Megathread Archie Sonic Main Discussion

[SanPolo4389]

14 minutes ago, Kuzu said:

World's Collide happened two years later in, this happened in 2011. 

I meant that it interrupted the Sonic Unleashed arc. 

[Kuzu]

29 minutes ago, SanPolo4389 said:

I meant that it interrupted the Sonic Unleashed arc. 

That was World's Unite, not World's Collide. The former is more of a Sega x Capcom crossover, than just a Sonic X Mega Man crossover like the latter. 

[Zaysho]

12 hours ago, CrownSlayer’s Shadow said:

 

I read the cryostasis/fake/real Sally idea here under the Background Information of Mecha Sally’s page, and it was said that it was Ben Gates revealed it.

I mean, I didn’t check the source beyond that—I skimmed it, brought it up there, and I was a little skeptical myself too (hence why I shared it with you guys in case I was missing something). But yeah, just sharing that out there in case it was worth mentioning. It might’ve tied with Naugus using magic to restore Sally post-250, but of course the lawsuit screwed those plans.

When I looked up Ben Bates's comments regarding Sally I couldn't find anything relating to that portion specifically and the wiki doesn't seem to source information much (what I found in search results were mostly questionable looking YouTube videos that I don't want to give up the brain cells to). I guess we can't know for sure but it just sounds off for how Ian does things and that's considering he can run a plot into the ground in extreme cases (last leg of the Unleashed arc in Archie, the Metal Virus in IDW). I know he'll use any excuse to worldbuild and expand the map but I honestly can't see him doing something that would undermine Sally's sacrifice (and if I can be honest, it sounds more like something Penders would have pulled because that's roughly what Alicia's--Sally's mother--story was iirc).

[SkyHorizon]

18 hours ago, Rienasketch said:

she and Sonic were hypocrites by refusing to seriously acknowledge the problem,

Again, your assumption.

18 hours ago, Rienasketch said:

And Mina made the song on the assumption NICOLE knew people's feelings and knew what she was planning (even if that part wasnt true)

Again, your assumption. Stop going back in circles, please.

18 hours ago, Rienasketch said:

Just because your saying I can't prove Mina spoke to Sonic doesn't mean she didn't

Yep, that's the whole point. I don't need to prove that Mina didn't speak to Sonic, you have to prove that she did. Until the moment you can prove that fact (and you already admitted that you can't) it's considered that they didn't speak about it. AND it also means that EVERY REASONING you built on that assumption is not valid. That's why it's not just a "technicality", it's central to the discussion.

 

But again, I understand what you mean and, to a degree, I share the same feelings. But that was not the point, the whole point was that MINA PUBLICLY HUMILIATED NICOLE, who by that time was a person with feelings.

Then we can go on and talk about how the FF never really reflected seriously about the mind-control problem (not really their responsibility, they have a council for those kind of things, btw), the responsibility of an AI running the whole city (her city, actually)... but that isn't the point.

[Mauro Fonseca]

21 hours ago, Kuzu said:

So there was nothing he had planned for Mecha Sally in the long term?

He had, I mean once he knew those plans were scuttled by the decision to reboot, he added the Krudzu in as filler. Again, if I'm recalling right. The ACTUAL plans, I've no idea- we're waiting for LHT on that regards etc etc.

[Rienasketch]

1 hour ago, SkyHorizon said:

Again, your assumption.

Its not an assumption, thats a fact. You just don't want to admit the fact your favs made a mistake. The entire plot occurred and revolved around the fact that the heroes nor the government did anything to reassure the public that the problem wouldn't happen again. Thats refusing to acknowledge the problem. And was why Naugus was able to take the throne from Elias in the first place. Because he was able to prove he could address certain problems and secure people's safety in ways the other characters didn't prove.

 

1 hour ago, SkyHorizon said:

Again, your assumption. Stop going back in circles, please.

Nice try, but Mina said NICOLE was everything and everywhere. Which even if false was her belief. And she made her plans clear within the city. Thats not an assumption, it was established in the comic.

 

1 hour ago, SkyHorizon said:

But again, I understand what you mean and, to a degree, I share the same feelings. But that was not the point, the whole point was that MINA PUBLICLY HUMILIATED NICOLE, who by that time was a person with feelings.

Okay, and? This isn't "Mean Girls" where Mina's some vindictive, preppy teen bitch whose mean to NICOLE over beauty or something shallow. Do you not understand these people got ripped from their families, had to watch as their loved ones got limbs get torn off and were enslaved, possibly never to be seen again? These were people with feelings too, who were not only traumatized but ignored by government. NICOLE nor anyone else on the hero side/government considered their feelings when they refused to address them. So if NICOLE, who knows how they feel after all they went through chooses to ignore them with everyone else in her clique, she has no one to blame for that but herself.

You're mad your fav got called out, thats all this is. Because if your government pulled THIS kind of bullshit, you would NEVER be this worried about "hurting their feelings" when they were this dismissive about yours and the lives of everyone else's.

 

1 hour ago, SkyHorizon said:

Then we can go on and talk about how the FF never really reflected seriously about the mind-control problem (not really their responsibility, they have a council for those kind of things, btw), the responsibility of an AI running the whole city (her city, actually)... but that isn't the point.

Even if they're not technically rulers, these people are directly connected with government. Lets not pretend they don't have any influence on several members of the council and by extension public policy. And lets not act like characters like Sonic and the other FF haven't used that connection to directly speak to council on decisions they're deliberating to persuade and in Tails' case helped his parents FORM the council by assisting his parents when the needed him.

So if the Freedom Fighters don't want to use their voices to speak on matters regarding the public's safety, they can't blame the public for organizing to have their feelings heard in ways they don't like. I might not approve of the extremes some of these people took it, but the Freedom Fighters have to shoulder some of that blame for letting it get that bad.

 

 

[SkyHorizon]

20 hours ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

I was also informed of this by someone waaaaay earlier too.

Yep, that was me . Also... what?

 

Ultra Sonic: I remember Flynn saying before the FCBD that he didn't plan to use again alternate Super Forms unless he'd found a special occasion. Then he did it here and I was really glad to 1. having the awful SSS15 remade into something good and 2. find a better way to justify Sonic being able to just open a portal to the Zone of Silence. Well, played.

Genesis: Yeah, I share your feelings, it felt like a waste of time. I mean, yeah, can't say it was bad, it was just... useless. If you really wanted to retell the original games, why not make a mini-series in parallel? Well, at least the art was great (Spaz coming back for interior art was... wow) and the story was nice. Just... we knew that it wouldn't have lasted so, what was the point?

Scourge: Ah, this arc is great. Seeing Scourge getting what he deserve and STILL learning nothing was great, really cemented how rotten he was at his core. I just hope Surge will live up the hype.

 

***

 

1 hour ago, Rienasketch said:

the heroes nor the government did anything to reassure the public that the problem wouldn't happen again.

I already told you that you're right on that, stop clutching at straws. I specified, multiple times, that your assumption was ANOTHER ONE, mainly the fact that MINA DID NOT TALK TO SONIC.

1 hour ago, Rienasketch said:

Mina said NICOLE was everything and everywhere

Now you're making it clear that you're doing it on purpose: this point was also discussed multiple times: BEING EVERYWHERE DOESN'T EQUAL KNOWING WHAT'S GOING ON. Lots of people told you that and I brought you multiple examples (Scourge sneaking in? Geoffrey and Naugus sneaking in? the list goes on).

 

1 hour ago, Rienasketch said:

had to watch as their loved ones got limbs get torn off and were enslaved,

 

Nicole had to watch that too, because SHE WAS IN FULL CONTROL BACK THERE. So stop justifying Mina, the end doesn't justify the means.

1 hour ago, Rienasketch said:

NICOLE nor anyone else on the hero side/government considered their feelings when they refused to address them.

Sigh... again YOUR ASSUMPTION. Stop doing that, please, I'm getting bored of repeating the same stuff.

1 hour ago, Rienasketch said:

Lets not pretend they don't have any influence on several members of the council and by extension public policy.

...and, surprise surprise, another assumption on your parts. A really baseless one, considering that Tails' MOTHER voted for Nicole getting kicked out of the city 

1 hour ago, Rienasketch said:

You're mad your fav got called out, thats all this is. Because if your government pulled THIS kind of bullshit, you would NEVER be this worried about "hurting their feelings" when they were this dismissive about yours and the lives of everyone else's.

Please, seriously, devote a minute to self-criticism and admit that you build your own little world based on a lot of assumptions. The fact that you couldn't find a single sentence to prove those should be proof enough that, at least, you may be in the wrong.

Also: how do I play favoritism? I already told you, again, multiple times, that the matter should've been addressed, etc. etc. Stop hiding behind baseless accusations of playing favoritism (that's kinda childish) while you're the one having difficulty staying objective.

[Rienasketch]

7 hours ago, SkyHorizon said:

 

I already told you that you're right on that, stop clutching at straws. I specified, multiple times, that your assumption was ANOTHER ONE, mainly the fact that MINA DID NOT TALK TO SONIC.

 

 

lol your the one clutching at straws. Why do you keep revisiting points we've already moved on from? Whether Mina spoke to Sonic or not has nothing to do with the fact, he still screwed up. He KNEW people were afraid, but did nothing to reassure them it wouldn't happen again and outside a blase statement ignored the issue. Regardless of whether or not you want to argue Mina spoke to him about it doesn't change the fact he made a bad call. And on that note it really doesn't matter if Mina spoke to Sonic or not because if he's that dismissive towards ANYONE talking to him about it regardless of who it was, what good would have come from her talking to him when he clearly didn't take it seriously enough?

I don't blame her for making the song. I do blame her for rousing panic and having no constructive plan to back it up.

 

7 hours ago, SkyHorizon said:

Now you're making it clear that you're doing it on purpose: this point was also discussed multiple times: BEING EVERYWHERE DOESN'T EQUAL KNOWING WHAT'S GOING ON.

Bruh, what are you talking about? I'm not even speaking about whether or not NICOLE could see her. I'm countering the argument YOU made inferring Mina was being mean spirited and "a bitch" for singing about  her. I'm saying she wasn't and that while she didn't initially talk to NICOLE it was based on a false assumption NICOLE understood things but didn't care. Mina was misguided, but she wasn't speaking out to be mean-spirited. Nor can she even be fully blamed for that because a responsible government should have reassured people of NICOLE's capablities and limitations from the beginning. It never should have even gotten to the point where people could falsely believe she could be spying on them from anywhere.

 

7 hours ago, SkyHorizon said:

Nicole had to watch that too, because SHE WAS IN FULL CONTROL BACK THERE. So stop justifying Mina, the end doesn't justify the means.

You... realize that just makes it worse, right? That she saw it, has emotions of her own, but can't be bothered to at least address the problem and overall ignored it like the rest of her clique. And is only hurt when she gets ostracized. People's reactions to her may have been extreme, but NICOLE's at fault for being too complacent.

 

7 hours ago, SkyHorizon said:

...and, surprise surprise, another assumption on your parts. A really baseless one, considering that Tails' MOTHER voted for Nicole getting kicked out of the city 

Which wouldn't have happened if the Freedom Fighters were pro-active and spoke to their loved ones on the council so that Mina didn't make the song because they nor the government wanted to do anything about it. 

Which by the way reminds me. It was MINA's mother who convinced the council to bring NICOLE back. And was ironically the one who convinced Rosemary to overturn her decision.

 

7 hours ago, SkyHorizon said:

Please, seriously, devote a minute to self-criticism and admit that you build your own little world based on a lot of assumptions. The fact that you couldn't find a single sentence to prove those should be proof enough that, at least, you may be in the wrong.

Also: how do I play favoritism? I already told you, again, multiple times, that the matter should've been addressed, etc. etc. Stop hiding behind baseless accusations of playing favoritism (that's kinda childish) while you're the one having difficulty staying objective.

 

LOL dude are you serious? I said everyone shared the blame and outlined where they all went wrong. Your the one desperately clinging onto what few points you actually had to duck and doge the fact your favorite characters made mistakes. At least I had the maturity to admit when I was wrong. You keep trying to re-visit old things to try to lower my credibility because you can't adequately get it enough on your own with any of the other points that were made.  Mina and the citizens made mistakes, but the Freedom Fighters also screwed up.

[Strickerx5]

I'm going to come in here and ask for everyone to chill out. Stop pointing fingers at one another. State your counterpoints and leave it at that.

If we get more reports coming out of here we're going to start taking action against the people who don't follow this final warning.

[The Tenth Doctor]

I remember I met Ian Flynn about this point. Went to meet him at SoS 2011, what a nice guy. Me being me brought up Mephiles in the Scourge comic, thanking him for giving him an appearance. He was happy to have worked him in somehow. I know it never happened again but hey, for what its worth I liked seeing him once (I know, he pops up in part 4 if you look hard enough, I just like his appearance here).

[SkyHorizon]

7 hours ago, Strickerx5 said:

I'm going to come in here and ask for everyone to chill out. Stop pointing fingers at one another. State your counterpoints and leave it at that.

If we get more reports coming out of here we're going to start taking action against the people who don't follow this final warning.

Yeah, I understand that the discussion may get out of control. I apologize if I went too far, as far as I am concerned, I won't coming back on the subject.

[Dr. Detective]

Sonic Universe - Issue #30: Scourge: Lock Down - Inside Job, Part 2 of 4: Any Port in a Storm

This reminds me so much of Guardians of the Galaxy. Only these guys are just legit villains. It’s nice that they manage to look so cool here though. Ian was putting in work to ensure the Destructix could get out of that pit of lameness they were trapped in. Although, stories like what happened at Mogul’s casino didn’t help matters either but it was a work in progress. It’s just a shame it happened so late in the game.

Spoiler

Writer: Ian Flynn
Pencils: Tracy Yardley
Inks: Jim Amash
Colors: Steve Downer
Letters: Phil Felix
Editor: Paul Kaminski
Editor-in-Chief: Victor Gorelick

Scourge is wearing a fairly neutral expression on his face throughout the nonsense that’s currently happening to him. He’s being pushed around and shoved into the dirt again but all the while he’s still thinking about how lame the Destructix are and how teaming up with them is more of a formality to make sure he can escape. There’s no humbling going on here, which is fascinating.

Al and Cal stand back and talk about being sympathizers. They root for Scourge while he’s in the dirt but they don’t bud in for fear of being beaten up too, which I get, but then when the guards come to break the scene up they talk about him putting in a good word for them with the Warden.

It’s interesting because they seem nice enough but I’m noticing that they’re not entirely sympathetic either. 

Scourge is in Warden Zobotnik’s office now, facing him while perpendicular. It’s all so very strange still. I had no idea what this was back in the day and the only explanation for it still exists in old books that I don’t personally own.

Zobotnik feeds Scourge some bullshit about trying to help him and what not and then asks him about his connection to the Destructix. Scourge, his expression not changing, just says they’re here to beat him up like everyone else.

Zobotnik shows him a clip of how the Destructix came across the Zone cops. It’s fantastic. I would have loved to see them all get their asses beat.

The sounds of the beating happening are great too. I especially love that it cuts off after “He ripped off my–” like it wants me to imagine the worst possible thing. Sometimes it’s great when things are left up to the imagination. 

As for Zobotnik’s motive here, I like the idea of him trying to mold Scourge into a force for good. I’m choosing to take his motive as more of a “I need good soldiers that can protect my bottom line the right way” but I do believe he thinks what he does is for the sake of good. Sometimes people just do it in ways that are really harsh and that sucks.

It’ll hopefully serve as a good wake-up call that sicking an entire prison on someone so that they can be “rehabilitated” into a good person isn’t really how it works once Scourge does his big jail break. Probably not though.

We cut to a scene with Fiona sitting with and talking to Abby. Scourge has his cool guy strut back.

Remember that weird maid girl from Penders’ version of 25 Years Later? Well, here she is in prison form. It’s not literally the same one (most likely… I think? I dunno. That time line did some weird shit. When she says she’s been here for 30 years it could be because of some time travel voodoo) but she carries a tough girl cadence.

She talks about how she’s seen people who act tough here before and manages to get all the pretenders to break. However, Fiona is different. She can tell that Fiona has done some hard time before.

She has. She recounts her past a bit for us. She was stuck and forgotten alone in some prison long ago. She made her way out. She joined up with Bean and Bark for a bit and eventually using other people just became what she did. 

It’s sad but that stuff can happen when the heroes don’t come back for you. It’s usually why it’s important to keep your eye on as many people you can save as possible. You never know who’s villain origin story you’ll unwittingly be creating.

She says all this with Anti-Geoffrey standing by her and overhearing it from behind. He’s got some sort of idea.

We then get an amusing scene of Scourge trying to make up with Simian. Seeing Scourge try to make amends is a little cute. He’s so bad at it.

Sgt. Simian is acting kind of like how I’d imagine I’d try to act, only he’s able to pull off the tough guy look. I’d just look like a pouty child.

So we get Sgt. Simian’s backstory at this point. 

Eggman’s attack on the world elicited a ton of different reactions from people. Some tried their best to take it in stride (a dangerous mindset) and some decided to fight back (which can also be a dangerous mindset if done incorrectly).

Simian had a falling out with his weirdly, almost human looking grandpa because he was trying to push for war against Eggman. Grandpa was… for some reason certain that Eggman’s robots won’t find them again. Then he got all mad at Simian for stealing weapons and bringing them home. 

Grandpa tossed him out when he decided he was going to be a one-man army and Simian left.

So, he set out to raid Eggman’s base by himself.

AND HE AM GLORIOUS!

Well, he was until he started to get overpowered. Even as he was starting to go down, he said that he had no regrets. It probably would have shook out to be just as his grandpa said it would for him but then a wild Mogul appeared.

Mogul used the mystical voodoo that he do and saved Simian from certain death. The Mammoth Man must have been at the right place at the right time to save his ass though. Talk about fantastic luck.

He ended up agreeing to work with Mogul and learned what it meant to be on a team. He served the guy and became the best of soldiers in his own way. I can totally see why he wears that army garb now. It honestly made little sense before but it works with this backstory, for sure.

Then came the part I remembered the most. 

He finally got permission from Mogul to return home… just so he could “Bye Felicia” his family.

THAT must have felt good.

Imagine facing the person who told you to fuck off and witnessing that person, now humbled, telling you that you were right all along and offering you anything you wanted… and then rejecting them again. That had to feel great.

Scourge is like “Dude. Harsh.” which is funny. I like that even he’s flabbergasted by Simian’s mental bitch slap move. However, when he asks why Simian told him that story, he lays it out pretty cleanly.

He doesn’t want Scourge to be a little bitch who calls them lame in one breath and then comes crawling to them for help in the next. Pretty understandable.

It’s a pretty well-done, well told story and it’s even framed with a pretty valuable lesson. True strength isn’t just physical, it’s mental. I like that despite his humongous muscles, Simian is well aware of that. It’s a great character defining moment for him. 

Next, we see Scourge head on over to Predator Hawk. He gets his attention as he’s stooped on a basketball hoop by tossing a ball at him.

