Megathread Archie Sonic Main Discussion

[Kuzu]

15 minutes ago, Kaotic Kanine said:

*Sigh* Okay, I'll concede that my hatred for Sally is irrational. She's not actively stealing screentime from characters, and Cream and Amy don't necessarily deserve screentime more than others. 

But I'm just going to say; I do not read comic books about Sonic the Hedgehog for Sally Acorn, Tangle the Lemur, or freaking Starline. My interest in the comic books is to see Amy, Cream, Rouge, the Chaotix, the characters I know and love from the games do things. Especially since the games aren't using them until they figure out Sonic's 3D gameplay (which is going to take a long time, even if Frontiers proves successful). And in the case of this Reboot, Cream was made into a Freedom Fighter, the comic's main cast, which got my hopes up that she would become a major player again like she was in 2002-2005. Especially since Big the Cat got to be an active, useful member of the team. But instead, I watched Cream be forced into inaction and be coddled by Sally Acorn, who would then go out and do cool useful shit. And in the rare times Cream was allowed to do cool, significant shit, the story would focus on Sally instead. So can you blame me for being more than a little resentful?

I'm sorry your favorite characters are not getting the spotlight you feel they deserve in favor of characters you don't care as much about, but as the above post said; Sally, Starline, Tangle and whoever else are as much Sonic characters as Amy, Cream or Rouge. Neither is more deserving than the other regardless if one originates from the games or not. 

 

I feel like you would have a much better time if you focused less on your favorites being snubbed and more on the actual story being told regardless of who's in focus. I don't particularly like Belle, but grumbling about how she's stealing screentime from Blaze or Shadow is missing the point. The story isn't about the latter, its about Belle and that's who I'm expected to focus on.

[Rabbitearsblog]

1 hour ago, Kaotic Kanine said:

*Sigh* Okay, I'll concede that my hatred for Sally is irrational. She's not actively stealing screentime from characters, and Cream and Amy don't necessarily deserve screentime more than others. 

But I'm just going to say; I do not read comic books about Sonic the Hedgehog for Sally Acorn, Tangle the Lemur, or freaking Starline. My interest in the comic books is to see Amy, Cream, Rouge, the Chaotix, the characters I know and love from the games do things. Especially since the games aren't using them until they figure out Sonic's 3D gameplay (which is going to take a long time, even if Frontiers proves successful). And in the case of this Reboot, Cream was made into a Freedom Fighter, the comic's main cast, which got my hopes up that she would become a major player again like she was in 2002-2005. Especially since Big the Cat got to be an active, useful member of the team. But instead, I watched Cream be forced into inaction and be coddled by Sally Acorn, who would then go out and do cool useful shit. And in the rare times Cream was allowed to do cool, significant shit, the story would focus on Sally instead. So can you blame me for being more than a little resentful?

I actually understand your feelings of frustration when your favorite characters are not being used well in a story.  That's a pet peeve that I also have when my favorite characters aren't being used well in a story.

However, even though I do come to the Sonic the Hedgehog comics for Sonic himself, I'm also interested in seeing what they do with the non-canon game characters like Sally, Tangle and Whisper and Dr. Starline.  I think that they contribute just as much to the stories as the game characters do and I always found their stories to be very fascinating, especially Sally's story.  I think that the reason why they use non-canon game characters a lot in the comics is because they are much easier to write than the game characters themselves. The non-cannon game characters don't really have any restrictions to how they should be characterized, unlike the game characters who tend to have heavy restrictions to how they are portrayed, which can be worked against them in many cases.  Now, I don't know how much of the restrictions against the game characters is because of SEGA having ownership over the characters and they want the characters to be written in how they envision the characters or if it's because of what happened with the Penders lawsuit (giving too much creative freedom to a writer, only for said writer to go off the rails and try to claim everything in the comics, despite the fact that Sonic and his friends are owned by SEGA), but it can be frustrating to see your favorite game characters being written terribly because of the heavy restrictions against them.  However, if there's a story in the comic that wasn't meant for said game character or for your favorite character, I would rather not have my favorite character featured in that story than to have them be shoved into the story without any proper arc or payoff for their character.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

8 hours ago, Kaotic Kanine said:

I mean, it seems odd for SEGA to be highly restrictive of a character like Cream. Shadow being heavily mandated makes sense, he's the second most popular character of the whole franchise whom they still had active plans for.
 

I fail to see how popularity factors into this, especially when during this period Shadow wasn’t as restricted as he currently is in IDW while here Cream had a straight up embargo on her that took a while to lift.

It’s definitely odd, but Sega has shown themselves to make odd decisions that either don’t come off the way as intended, come off seemingly on a whim that they for some reason don’t want elaborate among other, or because “fuck anyone for asking and fuck off” because…they just don’t want something in spite of others clamoring.

8 hours ago, Kaotic Kanine said:

Oh, don't get me wrong. I do blame Ian for those moments more than I do Sally. I always try to keep in mind that characters are little more than "puppets" whose actions are at the mercy of those pulling the strings, be they writers, directors, executives, etc. But Sally is a character who I never really cared for; I never thought her interesting or compelling. And by the time of the Reboot, I had become irritated with how much focus and "favoritism" Sally was always given (such as Silver's "traitor subplot": dude was quick to accuse Sonic, Rotor, and Antoine as the traitors, and was even ready to suspect Bunnie on a whim despite her not being a founding Freedom Fighter. But Sally? "No way, she could never be the traitor"). So when the Reboot not only continued giving Sally a great deal of focus, but said focus was at the expense of the characters I actually care about? Well, Sally became a puppet I really wanted to stop seeing. 

Like, yeah, it's Ian who sidelined Cream, not Sally. But he used Sally the most to invoke that sidelining in-story, which would often be follow by Sally getting to look cool and useful while Cream just stood in the background not doing anything. And this whole sidelining business was for a subplot that more-or-less served Sally's character more than Cream. Like, really; even if this subplot got the focus it needed, how would it have benefited Cream's character? At most, she'd get to prove to Sally that she IS ready to go on missions and partake in fight via a badass moment. But for Sally, she got to frequently show off her motherly qualities and get some juicy character development for when she realized that Cream always was capable. And this plot doesn't even make sense in the Reboot's history since the games are canon: Cream had already been on adventures and proved herself capable! She is an experienced hero, but she still needs Sally's permission??? And my issue with Sally and Cream isn't just for the sidelining but how, throughout the entire Reboot, Cream was practically glued to Sally. We'll see as Detective Mike goes on...

Yes, Ian used Sally because she was among one of the more useful puppets he had to carry certain moments in the story. That’s more or less what a writer does when they use a character in a story—if it was a do author, we’d likely have a different telling of these stories with these same exact characters. And for all the “favoritism” toward Sally, her role was largely lessened in the reboot compared to the how she was before.

I can’t explain the parts of Sally sidelining Cream, however. You’re free to criticize those parts, because I actually see your point on that. But it’s a whole other issue to scapegoat a character because you didn’t get to see your other favorites in action—which actually isn’t true because all of your favorites you listed below get far more action than Sally does in the new world.

You certainly didn’t see Sally take center stage in the Fighters adaptation, did you? No, you saw Amy and the Chaotix take the spotlight while she mostly had a few lines during the arc’s introduction. And she was a supporting character during Nicole’s Spark of Life Arc.
 

For all she was as the leader, Sally wasn’t even given the same level of focus she once had—which as a Sally fan myself, I didn’t really have a problem with.But overall come the reboot, I’m sorry, but you had things fairly balanced of Sally being a major and a minor (or even absent if we’re including Universe). Sure, she might’ve still be popular, but she wasn’t anything of a spotlight hog anymore than any other character that you’re making her out to be and how she originally was in the past. If anything, it seems more like you have a problem with her existing no matter what it was she did—and I’d like to think this wouldn’t be the case if Ian did give Cream more action and not use Sally to sideline her.

8 hours ago, Kaotic Kanine said:

...Okay, I sit corrected about that moment. It was admittedly a long while since I last saw that page, and since it wasn't included in the post I was inclined to think it happened how I remembered. And, of course, memories love to be faulty and biased >.< 

So, I'm wrong there. Amy's dialogue and emotional impact was in balance with Sally's. Nonetheless, though, I really wished that Amy got to do this on her own because, again, it would allow her to do to Sonic what she had done for Gamma and Shadow. We've hardly if ever gotten a moment of Amy having a sincere emotional moment with Sonic by herself, and this was the perfect opportunity for that. But Ian just had to have Sally Acorn share the spotlight in this instance, and it's just... Sally has had more than plenty of emotional moments with Sonic by herself. Amy has had few if not nil. Is it too much to ask for Sally to take a backseat for once and let Amy have a touching moment with Sonic to herself? 

I apologize if that's moving the goalpost or otherwise being unfair with my statements. That's not my intention. Just stating my thoughts and feelings on the matters at hand. I was wrong about Sally getting more words in over Amy in that moment, but I'm disappointed that she HAD to be there to share the spotlight instead of Amy being allowed the spotlight to herself with Sonic for once.

Dude, I’m really not trying to be mean—better yet, consider this a “grouchy old man” moment coming out of me, because this has been going on for almost two decades starting with Shadow back when he got his own game (and continued for the better part of a decade), I’m sick of people doing it, I’m not going to stop doing it as long as people keep this mess up, and I would and have grilled even the moderating staff for pulling this stunt in the past, but this oppression by existence disappointment has gotten old to the point it’s become a dead horse.

