma literally putting his soul into Omega in general just feel really lame to me besides. It’s all just one big lump of smaltz that I don’t like in comparison to his much cooler (in my opinion) game counterpart. From here on in, all the stuff that Omega says in relation to maiming and destroying things feels less like his actual personality and more like random one-liners. He never feels like he quite has the edge to actually act on any of the stuff he says.

Hell, if I remember correctly, in Treasure Team Tango, he stands down from fighting before Rouge does. Yeah, somehow, Rouge ends up being the one who wants to risk Blaze’s dimension for a single emerald while Omega refuses to fight because he doesn’t want to make the cute little bunny cry. 

God, I remember having a lot of problems with Treasure Team Tango now that I think about it. That’s gonna be a trip when I revisit that one too. 

 

Archie Sonic the Hedgehog - Issue #199: Knocking on Eggman's Door

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This cover still gets the blood pumping even after all these years. God. Man. It’s so awesome. Look at this. It’s incredible isn’t it? You look at that and you just know some sort of climactic thing is in store. Something about that image of Snively especially gets me every time. It’s just a wonderful work of art. I like looking at it more than Issue 200 probably. Sometimes, the lead up to the climax gets me more pumped than the climax itself.

Spoiler

Writer: Ian Flynn
Pencils: Tracy Yardley
Inks: Jim Amash
Colors: Matt Herms
Letters: Teresa Davidson
Editor/Managing Editor: Mike Pellerito

It’s already morning. We know this because of all the stuff that just went down in SU #3. So while Omega’s busy getting acquainted with G.U.N our heroes are about to head out. Rotor looks dead though. He says he couldn’t sleep so he set up the link to New Mobotropolis; a live data stream if you will.

Sonic asks why they’re doing this and Sally says it’s to keep the people informed. He actually asks if it was Hamlin’s idea which I found funny but nope. It was Sally’s. 

It’d be easy to make a joke about how it could very easily capture the point where they all die instead but there’s no chance of that happening really.

They’re going into this with the most sorry bunch of worn down losers to overtake. It’s not going to be quite the climactic, full-scale war final battle I was hoping to see way back when I caught the notion of this being the final bout with Eggman when I first read this.

It took me by surprise, quite a whole lot in fact. Jumping on this series at #194 made the final bout with Eggman feel extremely sudden. We were messing around with Scourge and then suddenly in #198 we were outside of Eggman’s door and now we’re raiding his base and making extremely quick work of the enemies.

Because I had no frame of reference for the lead up to all this, seeing Eggman just get so easily decimated was… really upsetting. Even when I got the back issues my attention span didn’t really allow me to see what was going on with Eggman’s mind and as such the loss of his sanity took me way off guard.

I have a lot more respect for this turn of events now, though, it remains to be seen if I’ll find it satisfactory in the end.

One thing I will say though is that the art, and especially the colors, for this issue are fucking bonkers good. This whole thing looks fantastic.

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It’s a big leap forward for all of them and when this battle ends a new dawn will be on the horizon (they think).

Inside, Lien-Da is freaking out and scrambling to get her goons to follow the doctor’s blueprints. I don’t quite know why this wasn’t all set up earlier but I guess the doctor’s schedule is also a bit on the crazy side considering he’s gone totally looney.

None of what he’s saying and doing is making sense anymore and when Lien-Da says this outloud, Dimitri comes down to reassure her that it does…!

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By “the plan” he means the one Snively has. The doctor’s plan is madness.

This is a nice way to inform us that Lien-Da is in on the plan now too but it also does a good job of keeping things secretive just enough that their worries concerning where to place their trust remain understandable even if Eggman’s not cutting it for them.

Also, as an aside, I really like Lien-Da’s design. She’s looked like this forever but something about the way she’s drawn and colored here really makes her stand out. She’s got one of the few echidna designs that actually stands on it’s own as something recognizably her own. 

Outside, the Heroes launch the attack. Mighty and Bunnie peel back the wall and Amy PIKOS Sonic inside with her hammer. I like to imagine whenever she does that, she’s always swatting his bottom. A hammer to the butt sounds painful but it might serve as good motivation not to get hit any more by the oncoming enemy.

The Freedom Fighters take the east hall. The Chaotix take the west hall. 

Then it’s just a bunch of reminiscing from all the characters present about where they were, how far they’ve come and where they are now.