Then he asks Hawk what he wants from him.

I like that Predator Hawk only decides to play ball with Scourge because he saw him talking to Simian and didn’t get his head crushed. Nice.

So, Predator Hawk tells him his backstory. He just wants purpose and a challenge. 

He then talks about how he thought he found it with the Battle Bird Armada.

He became better, faster, stronger, and smarter then everyone there and exceeded all the expectations they had to offer. He got very easily promoted in their ranks and because he’s a big bird, looked the part as a leader too.

He even got to wear Speedy’s weird diaper harness thing.

Of course, with his new position came new rules and a load of other bullshit he had to follow. Then he saw Speedy walking down the hall and the thought that he’d get a higher position then him and prestige just because he was born the Battle Lord’s son fucked with his mind.

So he tried to make Speedy his prey.

Daddy Bird didn’t like that.

Now, I said a while back that I didn’t exactly like that ALL the important, named bird characters had ties to the Battle Bird Armada. That’s probably why this backstory did the least for me back when I read it… though, I do recall there being a minor bit of intrigue behind this specific part here.

Reading it now, it’s definitely not a bad idea. It’s just a little hard to get around the coincidence of having all these birds being tied to this concept that’s relatively young in this book’s life all of a sudden. On its own, this is a good story. It’s only made a little cheaper by the fact that he’s not all that special as a deserter of the armada since we know Jet, Wave, Storm, and Bean all did the same thing. They all had their own reasons but that’s essentially what this is too.

Predator Hawk is just more of a psychopath about it. He worked hard for his position and he wants a good challenge so I can see why being stuck in an unchallenging role while someone who didn’t work hard for their position is just going to be handed a plate of privilege with a nice silver spoon to eat it with.

I had actually COMPLETELY forgotten the next part. I guess my mind must have blocked it out due to how insane and silly it sounded but, yes, he joined up with the Babylon Rogues too.

He even got his own airboard and everything.

He was locked away and Wave freed him. They hunted prey and it was better than before… but they mostly hunted treasure. It still wasn’t what he wanted and he considered Jet to be another weak leader because of his desires rooted in items rather than challenges.

Then, Mogul showed up to steal him away.

The best part about this scene is Jet just being like “GIMMIE MONEY!” to fucking Mammoth Mogul. It’s great.

It was a fair trade. Predator Hawk got what he wanted when he hung with Mogul. 

He lands in front of Scourge and tells him to do the same or else he’s hunting him down too. Scourge says he can do that. Honestly, there’s a LOT of people on Scourge’s hit list, all of which could easily be written to beat Predator Hawk depending on the story being told. You know, since he’s a villain and all. I’m sure Predator Hawk has nothing to worry about hanging with Scourge.

With that done, the alarm goes off telling the prisoners to get the fuck back to their cells. 

Scourge is feeling a lot better. He’s even carrying on a peppy conversation with Al and Cal as they get lunch together. He tells them that he’s happy because he’s scheduling his beatings this time, which is kind of funny but also a bit nihilistic, like Cal points out.

Then, when he gets to his bed of springs, Smalls the Cat is bragging about how many beans he’s eaten and Scourge tells him it won’t make much of a difference.

Smalls is dumb so he doesn’t get it but hey, Scourge is able to carry on a conversation with him too. He’s getting better.

Why, he almost makes relaxing on those springs look like a plausible art form now. 

Ugh. I still couldn’t imagine putting up with that though. The sharp ends would poke me so much.

What an issue that was. A lot was accomplished in such a short amount of time. We didn’t necessarily need Fiona’s backstory again but I’m glad we got it still. It went by fast and we still had more than enough room to cover both Sgt. Simian and Predator Hawk’s motivations for chilling with Scourge. Two more to go and then the big break-out is going to happen. I can not wait to get to that part. It really is going to feel good witnessing Scourge get his revenge. Hell, he won’t even need to do much of anything. The fact that he and his new crew escaped while the others that beat on him stayed behind would be more than enough.

Sonic Universe - Issue #31: Scourge: Lock Down - Inside Job, Part 3 of 4: Setting the Stage

Setting the stage for a villain’s purpose! Here we go! We’re in the thick of it now. This cover is a nice little homage to Issue #200 with that gross prison wall acting as a replacement for the checkerboard background. It’s nice how nasty and awful it looks. Really sets the mood for how backwards everything is.

Spoiler

Writer: Ian Flynn
Pencils: Tracy Yardley
Inks: Jim Amash
Colors: Steve Downer
Letters: Phil Felix
Editor: Paul Kaminski
Editor-in-Chief: Victor Gorelick

We begin this issue with Scourge having an even bigger spring in his step now. My dude sees St. Croix picking on Al and Cal and rams directly into him from the side to save their butts.

He even asks them if they’re alright.

This is a very interesting scene considering what I remember happening in the end.

Perhaps this is a sign that Scourge was getting to a point where he was feeling more charitable and nice… but the more power he amasses and the more he basks in how awesome he is the more he stretches past this point and goes back into more ruthless territory.

He gets into a scrap with St. Croix and is easily beating him up… but then Fiona comes in with a flying kick to Scourge’s face.

The prevailing cover is that the Destructix are awesome and have Scourge as their new mark so he isn’t bothered AS much. So Fiona coming in to “save the day” as it were entails her beating him up.

I know the reasons Scourge finds Fiona hot but I didn’t think her being a woman who could kick his ass was necessarily one of them. She tries to keep things going and urges him to say uncle.

He really doesn’t want to keep humiliating himself like this but he’s given no choice.

Still feels like a more stable relationship than anything Sonic’s had, honestly.

Scourge then talks about how he feels a bit spurned, being abandoned back at Freedom HQ and now beaten up by her. His pride is just wounded of course. Fiona knows all about being abandoned and she didn’t come all this way just to beat on him for funsies.

Scourge heads off to join the Group Therapy Session being held by… Zouge? I dunno. 

This is where Lightning Lynx is. I guess he decided to join them because he feels sort of down. I would if I were him too. It's interesting because they infiltrated this prison with plans to break out so him taking advantage of this therapy session while he's in here makes him that much more sympathetic to me. 

Scourge knows he needs to find out what’s bothering Lightning so he urges him to go first in their little session. Zouge here asks Lightning to think back to when he first decided to lash out or when he first felt betrayed. 

Yeah, he did. His story is still, honestly, the saddest one. I don’t even fully understand why it was necessary to be this harsh on the guy.

Lightning worked his ass off to be the best in his clan and had a ton of respect for Conquering Storm, the Bride of their clan. She only wanted the strongest at her side so he decided to challenge her to prove himself to her and as an expression of his love for her. He wasn’t trying to usurp her or disgrace her like Predator Hawk was to Speedy. 

Yet, his fate was still the same when she beat him. 

She either saw it as something different or she didn’t care. I guess being the best in their clan means jackshit if you’ve got pesky feelings getting in the way.

So he ran with Mogul for a bit until he abandoned them. Then a lynx showed up to tell him that he had a chance to get his old life back and, even better, serve directly under Conquering Storm. 

He got beaten and disgraced again, this time by Sonic. 

I couldn’t imagine having something like that happen once. The fact that it happened twice is just fucked. I want revenge for the guy myself.

Scourge interjects and let’s his annoyance with the way that story turned out be known too. What he says brings an angry tear to Lightning’s eyes before he shifts gears into extreme anger.

Then Scourge just starts a riot. Zouge is trying to get them under control but the chanting for revenge and how awesome it is drowns her out. 

I don’t know why Crazy Ray is licking the window though. Maybe it tastes like revenge?

Either way, Lightning is on his side now. Conquering Storm has been added to the revenge list. I’m sure Scourge won’t have a problem busting the heads of her clan. It could only ever be a real fun time for him and make a better lackey out of Lightning.

Zobotnik saw all that too. He ain’t looking too happy. 

I like bearing witness to this guy’s crap just not going well for him. It gives me pleasure.

Scourge enjoyed himself too, back in his cell and laughing himself to tears at what happened. Talking about his feelings got a lot of people hurt back there. How fun.

Anyway, his mood is ruined when Kermit Von Creepy shows up.

Ah yes. The best sign of a stable mind is when you directly address someone and their response is wide-eyed cackling.

So, Flying Frog here is the last person on Scourge’s list and he’s been by far the strangest and hardest one to get pinned down in the Fearsome Foursome. When Ian took over it seemed like he was going for writing him as Bean-lite but here we’re seeing him taking a different approach.

Instead of the Looney Tunes, fourth-wall cartoon nonsense of Bean we’re getting something a little more… Itchy and Scratchy. 

Like, the actual kind of crazy where if he dropped an anvil on someone, they wouldn’t flatten into a cartoon disk. They’d just explode into salsa and then he’d laugh about it and tap-dance on top of it like it played out like a normal cartoon or something.

It’s very nice and humbling witnessing Scourge try and be buds with this lunatic though. You can tell he’s creeped out by him. He doesn’t want Flying Frog to walk out of his cell with his spleen in hand.

Boy howdy, does that seem easier said than done.

He doesn’t really have a motive that stretches beyond “playing”. 

What he defines as playing is, at first, taken to mean something more similar to the typical bad guy stuff that Scourge and everyone in here already engage with.

Flying Frog leaps into Scourge’s face, almost sounding offended that it’d be taken as something that tame. 

Nah. His definition of playing is way different from everyone else. You can feel it in the intense art-style change as he… rather haphazardly describes his backstory.

Even now, what exactly is happening here is hard to fully grasp.

I don’t know if this medieval setting is supposed to be a metaphor for something or if it’s what actually happened. Is this just what his mind’s eye sees or what? Apparently he’s supposed to be the frog version of Medieval England Joker? I dunno.

There’s very little description and clarification here. He’s just going on and on about how much fun he likes to have and it’s matched with shots of people either fleeing in terror or being ambushed and leaped at. 

What happened to the people he snuck up on or attacked? We don’t know. He just crawls up behind you while you sleep in the night and you’re probably never seen or heard from again.

They tried to lock him away and that shit didn’t work. Not even this prison, the best prison in all the land, is going to be able to hold him.

Dude can just crawl through the bars.

Scourge screams at him to knock it off and then just comes out with what the dynamic between them is going to be. Straight-forward and to the point. 

Flying Frog immediately accepts. 

That’s probably all he wanted to hear.

It’s a very well-done showcase of… subtle insanity, I guess you could call it.

There’s not much to his character’s motivation but what little is there is kind of the thing that makes him stand out in this particular instance. It does seem like it’ll be significantly harder running a crew with this person on your team if you ever end up in a slump where the fun stops happening.

Later that night, Fiona is stretching in her cell with Abby complaining that she wants her rest. Fiona tells her that she’ll want to be up for this right as Lightning and Flying Frog stop by her cell and let her out. 

Phase one of the plan is to slip out with them to the control room, which they do.

Phase two is to take control of the control room, which they do.

Phase three is to unlock all the cells and normalize the gravity to create pandemonium.

Phase four, the best phase honestly, is to only turn off the collars of their gang so that they can take out anyone in their way.

Oh, that’s going to make Scourge’s revenge so much easier. His hits are going to be so much harder.

So, by the time Abby’s cell opens and she shouts “JAIL BREAK” everyone is already running amok in the prison. 

Smalls the Cat sees that the door is open and sees his chance to escape. He can’t help but try and bully Scourge into doing it for him though which sees to it that he forfeits any chance he may have of escaping.

Witnessing this was one of the greatest things in the world. It felt great for me and I’m just the reader. That had to feel positively angelic for Scourge. I’m surprised he didn’t kick his teeth in a few more times afterwards but he had to stomp off and look cool doing it. One good hit was all he needed.

He hit Smalls so hard that it rendered Scourge naked again.

I’m going to really enjoy Phase five.

Haha. Poor dumbass Smalls though. He saw a beacon of hope and got knocked out before he could take advantage of it, all because he messed with the wrong guy. He’s going to wake up with the biggest headache and the largest wound to his pride imaginable. 

Imagine waking up back in your locked cell after seeing it open and the guy you picked on this whole time escaped after having knocked you out. Fuck man. I wish I could have been a fly on the wall for THAT reaction.

He can keep his two busted mattresses now.

I know fiction often tells us that revenge is like a poison and that it’s bad or whatever… but sometimes it just feels really fucking good. I’m eager as hell to see Scourge go to town on this prison. I love it whenever fiction tells us it’s okay to indulge a little bit in our fantasies and the unrestrained playtime of petty vengeance. It can be fun in the right context and the context here has never been more appropriate.

Also, there was a cute little cameo from Robolactus and Silver Snively in a cell. The back of the book seems to hint that the Abby in the jail might be the actual one from Mobius 25 Years Later too which would be dope if it is. Again, I have no idea how that would work if true. I'm not gonna think too much about it though since it’s just a fun cameo at the end of the day.

Sonic Universe - Issue #32: Scourge: Lock Down - Inside Job, Part 4 of 4: No Holds Barred

Get fucked you shitty Zone Cops! The good ass characters are coming through! Really nice touch with the spray paint over the Lockdown part of the title. Now it’s just “Scourge: Breakout!” I have a feeling this is going to be a really fun final issue. Let’s get the fuck out of here!

Spoiler

Writer: Ian Flynn
Pencils: Tracy Yardley
Inks: Jim Amash
Colors: Steve Downer
Letters: Phil Felix
Editor: Paul Kaminski
Editor-in-Chief: Victor Gorelick

Warden Zobotnik beams himself in and asks Scotty Znively for a status report. Znively has an almost impossibly hard name to say. It really makes me hate the weird “Z” thing they’ve got going on even more.

He asks how bad the situation is. Everything has gone wrong except for the inhibitor rings. Well, all but six of them are still functioning but the worst ones aren’t wearing them anymore so that’s still bad. It’s a breakout and a lot of asskicking is happening.

Scourge knocks out the guy who shaved off his spines and then rams his entire being into the guy who dunked him like a basketball.

Hell yes! Beat ‘em harder! Use the dog’s stomach as a trampoline! Go for a couple more three point shots! Get ‘em!

Then he bowls over the three people that beat him up in the opening of the first issue.

Then he just beats up some random Zone Cops. They deserve it because they’re Zone Cops.

God, I was having so much fun watching this. I was embracing the evil myself.

Scourge is stopped from doing his gravity experiment with bunny boy here when Sgt. Simian shows up to tell Scourge to stop having fun and focus on stealing the guard’s attention while Fiona gets their gear back.

Scourge immediately gets to work on a plan. They need an exit that the prison yard guards can’t block and a huge distraction. So he tells Simian to bring him Al and Cal, with a sharp grin on his face.

Fiona is on her way to getting their stuff and passes by some idiots making off with their own stuff and money. She’s grateful for the distraction but then gets a shock to the system when she sees all their stuff taken. Specifically their stuff.

We then pan out to see THIS asshole making off with it.

This rival gang member who took Scourge’s position is now stealing his stuff and his sunglasses. It’s like he thinks he’s hot shit because he can always get one over on Scourge just long enough to make himself feel cool before the universe reminds him of how shit he really is.

Al and Cal are brought to Scourge and the two of them are very afraid.

Scourge is radiating some big boss, Godfather energy and it’s making them shake in fear quite a whole lot. 

Scourge totally listened to their story about being former Gods and plans to use it to his advantage. Although, the fear they had upon being told that they’re getting their revenge was quite sad to witness.

However, this was also, at the time, my first time bearing witness to their monstrous forms going berserk like this. I caught a glimpse of what they looked like earlier but seeing this truly did put the fear of Gods in me.

When Ian sees content he can mine for some good use, by Jove does he take heavy advantage of it. 

Scourge and his new gang also take advantage of the confusion by knocking out all the scared prisoners running in terror once the walls are busted.

Including a collared Angry Bird.

I’m loving how dominating they all are. Scourge actually remarks on how it’s almost too easy, which, of course, sets the stage for Fiona to run in and deliver the hellishly bad news that their stuff is gone.

St. Fucking Croix made off with it and they won’t get far in the wild of this place without it. Sgt. Simian also says that they only made it this far due to the element of surprise and the confusion but once the Zone Cops rally and get things under control they won’t be able to fight them off.

Predator Hawk offers to fly off and retrieve their stolen goods but Lightning tells him to wait and uses his huge, awesome ninja ears to figure out that the Zone Cops are teleporting in and approaching. They’ll have fifteen minutes tops before it’s game over.

Scourge immediately comes up with a nice plan.

He tells Lightning to use his ears to listen out for anyone trying to use their warp ring since it ain’t easy getting a handle on it. He tells Predator Hawk to go out and find the guilty party since he’s creepy-good at seeking people out. Prey is his whole deal and who could ask for a bigger, tighter challenge than this? It’s plenty exciting.

Scourge heads back inside to clear out all the people in their way so he can cover for them. That sounds crazy and risky as shit but he gladly does it for the sake of getting another shot at all the people in here.

Sgt. Simian actually apologies to their new boss Fiona and Fiona says she knew it would happen this way. She’s a little less sure about what he’ll do once they’re out though. 

She also remarks that she doesn’t want to betray him again. 

That could be taken to mean she did it the first time on purpose and doesn’t want to HAVE to do it again. Or it could be taken to mean the first time was by accident but this next time might be intentional if he doesn’t play ball. 

Either way, Fiona seems like the one running this thing for sure. Scourge is more of a defacto leader at the moment. 

That said, she’s kind of right to worry about it not being that way for long.

Scourge leaps into the fray to do what he said he’d do with the ulterior motive of beating on all the people who wronged him. 

However, as he does it, he gets that crazy, “I’M THE KING” superiority complex back in full force.

He’s been reborn and it’s a very concerning thing.

Back in the room with the former king of Moebius, King Maxx and his loyal servant Jeffrey St. Croix, they’re looking through the stuff they stole from Scourge for a way out of this dump.

Maxx is delighted at the idea of getting out of here and ruling again. Jeffery just wants to kill him and tap-dance on his grave.

He’s dumb so he says this aloud and Maxx clearly hears him, daring him to say it more clearly and Jeffrey just wusses out and says he was just looking for the device.

He doesn’t know what they have in here but he’s sure they must have something because this was all planned and you can’t just waltz onto the cosmic interstate on a whim.

That’s when the ring accidentally rolls out and opens before them.

They have their way out.

Thankfully, Predator Hawk and Lighting came through in the nick of time with their special abilities.

The Destructix burst through the door and we’re greeted with screams of fright before we see the huge smoke cloud of one loser skunk and one very old man getting the tar beaten out of them off screen.

Oh man. This is the issue of pure catharism. It just feels great. I know this King Maxx isn’t OUR King Maxx so the intense beating he’s receiving from the dude with easily the biggest muscles in the series, a vengeful ninja, and a sharp tallened bird who hunts prey for a living isn’t as cathartic as it would be for him but it still feels excellent. Same goes for that skunk boy too.

Read into that dialogue with Flying Frog at the end there however you wish.