Amy had an emotional moment she never had in the actual source, that she shared it with Sally is completely irrelevant and comes off as downright greedy and bias to complain about.

Yes, that is blatantly unfair. If you’re going to hate on a character, do it fairly. I mean, I’m a hardcore Shadow fan, but I’ve done more bitching about their handling of the character as of late than I have said anything good about it. To that degree, there is much to criticize about Sally and how the writers utilized her, but this isn’t one of them.

2 hours ago, Kaotic Kanine said:

*Sigh* Okay, I'll concede that my hatred for Sally is irrational. She's not actively stealing screentime from characters, and Cream and Amy don't necessarily deserve screentime more than others. 

But I'm just going to say; I do not read comic books about Sonic the Hedgehog for Sally Acorn, Tangle the Lemur, or freaking Starline. My interest in the comic books is to see Amy, Cream, Rouge, the Chaotix, the characters I know and love from the games do things.
 

And NONE of them are the title character whose name is on the cover. I have to be blunt, because there’s one very important detail you’re not considering: you’re not the only one who reads these comics.

It is very hypocritical to emphasize reading Sonic the Hedgehog  for Amy, Cream, Rouge, the Chaotix, etc and not Sally, Tangle, or Starline when NONE OF THOSE CHARACTERS YOU LISTED ARE THE TITLE CHARACTER IN THE FIRST PLACE.

And I know you see the blatant double standard in that. I’m not saying you have to like characters you don’t—I have plenty in the comics that I don’t care for. But dude, characters are Sonic characters whether any of us likes them or not, and just because you don’t read it for certain characters doesn’t mean other characters are more deserving of the attention.

So while you may not read these comics for characters you don’t care for, there are multiple other people who do read these comics for the characters you dislike. And I don’t see the problem with this, as it’s big enough to accommodate anyone interested regardless of what character anyone likes or dislikes. It’s not like if, say, the Deadly Six, characters I don’t like, were given attention in the same story as Sally and Shadow who I do like that I somehow can’t enjoy the story being presented as it’s intended—it’s when the characters act out of character with no context that would be the bigger problem.

[Kaotic Kanine]

1 hour ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

I mean, that's all well and good, but some people do come to the comic to see Dr. Starline, or Tangle, or Sally, or whoever else. At the end of the day, if people like it or not, they're all still Sonic characters and each of them have as much right to be in the comic as any other, assuming there's no issues preventing them from appearing. Those characters have just as much right to appearances and screen time as the other supporting cast members you've listed. 

1 hour ago, Kuzu said:

I'm sorry your favorite characters are not getting the spotlight you feel they deserve in favor of characters you don't care as much about, but as the above post said; Sally, Starline, Tangle and whoever else are as much Sonic characters as Amy, Cream or Rouge. Neither is more deserving than the other regardless if one originates from the games or not. 

1 minute ago, Rabbitearsblog said:

However, even though I do come to the Sonic the Hedgehog comics for Sonic himself, I'm also interested in seeing what they do with the non-canon game characters like Sally, Tangle and Whisper and Dr. Starline.  I think that they contribute just as much to the stories as the game characters do and I always found their stories to be very fascinating, especially Sally's story.

4 minutes ago, CrownSlayer’s Shadow said:

And NONE of them are the title character whose name is on the cover. I have to be blunt, because there’s one very important detail you’re not considering: you’re not the only one who reads these comics.

It is very hypocritical to emphasize reading Sonic the Hedgehog  for Amy, Cream, Rouge, the Chaotix, etc and not Sally, Tangle, or Starline when NONE OF THOSE CHARACTERS YOU LISTED ARE THE TITLE CHARACTER IN THE FIRST PLACE.

And I know you see the blatant double standard in that. I’m not saying you have to like characters you don’t—I have plenty in the comics that I don’t care for. But dude, characters are Sonic characters whether any of us likes them or not, and just because you don’t read it for certain characters doesn’t mean other characters are more deserving of the attention.

Alright, alright, you all make great points and I apologize for the double standards and overall being a gaming purist. I just really wish there was more material to let the side game characters flourish, you know? I probably wouldn't mind Sally or Belle getting focus over Cream in the comics if we had, say, side games akin to the Advance series that had Cream be involved in the stories if not outright playable. Hell, a new Sonic Universe comic spin-off that guarantees some more spotlight for Cream and Rouge would be a vast improvement. Right now, it's just hoping that the next story will feature them

BUT I'll take Kuzu's advice and try to focus on the stories at hand. And I'll try to be more fair with Sally, CrownSlayer. Can't make promises, though, only because I'm afraid Sally's deep in my bias area. It's a case of rationality vs. emotion, and y'all ought to know which of the two is stronger in me. 

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

1 hour ago, Kaotic Kanine said:

Alright, alright, you all make great points and I apologize for the double standards and overall being a gaming purist. I just really wish there was more material to let the side game characters flourish, you know? I probably wouldn't mind Sally or Belle getting focus over Cream in the comics if we had, say, side games akin to the Advance series that had Cream be involved in the stories if not outright playable. Hell, a new Sonic Universe comic spin-off that guarantees some more spotlight for Cream and Rouge would be a vast improvement. Right now, it's just hoping that the next story will feature them

That’s kinda why many of us even came to the comics in the first place—my favorite characters suck in the games, but they’re awesome in the comics. Even better, some of my most hated characters, Big and the Deadly Six, are not just tolerable, but I’ve done a complete 180 on them when I read them in the comics—in fact, of all characters, I actually defended the D6 in the comics more than once.

Meanwhile, one of my favorites written by the same favorite author of these comics now sucks in the new version of IDW. But that’s a different story all-together that many of us fans of him have bitched to death about.

This is why I’m saying don’t hold bad portrayals against the character. 

[Dr. Detective]

I'm impressed by how civil all that managed to be. Good job guys.

[Dr. Detective]

 

Archie Sonic the Hedgehog - Issue #267: Ambushed! Part Two

The scratchiness of this horror movie-like cover is appropriately unsettling to look at. Seeing Sonic related things rendered in such intense detail always goes towards making things feel very off but usually in a good way. I love the Halloween aesthetic, especially whenever it’s grafted onto a fun series that I love.

Spoiler

Holiday Havoc Variant

All that said, this cover is better. It’s probably one of my favorite covers in all of Archie and it’s a shame it’s not a regular cover. I think, aside from all the chaos going on in the background with Chip about to drop the gingerbread house, Werehog Sonic being a slob, Rotor being pissed that the salt shaker emptied itself on his plate, and Eggman laughing up a storm while wearing a sweater that says GAME OVER, the best part is just… Tails. Tails looks so cute in his little sweater and him turning to look at us with sheer nervousness at how insane his family (and Eggman) looks to us readers is adorable. I will not judge, young one. 

—

Writer: Ian Flynn
Pencils: Jamal Peppers and Evan Stanley
Inks: Terry Austin
Colors: Gabriel Cassata
Letters: John Workman
Cover by Evan Stanley, Terry Austin, and Ben Hunzeker
Holiday Havoc Variant Cover by Jennifer Hernandez, Terry Austin, and Matt Herms

Yay! We’ve got a joint effort from two really talented pencilers this time! Awesome!

We begin with a night time version of the race Moss and Sonic had earlier in the day. Now with Sonic being a Werehog, he’s significantly slower but will probably find maneuvering through the forest a much more fanciful affair with those stretchy, rope-like arms of his.

Moss looks like he’s about to win but Sonic stretches his arm past the finish and claims that counts as a win. Ray isn’t sure if it does though.

Well, either way, Moss doesn’t care. He’s happy Sonic has taken his teachings to heart and acknowledges that while he could use a bit more he’s probably eager to return to his friends. At least there’s a tacit acknowledgement that he hasn’t completely mastered it but it means nothing since I doubt it’s going to significantly affect the story in any tangible way. Oh well.

Anyway, the Flying Dynamo, a super badnik sent by Thunderbolt, attacks all of them. 

As Werehog Sonic lunges at it we cut back to Sally’s Freedom Fighter group and they’re just… okay now?

When I saw this, I was honestly a little flabbergasted. I needed to go back to the previous issue to make sure I hadn’t misinterpreted that ending and sure enough, I was correct. The ending was what I remembered it being with Sally laying on the ground while that thing was rolling up on her.

It was incredibly jarring just flipping the page and seeing Sally just completely fine after that explosion and in the middle of making a running slide under some cover without any acknowledgement of what happened at the end of the last issue. 

Bunnie is also in a spot where she wasn’t last time but that’s fine. I don’t need to literally see Bunnie enter the tower she was standing on to know that she just hid in the tower she was standing on when Iota knocked her off her perch but the Sally thing definitely could and should have provided me with more than it did. That’s not the kind of thing you brush off.

I know she didn’t literally take the explosion head on but the final page still made it seem more significant than what it’s showing to me now.

She tries to rally everyone together but it’s not working. As soon as Bunnie leaps into the fray again she gets bombarded with tiny little explosions. Sally tries to charge at the thing firing at Bunnie but then Iota zooms by to create a diagonal slash of fire across the ground to disrupt her.