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Yeah, it is a bit interesting to think about. Issue #50 wasn’t quite structured like this though I would argue that honestly made it more interesting. That said, moments like these where the heroes can charge in and raid the enemy fortress like this together are great too. This isn’t exactly what I’d like to call organized chaos though. It’s incredibly simple and straightforward. They’re all rushing in, fighting, and talking about the past together.

As a penultimate thing to do before the big Issue #200 it makes sense. Even my desire to see something more complicated and crazy can’t override the fact that I understand why things would be structured this way.

Although it does get a little funky when Sally is at the point where she’s comfortable making jokes about the fact that she was dead during the last big Eggman triumph.

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Is it weird that the two comments I have to make about this scene is “I love the way Antoine’s sword is drawn” and “Wow, these echidnas are fucking weak. Jesus.” or are those fine comments to make?

Oh well.

Reminiscing between the Freedom Fighters characters tends to go that way for me. I apologize for the 5 Billionth time to all their fans.

I’m sat here chuckling about how Penders said these guys were a match for Eggman’s army and now, working UNDER Eggman, they can’t handle it when six random, squishy motherfuckers raid a base and bowl over them like bowling pins. If Penders ever bothered actually reading Ian’s work I’d imagine he’d have a delightfully entertaining reaction.

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We cut to Vector and Julie-Su, in a scene that I absolutely DID NOT get when I read it the first time years and years ago.

Having the back issues from #142 onward did nothing to help that either.

Now that I’ve actually read all the bullshit before that point, I finally get it.

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Naturally, back in the day, there was this feud between this one character I hated and a bastardized, boring version of a character that I liked. I recall Vector being a guy who hung with friends who hated him because he was annoying and brash. 

I recall the rest of the Chaotix were very easily and very strangely open to accepting Julie-Su into their gang despite the fact that she strapped them all to the ground in the desert and left them to die. Reasons for why she was to be trusted all of a sudden were never really properly given and we were just expected to go along with it. Meanwhile, Julie-Su’s reasons for doing things this way amounted to “magical echidna soul touch that exists because nature said they’re unable to love” and that was all.

I wanted to take Vector’s side in this conflict, especially because of the way he kept being beaten and insulted by the others… but the fact of the matter is that Vector was also a fucking jerk. It was insanely annoying to read and it got old before it even became a thing if you can believe it.

This scene brings it back in a way that seems to imply growth for the two of them. That’s all well and good. I think that now that I’m aware of the stuff that lead up to this moment my new opinion is that I hate Julie-Su and I wish the Chaotix were different.

So, nothing has changed. Sorry.

It’s nice that Ian decided to include it as a scene though.

The next scene that happens is a little weird.

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I guess it’s nice that “Charmy and Friends” got to do something but Espio and Mighty were pinned down by some goons? The way the lasers were firing at them, it looked more like cannon fire from some sort of security system but no. It was just some Dark Egg Legionnaires.

… Alright, I’ll roll with it. I shouldn’t be thinking too hard about this stuff. I get it. I understand what’s going down with these scenes here. It’s not about the battle. It’s about establishing their growth.

I kind of wish it could have been done in a different way though. Re-reading this so far has surprisingly done very little to change my mind about the way these events have transpired. 

It’s odd but this week I feel like all three issues I’m reading have left me feeling pretty much the same way I did when I initially read them. 

We get a nice scene of Knuckles going after the Egg Legion and Lien-Da wondering if he should. Knuckles says that they may be half the last of his kind but they’re working for Eggman and need to be stopped for their own good. Now that’s a very nice and humane way of putting it. Good job.

Oh, but who should head them off at the pass but Dimitri!

Floating brain in a bubble echidna demi-god is here folks.

We cut back to Snively, who's all dressed up with a fancy yellow cape and some cologne that Lien-Da absolutely hates. 

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God, his nose is fucking gargantuin in that panel. Prepare for take-off folks. Geez.

We cut back to Sally’s group where I’m actually starting to get more of an understanding of what’s proceeding here now that the trips down memory lane and the personal growth scenes are done. The Legion has them pinned and Sally is about to work out a plan to get by them but in the next instant, Sonic says they can scrap the plan because the Legion just… retreated.

It’s not because they were being cowardly or weak this time though. Honestly, if one were to look for a silver lining to them here it could probably be argued that they were purposefully not putting up a strong resistance because they’re following Snively’s plan more so than Eggman’s.