While that’s happening, Warden Zobotnik arrives and has rallied his troops. He commands his men to shoot their Field of Effect Inhibitors and it gets Al and Cal to immediately turn back to normal.

The Zone Cops have officially come in to take control of the situation and have all the prisoners tied down. 

Zobotnik then points his weapon at the surrounded Scourge and remarks that he seriously thought he managed to beat Scourge’s ego into oblivion.

No, of course not. He even demonstrates for everyone how much worse it still is then we thought.

As awesome as this escape has been and how great it felt witnessing Scourge get his revenge, he couldn’t dip without reminding us that he’s the bad guy. 

I remember feeling a lot worse about the fact that Scourge did Al and Cal that dirty back when I initially read this. It was supposed to feel that way but I’ve sort of chilled on that a bit now that I’m reading it again.

What he did was undoubtedly a dick move, for sure. However, there was no saving them. They were captured and Scourge only had mere seconds to escape what happened next. Hell, it wouldn’t have taken so long if the former King Maxx and St. Croix weren’t such fucking twits. Maybe spending some time in a body cast will sort them out.

Would he have saved them if he had the time? Maybe he would have tried to calculate the use two doting Gods being on his side a bit more but ultimately he probably wouldn’t have bothered if it meant too much exertion on his part.

The point of this is that he’s a far cry from the Scourge we met at the beginning of this story. That page where he’s screaming at people to bow before him is the exact opposite of how he was starting this thing off. He regained some pride but then skedaddled way past a middling personality and went all the way to something far more scary and evil. It’s perfect.

Zobotnik says fuck it and tells them to just go hog wild on them but Fiona and the gang show up and they dip. 

After this happens, we cut to later the next day I assume, where everything is fucked for the prison.

Znively is reporting to Zobotnik that 60% of their cells are damaged and they’ve got most of the inmates in temporary shelters in the yard.

So, it would seem as though only Scourge and the Destructix managed to escape. Good. As much as I hate these Zone Cops I like the idea that Scourge’s plan didn’t leave any of the prisoners with much good fortune aside from some kicked in teeth and broken bones.

Zobotnik walks up to Zonic and the first thing Zonic says is “I warned you” which is a very appropriate “I told you so” if there ever was one.

Zobotnik asks when he’ll be able to track him down and Zonic is like “Track him down? Bitch please…!”

The prime zone is a mess, Nega has them spread thin, and cleaning up Zobotnik’s mess is only going to make it worse. Scourge is gone and they THINK he went back to his zone, somehow. I guess they could try and check but it doesn’t sound like they have time to sort all this junk out.

It really does feel like the Zone Cops and their entire system is on the verge of collapse. When Doctor Nega Palpatine takes it over with his establishment of the new Galactic Republic I don’t know how south things are going to go for all these worlds, man.

Scourge, predictably, isn’t willing to play ball with his new team. He’s defacto no longer. Now he’s just running it and decides what their next move is going to be.

Not a humble bone in his body. Not after that.

I really wish I knew what plan Finitevus had on fucking Moebius of all places. I also wish I knew what Scourge’s plans were. I really wish I knew what Finitevus was going to do once he found out they gave him the finger after he helped them out in exchange for a job or if Scourge’s idea of handling him was to set up something else with the guy.

I wish I knew all of this but alas, this is the final page with Scourge the Hedgehog, Fiona Fox, and the Destructix in the Archie Comics.

That’s it. After this, we get the results of the first Genesis Wave and all the prolonged stuff that happens as a result of the fallout from it. I recall a lot of wheel spinning leading up to a very fast finale before the second Genesis Wave that changed everything. 

We end this story on our prelude for the next Sonic Universe arc.

The Babylon Rogues searched the Gigan Rocks for their latest treasure. Interesting how they managed to have two appearances in this book about Scourge too.

It’s a very good thing that with each new Sonic Universe arc I complete, I’m left with a sense that the one I just finished is the best one I’ve read. This one was really goddamn good. It made me feel really great. I loved all the parts at the beginning where Scourge was getting his ass beat and I loved the end where he got his revenge. It felt awesome.

I loved witnessing the set up provided for the Destructix and I admired seeing them all at their best and looking the absolute coolest they’ve ever looked for their last appearance in the book. The prison break was also really exciting. I felt that creeping sense of danger closing in on them when their stuff was taken and they had to utilize a measly fifteen minutes to get it back. Oh how much it would suck to be stuck in this prison after that riot just happened, let alone be the one who caused it. Scourge would have been in a far, FAR worse position than he was at the start in the eyes of the prison guards and prisoners alike.

Luckily it didn’t shake out that way and I can only imagine that whatever big plans he had next were going to account for what the Zone Cops did to him or could do to him too. It would have been a grand design worth seeing and unfortunately it’ll never come to be.

No matter what Ken Penders says, he doesn’t own Scourge the Hedgehog and he never will. The best thing that ever came from his lazy, lame Evil Sonic was Scourge and it was all due to the re-tooling brought about by people who were not him. Scourge is a character that I liked but didn’t realize just how good he was until now. It truly is a marvel just how well-done this idea was and how opposite interpretations of an “Evil Sonic” he is from what he started out as. 

The heavy nuisance and flare that was brought upon by handling him as a recolor who hated being a recolor and what that meant for both him and Sonic was special. We’ll likely never fully get it back again but I appreciate more than ever that it happened at all. 

No matter how bad Scourge is he’ll never live up to the true evil that took his character away from us.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

This whole are is a perfect example that you don’t have to like the characters to enjoy the story.

Not the biggest fan of Scourge, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy the sheer chaos of him and his gang fucking up the Zone Cops and the prisoners.

That said, it’s an interesting way of showing the worst traits of Sonic at its fullest, and a great exploration of what he could really do if he weren’t a hero.

If I had the power to do so, I’d bring Scourge back solely for his fans—I’d get someone else to write for him tho because, honestly, I’d have no idea what to even do with him myself.

[Dr. Detective]

Archie Sonic the Hedgehog - Issue #226: Genesis, Part One: In the Beginning…

Ah yes. Here we are. The infamous bore-fest I remember throwing my hands up at and deliberately wading through so I could see what the end result of Eggman’s big master plan was. That didn’t really turn out to lead to anything for me, unfortunately.

I’ll be frank; this was a confusing time for me back in the day. I had no idea what it was Eggman did and as I read through this story I had no clue why he would want to do this… if indeed he meant for it to happen this way. It was very strange and the thing that upset me the most was just that the build up to it in the story felt like it was going to be more of a monumentally devastating thing. So when I had to stumble through four issues of Classic bait to reach the actual next part of the story, I wasn’t feeling too hot about it.

Ian Flynn has also talked about how he doesn’t like this story arc either, multiple times on his podcast. It usually comes up whenever the question of “what story could you have done better” or “which one don’t you like” gets brought up every now and again. World’s Unite is the go-to answer he gives for that but other answers include House of Cards and this story. 

He says he feels bad that he doesn’t like it because fans often tell him they love it and he’s happy for them but on a personal level it just didn’t jive with the guy. I feel confident in saying that I’m pretty sure I’ve only read this once. It’s been well over ten or so years. I have no memory of what’s in this book so who knows? I may come out of it with more to say and think about it other than “I’m bored. I want to find out what actually happens next, please.” 

Spoiler

Convention Exclusive Variant

This variant cover has got a nice little aesthetic to it. Yeah, it’s a 3D render of Sonic and those tend to feel a bit lazy when used as alternate covers for the comics but this would definitely make for a nice promotional poster of some kind. We all know that the 20th Anniversary was when Classic Sonic came back onto the scene with a vengeance. Their handling of what he was supposed to be now, story-wise, wasn’t perfect. As time goes on, his use, concept wise, will have it’s ups (Mania) and it’s downs (Forces) but on the whole, despite being a Modern Sonic fan, I do land on the side that says it was a good idea to bring his Classic form back.

If only that could mean the 3D games could be actual 3D games again but sadly it does not. Hopefully, Frontiers will be the thing that fixes that for me but we shall see.

Writer: Ian Flynn
Pencil Break-Downs: Patrick "Spaz" Spaziante
Pencil Finishes: Tracy Yardley
Inks: Terry Austin
Colors: Matt Herms
Letters: John Workman
Editor: Paul Kaminski
Editor-In-Chief: Victor Gorelick

We begin with Sonic running and basically waking up from a nap he didn’t know he was having.

I really love the perspective that was used here. It’s hard to explain how but it did give off the sense that we were just being transported to or from another spot from time and space completely. Like we’ve just zoomed out from his eyes before him or something. It’s a neat way to start.

Sonic is running through our favorite, iconic, and overused checkerboard spot of land, Seaside… uhm, Green Hill Zone.

He then comes across some Motobugs and he doesn’t know what they are.

I was a bit confused when I saw this initially. I guess I didn’t quite know at which point in time this was supposed to be for Modern-Classic Sonic here. I also probably assumed the shift that happened just changed up the lives of Sonic and the others rather than do that but ALSO reset them back to a time before they knew one another.

But due to the questions he’s asking, it’s clear he doesn’t know who Dr. Eggman is or his modus operandi just yet. 

So now that I know where Sonic stands in all this my brain is allowed to look this over as a story where Sonic is going to be meeting Dr. Eggman for the first time.

That actually sounds like it’ll be neat, I thought. 

Then he comes across Snively and I thought yet again about how cool it was that I was seeing him meet Snively for the first time…

… Do you see what my eventual realization was going to be yet?

It was here where it hit me that I was thinking about this all wrong.

Snively here is in full support and in full defense of his brilliant uncle Eggman to the point of being frothing mad that Sonic would dare question his genius. At first I considered this to be a neat way of showcasing where Eggman and Snively’s relationship began and how it developed through the ages… and that could still very well be true when it comes to our normal Archie Sonic Pre-Reboot world BUT this is the exact moment where I realized that what I was thinking to myself didn’t make any sense.

Because I already know the story of how Sonic met Eggman and his friends in Archie Sonic’s world. All the initial thoughts I was having about “Oh, so THIS is how it happened” should have been “Oh, so THIS is how it COULD have happened if it were in the games” because that’s actually what this is. My brain ticked itself really badly here. 

For anyone who was curious as to how SEGA could have incorporated the SatAM elements into the story of the first Sonic game, you have your answer as well as a really neat idea.

Instantly, I can see why there’d be people out there who’d find this to be an enticing thing. 

It hits a little harder when Sonic chases Snively off after a brief stint with the classic wrecking ball boss and frees the captured animals in the capsule. Freaking Sally, Boomer, and Antoine were jammed inside of it.

Seeing Sally be so humble to Sonic and vice-versa is really endearing. Surprisingly so, actually.

It really does help hit home that this is a different world and a different set-up for these characters. I can imagine witnessing this for the first time in an actual Sonic game would be really cool for fans of the Freedom Fighters.

The problem now, however, shifts towards being about the legs this idea has in comic format. I could imagine this as a cool idea for maybe a Sonic Super Special issue but an entire four part story arc sounds like an invitation for some epic wheel spinning.

What I recall the most about the way Archie used to handle the Classic Sonic call-back stuff was that they’d just have Sonic running through the zones from the classic games in a bid to emulate them while Sonic and whoever may be with him makes comments about the environment sometimes.

It wasn’t at all like the current IDW Classic universe where the characters and the silly dynamics are the focus. Those stories don’t feel like Classic wank at all, which is why they’re so entertaining. 

I may be wrong on re-visit but I do recall most of this just feeling like “REMEMBER GREEN HILL?!” and “HEY FUCKO! REMEMBER MARBLE ZONE?!” That might not be the case though.

Sonic is about to head off on his own but Sally pleads with him to let them come along and help. Sonic is understandably concerned that they’ll slow him down but she insists that they can help by offering a straight shot to Eggman and he agrees.

They make it to Marble Zone where the track to Eggman is more clear thanks to the killer robots everywhere. Antoine has regressed to being a coward again so he wanders off to what he thinks will be safety and then runs away screaming from killer bat bots while shouting out some truly hard to read, pure, endless French.

Then Sonic saves him and Sally thanks… Antoine. Which is pretty funny.

Meanwhile, Boomer here reprograms a destroyed Buzz Bomber to help them out. It won’t work without an animal to power it so Sally asks a little birdie to help them out and it agrees.

So they team up with a little Buzz Bomber friend to brave the lava and robots of the Marble Zone. It’s a neat showcase of what Boomer can contribute to this run through of Classic levels. It’s, so far, the one thing that’s helped make this stand out as not just another thing where we go through a level and have an action scene. 

They’ve also been investigating earthquakes that have been happening and as such one eminently happens on their adventure. Sonic has to save them, thus sort of proving he was right to be worried about them slowing him down BUT the reprogrammed Buzz Bomber comes in handy when saving them which lends credence to Boomer’s usefulness and Sally… well, Sonic doesn’t seem to have a problem carrying Sally. They’re surrounded by fire and he goes “Is it hot out here or is it just you?”

I just got done watching Sonic X episode 21 where they’re on the cruise ship and Sonic tricks Amy into thinking he’s got the hots for her so going from that to this moment where he’s legitimately pining for a girl is quite surreal. The differences in interpretations of Sonic tend to hit you harder when you literally hop and skip from one to the other. I can imagine both of those Sonics falling in love but the one from Sonic X would never be so forward about it. 

Honestly, the one from the games would be just as wishy-washy and evasive about it too. I tend to prefer that because it feels a bit more adorable when Sonic, this confident, cocky dude, is imagined as this guy who also can’t navigate his feelings very well. He strikes me as a guy who runs so fast that he’d leave some of his feelings behind if they were currently too complicated to carry with him.

Anyway, Sonic and Eggman meet for the “first” time.

The fusion of Modern and Classic Eggman in this design is way easier to notice than with Sonic. The facial elements from Modern Eggman seem to be grafted over top his classic design whereas Sonic just looks like a shorter Modern Sonic. His height and the shape of his shoes are the only things that seem different here. I guess the proportion of his body at certain angles is noticeable too. 

The two of them go out to have one of their “classic” showdowns (Hoho. I made a funny) while Sally holds her hand out and shouts “Sonic!” like she does all the time. Boomer’s acknowledgement that there’s no one out there like the two of them hits Sally in a strange way where she agrees but then asks “So why does all this seem so familiar”.

Hints about the characters remembering a past life were brought up before this point of course. Sonic naming the Motobugs and recalling the specific name of the Caterkillers were kind of it but that was enough. They just came to him at the time and he didn’t really question why. He probably just figured he was a genius.

Sonic fights Eggman over the sinking pillars in the lava of the Marble Zone. I’m listening to Marble Zone as I’m reading this and wondering what a remixed, action version of this song would sound like. Listening to it, it’d be relatively easy to imagine. 

Anyway, Eggman loses when the traitorous Buzz Bomber strikes at him from behind, making Eggman go off course. He blasts at the robot and destroys it. Thankfully, destroying Badniks just releases the animal inside rather than take them with in a fiery explosion.

Then… Sonic and Eggman have a very delightful little nose kissy-wissy before Sonic just rams into him.

The thing I love the most about this scene, aside from how detailed the bendy nose of Eggman is, is how Sonic doesn’t give a shit that his nose just nose-kissed the doctor’s like that. It doesn’t surprise me that he goes both ways too. That SonicXEggman ship continues to sail my good friends.

Eggman flies off and says they’re all toast once his plan comes through… as soon as he can figure out what that plan is. He thinks to himself that he’s confused as to why there’s a battle station around. It would seem that the reset didn’t even preserve Eggman’s memories.

Sonic tells Sally to thank the Flicky for helping them and she does while giving it a little kiss. Then they head deeper into the ruins before them which is clearly the Labyrinth. 

It’s stated to be the underground passage they need to hit so they go in. So far Boomer has contributed with science by providing a back-up buddy bot for a tiny bit, Sally has been good with directions, and Antoine…

Anyway, that seems to be good enough for Sonic as he comments that being with them “feels right”. Sally is grateful for that.

We know the actual reason it feels right, of course, but truthfully, their contributions so far haven’t amounted to much. There’s always room for more though.

What’s REALLY interesting, though, are some of the replies in the Sonic Grams section.

I… understand where the sentiment comes from but it’s also a little hard not to feel “some type of way” about it.

 

Whereas I was sure something was up and that there was some sort of story-arc or plot development thing on the horizon for Sally, this person was in TEARS because it LOOKED like Sally was killed. 

Then there’s this comment.

Well don’t worry Dana F. You’ll have no choice but to stop supporting the comic book in a few short years anyway. I also love the part where they say “I thought you would have learned that lesson during Endgame” as if the vast majority of the people working on the book now had anything to do with Endgame. It’s also funny to imagine it as the “How many times do we have to teach you this lesson old man!” meme.

I’ll admit, I do pride myself on the ability to be fucking patient and wait out the consequences of something that’s been set-up before I jump the gun on things this way. There’s honestly way too many people online, especially on fucking Twitter, that knee-jerk react to something they think, might, or MAY be happening. 

People are already predicting they know everything about Frontiers, how Imposter Syndrome is going to end, and blah blah blah. Fuck. It’s not just a thing with Sonic fans too. I stopped following the discourse on the manga I read years ago aside from like two podcasts that I trust because I couldn’t stand being so flabbergasted by the weird leaps in logic people make. How anyone in their right mind seriously thought it was possible Bellamy was going to join the Straw Hats needs a serious mental refresher on the series they’re reading… and also reading comprehension skills.

I don’t blame anyone for being upset at the idea of Sally dying. The idea of a character I liked getting blown the fuck away semi-off-screen would upset me too… but I also made sure to contemplate the possibility that when something is CLEARLY not finished then there’s merit to waiting to see where it goes before I send Archie an embarrassing letter wagging my finger at them for what they’ve done. It’s not quite as bad as that lovely story where that one dude ripped the comic in half because Sonic decided he wanted to get lunch with Amy but it’s up there.

This first issue was all well and good actually. It wasn't super great or anything like that but I wasn’t bored to tears reading it. I do find the idea of contemplating on how to incorporate SatAM stuff into the Sonic games’ origin to be a bit of a neat idea to dabble in. I don’t feel convinced it’ll be worth four issues of dabbling just yet but the set-up worked fine. 

I will say, going back to how I was ten or so years ago, one of the big issues I also had with this arc was just the fact that it was the Classic aesthetic with the SatAM characters. My tolerance for the Freedom Fighters and the era of Sonic without the characters I grew up with in Adventure 2, Heroes, and Sonic X was shockingly low, like you wouldn’t believe. Hopefully, I’ve made it clear that this isn’t exactly the case now but it does color the perception I have of this arc in my mind unfortunately. First impressions can be tough.

Archie Sonic the Hedgehog - Issue #227: Genesis, Part Two: Friends and Fate

Drawings and re-imaginings of the Sonic 2 cover never get old to me. I, of course, didn’t exactly grow up with it always staring me in the face or anything but it’s a really magnanimous cover. So long as you have Eggman gripping and shaking the gravel off that giant number two in rage over the two characters before it, it’s going to work for me. 