The point is that they’re getting fucked and Rotor, upon seeing this, rushes to go send himself and the other members of Team Freedom down to participate in the very clearly losing battle.

The instant he leaves his post however, the Tails Doll invades.

Utilizing this thing within the narrative as a spy robot is probably a fairly inspired idea and it’s been this way since its introduction within the pre-reboot but honestly I think it’d work a little more as something creepy if I didn’t know what specifically it was for and I just saw it hovering down the hallway of Eggman’s ship.

When you come across it on the Adventure field of a Sonic game, maybe it’ll look at you and track you with its eyes. You can attack it but you’ll always miss or be unable to hurt it. When you run away from it, it’s eyes just follow you but it stays where it is just watching.

Always watching…

That’s far more effective to me than turning it into a disgusting kaiju vagina monster. Just saying.

The fight continues and what transpires is quite possibly the most beautiful, succinct win I’ve seen from Dr. Eggman in a long while. When he boasts about being able to get shit done, it’s fucking excellent knowing he can walk the walk.

Sally’s plan and mission was a bust. It was just terrible and it appropriately failed because of that. 

I realized this when Rotor swooped in on his board saying that the calvary was here and Sally, instead of worrying about him leaving his post, said that it was great timing. So I was correct that this was not some sort of prelude to the ACTUAL plan Sally had up her sleeve where Team Freedom was supposed to come in and do something to steal the win back from Eggman…

No, instead, she’s like “Yeah, my terrible plan to fall for this obvious trap where the Chaos Emerald just sat in the fucking open and we run at it didn’t work. Let’s just nuke the E-100s back in the Sky Patrol and then snag the emerald.”

Sally actually does try to run up and grab the Emerald herself but two arms jerk out of it and try to fight her off. When she slashes them away the capsule, hilariously enough, just up and flies the fuck away before an energy net activates and traps them all, leaving the heroes looking like tremendous idiots and Eggman looking fucking smooth as butter.

In one fell swoop, he’s not only rendered their mission a failure but he’s got the Tails Doll aboard the Sky Patrol too.

I do also love the conversation he and Orbot have after it’s all said and done. It’s like an actual conversation outlining their positions on the situation and how best they should have handled it and what the outcome of it will be despite Orbot’s desire for Eggman to consider hindsight. 

Eggman isn’t being portrayed as having done that correctly despite snagging the win here, which is also great. Sometimes ranking things by effectiveness just means going by what ended up working and not necessarily what was the better idea… but it is true that using the real, actual Chaos Emerald as bait was a step that probably should have been skipped entirely.

I do love the idea of him considering the Freedom Fighters gathering the Chaos Emeralds as them collecting them all for him though. That’s the correct attitude to have, definitely.

Back with Sonic, the lightning the Flying Dynamo is zapping him with is burning his fur and he can’t do anything about it. So they decide that they need to make an opening so that they can finish it easily.

Sonic says, “Ray! Keep it distracted for a minute! Mighty! Follow me!”

Ray says, “Woo! Sounds like he has a plan!”

Mighty says in response, “I hope it’s better than that one-liner.”

… Now… I’ve read and reread this page about four times and I can not, for the life of me, find this one-liner Mighty was talking about. 

There is no one-liner that Sonic says on this page. It’s not there.

… What is Mighty talking about?

Anyway, the plan was to have Sonic use Gum Gum Rocket to launch himself at the flying robot orb thing and take it out.

I was expecting to turn the page after this and just see Thunderbolt’s base exploding.

It’s funny though because that thing was only offering a challenge because it took them by surprise and was bombarding them with electricity. The instant Sonic got a good hit in on it and Mighty was able to follow it up with another punch, it was over. 

She must be super pissed that the thing that nearly killed her in the woods just decimated her invention so easily. Then again, if I were her, I’d have probably just made that thing even more dangerous and then maybe made like 10 more of them to be sure and sent them all out at once. Probably.

She’s not Eggman and she was maybe on a bit of a time crunch so I can see why she didn’t. 

We cut back to Team Loser and they’re in some serious trouble. 

Honestly, I’m starting to wonder how it is that I didn’t recall what happened in this issue because it’s such a tremendous close-call for our heroes here. I mean, they are in such a bad spot. It’s shocking how bad things are.

They try to ride their airboards out of the openings in the energy net but don’t have enough boards and while Sally is debating what to do about that, they all get fired at again and are about to be killed.

Then, Cream, who is observing what’s happening back on the ship, goes against the stupid as fuck orders for her not to be involved and rescues them with Big by her side.

“The mission is too dangerous for WHO, bitch?” - Cream the Rabbit, probably.

After this, I want Cream to give Sally a wedgie and demand she go to her room and think about what she’s done. Then I want her to proclaim herself the new leader and for everyone to just agree. Just do as she says from now on. Big will be her enforcer. It’ll work way better. I swear.

One could argue that the only reason Cream was in a position to do this is because Sally told her to stay on the ship but I would honestly argue back that they probably wouldn’t be in this situation nor would they need her to do this if she had just come along with Big at the start… ALONG with Team Freedom.

Like, if Team Freedom’s role wasn’t to actually do anything but stay on the ship and observe… then what’s the fucking point of that? Why be on the Sky Patrol for that? Why not at least be on the field and out of sight so that when the E-100s attack they can swoop in and take THEM by surprise? They can still observe things from a distance that way and make a difference before things get super bad. What’s the point of them being up in the Sky Patrol? That’s where you told Cream and Big to stay isn’t it? Cream and Big might as well have been on Team Freedom in that case.

Honestly, this whole exercise made me question the point of the Team Fighters and Team Freedom system for a bit. I doubled back on questioning it once I remembered how effective it was during the flood in Station Square of course. Having a team focused on fighting while another team focused on rescuing was a great utilization of that system but this is an entirely different situation.

There was no one to rescue (initially). Perhaps the plan for Team Freedom should have been to secure the Chaos Emerald once the fighting started. That at least would have made Sally’s plan to approach the goddamn thing and spring what should have been an obvious fucking trap something that made plausible sense.

God, this really was an awful, stupid plan and I’m astonished it’s an example of it happening twice in the same story. There has to be a better way of handling Eggman dangling a carrot in front of their faces then to just… run at it and hope for the best.

Sally’s tactical prowess had a good showing at the start of the reboot but man, she’s been dropping the ball ever since. That’s really a shame since I don’t recall her being too impressive when it came to this kind of stuff Pre-Reboot either. 

Before Flynn, most of the Sally stuff was just terrible, disrespectful garbage. When she wasn’t being thrown off a cliff she was being talked down to by her shitty parents, being at the center of the slap heard round the world, and making excuses for her dad’s awful behavior and treatment of her.

Most of her writing during the Flynn era was him trying to course correct and have her apologize for how she acted previously under the pen of certain previous writers before attempting to make her more of a tactician with… results that I honestly can’t fathom right now. The only thing that sticks out in my mind is the always brilliant “Dogpile on Super Scourge” thing she came up with. Still an A+ tactic. Can’t believe that didn’t work.

Then, you know, she was turned into a robot and taken out of the story for the last chunk of the entirety of the pre-reboot so…

Well, either way, she’s got another failure under her belt and it leads to yet another familiar scene.

I swear we just did this.

I dunno. Maybe this is supposed to be a purposeful escalation of the things she’s already feeling but in that case, I’d assume we’d be at the next phase of what she’s feeling and thus some sort of action to dictate a change in how she responded would be in order.

However, I swear to God we just got a recent scene where she pointed out that she led them into a blatant trap and that they all nearly paid for her short-sightedness. 

Man, I dunno Sally. Maybe stop doing that then?

She doesn’t really have anything to prove to me, if I’m being honest. I say it all the time, but I’m of the opinion that the Sonic series doesn’t need a designated tactician or anything. I like and prefer that role to shift from person to person as the plot calls for it depending on who knows what. Or just have it be a thing where the group decides on what to do based on their own input.

If a plan goes south, they can improvise. Not only is that a lot more adventurous and scrappy but it’s a lot more exciting. Seeing a plan go off without a hitch is often boring, which is why so often in fiction, when they tell us what the plan is we know it’s not going to go well because if it does after you’ve told us what it is then you’re just sapping away any and all chances for there to be intrigue or tension. If a plan does go off without a hitch usually it or part of it is kept secret from us until the reveal.

A character whose sole purpose within the action is to just make plans is hard to work into a story like this because of stuff like that. Not impossible, mind you. A good way to handle it would be like how Shikamaru is handled in Naruto, where the intrigue comes from his character being presented with a dilemma and us watching him work through it in real time. It keeps you on the edge of your seat more often and it’s way more impressive. 

Although, the difference there is that Shikamaru’s got more to his arsenal than just being able to make plans. Sally’s got beam swords on her wrists and… okay, but, I don’t currently see those as being as versatile as the Shadow Possession stuff.

I feel like the flying at the seat of their pants nature of how Sonic and friends usually go about doing stuff just makes things more exciting. It makes my critiques less harsh too because when you’re supposed to be a tightly knit group that operates like a platoon of military super friends that fly around in the Hall of Justice like a weird organization, it stands out more when your leader keeps making your group fall for blatant, obvious traps.