Their retreat was definitely done on purpose. We’ve reached a point where they’re all preparing for Regina’s arrival. 

Fact of the matter is, they already know Sonic and the others have won and they’re okay with that. None of what Eggman is doing no longer means anything for any of them. As far as Snively and the Legion are concerned this is just a weird puppet show before new management steps in.

It’s like when you’re in Senior Year of high school and the assignments you get are piss easy because you’re on your way out and no one gives a fuck.

Despite this, Dimitri still has one last thing he feels he needs to do, now that Knuckles is here.

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Dimitri is a really goddamn good fucking character. It’s strange because he’s also been one of the most consistent ones too. At least after he got his power stolen by Mogul, the writing for him (shockingly, that includes some of Penders’ stuff) has always been intriguing to me. Even I don’t feel confident in working out what exactly Dimitri got out of this little exchange but it feels right that it happened this way.

At this point, I would say my opinion on this issue is now about half and half as far as the reverence I have for it is concerned. I’m noticing that after that stuff at the front of the book, the focus on the villains and seeing the pieces move a bit has made things way more interesting.

When the heroes all re-group, they take notice of how much the bad guys are sucking today.

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So yeah. Maybe I was right. Maybe even before being given the order to retreat the Legion were just not giving a shit. Losing on purpose sounds like a really hard thing to do.

What’s funny about this scene is how Lien-Da and Dimitri said the doctor’s plan here made no sense and was complete madness but the heroes talk it up like it’s some serious genius level foresight.

Not only does Tails say that the wall is well built but Espio says that it’s a strategic way of bottlenecking them so that they have to go through it one by one which would make it easier for them to be taken out. 

However, I think Eggman may have stumbled upon a good idea by mistake here because Espio then goes on to say it’s really only designed like this so that Sonic can spin-dash through it alone. The doctor doesn’t give a crap about taking them out one by one. He just wants to challenge Sonic one ON one.

Sally is still reluctant to let him go in alone but Sonic makes good points in response. It’s a well fortified wall and wasting all their energy trying to tear it down so that they can go in as a group at the same time would mean having to eventually fall back and then who knows what. 

Honestly, at worst, it feels like they’d just be giving Eggman a chance to retreat but I understand that they’re in the “This ends TODAY” mindset so that’s not an option.

Really, it’s fine. Sonic can go in alone. He’s done it before and he can handle it now. Especially now that the doctor is on his last legs and the army they were fighting is so uninterested in fighting that they just packed it in.

With that, they say their goodbyes.

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Sally gives him a jumping naked hug.

Sonic and Knuckles fist-pump and if anyone’s relationship has come a long way it’s theirs. Remember when Sonic punched Knuckles in the face and started a fight for literally no reason while Knuckles was on an important personal mission that had fucking nothing to do with Sonic?

Sonic pats Tails on the head while the fox boy wipes a tear from his eye.

Amy gives him a kiss.

Sonic’s reaction to the Amy kiss is nice. Again, I tend to only get into pairings when I find the idea of said pairing to be interesting and since Sonic and Amy as a pairing feels more entertaining I usually give it a positive outlook. I know Sally hugging Sonic is the bigger panel on this page but the only thought I had when she did it was how she wasn’t wearing any pants. 

Anyway, Sonic zooms on through the hole and comes out to see the Dark Egg Legion lined up and giving a salute with the red carpet rolled out for our hero to pass by.

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Sonic still hasn’t put it together that what Shadow said was correct. Eggman’s losing his goddamn mind.

I’m still not quite sure why Sonic has so much faith in the doctor’s sanity. Perhaps his mind is refusing to accept that his constant battering of the doctor’s ego has had any kind of long lasting effect. Maybe he’s just too used to this song and dance of theirs. Sonic charges in, they fight, he wins, he goes home, the doctor comes back while laughing and claiming he’s going to win like the last defeat didn’t happen or matter, rinse and repeat.

It makes me wonder… what does Sonic think Eggman’s reaction to him losing once and for all would actually be?

It’s something he’s probably never had to think about because Eggman always just comes back but if he can’t come back and they both know he can’t… what does he think the doctor would do? What would he say? What would he think? 

Would he be able to handle it…?

Well, like it or not… prepared for it or not, Sonic is about to find out.

Snively watches from his monitor and gives his last orders to the Kommissar and the Grandmaster. The Dark Egg Legion is to keep Sonic’s friends busy until Sonic is sealed in the room with Eggman while Dimitri is to wait on top of the Egg Dome for the new arrivals.