Also, Tails is here! Yay! I know him! I care about him! This’ll be fun, hopefully.

Spoiler

Writer: Ian Flynn
Pencil Break-Downs: Patrick “Spaz” Spaziante
Pencil Finishes: Tracy Yardley
Inks: Terry Austin
Colors: Matt Herms
Letters: John Workman

So the characters have reached the inter sanctum of the Labyrinth Zone now. They talk again about how familiar this all is and how things come naturally to them once more.

Then there’s a cute little scene where Antoine thinks Sonic is Ze Sigh-Kick (psychic) and has him put his big floppy hand to his forehead so he can tell him what’s in his head. Sonic says there’s nothing there which Antoine doesn’t like.

Then there’s a scene where Sonic acts like an incel.

Perhaps I’m wrong but I feel like “Ma cherie” and “sweetie” are completely normal, plutonic things to say to someone but Sonic rushes after Sally to ask how long the two of them have been together. He’s just decided that’s what’s happening now.

He doesn’t finish that thought. He’s interrupted when they reach the water and he’s suddenly making the face of a boy who just got pantsed in front of the rest of his baseball team.

I love the response Sally gives here.

Sally holds Sonic’s scared little hand and they dive into the water with everyone. The way the water is drawn is really well done. 

Those squiggly lines they all have do well to help sell them being under water. As an artist, I do often struggle with how to approach handling water. It’s a very intimidating thing and you always find yourself wanting it to look fucking great.

You always kind of feel bad when you screw up water even though it’s understandably very hard and intimidating to get down. This looks really inspiring.

Anyway, they manage to escape when Sonic blows a whole through the cracks in the Labyrinth and all the water drains out. They all manage to make it out but then another Earthquake happens and Antoine ends up missing the jump.

Yeah, you gotta love Sonic’s reaction here. The comic hyper focuses on how much he’s bothered by the idea of Antoine and Sally getting together but he looks the most broken up by the thought that he might have just accidentally let the guy fall to his death. My mother-lovin’ hero.

Sonic apologizes to them because he couldn’t save their friend and Boomer and Sally share two sad looking glances before basically shrugging it off and saying it’s okay. 

It was momentarily a little odd, especially since Sally was the one who rushed off immediately after Antoine fell with a “LET’S GET MOVING!” ala Shadow from Sonic 06.

Sonic rushes out with the two of them, now in Star Light Zone and asks her why she’s not more broken up about her boyfriend falling to his death. He doesn’t even consider that he has the wrong idea again.

Sally clarifies that Antoine is just a close friend and also says that the reason she says it’ll be alright is because it doesn’t FEEL right that he’d be gone. 

“He can’t be gone. That’s not right,” she says.

Boomer also agrees. They’re working off this FEELING that him being dead is just… not correct. They all liken it to this feeling they’ve had about how familiar everything has been.

It’s an interesting way to get that across. I didn’t think that him falling to what looked like his death would be used in such a manner to illustrate that the characters don’t buy that as the final destination for Antoine because everything that’s happening to them right now doesn’t feel correct despite also feeling familiar in a sense.

After that we have a little mini-adventure in Star Light Zone that’s told to us through traversing panels. You know, the usual stuff you’d expect from whenever Archie just does that thing where they go through Classic Zones.

At the end of that last snapshot, Sonic jumps right out of Star Light Zone and straight into Scrap Brain Zone.

Sonic makes the obvious remark about the name in that it sounds like it makes no goddamn sense as a name for an area. Sally likens it to Eggman just being a mad scientist but there are definitely ways to justify a name like that. 

It’s like when you say you’re in the heart of an area. Well, you’re in the brain of an area that’s filled with scrap. The Scrap Brain Zone.

Well, it’s also filled with traps too as Sonic and Boomer quickly come to find out.

There was also a cute joke back there about Sonic suggesting they call this place Robotropolis and then Boomer says New Megaopolis. To that, Sonic says that Boomer is trying too hard and Boomer agrees that Robotropolis has a better ring to it.

Good. I’m glad we’re all on the same page that Robotropolis was the best name for all those numerous Eggman cities.

Boomer is about to fall to his death but Sally grabs him to try and save him. He’s too fucking fat though so Sonic has to race over and help after recovering from his electric shocks.

Anyway, they make it to the next area where Eggman is waiting inside those pistons from Sonic 1’s final boss.

He says he hates the nickname Eggman and asks why everyone is calling him that. It’s strange because Snively spoke about him using that name as though it were just what he was referred to as. I’m surprised to hear he hates the name at this point. Sounded like we were starting off with him having already adopted it.

Well, anyway, somehow, Sonic just has a shield around him and he starts attacking Eggman. I don’t know where the shield came from . It just appears around him. 

Even stranger is how Antoine just blasts into the same tube Eggman is. Eggman says it sounds like the hydraulics pipe when it happens and I’m just like… did you connect this piston you’re using to attack Sonic with the hydraulics pipe Antoine was swirling around in? 

I don’t entirely get it but Sonic’s happy that he’s alive so that’s good.

Also, Eggman ends up doing another nosey with someone. This time it's Antoine.

Sonic destroys the device, freeing Antoine and making Eggman roll off in anger.

They see him escape into one of the pistons below the floor and crowd around it to try and lift it up so they can get at him.

However, the doctor is far more clever than that.

That crafty bastard.

Oh shit. Uh. Nevermind. Bye.

Unfortunately, after Eggman go down da hole, Sonic uses that intuition that gives them all the power to read the script to let the others in on the objective fact that Eggman is still alive and that they haven’t seen the last of him.

This … feels like a natural end to the story honestly. However, we know it isn’t. It can’t be because it doesn’t resolve anything and the reason we’re here wasn’t touched upon at all. It just feels like one of those typical “And the day is saved… or is it?” kind of endings, which makes it weird…

0/10. Why? The cover had Tails and there was no Tails in the issue. It’s almost as if this cover was drawn the way it was to emulate Sonic 2’s box art because this was the second issue of this 4-part series and nothing else. I certainly hope the third issue doesn’t do the same thing. Hmph.

This issue would have benefited a lot from having Tails in it. A new dynamic would have done well to off-set the increasing sense of sameness that’s already creeping in. Again, it’s not terrible but it already feels like we’re reaching a point where we’re starting to spin some wheels. There were a few interesting contemplative moments but other than that the action was too fast and the level traversing was basically just skipped over. As such there’s not much to latch on to. 

Still, I’m not being left with the sense that this is the worst thing ever or anything. I can totally see why this annoyed me back in the day though. If I didn’t like the Freedom Fighters back then, seeing a cover with Tails on it only to get precisely zero Tails and more Freedom Fighters wouldn’t have been a happy instant for me. Their SatAM designs are also starting to clash a bit with the Classic designs for me a bit. I don't quite know why but they feel more and more out of place the more I read. Seeing Antoine next to Classic Eggman felt weird. It works better when they're with Sonic since he looks more like his modern self I guess. 

Archie Sonic the Hedgehog - Issue #228: Genesis, Part Three: Divide and Conquer

There’s a slight chance that I may have been confused by the fact that the cover for the third issue changes it’s aesthetic all of a sudden. I may not have fully grasped that these covers were trying to emulate the Genesis games. Although, the eyes in the bushes are clearly Knuckles I feel like this’ll be another situation where he doesn’t actually appear. Oh well. Maybe Tails shows up in this one. It might have been a case where he just HAD to be on the cover for the last one because that was the Sonic 2 cover.

My solution to that would have just been to say “Fuck it. Throw him in anyway” but then I guess that would have him impede on the Sonic 1 stuff they were still doing. But splitting Sonic 1 and Sonic 2 between 4 issues that have covers that emulate Sonic 1-3 would… never mind. 

Spoiler

Writer: Ian Flynn
Pencils: Tracy Yardley
Inks: Terry Austin
Colors: Matt Herms
Letters: John Workman
Cover By: Patrick “Spaz” Spaziante
Editor: Paul Kaminski
Editor-In-Chief: Victor Gorelick

Tails is here! YAY!

He shows up on the very first page, trotting over to Sonic and going “Hi Sonic!”

So he already knows Sonic. Interesting. We haven’t even gotten into the Sonic 2 stuff yet but I guess the angle for this is that Sonic just did Sonic 1 on his own despite already knowing Tails.

Also, the Freedom Fighters are here and they all get introduced to him.

Bunnie not being here is something I didn’t think too hard about considering she wasn’t one of the original ones in the story of this comic either. However, the bigger reason for her absence is most likely because there isn’t really a necessity for her. 

Truthfully, there really isn’t a necessity for the Freedom Fighters here either but the idea of meshing the SatAM elements with the Genesis stories is kind of what I feel the appeal of this is. Without that luxury, the redundancy of this story would feel even more apparent. Although, that could have been fixed by keeping this to a single issue or two so… meh.

I’m not really complaining about it. I’m just glad Tails is here.

Then another earthquake happens right after Sally tells Sonic that she used a computer to confirm that Eggman is alive and expanding his operation. 

Sally says they gotta go cut Eggman’s support lines. Sonic doesn’t like that idea because it sounds slow but he doesn’t really get a chance to protest further because Tails asks to come along. Sally butts in and is about to say she doesn’t know if they should let him because he’s awfully young but Sonic vetoes that bullshit because he knows Tails is actually way better at stuff then her. 

He doesn’t say it like that but it’s true.

Honestly, even in the current Archie continuity that’s true. 

They race off to glory and we cut to space where Eggman and Snively are stationed in the NEW Death Egg. Eggman is going on about how successful phase one of his plan was and how it paved the way for phase two.

This is a very interesting gamble Eggman has taken this time.

I said before that I don’t recall what the point of the plan was but I’ll fully admit to that probably being due to the fact that I didn’t care at all about the Genesis storyline. Coupling that with the fact that I’ve only read this story once before and you’ve got yourself an opening to rediscover some things here.

This really is an interesting concept. The fact that Eggman’s plan involved doing something that would risk him forgetting some of the fine details of what he was doing is peak Eggman in all the weirdest ways. He doesn’t even refer to this place as the Death Egg. He keeps calling it the battle station or the flying fortress.

All he seems to know is that he’s supposed to enter phase two now. He can’t remember phase one but maybe he remembers phase two? Did phase one take into account that he’d remember phase two even if he forgot phase one? How?!

Well, currently they’re waiting for the Chaos Emeralds they have to re-fuel their station. Once that’s done they’ll have enough energy to robotize the planet in one shot.

Also, Eggman is working on a logic puzzle while he waits. He calls it the “Chaos in the Equation” logic puzzle. It’s the unpredictable, quantum variant and the unexplainable hiccup of time and space… THE HEDGEHOG!

Snively is confused by this but it’s, of course, an off-shoot of how he now views Sonic after his little excursion with the loss of lucidity back in Issue #200. It’s almost like he partly doesn’t view Sonic as a person anymore. He’s like some sort of weird, cosmic THING that exists to just throw everything off the predicted course for Eggman.

That’s quite the comforting rationalization to a man of science like himself. The alternative of him just losing to some dorky teenager just doesn’t make any sense.

Snively brings up a bunch of issues about the seismic activity the planet below is going through, how reality seems like it’s trying to snap back into place, and about how the Freedom Fighters keep messing with their shit.

Eggman’s response to all these inquiries is “It’s taken care of. Don’t worry.”

Anyway, welcome to Chemical Plant Zone.

We’ll be seeing a lot of you soon. You and your Mega Mack.

What follows here is the best scene in these stories so far though. Because Tails is here that means I can finally see the dynamic between them that I love so much.

Tails is about to remark about finding the best way through and Sonic forgoes that and just decides to race him there. Tails laughs and says he’s crazy as he flies off to do just that while also working through the problem. It’s brilliant.

Also, when he said Sonic was crazy, I felt that. Sonic just jumps into the pipes and spin-dashes up them. I know in the actual level the pipes carry him where he needs to go but it looks way more scary here. Imagining him just getting stuck in that tube as he jumps down into the curve that’s supposed to shoot him upward made me wince. It reminded me a bit of Augustus Gloop.

Of course, Sonic has nothing to fear and watching Tails race Sonic while using his brain to figure out where to go while Sonic uses the tubes to scope out the place was cute.

Then, comes the most adorable image ever followed by an image that I remember at the back of my mind a tiny bit, if only because it illustrates the main problem I had with this story back in the day.

Sonic and Tails just have this really cute moment where they race and end up at the same place at the same time to do some brotherly love stuff… and then the three extras just zip up onto the page together in a panel that I looked at and read it as “Yeah, and we’re here too. I guess.”

Obviously, I didn’t recall what Sally was actually saying or what the joke on the page was. The way the page was structured was what came across to me the most. 

This actually isn’t a statement against the Freedom Fighters themselves. It would have been had I been writing this ten years ago but like I said, I find the idea of incorporating the SatAM elements into the Genesis stories to see how they would have played out to be an interesting idea.

The problem is that… it was covered in the first issue and that’s kind of all I needed. 

After that first issue we’ve kind of just been doing some very bland, very basic adventuring. That could be saved by interesting character dynamics but they honestly haven’t done much of that at all. There have been some interesting introspective moments but those don’t have much to do with their characters and more about the concept of the memory plot. 

The main character building stuff that stuck out between them aside from the memory stuff was Sonic confusing Antoine for Sally’s boyfriend which is just more romance, love triangle nonsense. 

Sonic doesn’t have much to say or do with Boomer that’s interesting either. 

So now that Tails is here we get these wonderful pages where they’re racing and using their individual skills, one in smarts and the other in speed, to achieve a goal at the same time. It always charms me whenever two characters with opposite personalities manage to achieve something together at the same time. That really was a showcase of why the Sonic and Tails dynamic is just so strong.

So is the next part where they get to that horrid room where those fucking yellow boxes that crush the fuck out of you with the rising water show up. Sonic and Tails are all for riding the boxes up. Tails even goes “Wait for me! WHEEEE!” when he follows him.

The other three kind of take forever to do it. Sally starts by saying this area seems too convenient (which she’s sort of right about), Antoine is too scared and Boomer doesn’t even get a chance to do anything before another earthquake happens that busts the floor apart.

When it bursts open, the Mega Mack flows into the area and we’ve got real Chemical Plant anxiety going on here.

They keep calling it Mega Muck in the book but Mega Mack is the better sounding name. It’s also what the wiki says so I’m going with that.

Now I want there to be a Mega Mack Truck that chases you through City Escape and when it crashes, the shit just floods the city. 

Oh! What happens when you feed a Chaos Emerald to the Mega Mack? Does it become a purple Perfect Chaos? So many questions.

Anyway, at this point, it becomes apparent that the other three really are the ones holding things back. Boomer did a cool thing with the Buzz Bomber in the first issue but now that Tails is here he, shocker, feels a bit redundant now. Especially since Tails has a better dynamic with Sonic and can just traverse the areas far easier. I still like Boomer fine but each time you throw him and Tails together, you see why he went the way he did in the Archie comics just a little more.

This scene was cool though.

Until Sonic and Sally give each other the doe eyes.

It’s hard to not roll my eyes whenever they do something together because it’s always immediately followed by them getting into some sort of fight and breaking u–

Hmmmgh.

So Sonic has a vision of Sally getting gunned down and obviously wants her at a safe distance so he decides to head off on his own.

Well… I mean, Sonic did just tell her to do the thing that she wants to do and he’ll do the thing that he wants to do.

Plus, what Sonic wants to do is what he does in the games anyway so you’ll forgive me if I land on Sonic’s idea being the more preferred one.

It’s here where it sinks in even more that these guys, in this issue especially, are kind of just hangers on. When Sonic breaks away to go do his thing, Tails races after them with a solid goodbye and an acknowledgement that it was nice to meet them.

No, you’re right Antoine. I’m not sure why Boomer is giving you a hard time.

Maybe because he realizes that Sally and Sonic had a little thing going there but there’s nothing wrong with including all three of you into the “Got Dumped” thing since he DID leave the three of you behind and not JUST Sally.

However, that’s me speaking from the point of view of an asexual person so…I dunno. Maybe it is more natural to put the romance between two people over the entire group in situations like this… bleh.

So, because we need to speed things up before the final issue and get all the zones  we can in, the teams have split up so that we can cover more ground thanks to the power of sudden, cheap drama. Sally’s team is in Oil Ocean Zone, trying to shut down Eggman’s refinery first while Sonic is taking the Monkey D. Luffy approach of taking down Crocodile instead of going to tell the rebels not to fight.

That means Sonic and Tails are on their way to Metropolis Zone.

Tails is asking if it was a good idea to leave them behind. Sonic says it’s better this way since they’ll be safe. Tails clarifies that he meant that more for the both of them since he figures they’re in way over their heads.

Considering they conquered this adventure in Sonic 2 when it was JUST the two of them, I don’t buy that for a second. 

Sonic doesn’t seem worried at all either. He gallantly walks off the wing of the plane and bursts into the heart of Metropolis Zone, ready to take the fight to the big boss himself.

Hopefully he can find a rocket to take him to the Death Egg. I have a feeling he’ll need to rely on his own navigational skills this time and not push the duty onto the reluctant Knuckles here.

Credit where it’s due. I don’t hate this story. I can’t even really say I’m all that bored by it, if only because it is a bit interesting observing the facilities that this story is using in order to try and justify its existence. Is it succeeding at that? Well… in parts it is. The stuff with Eggman and Snively is all-around fascinating, as is the core concept of the plot outside of all the traversing through levels.

Sonic and Tails’ dynamic being a thing that exists now also managed to sky rocket this issue up to being the best of the four so far. I apologize to anyone who is upset by me referring to the other three as hangers on but that really is what it feels like they are in this particular story at the moment. The intrigue of the SatAM-Genesis fusion was captured in the first issue and nothing much was done beyond what I saw there in the next two ones. As such, they don’t feel necessary anymore. Necessity wouldn’t be a problem if I found their dynamics with Sonic fun or interesting but I personally haven’t seen much of that either.

Characters don’t need to be necessary to exist within a series or narrative but they still have to offer something of note or interest in order for it to be worth it. They have their function in Archie Sonic proper, sometimes, but here they’re not cutting it anymore. 

I will admit though, they’re doing the traversing through the levels stuff a lot better than I remember, especially the Chemical Plant bit. A shame that we won’t be seeing any Aquatic Ruin, Casino Night, Hill Top, or especially Mystic Cave but four issues is ironically too short for all that… and too long for the kind of story they’re telling here. Imagine that.

[Kuzu]

You know, I do recall this era of the comics to have the Game Purists vs. Archie Purists debates at its most obnoxious, and those fan letters just reminded me why.  This was definitely around the time I started to realize that online discourse was fucking stupid and I wanted no part in it. 

 

Genesis.....yea I got nothing. This was definitely the point when I just kind of blanked out of the book for a few months. It was cute seeing the Freedom Fighters within the Classic aesthetic, but the plot or characters just weren't interesting enough for me to care. It doesn't help that I really wanted to get back to the main story. Between that and the fan arguments, I definitely just focused on real life shit for this point in my life....