If this were Sonic, I’d call him an idiot for doing it like I did before but I certainly wouldn’t harp THIS long about it because ultimately he’s a hot-headed go-getter and sometimes that’s what he does… and I love him for it. Most of the time.

Sally screwing up isn’t the issue. She absolutely should make mistakes here and there but I feel like this moment could have used a bit of tweaking so that the loss felt a little less like she was just doing something weirdly stupid followed by her admonishing herself and crying about it again the same way I know I saw her do before just recently without any noticeable oncoming change.

Anyway, Sonic does make an actual good one-liner when he tells Mighty, Ray, and Moss about the Sky Patrol and says he should see the zen garden as it would be a good place to call his “ohm”.

That was pretty clever though. Mighty doesn’t even say anything about that.

He says his goodbyes to them and then jumps on the bi-plane when Tails swoops down, in the middle of asking how the mission went before stopping when he sees the look on Tails’ face and the look of Tails'… body and realizes that it didn’t go so great.

Shut up Bunnie, that was a good line.

Anyway, Sonic starts to make it about how he wasn’t there and that’s why they lost and junk. Sally tries to assure him that they would have been in the same jam if he was there but he doesn’t buy it. 

Maybe he would have been able to make a difference but a part of me also doesn’t like the implication that he’s asserting that it all would have just been hunky dory if he was there. Hopefully not.

I never do like it when they imply that they can’t get by without Sonic being there. It certainly didn’t feel that way either. It just felt like Eggman had a good plan and Sally had a stupid as fuck one.

Sonic admonishes himself for not getting the help he needed sooner despite knowing he was sick and says that he’s raring to turn things around now. Fortunately, they know where the next Chaos Emerald is. 

In the hands of an old friend.

As someone with a love, fondness, and appreciation for AoSth I do still hate the fact that I haven’t properly given the full series a proper once over. I’ve definitely seen more of it then the two episodes of SatAM I’ve watched (that being the two-parter where they time-travel) but not partaking in it leaves me a bit high and dry when it comes to situations like this where characters from it return to make a heavy imprint on the narrative.

It’s sleazy Breezie everybody.

Also, Coconuts is back, although he's looking a little more video-gamey here. I don’t remember that being the case in the arc proper but there goes me trying to rely on my memory again.

Despite the heavy rant I had in the middle, I think I came out of this issue still appreciating it due to the fact that it gave Eggman a really solid win. Granted, I do still think that could have been achieved had Sally had an actual counter-attack to the ambush that led to the same events transpiring. Like have Team Freedom go for the emerald and that’s when the hands come out and it takes off to the sky and the net gets dropped. Something to at least make the fact that they did that stupid plan not as embarrassing. I’ll admit, there is a part of me that does sort of find that amusing in and of itself but I still wished to provide what I believe would have been a better tactical alternative. 

Regardless, one of the best arcs in all of Archie Sonic is over the horizon and I'm excited as well to get back to it. I also can’t wait to shoot down the stupid as fuck complaints I remember seeing back in the day regarding it too. It’s a great arc but everything has its detractors after all.

 

Sonic Boom - Issue #4: Sticks and Stones

All of the Sonic Boom covers have been great recently but I’ll admit that they’re all starting to blend together a bit. I feel like I’ve seen these same four to five characters charging at me or just displayed in a dynamic position numerous times now. Perhaps the lack of relying on a solid, continuous narrative is what makes it easier for those doing the covers to just do whatever they want though. I honestly only recall one cover of this series being directly tied to what’s happening within the book, not counting the three issues of this eleven issue series that were a part of the World’s Unite crossover.

Spoiler

Sticks with Stones Being Chased by Bones Variant Cover

I do actually really love this variant cover though. Ironically, it has more to do with what’s happening in this issue of the book but it’s also a really nice use of that old phrase. I could have done without the smarmy Sonic at the bottom, pointing at the scene and going “Get it?” with It underlined for some reason. Like, yeah, I got it. Thanks.

—

Today’s Chef: Ian Flynn
Your servers: Ryan Jampole & Jennifer Hernandez
Catch of the Day: Rick Bryant
On Tap: Matt Herms
House Special: Jack Morelli
Soup of the Day #1: Tracy Yardley, Rick Bryant & Matt Herms
Soup of the Day #2: Diana Skelly, Rick Bryant & Steve Downer

Man, these credits keep getting more and more bold.

I’m honestly not even sure if it’s possible to tell who did what with what’s written there.

Anyway, this issue begins with Tails getting absolutely shat upon yet again. The poor kid can’t go two steps in this book without someone sticking their dirty fingers in his mouth or spilling copious amounts of sticky soda on him.

Eggman shows up in his mech and calls out Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and Amy while they’re eating and it causes Sonic’s really red looking frankfurter to fly the fuck out of his bun.

That had to have been a really hot sausage.

Anyway, Eggman is pissed at them because they missed their appointment for another fight with this same robot. It’s pointed out by him that it was supposed to be a running theme across these first four stories that they were to fight this thing over and over again and Sonic admits that they forgot. Meanwhile, Tails is giving Knuckles a pissed off glare as he sheepishly hands him a tiny napkin.

Eggman gets super sad about this because he sent them care packages to make sure they remembered.

Sonic says that those were bombs.

And Amy complains that hers arrived late, which is actually a good joke.

Then Eggman just says fuck it and fires all his missiles. They all dodge but the ensuing chaos causes all the drinks and food to just crash on top of Tails specifically. 

It’s funny. I can’t help but love it.

Keep trying Tails. The universe may give you a break one day.

This is also our first appearance of Fastidious Beaver and Comedy Chimp. Even as someone who likes these characters, I have to admit that them appearing in the story via a tiny reaction panel in the bottom corner of the page makes perfect sense.

They try to fight the robot but in a shocking twist, Eggman actually designed it to be a threat this time.

We just get a series of failures from the four that are currently there.

You know, the usual.

Amy rushes up to it from behind but it’s got machine guns in its butt just like in the 2009 Astro Boy movie. 

There’s a yellow comic caption that says “Ew. Gross.” 

Thanks for telling me what to think, comic. I mean how dare you assume I wouldn’t find ass cannons awesome as fuck.

Also, it stomps on Knuckles and Knuckles says this feels familiar. Haha. Get it? It did the same exact thing back in issue one. 

I feel like that would have been mildly amusing if this comic didn’t already love repeating jokes. 

Anyway, once they realize that this robot was designed to actually be a threat, Sonic takes notice of Sticks behind him just… eating their crashed food off the ground. When she notices him watching her, she stands up and gets serious and presents them with the findings she came across in the last issue.

Tails actually does the anime body plant, which I’m grateful for but even funnier, and it took me a sec to notice this happening, but Eggman does it with Tails too only he’s piloting the robot which means he falls to the floor while it also delivers a face palm with it’s huge robot hand.

Again, this comic knows how to do great visual gags. Dialogue could use some work here and there but the images are always top notch.

Maybe a better joke would have been Eggman doing the face palm with the robot but smacking the head of the robot he’s piloting with its own hand causes him to fall out of his seat. 

There’s a bit of galavanting about how insane Sticks is by the narrative here. Sonic apologizes to Eggman for how unprofessional the little break in the action was and tells him they’ll get back to their places. Knuckles is sniffing the air, asking if a food truck stopped by with Tails shooting him an annoyed glare because that smell is obviously him since all the food and drinks fell on him. 

Meanwhile, Sticks is shoving the rock into Amy’s cheek, trying to convince her that it’s the rock of justice and should be utilized as such. Amy calls what Sticks is saying conspiratorial nonsense and rushes off to go fight.

I already knew where this was going to end up because I recall the two-page spread of it happening being one of the most creative things I’ve seen visualized within a comic… but I couldn’t help but sigh a bit with reluctance when Amy blew Sticks off like that. It’s really only because the function of Sticks’ character always leads her towards being proven right. So, once again, the others are going to be made to look like fools for not believing her.

It’s such a strange dynamic. Still hard to wrap my head around, honestly.

Eggman is being a grouch. He’s all sad that he’s been disrespected by them, first with the lateness and then with the rock nonsense. It’s all been a trying time.

He almost decides to go home. However, he decides to stick it out thanks to a pep talk from Orbot.

STOP.

There’s a montage of the heroes trying to face down the enemy. They’re all serious efforts made by the heroes combated against by goofy counter measures Eggman built into this machine.

Sonic gets swung at the robot using the laser whip thing from Rise of Lyric and the first episode of Boom but Eggman uses a slingshot to catch Sonic and fling him back.

Amy has Knuckles launch her at him but Eggman has the robot take out a tennis racket and whack her back.

All the while this is happening, Sticks is pleading with them in several different ways to use the rock, from a Billy Mays/Phil Swift pitch to a crying plea and then finally a fed up, actual baseball pitch.

What follows is the best two-page spread in the book.

At first it may seem a bit hard to read but that’s only if you try to read it traditionally. If you instead just allow your eyes to travel around the page in the same spiral shape this is drawn in, the flow of what’s happening works frighteningly well. It’s magnificent.

I continue to be blown away by how creative visually this book is allowing itself to be. Because of the goofy nature of the Boom series, it’s allowing itself to be more freeing and silly with it’s paneling layout and it leads to really cool and fun stuff like this.

I can see moments like these happening within the main book whenever something called for a more comedic take on what was transpiring between the characters. It’s wonderful getting a chance to come across stuff like this.