They respectfully do their duty, calling Snively “sir” as he’s in full command now. Snively then marches off, determined to witness the last moments of the “Eggman” Empire.

Sonic wanders right on into the tight, enclosed space. He even makes a crack about how there isn’t a repeat of the armor from last time. As smug as Sonic looks when he says that, Eggman locking Sonic into a tight room like this where there’s barely any space to run WITH that robot from #175 would have probably sealed Sonic’s fate! Like seriously, that would have been like handing Eggman the win on a platter.

Instead, he’s in a spider-robot because Eggman’s teetering on the edge of insanity now. It crawls down the walls and Eggman greets Sonic for what they both imagine will be the last time.

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At the end of this battle, neither of them are going to be feeling quite like themselves. 

We’re in it now.

Issue #200 is next!

I’ll admit to this issue almost losing me in the first half. The stuff I recognized as being the preamble for reminiscing about how far they’ve come wasn’t doing it for me. There’s ways to do it that I can get into, of course, but I don’t think this issue quite hits upon how to do so in a way that I’d personally enjoy. The second half, however, did it’s job exceptionally well. I loved everything with the legion, Snively, and the ending bit where Sonic said goodbye to everyone. It worked the best for me out of all the sentimental stuff the issue was doing. Probably because it was quick and to the point without necessitating that the characters talk about how they were before and how they are now. I guess I’ve always had a bit of a hang up about spelling things out that way.

God. Can you guys believe I’ve covered so much of these issues now? I may have started somewhere in the 30’s but adding on the entire Knuckles comic, the Super Specials, and all 40 Issues of Sonic X means I’ve already done way more than 200 issues by this point. Agh. I’m crazy! Why didn’t you all stop me?

No, but seriously, thanks. Let’s all have a happy #200 together.

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Correct me if I'm wrong, but Sonic Universe #2 is like... the last time Shadow and Sonic even speak to each other in Archie at all isn't it (I think they have some brief exchanges in the crossovers but I don't really count those)? Shadow (and Team Dark, really) are either always off doing their own thing or dealing with something that the secondary cast is doing. Even in the reboot, Shadow hints at being somewhat envious that Sonic's just off doing the big hero thing while GUN and everyone else cleans up.

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Spoiler

Even knowing why it exists I do kinda wonder if it was a last minute addition to pad the arc out to four for the trade? I mean it doesn't really contribute much to the overarching story and issues 3 and 4 kinda don't acknowledge it at all.

 

4 hours ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

For a time, way back when, I was also confused as to why Sonic was constantly calling Shadow “Faker” in fan-fictions and fan-comics and stuff when I was certain this was the only scene where they referred to each other as such.

I've always been confused on the insistenceto have Shadow call Sonic "Blue Hedgehog" myself. Like Faker at least sounds like Sonic snaking at Shadow and mocking him. Blue Hedgehog...is literally just what Sonic is.

 

4 hours ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

We then cut back to… a year ago eh? Wow. Adventure 2 took place a year ago here? I guess so huh. Sonic was in space for that time so I guess it adds up.

I guess but it feels like Ian is taking the year more literally. Like IDK Sonic was in space for a year after the Xorda Invasion but like there were definitely several months before that and again I like to point out that Sonic had a birthday not long after he got back which implies SA2 would be closer to 2 years ago at this point. 

 

4 hours ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

I’m not… entirely sure how Sonic got here or how he escaped if Amy and Tails aren’t here but… 

… Actually, I don’t have a “but”. I’m not sure what the circumstances are here.

I think Ian once said in this continuity the GUN realized their mistake and set him free which...eh sure why not.

 

4 hours ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

Then Rouge is about to say her line about being surprised that Shadow rescued her but then he cuts her off to say his line about only doing it for the emeralds before fucking off and leaving them there.

piPE4EgklpKBBDGnl7BpyLmCwjFBasy-XaLV1dXf_UHQ9g51lNwq_B02RLM_8y5yAHsD5jjm2txcyJzzzKCbzeJ8nwbeSRz5Rgic5nzR1zjq7URywtP0nIw6iKMLrG2v2hMDnHHu=s0

You know not to be a major Sonouge mark but issues like this really make me wish they'd interact more. They have such a fun chemistry and play off each other so well.