Oh right, I graduated from High School right around this time, no wonder I didn't care....oh god, its been over 10 years....

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

It’s funny, cuz I always skipped the fan letters of the Sonicgrams.

Seeing some of them now, kinda shocked at how Sally’s death really hit people. Don’t get me wrong, it hit me too, but the moment I saw Sally in Genesis, I had a strong feeling it wasn’t gonna stick.

As for Genesis, I can see why Ian doesn’t like it, but it’s pretty so-so. It is an interesting take on how to adapt the Freedom Fighters to the games. Can’t say it’s the way I would’ve pictured or preferred, but you can’t say it can’t be done either way.

And don’t get me started on the purists back then…

[SanPolo4389]

So Genesis...... yeah I kind of forgot about this 4 parter especially what came after this I remember more, not sure why but I mean I remember being invested because of what happened at the end of 225.

Also weird to hear Flynn say he didn't like this, but why he didn't like it or he could've done it better?  

[Dr. Detective]

Archie Sonic the Hedgehog - Issue #229: Genesis, Part Four: Reset

I don’t know if this cover is a reference to something. There was no Sonic the Hedgehog 4 on the Genesis for it to copy the cover of and the actual Sonic 4 that came out didn’t have this awesome of a cover so… I don’t know. It looks awesome though. I’d imagine if Super Sonic were real he truly would be a bunch of J.J Abrams lens flares. Anyway, are we ready to get out of the Genesis arc? I think I am.

Spoiler

Convention Exclusive Variant

It’s interesting how this doesn’t look as good as a sketch to me. This still looks good but I think comparing it to the finished piece kind of gives off that unfinished feeling to me… which is understandable since it’s literally unfinished. It’s hard to explain.

Writer: Ian Flynn
Penciler: Tracy Yardley
Inks: Terry Austin
Colors: Matt Herms 
Letters: John Workman
Cover By: Patrick Spaziante
Editor: Paul Kaminski
Editor-In-Chief: Victor Gorelick

Tails radios in to Sonic and asks how he’s doing. Sonic says “Could be better… but as usual, I’ve got it covered.”

He then goes through a tube and comes out the other end to more enemies and thinks about how he left the others behind for their safety but could use some “friendly company” right about now.

Again, you’re not going to convince me that he needs the Freedom Fighters. Aside from that one part where Rotor reprogrammed a single Buzz Bomber, all they’ve done is tag-along and be in need of saving. I feel like them being here would just divide your attention like you predicted. 

Also, once again, he did this on his own in Sonic 2. He’ll be fine.

The Freedom Fighters are also still regretting their decision too.

Mildly amusing I guess but these first three pages really were just a retread of what was already established in the last issue. They miss each other. They regret leaving each other behind. I don’t buy that Sonic needs them BUT I’ll at least concede that his desire to be with them makes sense based on the whole “feelings” thing they were going on about. 

They continue going through Oil Ocean. There’s an amusing moment where Rotor sees the metallic rings of spikes going along the pipes and asks “What are those? What are they even FOR?!”

It is nice how the level geometry makes significantly less sense when put into the context of a story rather than just a level you’re blitzing through. It’s cute.

For some reason, Sally almost falling and having her hand grabbed by Rotor makes her remember everything… this moment is juxtaposed by Antoine being tossed around by the cannon barrels.

The art trying to replicate how Sonic looked back then is a nice touch for those who appreciate that sort of thing without regard for how strange this continuity has been. I keep being reminded of how there was an entire story dedicated to explaining how Sonic got green eyes and a buckle added to his shoe while most of the other characters just ended up becoming their modern designs without any fanfare.

Antoine ends up bowling through the robots when he’s shot through them and manages to live. Impressive. This action causes Sally to immediately forget what she was remembering. She asks a Flicky for advice on where to go and they’re off again.

So to recap. They miss Sonic. Then robots attack. Antoine accidentally destroys them. Sally almost remembers the real story but then promptly forgets it and they move on. 

We are six pages in and it really feels like nothing has happened yet. I’m honestly just waiting for Sonic to confront Eggman now.

Sonic has an entire scene where he runs up one of the nuts and bolts things from the Metropolis Zone level and does the Sonic Colors thing where he talks to himself and makes jokes and then talks about how there’s nobody to laugh at his jokes. Sonic always seems to go slightly crazy when he’s on his own in most things.

He then breaks through a vent and confronts Eggman. When Eggman calls him a rodent Sonic gets a flash of memory. He recalls being called that before as well as the fact that they’ve done this before too. Eggman realizes that Sonic is starting to remember and says that they can’t have that.

I don’t recall the boss to Metropolis Zone very well so the part where there’s suddenly multiple Eggmen threw me off a bit. I guess that’s a thing that happens. I don’t know. I could look it up but I just want to get through this.

Back with the Freedom Fighters, they’ve shut down the Oil Ocean and taken away power to ALL of Eggman’s bases in the region. I guess splitting up WAS the right move since now Sonic is directly in front of Eggman and can handle him now that the power is out. 

Oh but then Eggman is just like “This means nothing. I have the Death Egg, idiot.” and flies off to go to his floating death machine in space via the Wing Fortress he has.

So, essentially the Freedom Fighters subplot was completely pointless. 

I mean, I guess I already figured that it would be since we’re following the story of Sonic 2. He needed to go to space to confront the actual threat with the Death Egg and the Death Egg Robot by the end of this after all. It’s still kind of annoying though.

Sonic jumps out the window after calling for a pick up from Tails and lands on the bi-plane in the nick of time. Tails asks if the earthquakes weren’t Eggman’s fault after all but Sonic confirms they were. Tails also tries to get him close to the Flying Fortress but Sonic says not to bother because it’s a decoy and just jumps to the rocket Eggman is escaping to the Death Egg on.

It’s drawn and colored very nicely. It looks really cool too.

Uh… still can’t really get over how arbitrary this is all starting to feel.

The first issue was okay. I recall there being tidbits of interesting stuff being talked about in the second and third ones and some of the ways they went from level to level was more inventive than I recall it being than the first time but there’s only so much looking on the bright side I can do before I admit to just being bored.

Hopefully, this final confrontation with Eggman can at least be of some mild interest.

And, well, I mean, it sort of is.

We finally get a direct confirmation of what his plan is.

I like… the idea behind this.

This being the execution is a little too strange though.

It makes perfect sense that Eggman doesn’t really give a fuck about changing himself and the entire world so long as it means he’ll get to rule over it. He doesn’t exactly remember much of the old world but does remember that Sonic always foils his plans at the last hour so he changed him and that means he’ll win now…?

I mean, you changed yourself too Eggman. I don’t know, this plan of yours sounds like it’s full of very obvious holes and risks that aren’t worth it.

He shows up in the Death Egg Robot and starts shouting at Sonic in a way that at least feels like it’s climactic, sort of.

It’s unfortunate because this doesn’t feel like it had to be this way. At least, not EXACTLY this. There had to have been a way to make this feel more like it wasn’t a waste of time despite this being the crux of his entire plan.

I guess the reason it’s not so impressive to me is more so just how I recall it not mattering in the end. He goes off on Sonic and is trying to kill him and junk, as usual, but then, of course, he says too much and then Sonic takes immediate advantage of it.

Yeah, you know. The big thing he’s been building up to, nay, this entire event just comes down to Sonic telling Eggman he made this too easy. 

It happens so quick too. We really did just jump from climactic thing to climactic thing one after the other. I guess we’re suddenly really short on time now after all the time wasting we did before. Who’d of thought?

There’s nothing satisfying about this. It kind of feels like Sonic just won without much needing to happen for him to achieve it. Sonic even admonishes Eggman for saying what kind of energy was flowing through those tubes after Eggman was surprised that the tubes didn’t fry him.

The world is tearing itself apart, according to Snively now, by the way. He even says that he doesn’t even think the Roboticizer can stop it, like Eggman planned. So his plan is already kind of ruined.

Seeing as how this would have happened before Sonic got here, it feels like this really was a gamble not worth taking in the end. Although, he does say that whatever’s going on between him and Sonic is making it worse.

There really isn’t much of a conclusion to this “fight”. Sonic just says what he has to do in sequential order and then just does it. The defeat panel for the Death Egg Robot is him just slamming it into a wall and apparently that’s what takes care of it.

He then uses Chaos Control while struggling to remember Shadow’s name.

With that… insane anti-climax out of the way, Chaos Control is induced again.

Apparently that’s all it takes to fix the entire world back to where it was, even going back in time a bit to stop Sally from being gunned down?

How weird is this? I mean, I guess I buy that it’s possible for Chaos Control to do this but it feels odd still. I’m still not even entirely sure how Eggman did it to be perfectly honest but I at least can buy that he could achieve it via pre-planning and the use of his weird, other-wordly devices combined with the Chaos Emeralds… but, he doesn’t have all the Chaos Emeralds, just the one from Feist, so I guess that one was enough to…uh…

*Sigh*... whatever.

We’re going back now.

Yeah, see ya when you’re not full of holes, my lady.

So that was Genesis and good lord was it not needed. I’ll give it credit, I actually found stuff to like about it re-reading it again. Seeing how the levels were made use of was nice. Witnessing how the introduction to the Freedom Fighters would have gone in the Classic games was neat, if not made redundant as they continued to follow along within the narrative while not contributing much. It was also cool to see Sonic and Tails just being their wonderful dynamic duo selves here.

Eggman was… well, he spoke a big game and the idea was at least “interesting” but man the execution felt way too sloppy, even for him this time. Dude takes a lot of crazy risks and doesn’t consider the consequences all the way through all of the time and that’s fine. That’s Eggman. This however just felt strangely incomplete on his part. It’s almost like this follow-up plan was something that the narrative didn’t REALLY give a shit about and the important bit was the fact that he has a new Death Egg and… well, what’s about to happen next. 

That’s obviously what the story really cares about. This little excursion didn’t really have much of a chance holding my interest back in the day and now that I’m older and more tolerant of it… it still feels the same just with the added benefit of being able to appreciate some of it a bit more. I can only appreciate so much before I want an actual, satisfying story to follow again though.

I have a feeling that if I ever do another read through of Archie I’ll probably go back to just reading the dialogue and flipping through pages for this one like I did before. There’s really not much to chew on here and you can tell by how fast and slapped together the ending was that our wonderful writer man wanted to get back to the story he actually wanted to tell before he was so rudely interrupted by the 20th Anniversary celebratory marketing stuff. 

Another one of those happens next issue too. 

So yeah. Genesis. I don’t hate it anymore at least but it certainly isn’t anything to write home about. I’m glad people liked it though.

Archie Sonic the Hedgehog - Issue #230: Two Steps Back…

Ah yes. On the third day she rose again. The one who could do no wrong, beloved by all but the SonAmy shippers; it’s Sally Christ. 

God, I remember so many jokes being made about this back in the day. It was very amusing to me because to a lot of people it really did feel like she was Jesus with regards to how some treated her. To others she was the Devil. To me she’s Burt from Accounting. I don’t have very many thoughts on her one way or another. I will say that this is a fucking awesome looking cover though. The elongated kick from Sonic there is reminding me a lot of the leg voodoo Sanji does and I’m all for it. Ironically, the only thing tripping me up about it IS the Jesus Sally at the bottom. I’m not sure if I like it or not. It really does complete the image but it also kind of throws it off for me at the same time. It’s weird.

Spoiler

Sonic Generations Variant

The 20th Anniversary iconography is all over this one. I believe I was just starting community college back when this was going down. It’s strange because I remember being excited for the premise of Generations but the more I saw of it, the less excited I got. It wasn’t because it looked bad. It looked very good and when I played it, it was indeed very good. However, the more I saw of it, the more I realized it was probably going to be structured a lot like the previous game that came out, Sonic Colors, where you kind of just go on a very short adventure and nothing substantial happens in the plot.

Even worse was that the trailers for the game spoiled literally everything. The levels and bosses were all leaked well beforehand but that didn’t matter because they showed us them all themselves. I remember thinking “Well… there has to be more right? Surely they didn’t just show us the entire fucking game?”

No, it was the whole game. The only thing we didn’t see was what the Time Eater boss fight looked like and in the game, it didn’t look like much. Just a vomit of gold and purple. 

It was an interesting experience. A very good game that left me feeling a bit empty when I beat it was not something I was used to. It was a very confusing feeling at the time. I had a similar feeling with Colors too (though I pretended I didn’t because everyone loved it. In 2010, if I had said I wasn’t too hot on Colors I’d have been shot).

Writer: Ian Flynn
Pencils: Ben Bates
Inks: Terry Austin
Colors: Matt Herms
Letters: John Workman
Editor: Paul Kaminski
Editor-In-Chief: Victor Gorelick

Hurray! Ben Bates is back! I don’t know if you guys know this but Ben Bates is my absolute favorite Sonic artist. I just think his style gets everything down perfectly and when you team him up with the master of Colors, Matt Herms, it comes out as a truly special work of beauty.

So anyway, here in the comic proper, Sonic recalls his memory fairly quickly. The shake-up that took them forever to remember in the previous world doesn’t happen here, most likely, because this world already feels right. Sonic shakes off the weirdness pretty fast and instead of playing around with Silver Sonic, he dashes off to save Sally before she gets her brains blown out.

I know it’s fucked up but I would have laughed my ass off if he was too late again. Then the next page is just a two-page spread saying GAME OVER and the comic just ends.

Or, you know, they could have done the 06 thing where Sonic picks up the Swiss Sally and they do a creepy Chaos Emerald ceremony that brings her back to life with a kiss of life. Wonder why they didn’t go with that.

So yeah, it’s been undone. The miraculously, wonderful, scary thing that happened at the end of #225 is just not a thing anymore.

I was momentarily really bothered by this. I desperately wanted there to be some kind of consequence to this since it was such a huge moment and such a long wait coming back to THIS moment where we were supposed to see the fallout from it. So having it just be reversed in two pages did sour me a bit. 

Fortunately, I didn’t have long to wait before I was rewarded with something else.

No, I’m not talking about this glorious image of Eggman.

There’s so much this panel of Eggman says about the human condition but my philosophy paper will have to wait.

He tosses the glass against the wall and screams “WHY ISN’T IT WORKING?!” and Snively has no answers for him. He says that nothing is wrong with the machine. It’s just not working.

Interesting. I guess Eggman activating it once made it so that it could only work once…? Perhaps? I remain confused as to what the rules are or even how this machine is supposed to function. I know he got a Chaos Emerald from Feist so he’s probably using that to amplify his machine for this cosmic reset. 

If that’s true, I think I’ve come around to buying that. Combining a chaos emerald with Eggman’s genius to create a result that could be achieved by Sonic using all seven emeralds sounds plausible to me. The doctor has science on his side.

He also screams about how he’s supposed to helplessly roboticize a rebooted world if it’s not helplessly rebooted. I guess he doesn’t exactly recall what happened… until, he supposedly does.

“Hedgehog” is the trigger word. “Chaos is the Constant” is his safety phrase.

Freaking scary old man. Holy moly.

The frightening black eye-balls I remember AoSth Robotnik having are being used to constant monstrous affect for Archie Eggman. It works but I’ll be honest and say that I still prefer not knowing what’s under his glasses.

Eggman zips off to go confront the heroes while Sally has Nicole plugged into a computer to try and get information on the Death Egg. All she can gather is that a huge power is concentrated below them but to get any more info would take more time so they opt to head on down again.

Not before Sonic does an elevator check for a hidden cannon though.

It’s cute.

I love paranoid Sonic.

Sally also has a bit of a mental stop when she hears “hidden cannon” but blows it off as pre-battle jitters. Probably best she doesn’t recall the moment her brain was blasted away like a gross watermelon.

They reach the lower area where they see something that looks like a huge roboticizer with a vision of the globe in the middle. Eggman then flies down to greet them and tell them his plan himself. No more wondering what it is. Hurray!

Unfortunately for me at the time, the explanation of what’s happening here requires the knowledge of things that happened from stories I had not read yet. I actually don’t think I even knew that Roboticization wasn’t something Eggman could do anymore. Then he scrounges something up from the Princess Sally Mini-Series of all things.

Oh dear.

You know what this is?

Y2K!

The legends were true eventually.

So, according to him, he undid what the Bem did with his reset as well… somehow? I don’t quite get how but the added affect on top of what he plans to do will also cause whatever is already roboticized to be exploded.

Or rather all things mechanical? I’m guessing G.U.N’s forces aren’t all roboticized after all. Though, that would mean destroying his own robots if that were true but he can just make more…plus, he’d have all the roboticized people at his beck and call.

He also gives the two of them more examples via things they’d care the most about.

It’s fucking wild man.

It’s STILL really crazy to witness a version of Eggman this fucking evil and insane when the one I grew up on from Adventure 2 to Heroes to Sonic X, while varying in eccentricity, weren’t this fucking bonkers. They all had it in them to set off a bomb in the middle of the city when they were pissed off enough but good lord.

It’s a little amusing to me that he says this after having just rebuilt Lien-Da though. It’s funny. He rebuilt her because he likes the game that they play and then immediately jumps into a plan that requires her and her legion to get blown up again.

The next two pages can only be described as TRUE, actually climactic, concentrated awesome.

Not only does Metal Sonic jump into the fray but, of course, Silver Sonic slams down behind Sonic as well.

If this were a game (a GOOD game) this would be where the boss battle against the two of them at once would start. Like when Spider-Man had to face off against both Electro and Vulture. Only, I’d imagine, Sonic would mostly be trying to survive until time runs out.

Then the next page does something incredible as well.

I like how the instant he sees that Sally is gone, the first thing he does is summon a fucking ridiculous amount of guns and cannons that in no way could fit on that tiny Egg Mobile. It’s supreme overkill too, considering it’s Sally but it’s so funny. I love the fact that he’s obsessed with blowing Sally the fuck away with all of his guns. It’s so unnecessary and mean but that’s why it’s so great.

Sonic blowing through the Egg Mobile the instant he sees those cannons, like some sort of mild PTSD from what he remembers before the reset, was great… if not also unintentionally funny due to the intense “EGAD” Eggman shouts when he gets hit. It’s such a great thing for him to shout. I’d imagine if this weren’t for kids it’d just be “FUCK” but “EGAD” is such an old codger thing to say that it would still work better.

Eggman rummages along the floor and manages to find a small gun. He’s packing heat now and the image of him walking up to Sally and blowing her away himself is just completely raw. It’s like trying to imagine him actually going through with it in Adventure 2 with Amy. It’s tough to do.

Sally finally has Nicole hooked up to the device in an acceptable location… but it’s still not really enough. It will take HOURS still to break the encryption and they have minutes. She can’t block the command signal or confuse the start-up process. Eggman’s tech is just better than hers and the cannon is literally ready to fire.

All she can do is invert the beam to this exact point. Sally tells her to do it.