The rock destroys the robot by striking its literal metallic heart.

Drat. Foiled by semantics.

The rock falls before the heroes. Sticks picks it up, plays hot potato with it because it’s appropriately smoking hot, and then holds it back up again to proclaim it as the rock of justice.

Eggman is about to declare that he isn’t done but a spread of our heroes standing confidently with the rock in tow makes them zip off into the sky and disappear into a twinkle.

Oh and uh apparently the rock died. Or something.

Now true believers, they all stand in a moment of silence for their fallen comrade.

Not quite sure I get it but that’s fine. 

Whoa, Sonic looks pretty good without his scarf.

Later, Amy returns Sticks to her house and asks if she’ll be okay.

Sticks says she will and waves Amy away before entering her home and…

Honestly, this was the first scene with Sticks that legitimately frightened me.

This was the scary kind of insane to me rather than the funny kind.

I mean… just… 

…

Anyway, we end on Eggman remarking, AGAIN, that he spent four issues on the Big Boy (he keeps calling it the Big Boy and I hate that. Stop reminding me Colors dialogue) before approaching his next… project, covered by a tarp.

We then, of course, end on what feels like the thousandth uttering of “Get A Load of This” by a Sonic property focusing on comedy in an era where self-referential humor went to die.

You’ll never be able to do it as well as Deem Bristow. Stop trying.

Mike Pollock has said the line before but without someone directing him to do a similar inflection, the man is just going to say the line his own way and you can’t stop him. I mean, you could but why would you? So long as he says the line, that’s all the higher ups care about.

These Sonic Boom stories are so easy to get through. Each and every time they feel shockingly short. Even when I’m holding the book and I know I have a torrent of pages left, getting to the end takes only a matter of seconds, it feels like. That continues to feel really good but the events flying by leaves little to be introspective about. It mostly just contributes to how fanciful and wonderful I’m continuing to find the artwork and the dynamic paneling of this series to be. Bravo on that front, even if by the end of this issue I was ready to stab myself in the throat with a salad fork over the thought of reading another logo “joke”.

 

Archie Sonic the Hedgehog - Issue #268: Champions, Part One: The Gang’s All Here

Aww, hell yeah! Finally! I am immensely excited to finally be revisiting this arc again. Tournament arcs are some of my favorite stories in fiction. I’ve been entranced by them with what is still, in my opinion, the best example of them from Yu Yu Hakusho’s Dark Tournament and that excitement carried through to my eventual discovery of stuff like the World Martial Arts Tournaments from the original Dragon Ball and the Chunin Exams from Naruto.

I’ve gone on record saying that I don’t give a fuck about power levels or even really who can beat who in a fight. Tournaments are just loads of fun. Their structure allows for interesting match-ups and clashings of not just certain powers but personality types to happen in a way that’s incredibly convenient but not at all detrimental to character and plot development. Because of the way they’re structured, in fact, they’re an insanely useful tool for condensing all those things into a neat package. A tournament arc that’s just fighting and little else stands the chance of being boring but in the case of this story, the focus is more on fun than anything else and that’s truly where the heart of my excitement lies. 

This is just a tacit reminder of how colorful and charming the Sonic cast is, from top to bottom. I may even need to hold myself back from just posting the entire comic and just typing “Just fucking read it” in place of a review. 

Spoiler

Introducing Breezie the Hedgehog Variant 

I actually remember seeing this cover revealed and wondering why it never came out. Turns out it did come out, I just couldn’t gain access to it because it was a variant cover and I had no means of obtaining those at the time. It’s a great looking cover and I really wanted to get my hands on it. Oh well. Looking at it is serviceable enough. 

—

Writer: Ian Flynn
Pencils: Diana Skelly
Inks: Terry Austin
Colors: Gabriel Cassata
Letters: John Workman
Cover by Evan Stanley, Terry Austin, and Ben Hunzeker
Variant Cover by Jonathan H. Gray, Terry Austin, Jack Morelli and Gabriel Cassata

One of the things I remember really standing out during this arc is the art, specifically the expressions the characters would make. Diana Skelly’s expressions are amazing! They’re appropriately cartoony while remaining on model enough to not be distracting. 

It’s also highly appropriate for this arc seeing as how the AoSth influence is all over this one. It literally begins with a flashback to Sonic’s younger years, with him sporting a design reminiscent of Classic Sonic but with his modern green eyes to assure us of it being him but… well, younger.

He can’t look exactly like he did back in AoSth for obvious reasons but he can still go through similar motions and that’s what he’s doing by facing off against the maniacal Coconuts of the Super Special Sonic Search & Smash Squad.

Egg Toilets, here I come.

This really is the kind of thing I love to see. It’s made all the more cuter by Sonic’s size here, honestly. He looks like a baby and I can’t help but hear Jaleel White’s voice coming out of this little bouncy ball. It’s the adorable side of Sonic that, regardless of what Yuji Naka says, does exist and absolutely has a right to be there.

Just wanna hug em and squeeze em.

Course, Scratch and Grounder also make up the same team. Again, I haven’t given AoSth a once over yet but I am aware that despite never seeing an episode with Coconuts in it his tenure as a villain is intentionally, somehow more pathetic than that of Scratch and Grounder. Like I guess he’s reduced to scrubbing toilets and wants to prove himself to Eggman or something but I’m not entirely sure I understand what it is that Scratch and Grounder have that he doesn’t based on this.

Man, the art is just really good. 

I love how pancaked Scratch’s head is when Sonic smashes his head through the top panel. I also can’t stop giggling at Grounder’s mangled corpse laid out behind Sonic as he dusts his hands off. It reminds me of a pain reaction from Courage the Cowardly Dog where they do that creepy laugh.

We cut back to the present where it’s revealed that he was telling a story on how he met the fem fatale, Breezie. It’s a very humbling scene from Sonic and one that I love because of his non-reaction here at the end.

He tells a story about a time where he was tricked and is keeping a smile on his face while the others giggle at him from across the table. It’s a brief thing but I do like how he’s not reacting with any kind of pettiness here, instead embracing the fact that he messed up and letting them have their laugh. It’s clear by the way he smiles and even makes fun of himself with the derp face that he’s gotten over this altercation from the past. 

Tails might not have fully if that wonderful Soul Eater Excalibur cringe face is anything to go by.

A lot of time has passed since she was busy being a willing pawn for Eggman back in the old days. Because of some, no doubt, sleazy, underhanded nonsense she’s managed to glow up from an AoSth double agent to the ruler of the largest entertainment network in the world.

She’s hosting a Chaos Emerald Championship at Casino Park with, of course, a Chaos Emerald as the prize.

Now we’re talking. This is one of the benefits of having to search all over for these Chaos Emeralds, finally. An excuse to have a tournament. Granted, I would still lean on the side of maybe cutting down on the number of emeralds we needed to find or the dedicated stories we needed to tell to do so considering Eggman’s group is searching for them as well and it can be explained away that they’d likely find some already too. Most of these stories already have his Egg Army in the middle of trying to secure one and being pushed back by the Freedom Fighters at the same time. It’s a big world though. Him having the blue emerald is proof enough that he can lay his hands on one without coming into direct conflict with the Freedom Fighters. The only reason it was in their vicinity is because Eggman told Thunderbolt to keep it so he could use it as bait.

Anyway, I digress. I shouldn’t be harping on that anyway because the decision to do it this way allowed this arc to come into existence and it gave Thunderbolt the privilege of a proper introduction. With the bad always comes the good after all.

Sally says that Sonic, Amy, and Tails will be on the fighting roster as the Team Fighters for this arc. Literally a team of fighters in a tournament too. How cool. Even Tails is excited and says “Cool!” along with me.

Antoine, Bunnie, and Rotor look visibly upset by this but for different reasons. Bunnie thinks it’s because they failed to fight well back in the earlier mission, which is a little sad. Obviously Sally wouldn’t keep them off the roster because of a failure she was shown blaming her own shoddy leadership for back there. 

As an aside, I can’t help but notice we still haven’t gotten any meaningful reflection on her saying she screwed up last time. We probably won’t if I’m being honest with myself.

Oh well. That’s not really even what I want to focus on right now anyway.

Sally explains to Bunnie that the roster is all booked up and Breezie would only accept Sonic, Tails, and Amy specifically. Considering the size of the roster that ends up being in the tournament, I would actually say that she’s being VERY accommodating. 

Although, the real reason is that Breezie read the script and realized this was a Sonic the Fighters homage.

Rotor’s annoyed for a different reason. They’re trying to save the world so he doesn’t understand why they don’t just bum rush the place and take it.

In a regular video game narrative, I honestly wouldn’t have a problem with none of the characters bringing this up. Naturally, I want to see the tournament and if the game’s plot promised one and had the end goal be a stepping stone towards gathering the Chaos Emeralds it would provide a heavy enough incentive to just do the tournament and win the emerald.

However, because Rotor’s character has always pushed for the pragmatic solution over the emotional context of a situation, he’s pushing for just pulling a Rouge and stealing it.

Amy is against it because that’s stealing and Breezie’s not like Eggman (now, apparently) but Rotor stays firm that it doesn’t matter because it’s for the greater good.