 

4 hours ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

I can’t help but chuckle at this. Looking at this scene reminded me of an old fan-fic I read where Shadow was trying to kill Sonic because he found out that the reason he fell to Earth in Adventure 2 was because Sonic drained him of his power on purpose. Then Sonic admits it and apologizes, saying that the reason he did it was because he wanted to be the only super fast, powerful hedgehog in the world. It was fucking stupid but it makes me laugh every time so I can’t exactly claim it to be a bad memory.

Y'know sometimes fan fiction can be good but a lot of the time it's...that. 

 

4 hours ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

How Omega is handled in this comic got a lot of praise from a ton of people, for his pure entertainment value concerning the writing. For a lot of people, I heard it said that it made them like him… however, I’m in the camp of people who thought he was fine the way he was so the mileage had a higher risk of varying extravagantly when it came to me. 

This is going to be another Deadly Six situation for me where I see people talk about how different Ian writes them but I'm just like "It's the same picture." Like IDK Omega was making quips and comments very similar to how Ian writes him in Heroes too.

 

4 hours ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

Sonic asks why they’re doing this and Sally says it’s to keep the people informed. He actually asks if it was Hamlin’s idea

I love that the council has existed for like a month or two in universe but Hamlin already has the reputation of having a redwood up his ass.

Wow I barely had anything to say. This is why I don't really want to comment on the Flynn era stuff. I have basically nothing to say and stuff I could is just going "I disagree".

Like personally I greatly enjoy all three of these issues but can see why you'd have issues with them. 

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28 minutes ago, Kuzu said:

I think so yea, SU#2 is the last time the two interact outside of brief exchanges.

Huh.. that's really weird. Somehow I never noticed this until now. 

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1 hour ago, Razule said:

Huh.. that's really weird. Somehow I never noticed this until now. 

Its not that noticeable give just how much stuff was going on at the time; Sonic was busy with Freedom Fighter stuff, while Shadow and Team Dark were dealing the likes of the Black Arms. 

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Dimitri: I agree in part with Detective Mike: I always found him interesting, but I think that Penders wrote him in an awful way. I think the reason I liked it even pre-Flynn was because... he barely did anything :). I mean, as Enerjak he was a joke (an Enerjoke, thx Sonic). Then as the leader of the Dark Legion... well, better forget about most of it (like the time he fried the brain of a councillor just because). He had a pretty good premise but overall poor execution. Likely, Ian managed to capitalise on those good points and made it one of my favorite characters :).

Issue 199 VS Endgame: Wow, seriously, are we really comparing the disaster that was Endgame with this? I can't even fully remember the plot of Endgame aside from "Sonic runs away for three and a half issues, then magic dragon". Wrapping things up with Eggman in just 3 issues was a little too little in my opinion, but I'd take it this way any other day instead of a diluted soup without anything to tell.

Shadow: About Shadow... I don't know, I always thought that in Archie (pre-reboot) he had the natural evolution you'd expect from someone who had learned something from his past. That's why I never considered him "OOC" just because he smiles once in a while. I don't really see the problem on having him become something like a friend to Sonic, if they really need an excuse to have a battle between the two of them there are plenty of ways to do it (like with Knuckles in the Sonic the Fighters adaptation or the FCBD). So... I don't really share the concern of some of you that he was "too nice" in Archie. I think in IDW is dull and boring, though :).

Omega: There really is a difference between the Archie-Omega and the Heroes-Omega? Looks like the exact same character to me. Also, the "soul" part is clearly metaphorically. Gamma developed feelings that could be difficult to "catalogue" for a robot, that's what I think was meant about it. Transmitting those to Omega didn't mean that it would change his character, just that he would act with conscience of his actions. After all, Omega's motivations in the games doesn't explain why he joined GUN and made him a far less interesting character in the end. So, yeah, I think Ian made the best he could from 1) the fact that Gamma was still around and 2) giving Omega some more character depth.

SA2 Adaptation: Meh, mied feelings here. Could've been better? Probably. Could've been done better with Ian had? Probably not. I mean, he needed an excuse to tell a story of one year ago and he had to work around the stupidity of the writers back then (Green Knuckles, someone?). I honestly think it was necessary to finally explain how things happened and that's it. Also, the part of Sonic being free is easily explained, like he could've free himself. No big deal. Though, I also always wondered what exactly was in the message Rouge found (probably not the original one for clear reasons, but not the ShtH one because Shadow didn't know Black Doom in Issue 170 or so... well, whatever, we can easily imagine it).

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