Nicole warns her that she won’t be immune to what happens but Sally, revealing that she does in fact remember being killed, says that she’s been given a second chance and wants to save everyone with it.

So, thar she blows.

She died for your sins. You’d better be grateful.

No, this is a very wonderful, effective self-sacrifice. I could go on about how much more effective it would be if it were someone else all I want but it wouldn’t be fair to do that. This isn’t about me. The people who love and are invested in this comic are most likely, even if they’re not keen on the romance, still really invested in Sally’s character and what her presence means to the main cast.

It… PROBABLY is in poor taste to have her be the sacrificial lamb two times in a row like this, which is why I still kind of wish the one who got gunned down was Tails and then THIS moment could be reserved for her. Perhaps have it be a monkey’s paw thing where, yeah, he saved Tails but he lost Sally. No matter what you do SOMETHING is going to suck.

Here it can probably be argued that it just feels a little redundant with it being the same person. Some things would need to be re-worked in order for it to pan out that way but it wouldn’t be too hard, I feel. 

Then again, maybe to others, it’s MORE effective that it happened to Sally twice. Perhaps you could take it as Sonic trying to fix something that was futile in the end. Taken from that point of view, I can see this angle being the preferred one. 

Either way, it’s an excellent moment. THIS feels like a climax and a rightfully awesome one at that. The beam gets redirected to this spot causing the two robots and the Death Egg to explode.

There goes yet ANOTHER Metal Sonic by the way. Still not a character just yet I see.

The aftermath of this explosion is great. I just love looking at the wreckage and plums of smoke as Snively’s voice echoes through the area.

He tells Eggman that the Death Egg is leaking from EVERY orifice. It’s a very nasty sight. It’ll need to get that checked out.

On the plus side, Eggman’s tech is fucking wild man. The roboticizer is just fucking gone. There was no hope of that thing surviving a direct hit from itself. However, all the other systems are online. They’re NOT losing altitude and the Power-Ring Matrix is holding, barely.

What an impressive base. Honestly, a round of applause for Eggman here. He just keeps impressing ya.

Oh, and he just shoves a slab of hot metal off his body. It’s wonderful that despite HIM surviving that, he’s praying that Chaos wasn’t Constant in that moment and Sonic didn’t… but of course that was a long shot.

God. I feel so bad for Eggman in that shot. The look on his face and that line he says when Sonic’s shoe kicks it’s way out of the rubble is great.

I feel even worse for Metal Sonic though. He’s just holding up the disembodied head of someone that should be one of his rivals but is instead, at this point, just a glorified Egg Pawn honestly. He really is a bit of a joke in these comics. It’s very sad.

I love what Eggman does next. Dude does NOT want to give up so he just picks up a piece of sharp shrapnel and threatens to shiv a bitch.

AND SONIC HOMING ATTACKS HIM! 

I remember being so surprised by both of their actions here back when I first read it. It was REALLY getting down to the nitty gritty here.

Then, of course, we get introduced to the big thing that sets in motion what can really only be described as the beginning of the final stages of the pre-reboot era.

Sally breaks out of the rubble. We all knew on the third day she’d rise again… for a second time, but that was a little too fast. What’s the deal?

Mecha Sally is the deal.

Welcome to the beginning of the end of the story as we know it.

Now that we’re here again, all I can really say is… Sonic with tan colored hands doesn’t look as bad as I thought it might.

Archie Sonic the Hedgehog - Issue #230: Sonic Generations

We’re still celebrating the 20th Anniversary and that means we need a side-story at the back of the book tying in with the 20th Anniversary game coming out. This time it’s Sonic Generations and boy howdy does this one feel like… easily the worst of the ones we’ve gotten so far.

The one for Colors left me with some things to talk about because the entire scene was re-written from scratch. Ian’s dialogue was all the way much better too.

Here… uhm… some of the dialogue is different on one page and then it’s just, legit, the same dialogue from the games for the rest of it.

The same characters are all here but the things they’re doing are slightly different at the start, namely Knuckles and Vector offering him congratulations in their own way. I never quite got what “look” Vector was talking about in that panel though. Sonic doesn’t look surprised. He’s just smiling.

Also, Sonic is letting Amy hug him instead of pushing her back with his hand directly on her face as he talks to Tails. As funny as that imagery was, it probably is for the best that he accepted the hug. 

The Time Eater thing was pretty immediate in the game but it feels even more immediate here, naturally. It kind of makes it funnier.

The sky portal opens up and sucks all of Sonic’s friends away. You don’t literally see the Time Eater though. You can make out a bit of a face inside the portal but it mostly just looks like a portal.

So when Sonic attacks it, it just looks like he’s trying to hit an open vortex…and then a hand comes OUT of the vortex to swat him away.

It’s a little strange.

I guess they wanted to keep what he looked like a secret but… that’s basically what he looked like. Some purple gas with a face. Plus, they show him off in the Boss Trailer for the game so…?

Anyway, he ends up in the white void, he recaps what just happened to him to himself, and then says “Time to do that hero thing” like he doesn’t care before jumping into the void.

And we end on a shot of Classic Sonic, standing there, staring at him with copies of Sonic Generations next to him. It looks like he wants to sell me something.

Also, there’s an interesting note in the fan letters about someone asking who Amy’s parents are and the response from Archie was “Hang tight for Amy’s backstory. It’s coming soon.”

There is still a heaping helping of the pre-reboot left and we never got to any backstory for Amy. What exactly do they consider “soon” over there?

Archie Sonic the Hedgehog - Free Comic Book Day 2012: Two Steps Back…

This seemed like a weird place to have yet another Free Comic Book Day issue. I originally had this placed before Issue #230 but when I opened it to read it, I realized it literally WAS just a special edition of Issue #230. I wondered what was special about it as I flipped through it until I got to the very end where I realized that the special stuff were recollections of what happened through the point of view of various characters that weren’t Sonic and Sally… all in text form.

It’s kind of cute. Don’t expect TOO too much from them though.

These short stories are called Sonic Genesis Awakenings. Appropriate.

Miles Tails Prower: The one for Tails is pretty simple and straight-forward. We have an inkling of where Tails was from both points of view after all. He just witnessed Sonic go after Eggman towards the Death Egg and then decided to fly into danger by charging at the Wing Fortress to take it out… only to remember that he apparently didn’t install any weapons on the bi-plane. 

The story emphasizes a lot just how fast Tails’ heart is going and how flabbergasted he is by Sonic’s willingness to just jump into danger like it’s nothing. I also like how the story just transitions to Tails being back in the regular continuity like he just flowed into it. A flash of white is mentioned but the way it’s all described makes it feel like Tails was in one location and then suddenly in another. You can almost feel the confusion he was mildly suffering through before he shook it off and realized that something important must have happened when the Death Egg suddenly exploded on the inside. That being the moment Mecha Sally was born, of course.

Knuckles the Echidna: The story for Knuckles, despite being more original material due to us not having an audience with him for quite some time, is somehow less interesting then the Tails one when it comes to him specifically. His reset was just him, alone on Angel Island. He took one of the teleportation orbs up to Sky Sanctuary and started to float around for a bit before the bright white light brought him back to the regular continuity. That was him in Sonic 3. Just hanging on the island, by himself and patrolling it.

After the reset, Julie-Su comes out and talks about how she was back in the Twilight Cage. Now that's interesting. That doesn’t sound like it would be in the same location as the Classic Era stuff but maybe it was. I dunno how you’d try to make the stuff with Julie-Su reset into the Classic universe naturally. Although, maybe it wasn’t ALL Classic Era stuff.

Ironically, the most interesting tidbit comes from Charmy here. He shows up and starts going on about what happened in HIS reset and it’s definitely not the Knuckles’ Chaotix version of himself.

So, to make it easier on myself, I guess I’ll just consider all of this to be them in the game continuity. I know the Chaotix Detective Agency wasn’t necessarily shown before Heroes but since Iizuka says Knuckles’ Chaotix is non-canon, it could be assumed that it was that way back in the Classic Era and they were just never present until Heroes… I guess.

Feels like a bit of a stretch but meh. 

It REALLY is kind of cute and also a bit funny that Charmy had this vision though. It’s going to become his reality when the next Genesis Wave happens after Eggman fucks over the universe. 

Amy Rose: Amy’s reset sent her back to the point before Sonic CD was about to begin. She was her classic self and reading her tarot cards. She grew excited that the cards told her she was fated to meet Sonic. She also, amusingly enough, notices a part where it says there will be two Sonics but ignores that for now. Shouldn’t have ignored that bit, Amy.

Oh wait. You’ve been reset back to your original self. Never mind. You don’t have to worry about it now. She comes back into the cockpit of the flying craft she’s in with Geoffrey sitting across from her. It’s stated that his eyes were glassy so he must have just been getting out of whatever his reset was too. She then goes back to threatening him and what not, which Geoffrey just rolls his eyes at.

I must say, this first Genesis Wave was very nice to them. At the very least, it seems everyone was shifted to a new life unlike the reboot one where some people were just… erased from existence. Man, what a scary thought. Eggman really got lucky that he survived what he ends up doing later… and unlucky that Sonic survived as well.

Bunnie D’ Coolette: Okay, so THIS one is actually REALLY interesting. It starts with Bunnie rocking back and forth inside one of Eggman’s capsules. The reset put her in one of those the same way Sonic found the Freedom Fighters at the beginning of Genesis. She’s apparently trying to calm someone else down by trying to reassure them that help will be on the way. At first, I thought she was addressing the other flickies that might be in there with her but NOPE!

Holy shit! In the reset, Cream was Bunnie’s cousin! That’s cute!

What an inventive little idea. I guess taking advantage of them both being the same species would lead to an idea like that crossing their minds, wouldn’t it? 

When she’s back to the original continuity, she momentarily freaks out over a couple of things. Being in the cockpit of their ship reminded her of being trapped in that capsule for a split second before that memory went away. Also, apparently, in the reset she wasn’t half roboticized. So she ended up looking herself over with a bit of regret, having to remind herself that she’d long since gotten over what happened to her. Then she sees the explosion in the Death Egg and gets excited by it. She even cheers and fists pumps. Oh honey. If only you knew what you were cheering for.

Rotor Walrus: Rotor was there right when Sally saw the return to the original continuity happen. She heard him call him “Rotor” when he was still being referred to as “Boomer” and how he needed to trust her. So he closed his eyes and did… then he ended up back in his house. 

I was momentarily confused as to why Rotor was at home but apparently he ran home to put on his yellow suit that he wore in the Arctic to save his family. He contemplates whether or not this is the right move because he managed to get away with this once but getting away with it twice seems like a long shot to him. He then decides his friends can handle it and his story seriously fucking ends with him thinking “What’s the worst that could happen” like some kind of mean joke. It’s great.

That’s it. That’s all of them. 

I guess for an issue on Free Comic Day, you could do worse. It’s hard to be upset at the extra bits just being some short vignettes at the back of the book when the comic is free.

Two Steps Back was a perfect title for this issue. Yeah, she’s not dead but… she’s not really alive either. This was a huge freaking deal at the time and it definitely got me excited. I recall really enjoying a lot of the misery that followed after this event. I also recall a lot of people being upset by the misery that followed after a certain point too. This was when I recall most of the Anti-Archie crowd on Deviantart flaring up the absolute most. It was insane. The downtrodden feelings of the Freedom Fighters never bothered me. I love me some good ol’ wallowing in misery. No, what I do recall bothering me was the realization hitting me that after a certain point in the upcoming Mecha Sally arc… stuff just stops happening.

I wasn’t sure why but I remember at the time that eventually, things just start repeating themselves. The characters just bounced around doing the same things over and over again without accomplishing anything until, suddenly, something HUGE happens almost randomly. We knew the reason why the huge thing happened but the whiplash was insane. Even funnier is that I ended up enjoying it for that but we’ll get there when we get there.

For now, let us bask in the glory of this wondrous moment. We’re finally here folks. How we feelin’?

Archie Sonic the Hedgehog - Issue #231: Lost in the Moment

Looking at this now feels almost surreal. I can’t help but look at Mecha Sally and only see the makings of the beginning of the end of the Pre-Reboot. It really does feel like we’re entering the final stages of this continuity to me. Hell, the binder I just opened up for the issues we have left starts with #230 and ends with #247, the final issue before the second big Genesis Wave. This is… quite the huge feeling. 

Honestly, I’m astonished we’re here already but also kind of proud that I’ve stuck with this for so long. It’s time we got to it though. Hedgehog is priority one after all.

Spoiler

Original Cover

Of course the solicits couldn’t just reveal that Sally was going to be roboticized. I mean, some of the IDW covers could probably have taken a cue from doing something like this, but to be fair, this was probably the first instance I can recall of the Archie Comics bothering this hard as well. It’s TOO huge a spoiler. 

I actually, surprisingly, don’t remember what the conversation around this cover was when it was revealed. I feel like I have vague memories of people guessing Sally was roboticized but I’m not certain. Although, a part of me feels like I recall having the idea in my head before it happened as well. It’s tough. This was all so long ago man. It’s a shame not everything can be so easily remembered.

Writer: Ian Flynn
Pencils and Cover: Ben Bates
Inks: Terry Austin
Colors: Matt Herms
Letters: John Workman
Editor: Paul Kaminski
Editor-In-Chief: Victor Gorelick

We begin the issue with Sally gripping Sonic by the… space where his neck should be. 

The image of their eyes looking into one another shouldn’t be as funny as it is but it kind of is.

Eggman stands up, buffering out that crick in his back, and tells Sally that her ruining his plans sucked but it was nice of her to give him this consolation prize. He then tells Mecha Sally to come along with him while all Sonic can do is belt out the expected, tired, cliché lines you’d expect him to say in this situation.

You know the ones. “Fight it Sal” and “I know you’re in there” and “Please don’t make me fight you”. 

Those ones. 

None of them work, of course. That’s usually why I tend to forgive Archie for resorting to those lines because in other media they sometimes work and so far, at least when Ian Flynn came aboard, it never has. Only actual solutions allowed under Mr. Flynn’s pen, thank you very much.

Despite desperately wishing that the explosion had done Sonic in a bit ago, now that THIS has happened, Eggman’s brain senses a new opportunity to have fun and enjoy himself. He’s willing to take the risk. He even says what the sensible thing to do would be but goes against it.

What a lovely, “I stole your girl” face Eggman has at the bottom right.

Honestly, when it comes to THIS situation… I’m right there with Eggman.

Having Sally walk both herself and Sonic into the incinerator would be a very poetic, Sweeny Todd way of ending things but goddamn would that feel like a missed opportunity to RUB this shit in Sonic’s face.

I cannot blame him for just having her toss his ass out the airlock so he can delight in wiggling his fingers at him with a peppy grin. 

Granted, the instant I realized the heroes were coming up with some sort of solution, I’d just have Sally melted into metal goo. 

After that, Sonic might lose his mind and suddenly we’ve got the Sonic equivalent to Injustice on our hands here.

As an aside, I also find it funny that Sally kept her grip on Sonic’s not-a-neck for an entire walk and an elevator ride down to the airlock with him struggling like that. I like to imagine Eggman just standing there in the elevator with his hands behind his back as Mecha Sally is holding a struggling Sonic next to him, while calming elevator music plays the entire time.

Anyway, Eggman pats Sally’s head and calls her a good girl. Her response is that his word is law. It amuses me.

Then Eggman tells Snively to just launch a full on assault on New Mobotropolis!

Oh! Hurray! I was waiting for him to try this again!

Unfortunately it’s not meant to be. Snively tries to warn Eggman but Eggman interrupts him to shout about how he’s got a Death Egg and a Chaos Emerald so it should be fine. However, Snively says that the Chaos Emerald is gone. Somehow.

Also, they’re running low on power.

It’s a very interesting mystery. Where could it have gone, I wonder? 

Well, realizing he doesn’t have what he thought he had, he launches projects “Titan” and “Deadly Cuddles” down to the surface instead. Then he stomps off saying that he needs a better name for Mecha Sally.

Project Titan slams onto the ground and unveils itself as a gigantic, red Metal Sonic. 

It’s the one from Knuckles’ Chaotix I presume except re-designed for the modern age.

You go get 'em Big. Abandoned by those awful cat people but here to shield your friends with your immeasurably humongous body.

Antoine also sees this happen while flying the ship. New Mobotropolis is being destroyed by metal Hirudegarn and it’s not looking good.

Bunnie jumps out of the ship to go handle it on her own. Naugus also gets up, seemingly speaking to himself in his head after trying to recover from his disorienting clash with the white space (more on that later) and teams up with Bunnie to try and take it down.

She calls him ugly when she notices him and Naugus rightfully tells her to shut up and help him take it down.

That is until he just fires off a gigantic fucking Galick Gun from his Chaos Emerald staff that gets her caught up in the blast as well. 

I mean, poor Bunnie, but holy shit! What a fucking awesome scene this is! Look at that! Energy blasts are so cool. It’s no wonder DBZ loves hurling them around so much.

Everything on the Death Egg is out of control but trying desperately to use everything they’ve got to remain as in control as they possibly can be. Snively is confused and frazzled and scared and is trying to be the voice of reason but Eggman just sicks Mecha Sally on him and tells him to shut up and do what he says.

All the engines are now on reserve power and everything else is going into the Egg Annihilator, which is basically the large Eggman symbol at the bottom of the Death Egg that’s going to blow their asses away.

In a scene that is almost TOO AWESOME to explain, Eggman FIRES A FINAL FLASH ATTACK WITH HIS LOGO ON IT THROUGH THE TWO AIRCRAFTS PILOTED BY THE HEROES AND THEN NAUGUS USES THE RED METAL SONIC TITAN THAT HE JUST TURNED CRYSTAL AND MADE HIS MINION TO CATCH THE BLAST OMG SO AWESOME HOLY FUCK!

WHERE’S MY NEW SONIC ANIME DAMMIT! I NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEED IT!

The ever helpful Cream spots Bunnie on the ground and races off to go get her before she’s crushed by the falling crystal debris. 

She, along with the nanite city, is pretty immensely fucked up.

The ever pleasant nature of Cream the Rabbit is at work. She sees a doll in the wreckage and grabs it to take it with her, concerned that whoever dropped it would miss it. She’s too pure and she’ll be promptly punished for that purity later.

She's gonna feel the sunshine whether she likes it or not.

Sonic and Tails make it to the crash site where the aircrafts landed. Eggman’s last gambit to destroy New Mobotropolis failed, ironically, because Naugus saved everyone. 

Amy slams her way out of the ship and both Antoine and Geoffrey exit soon after her. Sonic asks if anyone is hurt and they’re all okay because Antoine is a good lander of falling ships.

Sonic then is about to stomp off after the Death Egg despite looking like death himself. Geoffrey then notices that Sally is gone and asks where she is.

Tails, who probably was already told what happened by Sonic, just says Eggman has her. Sonic says he’s going to get her back but Amy pleads with him not to go. Both her and Tails are on the verge of tears… and Antoine is just angry.