Sally interjects, however, with a good argument and one that does often get overlooked by people thinking only in the short term. They can’t go acting like the villains or like they’re above the law because of the precedent it would set. Regardless of the state of the world, because it’s in that state, the people look towards them for hope now more than ever. They can’t go around acting like they’re above the law or that they can play judge, jury, and executioner all willy nilly.

Well, maybe they can a little bit seeing as how Sally’s a princess but, you know, she still tries to do it the right way. She says she offered to buy the Chaos Emerald off of Breezie but she wouldn’t sell. Sonic then brings up how she offered to pay the Chaotix and now Breezie for the sake of Chaos Emerald hunting and wonders if her father is okay with her dipping into the funds so often to scramble for these things.

Apparently, he’s… so-so on it.

This is my favorite Sally scene in all of Archie Sonic.

It took me by surprise and it’s very charming in a way that caught me off guard. 

Asking her father for money for stuff like this is apparently tantamount to her sauntering up to him for money to go to the mall with friends for the sake of totally not buying the new I-Phone. 

No dad. I promise. It’s for Chaos Emerald hunting. I-Phones cost way more than those, you know that.

Anyway, Tails does bring up a good point about Eggman’s chances at playing ball and on cue we cut to the egg-shaped overlord, so insanely angry that his eyes make another one of their rare appearances just for the explicit sake of showing off how furious this man is.

Holy shit! It’s the roulette from Sonic Heroes where we slid down in a circle and did a 2-Player battle on! That limo can fucking fly! It’s got jets on it!

Ahem.

Back to Eggman. The man’s threats are empty, according to Breezie, and this scene encapsulates something extremely interesting, the likes of which I want to see more of out of the Sonic series; villain power dynamics.

A lot of the time this comic employs villains in a way where if they don’t directly work under Eggman, they’re Eggman adjacent in a way that sees Eggman treating them similarly to Sonic and friends; as obstacles in his way or actively trying to kill him because they don’t like him.

This, however, feels a bit different. It’s giving me some serious Batman Arkham series vibes. The villains are still their own entities but they’re running their own operation that’s either clashing with or standing in direct opposition to the organization that the other villains have. 

It’s not just a situation where “This is Joker’s territory” and “This is the Penguin’s territory” though. Breezie and Eggman are trying to accomplish two completely different things and run their organizations in two completely different ways.

The clashing is still existent but in a way that allows for verbal mud slinging as opposed to just… I dunno, Ixis Naugus shows up and tries to murder the guy. 

Also, it’s just really cool witnessing Eggman sharing the planet with other villains that are also in power. It presents the idea that maybe Sonic’s planet has a thriving underworld and while Eggman may be at the top and the most dangerous threat out there, the rest of the people who occupy this darker space exist because they can hold their own and know their way around the doctor’s exploits.

In Breezie’s case, it’s just because she specifically hung with Eggman for a long time before she left. She laughs at his attempts to threaten her because of the situation that’s rendered his forces spread thin coupled with how beefy her own security is. She admonishes him for suggesting that he’d give up the chance to have her as a lucrative business partner and when he’s backed into a corner and forced to calm down enough to suggest paying her like the Hooligans, she says he doesn’t have enough.

The amount of money she’s going to make by putting on this show in the people’s time of crisis is worth more than he can offer her for a multitude of reasons. A one-time payment from Eggman, even if it does outstrip what she’ll make from the attendees, won’t benefit her in the long run compared to the goodwill her show will do for her own organization. If you give people a good reason to want to come back, they will and that’ll assuredly lead to more and more profit.

That’s why you don’t delete Infinity Train off your streaming service.

This whole time, she’s being led to a room where Scratch has called for her. Apparently a person on the fighting roster has been swapped out by a hacker. Breezie suggests he just change it back but Scratch figured she’d want to see who was slotted in first.

She does and decides that the person there now is a better fit.

Then she realizes she’s still on the phone with Eggman and hangs up.

This leads to a hilarious shot of Eggman, slumped in his seat, staring at the call end sign in front of him. He then starts to make a few more calls to scramble together a plan of action. 

God, Coconuts must have felt so fucking good when he hung up on Eggman. She couldn’t even bother to do it herself either. What a fantastic bitch. 

This is all brilliantly written so far. The fighting hasn’t even started and I’m already transfixed by what’s happening via this snappy set-up.

I love how Eggman is scrambling to put a plan of action together. All this calling all over the place and shouting and haggling for the sake of securing a single emerald. This isn’t even something directly tied to his Egg Army and it’s giving him such a workout.

I also like how Fang goes for the jugular on money negotiations here. Like, yeah, they’re doing a free gig for Eggman because they failed last time but he still has enough sway to loophole his way into some money and Eggman acquiesces. 

Seriously, I love this. I love that Eggman pays them for these jobs and even when he threatens them to do a free one for him because of a previous failure, Fang still has enough sway over his own machinations and business to demand recompense for any extra work and Eggman acknowledges it. It feels like an actual network of villains DEALING with each other. It feels so great. It’s insanely cool to read.

Metal Sonic is, of course, busy roughing up an NPC from Apotos, Gregorios. 

He’s about to literally stab his forked fingers through Gregorios’ face when his body starts to ring like a phone. Because this was, apparently, before the rule that only Neo Metal can talk came into play, Metal Sonic answers… himself and tells Eggman that he’s busy dealing with a person of interest concerning the Gaia Temples but Eggman just tells him to hurry towards where he points him next.

The arrival to Casino Park is a blast. Everything that happens here is perfect. Would not change a thing. Especially the part where Tails hands the keys to his recently built vehicle to a valay Egg Pawn.

 

It’s even more adorable that they’re all on guard because they’re surrounded by “Eggman” robots. They’ve all been re-purposed to work for Breezie though so it’s not like they’re in any real danger. I also just now noticed Wentos the Traveling Salesman with the Chao Puppet standing behind the Egg Pawn dressed as a Bunny girl dancer. 

Yes, this is a very strange universe but why would I have it any other way?

Also, I’m instantly jealous because of just how much free shit they have access to off the bat. My trip to Vegas last December was filled with money grubbing. Gambling isn’t worth it unless you’re one of those people that’s ready and willing to go big right off the bat and I just do not have it in me to put a $100 dollar bill into a machine on blind faith like that.

You may as well not even bother if you’re only comfortable using single bills like me. I made eleven bucks but lost about double that so I can’t realistically say it was worth it. 

A big single slice of Pizza in the hotel was about 10 bucks too. 

The sly talk between Sonic and Breezie is a marvel to read but when Breezie lays down the rules and Sonic lays down his single condition, she immediately refuses him.

However, because Sonic’s next course of action directly threatens the entertainment, something that Eggman wasn’t in a position to do, she breaks for the first time we’ve met her.

Look at that sly fucker, leveraging his “sickness” to get one over on Breezie. Her rapid attempt to snap back into that wonderfully marketable PR smile shows a flash of her anger as she says “WAIT” too. It’s a beautiful expression.

I love it when Sonic is genuinely cool in these books. It fucking rules.

Then, we get a chance to meet another surprise. It’s a character many have known about but one whose personality has literally not had a chance to shine in anything until this moment, Honey the Cat.

What direction did Ian take the reinvention of this particular character? Survey says, Fashion Designer.

Goddamn. So much stuff is happening. Okay. Fuck.

Honey the Cat is here now. She’s in the story. She’s competing in the tournament not to win the Chaos Emerald but to advertise her brand of clothing. Amy’s wearing her stuff too. It’s from “The Dream-Casters” line, which is a nice touch.

There’s so much to love about the way this union is treated. The cute little dance is one thing but what sells it is that both Sonic and Tails felt the need to applaud it, with Tails in particular looking more like he has no choice but to.

Despite Amy fangirling over Honey though, the best part is when Sonic puts his arm around Amy’s shoulders and she goes from excited to blushy. 

I didn’t even know that Sonic was that comfortable being so casually intimate with Amy at this point in time but there it is. He’s just hanging off her like an old close buddy. Either that or he wanted to snag her before the two of them went off to be lesbians together.

Honey as a character isn’t one I was clamoring for, not because I don’t like her but because I had no reason to clamor for her. I didn’t REALLY know who she was when this book came out aside from all the stuff I heard people speculate about her online. She appeared in Sonic the Fighters and nothing else really. Since those older games weren’t exactly exploding with story, getting a read on who she was as a person wasn’t something I could simply do by beating the shit out of her in Fighters’ story mode.

Descriptions certainly can’t do that. Those simply aren’t a replacement for getting to know someone through interactions amongst the main cast. Plus, it’s just so much more enriching and amusing seeing people with larger than life personalities bounce off one another.

I always feel like you can learn a lot about a person based on how they interact with Tails specifically. Check out her response to hearing that the Freedom Fighters are here on an important mission to recover the emerald.

“But ma’am, I’m basically a nudist” isn’t the kind of thing she’s going to take as a viable excuse.

Fair and balanced but quirky and outwardly selfish in a manner that doesn’t impede on her heroic character alignment feels right. She’s a good, smart person with a heavy business sense. Breezie but approachable and a smile that’s genuinely friendly.

But enough about her, check out Tails’ faces. My boy is getting the BEST faces this issue. Poor kid.

You can see at the bottom panel of the page, the Hooligans walking by. Fang freaks out and pushes the others back behind the slots so that they don’t get spotted.