That’s Antoine’s M.O now that he’s no longer a coward. Dude just gets angry all the time. Nothing wrong with that though. Channeling fear into anger can do wonders for your self-esteem… probably. I dunno. I’m not a doctor.

Anyway, that panel on the bottom kind of says it all. This is an excellent example of a battle where there are no real winners. Eggman didn’t succeed at what he was trying to do and the heroes got their town devastated and lost a friend.

Eggman managed to get away with something over them though. It’s a very emotionally powerful thing too but to achieve it his new floating masterpiece got fucked up, really hard.

At the end of the day though, all that matters is singing the praises of the heroes who fought to save the day.

Like Bunnie, who is being taken to Dr. Quack’s hospital room and is surely being celebrated for her… efforts.

Oh wait. No. That doesn’t happen. Instead, Sonic and the others hear a bunch of cheering, not for them, but for Naugus.

I mean, not for nothing, he did some really awesome shit. Round of applause, everyone.

I can’t help but laugh imagining Sonic just being like “Hey but what about the former King Max. Oh, and Elias. Eh? Eh?”

It’d be followed by crickets and then a guy coughing in the background.

Archie Sonic the Hedgehog - Issue #231: Haunted

Writer: Ian Flynn
Art and Coloring: Evan Stanley
Lettering: John Workman

Okay so… this story in the back is being drawn and colored by Evan Stanley. 

I must say, it’s very interesting looking at what is essentially the pre-evolution to what her art eventually becomes here.

Oh but what is this story about? Well, the three ghostly weirdos here explain. Remember waaaaaaay back when Naugus’ backstory was revealed? I barely do but it’s relevant again. Three Ixis Wizards competed for the power to be the most super special awesome guy in their group and the magic battle was so fierce it resulted in the creation of Naugus. He’s a new being entirely… and also the three just live inside his body.

Now they desire to take control of it for themselves.

The one that looks like a bat seems to be the most fun loving one of the group. He even calls Naugus a “handsome devil” and then goes on to say the body should be his because of how suave he looks.

Oh geez, Mr. Ixis Bat Person, you’re embarrassing me.

This sounds like a hellish existence for everyone involved. Naugus slams his staff down and tells them to shut the fuck up. That’s when he notices the Death Egg and goes off to stop it, talking to himself like he did earlier in the issue but now with the added context.

So yes. This is where Naugus’ story is going to go. What significance it’s supposed to have would eventually be revealed but the note it eventually leaves us on is quite possibly the most frustrating and unfortunate one they could have for the two characters involved before the reboot. 

If I could just… see those fabled Lost Hedgehog Tales I’d finally get this itch at the back of my mind, desiring to see what he had in store, scratched and laid to rest. 

A lot of shit happened and a lot of shit is STILL happening. It feels really good. I love me a good clusterfuck and it’s quite clustered and fucky right now, for sure. Sally is a robot, The Death Egg is back, the city is destroyed, Nicole is hated by everyone, Naugus is loved by everyone and is the desired new king, Bunnie has been crystalized, the Tails Doll has infiltrated the city, and prom’s tomorrow but the shit awful school has been destroyed!

Regardless of how this all shakes out, the way this all kicked off was a thing of beauty. It should always be appreciated whenever a book tries this hard to be this hype. 

[NegaMix]

1 hour ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

Archie Sonic the Hedgehog - Issue #229: Genesis, Part Four: Reset

I don’t know if this cover is a reference to something. There was no Sonic the Hedgehog 4 on the Genesis for it to copy the cover of and the actual Sonic 4 that came out didn’t have this awesome of a cover so… I don’t know.

The cover's meant to represent the cover art for Sonic and Knuckles:

...or rather, the lack of cover art for that game, hence why Super Sonic takes up most of it. But anyway, that's why there's just a black background on the comic's cover.

[SanPolo4389]

UGGGGGGH I feel like I can say that this is where it was the start of the low point of the series for me when I read this back then even though I was highly invested in this story back then and then it got rebooted and it never got finished and now I look at this less fondly. 

[SanPolo4389]

Also can I say I’ve never read the FCBD issue of 230 if only because it didn’t show anything different besides just the text of characters speaking of where they were after Sonic fixed the world. 

[Dr. Detective]

Archie Sonic the Hedgehog - Issue #232: Dark Tidings

So much is going on man. We’ve got ourselves a nice four-way split between all the antagonist forces at play here. The two on top are running things while the two on the bottom are of a more questionable participant within the madness but still need to be dealt with regardless. It’s all very exciting. I hope to enjoy the fallout as much as I possibly can.

Spoiler

Writer: Ian Flynn
Pencils: Ben Bates
Inks: Terry Austin
Colors: Matt Herms
Letters: John Workman
Editor: Paul Kaminski
Editor-In-Chief: Victor Gorelick

We open where we last left off. The Death Egg had just attacked and the glorious, wonderful, powerful, handsome king Naugus came to our aid. Meanwhile, that beta Elias still refuses to hand over his crown to the chad. How unreasonable.

Elias looks like he’s about to settle this with some tact but Sonic vetoes that by just bursting in between the two of them and shouting about how they’re all crazy. The look on his face is like that of some feral monster. His eyes are even going all over the place.

He takes this time to scream about how they can’t allow this shake up to happen with the Death Egg out there and adds on to that by shouting to everyone that Sally has been roboticized.

Upon hearing that his sister is now Eggman’s new toy, Elias understandably has a bit of a freak-out while Geoffrey, who was in the crowd stirring shit up, stops a bit to try and reassure himself of what he’s doing.

Feelings about stuff are going all around the horn, including with Naugus. He doesn’t give a fuck that Sally was roboticized. Certainly not. However, Sonic explains that Eggman caused that white flash of light that happened and Naugus picks up on it. The doctor is the reason why those three beings that make up his person keep speaking to him like Nail and Kami in his head.

They show up and start hounding him a bit before telling him that this is actually, like, the best opportunity to spur the masses to his side. If there’s anything this kingdom and it’s people respond to, it’s people being massive dicks to each other. 

So Naugus hisses in villainy and gets right on it.

This works.

By the by, when I read this scene I began laughing until I started coughing again. He’s such a fucking asshole. It’s wonderful. Look at the elegance with which he proclaims himself to be awesome on that last page. He’s elegantly pressing the palm of his hand against his chest, with no real need to wait for these sheep to waltz right into it. They've already been spell-bound by his endless charisma.

We already know their answer. They’ve said as much already so Geoffrey just goes for it.

So that’s that. Naugus is king now.

It’s a very strange system they have, admittedly. Geoffrey shouted about how they get to choose the council and how they should be able to choose their king too. I mean, at that point, this concept is barely recognizable as a royal decree. They should probably make up their own new name for it. 

Well, either way. Geoffrey finally got what he set out to do. Everything is going to get better now, he thinks…

Amy reminds everyone that Naugus also half crystalized Bunnie. Naugus quickly says it was a mistake in the heat of battle and asks where she is. Amy says that she’s in the hospital but–

Naugus interrupts with “TO THE HOSPITAL!” 

He shouts this out so that everyone can march along with him as though he’s going to put on a show or something. He totally is but it’s another hilarious dick move on his part; utilizing Bunnie’s misfortune for his own benefit and putting her on display to the masses so that he can look good.

Elias observes this and asks Sonic to see to Bunnie while he heads to the castle to take care of things. By that, right now, he means to tell his mom and dad. 

Sonic races off with Amy to Tommy Turtle Memorial Hospital and we open on a scene of sheer unnerving worry, clashing pride, and unrelenting anger.

Before I go to the next page where the huge thing you all want me to talk about is, I’d like to first talk about how there are a couple of things that are worthy of mention on this page, namely how everyone is acting. 

Bunnie is understandably worried by this evil wizard approaching her bed and promising to fix what he wrought. For some reason I really adore this image. I tend to usually like it whenever villains do something nice for the heroes, even if it’s for their own personal gain. Antoine’s sharp fanged anger is understandable of course but he comes off so comedic and out of his depth to me here. It’s great that we’re back to where he isn’t a coward any longer because you can just taste the difference between him here and him back in Genesis.

The big thing, however, is Sonic. 

This was an intensely dumb move on Sonic’s part. The risks far outweigh the benefits from his tacit belief that Naugus would just stroll up to the hospital without any real idea of what to do. Although, granted, he DOESN’T really seem to know what he’s doing but Sonic doesn’t know that. Why would he be so confident as to demand Nicole open the wall so the others can see?

Secondly, and this is the big thing, if it goes wrong in a way that’s actually really painful and dare I say, bloody then having the masses witness it wouldn’t be classy either.

Yeah, it was kind of funny hearing Sonic admonish Naugus for not having any class. We’ll see how much fucking class he has when we get to that issue with the trial. Ho’boy, I remember his behavior in that one really grinding my gears.

So, enough stalling. You know what’s next and it’s a pretty huge thing.

Say hello to Bunnie No-Longer-A-Rabbot!

This was a big thing back when it happened ladies and gentlemen. Even I, as someone with only a passing interest in the exploits of the Freedom Fighters due to having no choice because they were the main characters of the book, felt my heart flutter a bit upon seeing this image.

Ben Bates is an excellent artist and his drawing of the happy, elated, no-longer half roboticized Bunnie is one of the images that sticks out to me when I think of him, among a couple of other ones. 

The elation and happiness captured on her face is palpable. It makes me excited for her. Seeing her crying as she goes to Antoine, her husband, a reformed flesh and blood being again is great.

Holy shit, they can actually have children now. That remains true even in the reboot due to a nice design change for her but that’s later.

I love the reaction of the villains. Naugus clearly didn’t know what the fuck he was doing so, yes, Sonic was totally right to be skeptical of it. However, the outcome proves that he definitely shouldn’t have been 100% confident either. 

Naugus takes the opportunity Sonic handed on a silver platter to him to boast about how he’s a gracious king that performs miracles for the masses.

Geoffrey gloats, of course. Sonic admits to that having backfired but is nice enough to add that he’s happy Bunnie got something out of it.

The same probably couldn’t be entirely said of the fanbase… or maybe it could. Who even remembers properly what the reaction was to this? I’m sure there’s someone out there who does but all I recall was a jumble of different opinions and concerns. I don’t remember hearing anyone say what MY opinion on it was which was “Good. I’m happy for her! I can’t wait to see how she adjusts to her new life.”

Maybe someone out there did have that opinion but I feel like, in the vain of Twilight Sparkle being an Alicorn or whatever, it was most likely a case of people wanting to resist change.

Resisting change is something that’s usually beneficial for a manufactured product. People recognize Bunnie as Bunnie Rabbot. That’s who she is. That’s her thing. They can’t have her actually get what she wants if she’s to remain that way. Granted, her status as a marketable character has decreased significantly over the years by this point which makes this move a far more understandable gamble. It’s one I’m glad he chose to do. 

I mean... imagine being super pissed off that Bunnie got to experience a miracle that made her this happy. 

There’s so few characters in the Sonic series you can do something like this with. By that I mean, almost literally all of them can’t have a change this heavy and significant happen to them unless it happens in the games first or if they’re a comic exclusive character. Bunnie isn’t comic exclusive but she originated from a TV Show so SEGA gives an equal amount of shits about this change; a big fat zero. 

I am reminding myself a bit about that issue of the Archie Sonic Online where they had Bunnie, rather unceremoniously, just get roboticized back to her old form. Or legionized, I should say.

I praised the idea behind it. The core concept of someone having to do something drastic to their body to act as a spy is something I liked seeing there. It’s rare that it’s taken advantage of. In Sonic Adventure 2, there was a bit of that with Rouge. No one in G.U.N knew she was a secret agent because she’s a SECRET agent and sometimes secret agents have to take out people on their side to keep up the illusion. Her battle with the Flying Dog is exactly an example of something like that and it’s really cool to think about.

However, on the flip side, my criticism of it came from the fact that it just happened to be Bunnie would had to experience that undercover thing and how it was clearly done for the sake of returning her to the status quo. I’m not on board with the idea of it overall. I think there was a multitude of different avenues to take that could have her still be the Bunnie Rabbot you all know and love. 

Like, if it were me, I’d have just turned her into Iron Man. Like a half Iron Man thing of course. She wouldn’t wear a full body armor suit or anything but extensions of mechanical arms and legs and rockets that she had to get used to would have been an interesting story beat to follow. We actually get a follow-up story at the end of this issue where Bunnie laments some of what she’s lost but I can go into more detail about how it can be rectified there.

All in all, I’m 100% on board with this decision. 

I also would like to draw attention to the fact that this is a pretty cool set-up for how Ian was eventually planning on having Sally change back to normal. Especially after what Eggman does to her at the end of this issue.

Ian didn’t outright say that this was going to be the solution but when he got a question on his podcast about how Sally was going to be able to properly change back after all the changes that happened to her, he made the “Lost Hedgehog Tales” advert he usually does while also unsubtly hinting back to THIS moment in particular.

Suffice to say, a regular roboticizer probably wouldn’t have worked.

Sonic’s already forgotten about this though. He instead wishes to head off to Nicole and get in contact with Knuckles so he can use a warp ring to hop aboard the Death Egg and get Sally back. He’s in such a one track mind that when he tells Amy and Tails to tell the others about what happened aboard the Death Egg, he rushes off right as the two of them say, out of ear shot, that they don’t KNOW what happened because he was the only one on it.

I STILL say that was a tremendous mistake on Sonic and Sally’s part and I’m being proven right more and more as this situation goes on.

Sonic makes it to Freedom HQ to contact Nicole directly. She’s not speaking to him. She’s just communicating through a sad wall of text. 

It’s rough.

Sonic wants to actually talk to her but she doesn’t say anything. She just gets into contact with Julie-Su through her antenna head-piece thing and the warp ring opens up to let him onto Angel Island.

Sonic goes onto the other side where Knuckles, Julie-Su, and Charmy are. Charmy is happy because it’s how they usually get mail from Mighty and Ray and he’s got a letter in his hand right now. 

Knuckles asks what’s up and then we cut to the next scene where all the anger is unleashed.

It really warms my heart to see these two fighting again. The nosey is a nice touch too. I like it when they’re not afraid to get close to one another, you know?

Knuckles screams at Sonic a bunch of really harsh and unfair shit. Like he LET all that bad shit happen. Sonic is right to be pissed off at Knuckles for insinuating that.

Back in the day, I would have been confused as to why Knuckles was so upset about the loss of Sally. I don’t think he’d have been happy, certainly not, but to be THIS angry implies some sort of deeper connection. Turns out it did. I had no idea of their past as friends in the old Knuckles book so with that context it makes his irrational anger stand out as a lot more understandable.

Although, it really is kind of dumb some the things they’re saying to each other.

Knuckles shouts at Sonic and asks why he didn’t tell him about the Death Egg earlier.

He didn’t tell you because it literally JUST happened, you idiot.

Sonic’s not being a smarty pants either though. This mission he wants to go on is a very obvious suicide mission that has no chance of working. Knuckles lays out all the reasons why… well, almost all of them.

Neither of them mention that he could actually take more than just himself along to do this. I still wouldn’t advise it but the fact that they invaded the fucking Death Egg with just Sonic and Sally has to come off at least a little dumb to them right? I know he did in Sonic 2 but I gathered this was a more advanced situation of that. 

Sonic then shows just how much “class” he has when he pulls an emotional straw man out of his ass about the fact that they’d go if it was for the sake of saving the Brotherhood.

Julie-Su, who was shrugging to herself on the last page, jumps in now.

In other words, shut your fat mouth Sonic, you don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re angry you lost Sally and the Kingdom to Naugus so you’re not thinking straight or being tactful.

But that’s to be expected. No, what I really want to draw attention to is the fact that Finitevus was thorough in his desire to rid the world of the Brotherhood. This entire page pretty much confirms that there’s just legitimately no way to get to them and no way to get them back. The warp rings won’t and even if they did they have no idea what dangers await them on the other side.

So the Brotherhood is fucked. Finitevus, doing God’s work for the sake of us all who cherish the idea of not colluding with a bunch of fucking assholic grandpas.

Sonic just stomps away and says he’ll think of something else. 

Julie-Su is about to comfort Knuckles about the loss of Sally but Knuckles just tells her to contact the others so Angel Island can be on guard.

Charmy asks if Sonic isn’t their friend anymore. Aww.

When Sonic exits the warp ring, Tails is there to tell him that Antoine has arrested Geoffrey for treason. Sonic is really elated about this. There’s a lot of hurt feelings going around and no one on either side seems willing to compromise on any of them. 

I’ll talk more about my feelings on this when we get to the actual trial but suffice to say I have a lot of thoughts and opinions about it. Ones that are baked in the usual mercy I like to bestow upon others and ones that champion understanding and compromise over the usual stuff that people want to see out of anyone who dares retaliate against the system of the shitty monarchy/dictatorship that fucked them over.

So… look forward to that I guess.

Back with Eggman, Snively waltzes into the room to rattle off a bunch of stuff about how repairs are going and how much power they have. Eggman hears none of it.

Snively freaks out when he realizes he isn’t paying attention, instead focusing on just ONE robot.

Even if Snively is often the voice of reason, acting like this is just any old robot is a bit silly. He should at least be able to SEE why Eggman is more concerned with taking advantage of this opportunity.

Of course, when Eggman gets into his face about it, he’s a lot harsher then he needs to be and does the Snively nose flick he likes to do. So it sets him off.

Scrambled is about two Sonic Universe arcs away so you can tell they really had their shit together at this point. It’s sad because it’s all going to come crashing down eventually.

Eggman then gets to work on his latest toy.

In hindsight, he brings up some good points about Sally and how having her and Sonic walk into the fire might not have been for the best if he wishes to take advantage of the entire city’s feelings for her. Then again, Sonic is always his primary concern regardless so we’ll see what he intends to do.

It doesn’t look like it’ll be pretty though.

My dude looks like a fucking monster in this image. It’s great.

Archie Sonic the Hedgehog - Issue #232: Fragile

Writers: Scott Tipton and David Tipton
Penciler: Jamal Peppers
Inker: Terry Austin
Colorist: Matt Herms
Letters: John E. Workman

This is a short story dealing with the aftermath of Bunnie’s sudden change from super-powered, half robot titan to just an ordinary rabbit with a Southern drawl.

She talks about how she’s dreamed of this but due to how sudden it was, she wasn’t mentally prepared for how she’s just reverted back to normal now.

I can imagine it’d be a tough thing to just immediately come to grips with, even if it was something you wanted all along. 

She feels like she’s a lot less powerful, nay, completely powerless like this. Antoine, now embedded with way more confidence in himself, talks about how he has no special powers but can still contribute. He’s a good example of that.

Bunnie says she still feels weak but Antoine assures her this isn’t the case and she manages to get a spark of life that reignites her vigor once more.

I do truly wish I could have seen what the development for her concerning how she’d continue on as a Freedom Fighter could have been. We didn’t get a chance to see that fully explored and we never will, not in this book or the continuation and it’s a shame in my opinion. 