Fang considers this more than just bad luck by this point. Running into the Chaotix and Knuckles was one thing but good lord. I like how Fang says that they save people for free and therefore must be here for the emerald when Bean tries to suggest they’re just here to play poker.

Bean then says this line.

Which, if you’ve played Team Sonic Racing, there’s a line in the casino stages where playing as Tails can net you a chance to hear a voice clip of Tails admitting that he was banned from the casino for counting cards.

Despite this comic’s age, I’m struggling to see this as a coincidence… but it also might be. 

Either that or everyone took one look at Tails and were collectively like, “Yeah, this fox fucker counts cards.”

AND THEY WERE RIGHT!

Speaking of the Chaotix, one of them is here. Enter Espio the Chameleon.

He’s here because he was also in Sonic the Fighters… I mean, he’s here on a mission.

That’s my boy.

Also, yes, they totally are. 

The only way to win at the slots is to not play them.

Turns out Espio’s the one who snuck someone onto the roster. It wasn’t himself that he put on it though. 

It’s our boy on a mission from God (of destruction) and the holy spirit (of Tikal), our rad red Knuckles… and CHIP!

Chip was being his adorable little self by bouncing around and taking in all the sights, sounds, and smells of the area before stopping to feel guilty about actually enjoying himself.

But Knuckle is a sweetheart. He doesn’t mind. He’s just after those Emerald shards.

I sure hope Espio told Knuckles he’s fighting in a tournament.

The stage is set. All the characters from Sonic the Fighters are here! Well, not all. One is on their way and Eggman can’t be unlocked in the comic version unfortunately. He appeared at least. All of them being here works appropriately for the story being told as well. Espio’s reasoning might be the flimsiest but it still works. It’s not like there isn’t a precedent for it that wasn’t established by the earlier arc and adventure they had with Knuckles. Knuckles is here, of course, because there are Emerald shards here but more importantly, even though he doesn’t seem to know it yet, Sonic is here and he needs to see him too. 

This first issue was a ton of fun though. There was a lot to cover. Almost too much to cover but this story is already pretty great. The drawings are excellent, the banter is hella fun, the premise is exciting; we’re here for a very good time.

 

[SanPolo4389]

And now here we get the issues where they're make-it-or-break-it for some fans as 267 has that part with Sally screwing up the plan where I remember some people complained harshly on the issue thinking Sally shouldn't be this dumb to get them all caught.

And also on 268 and maybe Champions as a whole since again I remember people complaining on how this felt like filler or a waste of time, and the art being very over the top and overly cartoony, and in the next issue complain about how Tails gets beaten very cheaply, (although I think that was from the same fan that was a big fan of Tails)

Also is it bad that I kinda forgot Boom even had a comic series besides it being part of Worlds Unite? (Clumsily mind you) 

On 8/28/2022 at 2:48 PM, Dr. Detective Mike said:

Tournaments are just loads of fun.

Well......unless your the Pokemon anime, which has people just complaining about everything in it.

[Kaotic Kanine]

Okay, now that I'm no longer dealing with the exhausting stress of clearing a house and moving to a new one, I can take my time with these dang posts. And to that end... 

On 8/28/2022 at 3:48 PM, Dr. Detective Mike said:

Then, Cream, who is observing what’s happening back on the ship, goes against the stupid as fuck orders for her not to be involved and rescues them with Big by her side.

“The mission is too dangerous for WHO, bitch?” - Cream the Rabbit, probably.

After this, I want Cream to give Sally a wedgie and demand she go to her room and think about what she’s done. Then I want her to proclaim herself the new leader and for everyone to just agree. Just do as she says from now on. Big will be her enforcer. It’ll work way better. I swear.

One could argue that the only reason Cream was in a position to do this is because Sally told her to stay on the ship but I would honestly argue back that they probably wouldn’t be in this situation nor would they need her to do this if she had just come along with Big at the start… ALONG with Team Freedom.

Like, if Team Freedom’s role wasn’t to actually do anything but stay on the ship and observe… then what’s the fucking point of that? Why be on the Sky Patrol for that? Why not at least be on the field and out of sight so that when the E-100s attack they can swoop in and take THEM by surprise? They can still observe things from a distance that way and make a difference before things get super bad. What’s the point of them being up in the Sky Patrol? That’s where you told Cream and Big to stay isn’t it? Cream and Big might as well have been on Team Freedom in that case.

Honestly, this whole exercise made me question the point of the Team Fighters and Team Freedom system for a bit. I doubled back on questioning it once I remembered how effective it was during the flood in Station Square of course. Having a team focused on fighting while another team focused on rescuing was a great utilization of that system but this is an entirely different situation.

There was no one to rescue (initially). Perhaps the plan for Team Freedom should have been to secure the Chaos Emerald once the fighting started. That at least would have made Sally’s plan to approach the goddamn thing and spring what should have been an obvious fucking trap something that made plausible sense.

You're speaking the absolute truth! I only wish I said something like this back when I was super vocal about Cream's writing in Archie. 

But yeah, there was just no sense to have Cream and Big stay put on Sky Patrol. If you're going to risk going at a blatant trap to nab a Chaos Emerald and your star player is out of commission, you need all hands on deck. And if Cream couldn't be a counter-ambusher, have her be emergency support OR take advantage of her small size and flightliness to take the Chaos Emerald without being noticed. At the very least, Cream would've gained the experience that she lacks (which I still call bullshit on seeing how the games are canon to this Reboot) and would give Sally less to worry about in future missions. Forcing her to stay safe on Sky Patrol accomplished nothing. 

Of course, I probably would've been fine with Cream being made to stay on Sky Patrol IF her rescuing the Freedom Fighters from certain doom was acknowledged by the other characters; maybe recognition that she knows her shit and isn't inexperienced, a praise for initiative, or even just a thank you. But instead, the story decided to focus on Sally crying and admonishing herself for leading everyone into a trap. Which, as you point out, was already done very recently! So Cream's rare moment of action and her development within the group's dynamic, got undermined and ignored respectively in favor of Sally going "woe is me" again. Great priority there, Ian, great fucking priority 

Anyway, looking forward to the rest of Champions. I admit, at the time, I wasn't really fond of that arc because it was an adaptation for Sonic the Fighters DURING the adaptation for Sonic Unleashed. It was like, imagine if the comic book decided to do an adaptation of Sonic Adventure 2 but did an adaptation of Sonic R happen in the middle of it. Even if that turned out great, would any SA2 fans have liked that? And while Champions wasn't a faithful adaptation of Sonic the Fighters, I felt it did a more "sincere job" for the game than the Shattered World Saga as a whole was doing for Unleashed. Like, Champions was written with love and care for Sonic the Fighters whereas Unleashed was adapted solely for a means to an end (quick world building) and not much more than that. But I realize that's my "Unleashed stan" overtaking my rationality and, well, I need to properly judge Champions by its own merits. And indeed, Part 1 was a great introduction: Honey's entrance was especially fun, getting to see Amy's fangirl side (which has become incredibly rare since 2011) and her teasing Tails about modeling for her clothes. 

[Kuzu]

We're finally at peak Sonic comics.

[Dr. Detective]

 

Archie Sonic the Hedgehog - Issue #269: Champions, Part Two: Climbing the Brackets

It’s just a shot of Sonic’s sweaty face but it’s a very good, highly detailed shot of Sonic’s sweaty face. Good job! Let’s get ready to rumble™.

Spoiler

 

Wrestling Entertainment Variant

It genuinely doesn’t look like Sonic saw this one coming. If I were him, I’d brace myself because the only thing in my future is a splat across the canvas. Eggman’s hulking frame isn’t to be taken lightly and as IDW taught us, that is indeed all muscle.

No seriously. Eggman knocking Sonic out in a wrestling match is something I need to see.

 

Writer: Ian Flynn
Pencils: Diana Skelly
Inks: Terry Austin
Colors: Gabriel Cassata
Letters: John Workman
Cover by Jamal Peppers, Terry Austin, and Gabriel Cassata
Wrestling Entertainment Variant Cover by T. Rex

The issue starts off with Silver Sonic of the Long Arm tribe trying to defeat Sonic.

It’s another Breezie flashback and this is the point in the story where she decides to reveal to Sonic for no reason that they keep getting ambushed because she’s been feeding Eggman information.

Sonic lets it spill that Tails has been kidnapped and Breezie doesn’t really care because she wants to live without worrying about being poor. So the robot is sent to attack him.

The flashback ends there with Breezie having been the one reflecting on it and remarking how good a hero Sonic has become since he managed to save Tails and foil Eggman. However, she also remarks that she’s still able to use him to her advantage and we’re given a shot of her drinking, laid back in a chair, overlooking Sonic fighting in her tournament on a screen in the background.

Talk about a power play.

Speaking of which, Sonic has defeated a certain special someone in a fight.

Even better than John Cena, it’s Segata Sanshiro.

He’s back and in Sonic comic form. 

I know he has a son now but I honestly just wish he survived his trip to the moon. Or maybe he did. 

Here, he’s lost to Sonic the Hedgehog, which he claims to feel no shame in but I dunno. I can’t help but think Segata was pulling his punches. Can’t embarrass SEGA’s mascot by unleashing all your concentrated awesome all at once after all.