She’s not defined just by those mechanical parts of course. She’s no longer Bunnie Rabbot. She’s Bunnie D’ Coolette. She can make it on her own and still have the robot stuff be a part of her identity. It just doesn’t need to literally be her body that’s doing it.

Maybe she could even give Rotor a bit more to do by being her mechanic on the side for all the neat things she’ll need to ascend back to how she was before, properly. Or perhaps what Naugus did could have had some unforeseen side-affects we could explore for some more development on that end. Oh, there’s much they could have done.

But alas, I digress.

My stomach dropped when Tails came in with the “good news” that Geoffrey had been arrested because it signaled to me that we’re really in the thick of the controversial, opinionated, hardened point in this comic’s timeline. What you’re willing to forgive and forget or accept about the way the book goes forward from here will truly be put to the test. I recall that for a lot of people, namely the Anti-Archie weirdos on Deviantart, it being an insurmountable task. Although, a lot of it did come from just not being able to properly engage with the material or making points based off of out of context panels. 

The book itself I think was still really exciting at this point but things will indeed get more tough to withstand from here on out. Then it’ll reach a point where it’ll just straight up be bad for a good while before it gets good again with the Mega Man crossover… and then…!

 

Sonic Universe - Issue #33: Babylon Rising - Part 1 of 4: Remembrance

It’s time for that motherfucking SCREECH!

The Babylon Rogues have their own arc baby. It only took a millennia but it’s fine. It really is interesting looking back on my thoughts on them when I first found out they were going to be a thing. I wasn’t too sure about them but I’ve grown to really appreciate it whenever a series dabbles in characters that are more about themselves rather than anything forthright. We have enough heroes. We need more rogues. We also need a bigger rogues gallery. Not in the comics. In the games. There’s gotta be an Arkham Asylum in Sonic’s world just begging for prisoners to be released.

Spoiler

Script and Pencils: Tracy Yardley
Inks: Jim Amash
Colors: Steven Downer
Letter: Phil Felix
Editor: Paul Kaminski
Editor-In-Chief: Victor Gorelick

First thing’s first. This is a Tracy Yardley written story-arc. I remember thinking this arc was fucking awesome. Especially the second half of it. I really hope I get to have that same experience reading it again.

It begins with the Rogues arriving in the Gigan Rocks inner chamber and overlooking a glowing pedestal. Some admittedly very hooky exposition is delivered from Wave here. Jet says they were flying over the Gigan Mountains a hundred times and never came across this place before and Wave’s response is “Well, it wouldn’t have been so easy to find without this book we came across after that Sol Emerald fiasco!”

Yeah, it’s a bit heavy handed. It also gets accompanied by a lot of text of them reiterating a couple of times that this is in fact the key to Babylon Garden they’ve found.

What old fool is he talking about? Why the Battle Kuku Lord. Who else?

We then have a flashback to, shockingly, YEARS ago when Jet was still aboard the Battle Kuku Flagship.

It’s a bit surprising since imagining something taking place years ago in a Sonic book is hard to do. I know it’s happened before in this book but it always felt a bit different since the foundation of this book is rooted in something dissimilar to Modern Sonic. Jet has only ever been a Modern Sonic character so imagining him younger feels a bit new.

Granted, his design doesn’t change one iota. The only way you’d know this was years ago was through the fact that the book tells you.

The Battle Kuku Lord is freaking out while on his perch, going on about how his army is looking to seize the power of Babylon Garden and take over the skies and the world below for themselves. He’s saying all this to a seemingly young Jet, who has been summoned to his office so he can be villain speeched at. 

Jet vetoes his idea and is about to leave, saying that taking over the world sounds like too much responsibility. However, the Battle Lord isn’t the kind of guy who takes no for an answer.

I do wonder what Jet originally thought he was signing up for. How do the Battle Birds advertise what they’re all about?

“Now hiring soldiers willing to help us take over the world. Birds only.”

Back in the present day, Jet is still gloating about having found it first. That book Wave mentioned was actually taken from a library in Soleanna. Neat little tidbit there. Although, I will say that this opening is taking a bit too long to get going if only because I’ve noticed the Rogues keep talking in circles a bit before Jet finally decides to take the key off it’s pedestal.

As soon as he does, the real plot kicks into gear. 

Dr. Funky-Funko Pop looks at his computer and sees an energy reading that he rushes in to tell his boss about immediately. We also cut to a very  sad and alone looking Rotor-

Before he can finish his epic stare down with the Grim Reaper, he too gets an alert about an energy signature. He asks Nicole if she’s noticed it and she admits she hasn’t. She hasn’t been able to focus clearly at all since she’s had to deal with heavy duty trauma on more than one level lately. It’s been a rough… however long it’s been.

Anyway, we’re up in this shit now. What Jet has stumbled across is the key to a story arc that fuses the events of Sonic Riders and Zero Gravity into a neat little package… sort of. It takes elements from both and squishes it all in here but it does it in a way where it’s very clearly it’s own story.

For example, finding the key in the Gigan Rocks rather than having it be already in Jet’s possession and him needing the Chaos Emeralds to activate it means the racing plot and the deal with Eggman isn’t touched upon. Instead, the secret lies before them with the acquisition of this key and as such Angelus, the Babylon Guardian comes out here rather than when they find Babylon Garden.

Wave realizes pretty quickly that this guy is a hologram and says some techno babble that I actually understood perfectly well about what it was and how to defeat it. Just smash the hologram projectors. Easy.

Well, it takes a bit. Angelus gives them a run for their money for a bit. There’s even a scene where Storm has to chuck a pillar at it and he still manages to harm Jet by doing this. Storm harms him, not Angelus.

As the fight goes on, Angelus is going on about how they’re unworthy to wield the “Divine Wings” and how he wishes to thwart the assault of the “Lightless Black”. All these concepts this final boss from Riders 1 is talking about are the main driving plot points from Zero Gravity. It’s really cool to see.

Jet doesn’t care about what he’s saying and finishes him off with some really impressive word-play to accompany his destroying the last hologram projector.

It’s like he was suddenly an Epic Rap Battles character for a second there.

When Angelus is gone, he churns out some solemn words of warning before going away, leaving Jet excited and his teammates… concerned.

Wave is unsure if they should take the key now and Storm agrees because, and I quote, “That Los Angeles guy was scary”.

They don’t know what his words mean but it sounded like a serious warning.

Jet is disgusted that they’d even suggest such a thing though. The reason they even became the Babylon Rogues was so that they could find Babylon Garden together as a team and claim the ultimate prize before the Battle Lord did.

He reminds them of this with a nice little flashback to the aftermath of what happened after Battle Lord Kuku for Cocoa Puffs locked Jet in a cell. 

Jet, Wave, and Storm head off to the zeppelin from the games (calling it a clunker here because it’s the best they can manage in the nick of time) and are about to leave. Jet asks them if they’re sure they want to tag along with him.

Wave says that Jet was the one who got the two of them out of their cells and that she doesn’t want to go back in. She was in there because she made improvements to Dr. Foo Fighter's machines without his consent and he tossed her in there out of jealousy. Well, SHE says it was out of jealousy but seeing as how the doctor’s incompetence is often on open display I’m inclined to believe her.

Storm says he got thrown in the brig for punching out a superior officer, which is awesome. God, that must have felt good. Sometimes it’s great thinking about life being a fantasy where you can just punch out an annoying authority figure and go rogue for the sake of traveling the world for treasure and glory. These three are living the life now.

Of course, before they leave, obstruction comes into play. Well, kind of.

Speedy shows up and tells them that guards are coming. Jet doesn’t care. 

Speedy shouts a bunch of nonsense at him about honor and duty but what’s interesting is how Speedy is struggling to find the right words to say.

It’s almost as if Speedy’s been fed these lines to him by his father and he himself doesn’t necessarily believe them. Being born with the responsibility to shoulder the weight of an entire armada can’t be a good feeling, regardless if you’re on board or not. Speedy may or may not be. We’ve seen hints of his more valiant nature before with the Tails Adventure. That fox has his respect, no doubt. 

However, in this one instance, he lets his guard down and allows the real him to come out.

It feels a lot more like the real reason Speedy was upset by them dipping isn’t the fact that they’re betraying his father. It’s that they get to go and he has no choice but to stay.

Despite Jet looking a bit harsh here, he’s actually giving him some solid advice. He isn’t saying that Speedy’s destiny is to stay here either. He just can’t go with them because, hey, who would take him the way he is right now? Jet’s not that nice.

I can’t help but feel for him though. He came in there looking like he was trying to be hard. Jet didn’t buy any of it and got the guy in tears without having to do much at all before leaving.

Back in the present day, Jet pretty much makes the decision to take the key for them and they escape the now collapsing cave by the skin of their teeth… only to run into trouble anyway.

Oh shit. Jet, I think they’re onto us.

That was a really good start to this arc. Despite the slightly slow start it ended up making pretty good use of it’s time with the fight against the Babylon Guardian being set between two flashbacks showcasing what got the Babylon Rogues to where they are right now. I love the way their story really resonates with the message of freedom. Like, true freedom. Not that fake shit that’s currently going on back in New Mobotropolis. It really makes me want to see them succeed. Jet and Sonic are more alike than they think.

Sonic Universe - Issue #34: Babylon Rising - Part 2 of 4: Reunion

Due to what this arc ends up devolving into, I did catch a review of it on this site saying that they wished the entire arc was just what is being depicted above; the Babylon Rogues Vs. The Battle Bird Armada. While I’m sure Tracy would have been able to find a way to make that work, without having seen that alternate universe I actually greatly prefer where he ends up taking it. I recall the third issue of this arc being the hypest shit. That said, this one I remember being a really cool, effective lead up. 

Spoiler

Script and Pencils: Tracy Yardley
Inks: Jim Amash
Colors: Steve Downer
Letters: Patrick Williams
Cover by Yardley and Herms
Editor: Paul Kaminski
Editor-In-Chief: Victor Gorelick

The no-fun police have arrived. They already look a little chumpish since the rogues that they hated so much ended up finding the key to Babylon Garden before they did. Them and their huge ass army had to come in from the back end like little bitches.

Jet still isn’t all that impressed by Speedy. He goes right for insulting his weird looking metal diaper thing but Speedy isn’t too embarrassed by it. The only one really cracking under the intense stare down here is Storm who can’t help but laugh when the word "undies" is said.

It's funny because the boys are all naked. 

A part of me wondered if those blue birds behind them were elite soldiers with mechanical enhancements or something but I guess it would be hard to keep living as an organic being with a literal jet turbine in the center of your skull. Then again, fiction has accomplished weirder things.

No, these are Dr. Freaks-Come-Out-At-Night’s drones. They look sick as hell. 

Speedy gives Jet a chance to surrender and before he can even finish that futile attempt at negotiation, Jet just speeds by him with a chortle of happiness exiting his mouth. The game is afoot.

The Battle Kukku Lord XV radios into Speedy that this is an extremely crucial mission and that is essential he does not fail him. You can tell by the stern look on his face that Speedy wouldn’t want that. No sir.

Seeing the doctor then try to talk up his robots as though they’re hot shit is great because the Battle Lord just mocks the fact that his Mole Mech was supposed to be super-mega-ultra awesome too but it died when a couple of it’s screws came loose. He even calls these new drones mere wind-up toys.

Still, he let’s the doctor have his moment.

It doesn’t go well.

Seriously, I thought it was just a clever insult when the Battle Lord said that they were wind-up toys but when Wave can literally pluck a pin out of the back of your robot and it just falls apart like an action figure there’s something seriously wrong with you. “Work in progress” doesn’t even begin to describe it.

Surprisingly, Speedy actually does end up looking good for a bit, despite this.

He tells Jet to give him the key and Jet’s response is brilliant yet again. He asks him “which key?” and wonders if he means F Major or C Sharp Minor and then says he didn’t peg him for a “songbird”.

He’s going off with these puns and that wonderful wordplay this arc.

Speedy is super angry so he just takes it at face value. By this point, Jet is super duper cocky and ends up getting got by one of Speedy’s lasers. It cuts into his arm, which looks like it fucking hurts. 

The laser then knocks over some rocks on the cliff side that smash into Jet and Speedy takes that opportunity to just beat the tar out of him while rattling off about how cool he used to think Jet was.

Friends?

Is he gonna say friends?

Ah. He said backup. That works too.

Still, the fact that Speedy had it in him to knock Jet all over the place was neat to see. It’s true that Jet was taken by surprise due to his cockiness allowing for him to be caught off guard but a beatdown is a beatdown.

Sadly, that goes both ways. Wave and Storm don’t have much of an issue beating on Speedy here which looks brutal considering how much younger than them he seems to be. He's rivals with Tails after all. 

His last lines there seem to say more about his state of mind too. It can be taken as a bit of cute dialogue but there is a part of me that does wonder if getting knocked into oblivion by Storm’s fist would actually be preferable then having to deal with his father’s bullshit.

Of course, in a literal sense, he could just mean that his father’s fist is way worse than Storm’s.

Case in point.

Holy shit.

Every time I look at this scene I think back to when Ian Flynn geeked out about this moment on his podcast and said that final line on this page in that awesome deep villain voice he has. It’s great. He really enjoyed what Tracy decided to do with the Battle Lord here. I really wish I had a photographic memory of which episodes he does these things in so I could just direct you all to them but there’s too many episodes of the Bumblekast to comb through them all for that one moment. He also does an excellent Dr. Claw.

There’s also the fact that this took me by surprise when I first experienced it in such a good way. You never saw this guy get off his perch to go in the middle of a battle before this point. Having him finally jump into the fray with such a glorious display of raw power as he obliterates the top of a mountain with a single fist is an excellent way to get across how three-dimensional a villain he is. The types that are smart and can command an army with regality and poise while also being able to fuck you up are the best kinds of villains. It’s part of why I feel I’ve taken more of a liking to Zavok, at least with his portrayal in the IDW comics.

So anyway, the Battle Kuku Lord just fucking demolishes them.

Our bulky albatross gets alba-tossed.

Haha.

Then Wave gets downed with a single kick while Jet is handled with the power of his magic fucking ring.

The ring freezes Jet in place and… looks a bit familiar.

While not completely the same, obviously, it looks a lot like those arcs from Zero Gravity. The Battle Lord even says that it’s a gravity field he’s trapped him in. He also goes on about what the ring’s significance to the Battle Birds are.

Although he is slightly harsh about it.

The way he emphasizes “worthy" son when he talks speaks volumes about his relationship with Speedy, if it didn’t already considering Speedy’s desire to please his father being a by product of fear and not necessarily one born of a desire to stay in this undesirable position.

I also like how the bottom panel takes the time to have the Battle Lord talk up Dr. Fukurokov (finally got the name right) and let the audience in on why he keeps him around. It’s great to also have a villain that acknowledges the strengths of the company he keeps as well as their flaws.

He, being shockingly merciful, offers to let the Babylon Rogues back into the Battle Bird Armada. When the gravity field goes down he grabs Jet by his not-a-neck and his entire body at the same time. No really. This dude’s single hand is wrapped around the entirety of Jet’s body. He’s fucking huge in comparison to him.

The Rogues don’t really have much of a choice but to surrender so they do and Jet hands the cube over.

Speedy is understandably upset by this and actually has an argument with his father about the fact that they’re obviously going to betray him and jump ship the first chance they get. The Battle Lord just tells him to shut up and says that a Battlebird’s squawk is his bond.

Yeah, but if they don’t consider themselves Battlebirds then who gives a fuck?

I do like this as a flaw for our Battle Lord though. He’s so used to being in-charge and having full command over all the birds that the idea that they’d be rogueish to him still isn’t something he can fully comprehend. He likely just considers what the Rogues did earlier to be some sort of prolonged temper tantrum.

Who wouldn’t want to be a part of his glorious army and stay loyal to it and to him for the rest of their lives? Clearly it was just a phase they were going through.

Anyway, we have the two mcguffins from both Riders games in hand now. Instead of the Chaos Emeralds being used to activate Babylon Garden, it’s these two items, which still makes sense. They’re both connected in the stories of the original games, albeit not as directly.

I also like how the arc is a literal ring that he can wear on his finger here. It makes good, obvious use of their shape and design.

He inserts the ring into the cube and it tells them the location of Babylon Garden. The Battle Lord gets hyped because he knows where this is… and he REALLY wants a chance to get back at a certain two-tailed fox.

That’s right. In the twist of all twists, Babylon Garden is located smack-dab where our heroes are. 

They’re already going through a ton of shit so of course what they need is another fucking army walking up to their doorstep.

I’d say it was almost too much but I’d be lying. I love it when things just keep getting worse with no end in sight. It soothes the soul. MY soul.

Also, I’m starting to understand now why Sonic is so constantly pissed off from here on out.

I keep saying that each new arc of Sonic Universe is better than the last and fortunately it doesn’t feel like that’s stopping any time soon. This arc is just as cool and as awesome as I remember it being so far. I just love seeing the villains showcase such a dominant amount of power. It’s just one really bad thing after the other and it feels great to witness. The two NPCs at the end of this issue saying that they REALLY need to get out of this town was the icing on the cake. It must really be hitting home that there’s just a relentless amount of fucking assholes who want them all dead, to ruin their lives, or to take over the world. It almost seems futile to resist and with Sally roboticized, Sonic is being overwhelmed like crazy. It’s no wonder he’s looking for something to take his aggression out on.

[SanPolo4389]

Man I remember in DeviantArt someone who I followed just really hated the Battle Bird Armada, and thought that the comics made them seem too OP at times since they didn't seem to get beaten alot, along with the Battle Lord, and with Speedy because of how he insulted Tails as that guy's favorite Sonic character.
Also is it bad that I kinda forget this arc existed? Like maybe it's because I didn't really care about the Bablyon Rogues since I was too invested in Sonic, the Naugus Kingdom, and the whole Mecha Sally situation.

[Dr. Detective]

2 hours ago, SanPolo4389 said:

Man I remember in DeviantArt someone who I followed just really hated the Battle Bird Armada, and thought that the comics made them seem too OP at times since they didn't seem to get beaten alot, along with the Battle Lord, and with Speedy because of how he insulted Tails as that guy's favorite Sonic character.

It might have been someone in the Anti-Archie circles on Deviantart I was talking about because I recall that too. When they showed up again in the reboot to devastate the heroes someone got really pissed off saying that the Battle Birds are "supposed" to be incompetent or something. 

Says fucking who? What a strange claim for them to make. 

[SanPolo4389]

6 hours ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

It might have been someone in the Anti-Archie circles on Deviantart I was talking about because I recall that too. When they showed up again in the reboot to devastate the heroes someone got really pissed off saying that the Battle Birds are "supposed" to be incompetent or something. 

Says fucking who? What a strange claim for them to make. 

Yeah like he despises them a lot because of that in the reboot, then again he also stated that the heroes suffered the worf effect, despite them being not perfect at everything and then getting caught unaware of them. 

And then got mad that that these guys were able to invade New Mobotroplis easily which I think made him not like them.