Anyway, Amy gives him that lovely warning as he's soaking in all the praise and makes a delightful, smiling, “oh-shit” face before zipping off and transforming back into a werehog in the room.

This style is beyond wonderful. I wish to see it again in more and more Sonic stuff. The expressions are just magnificent. If there was any backlash to the artstyle when this book came out then I truly can’t express how wrong I feel that opinion is.

As an aside, I also like that Sonic unleashing the werehog is depicted sort of like holding in a big dump here. It’s not the most elegant way of describing it but that’s what it looks like.

Espio is hanging overhead Amy’s match, watching her demolish some guy rather easily. He’s recounting the people on their side. He’s not worried about Honey and Tails but has to look out for the Hooligans for obvious reasons.

Oh. Also, uh, he hasn’t told Knuckles that he’s in the tournament.

THAT’S NOT GONNA BE A PROBLEM IS IT?

We cut to Knuckles and see him confront a snobby rich bitch. Instead of having Chip eat the rich he instead just has him steal it for him. 

Literally, it gets stolen from under her nose. I guess the fat folds of her multiple chins hid the little guy pretty well. Or something.

Jewel Thief Chip is also something I’d like to see. Look at him hugging that shard. The rush must have been excellent. Either that or Knuckles has a real comfy head pat.

They do indeed confirm it’s a shard of the Master Emerald too which means that lying bitch from earlier probably did actually find it in her yard or something. I wonder if she’s the real riff raff. Plot twist motherfucker.

Chip gets excited when he sees that one of the fighters speaking on TV for the third match has two tails. Boy is it weird seeing Chip call out Tails for the first time and not knowing him. 

That thing of Chip offering everyone chocolate is actually really cute and I love that everyone accepts. Tails, Professor Pickle, the Chun-Nan guardian phoenix thing; it was cute.

Anyway, they get spotted by Scratch who stomps his way over to them. Apparently something called the “Celery maneuver” didn’t work but that’s okay because they need Knuckles to participate in the tournament.

Knuckles is confused but smart-boy Chip tells Knuckles to basically go along with it and they fist-pump their way to glory. That Chaos Emerald is as good as theirs.

Although, Knuckles is hesitant about gathering them since it’s basically him becoming a step closer to his island falling but the world needs saving so… eh.

The preamble leading up to the next match has a lot of interesting tidbits in it. The salesman guy from AoSTH seems to be announcing for the match and showcasing all the sponsors.

First he says that they’re in the heart of Empire City at Casino Park so… that’s like a two for one deal here. At first I was like “Why Empire City though?” before I remembered that this was the Unleashed arc. If Chip weren’t around I’d probably have forgotten.

He also says it’s brought to them in part by “The Meropis Tourism Board! Wherever THAT is…”

Meropis seems to not be having much success with tourism. Not too surprised seeing as how none of the Freedom Fighters had ever heard of it.

It’s also brought to them by HEXaco Energy, which is the name of the ecofriendly corporation powering those tubes and basically the entire city of Grand Metropolis and the Power Plant from Sonic Heroes. I had to look it up to confirm but when I saw the logo I knew immediately where this was from.

Looking it up did not yield the correct results though and that’s because it’s misspelled in the comics. It’s actually HEXAeco. It’s an eco friendly company so the “eco” at the end instead of just “co” makes sense and is also a lot more charming.

He also says it’s sponsored by Meteortech which is sadly now under new, non-evil management. 

Well, that’s no fun. It was probably a lot cooler under evil management. I also gotta say that the reminders that Eggman not only has parts of the world he isn’t running but also can apparently have companies seized from him are doing great to flesh things out.

They use state of the art KaibaCorp tech to generate a field for Honey and Tails to fight in and it’s a basically a boat on a river.

Tails is his humble self and Honey is just.. delightfully quirky.

… That’s a gut buster if there ever was one folks.

A bunch of spinning moves and kicks are delivered between them, with a nice little cut to the Freedom Fighters observing the match. Cream in particular is looking very tense about it.

Then a bomb is dropped, the likes of which would send certain Tails fans who aren’t me into a frenzy. Namely, the overprotective ones.

I love this scene.

It’s my favorite scene in all of Champions because it’s so unapologetically silly and kind of mean, but in a way that I appreciate a lot as a fan of Tails.

I do remember there being people who didn’t have that outlook on it though. What’s the point of having a character you like if they lose fights, especially to funny cheap tricks? Anya from Spy X Family can’t beat Goku in a fight so who cares about her character?

No, obviously, that’s just me purposefully trivializing the reaction. You’re free to be disappointed Tails was made a fool of and lost the fight if you wish. Considering how Champions pans out, the story is very much aware that it did this though and it’s not something that’s dropped by the narrative. Complaining that it happened without proper acknowledgement of that would be extremely dismissive in my opinion but we haven’t gotten there yet.

The real important thing is that I could never, for the life of me, figure out what it was Honey had distracted Tails with and also, for some reason, I never looked it up.

So I’m about to look up “Rogue Wave” in real time, for the first time, as I write this review.

OH!

I get it now!

After 10,000 years I’m FREE… of ignorance.

They’re on a boat and in a water themed area so she was pretending to point out a really cool, seismic wave. 

That makes a lot of sense and makes Tails’ action here seem less dumb and more childish, which is better. Especially since I was fine with it just being a moment where his brain derped.

I just thought a Rogue Wave was some sort of scientific phenomena that in no way could be happening here and just rolled with that as my headcanon. I didn’t think it was an actual ocean wave.

On the multiple choice selections for what a Rogue Wave is I imagine it looking like this.

A. Random Scientific Phenomena that you can imagine doesn’t make sense being here.
B. The Babylon Rogue, Wave the Swallow.
C. A variation on the Black Wave, Rouge’s attack from Sonic Adventure 2: Battle
D. A wave from the actual ocean.

I wouldn’t have picked D. all those years ago.

Also, if you’re pissed, don’t be. Tails is plenty pissed as well.

It’s always adorable whenever Tails gets genuinely pissed. But seeing him in distress in that last panel also kind of does wonders for me too.

I dunno. Maybe I just like seeing Tails have all the emotions.

I just like seeing Tails.

More Tails, please.

The next round is Espio Vs. Bean.

Espio is on a serious mission to help the heroes win because he was in Sonic the Fighters. His crew is watching from home to cheer him on. Charmy’s even got a cute little Espio flag.

Unfortunately, you can tell by Bean’s dialogue that he doesn’t seem to be taking Espio or this fight all that seriously… or so you might think.

As stated before, Bean’s a hard to read fucker. Him lumbering around the ring, pretending to not remember Espio, pretending to be tired and bored, and then just sticking his foot out to get a ring out on the increasingly bothered Espio just kind of floors ya.

It’s a disappointing end for Espio for anyone who bet on him. 

Like Vector maybe.

Also, Charmy broke the flag. Aww.

The next member of Team Hooligan is Bark and he’s up against Knuckles!

This next match is the first, actual, real heavy hitting match taking place and it grabs the attention of all the onlookers from across the globe tuning in.

That’s the great thing about this arc. I love that it cuts to all the people around the planet, taking a break to enjoy this thing, just like Breezie said. Not only does it sell the entertainment angle but it helps unify the world quite a bit, even when those watching are technically villains as well.

It also keeps her in the morally gray area by illustrating that despite her intentions she has a point.

Although, Thunderbolt doesn’t seem too happy about the slacking off but oh well.

Petty and pouty Tails is the best. There’s so much to love about this next page. 

First of all, it’s beyond adorable that Tails is literally pouting like a small child right now, with the puffed out cheeks and crossed arms and everything. Every word Amy is saying is making his head steam, which is the most relatable Tails has ever been for me right now. Instances of steamed hams heads go back quite a ways for me. I know exactly what Tails’ head feels like at this moment.

But also, the petty, almost evil smirk he gets when Honey informs Amy that she’s fighting Knuckles next is priceless. It’s genuinely really great.

I love it when Tails gets to be a kid. Not in that forced manner like in Lost World either. He has an actual reason to be upset and it’s cute rather than needlessly intrusive. There’s layers to this kind of thing. Lost World Tails being a bit of a brat would have been fine had they reached a proper equilibrium… oh and remembered to properly connect Tails’ anger with the correct thing he should have been angry at Sonic for. “Trusting Eggman more than him” wasn't the actual problem, Tails. It’s the “Rushing in too fast before you can offer him help” that should have been the source of your ire buddy. You literally had a single conversation with Eggman a cutscene ago and in it you said basically nothing to detract from the idea of Eggman joining you. The one crack you made at Eggman, Sonic backed you up on. 

But enough about that. I can and have gone on and on about Sonic Lost Potential multiple times. It really does frustrate me to no end because all the pieces were there but they were shoved in to the wrong spots like a toddler trying to force a jigsaw puzzle to work in the incorrect way. 

As an aside, I know that’s Honey’s phone but it always looked like a wallet to me. I’m not sure why either.

The last page of the issue is Fang sending in his warning call to Eggman.

He can’t say he didn’t warn him at this point.

We didn’t get to see Fang’s opponent but it was probably some rando so it doesn’t matter.

What’s important is that Metal Sonic is on his way and he’s most assuredly bringing the “Never Let it Go” music with him.

Champions has reached its second issue and it’s better than the first but still just as fun somehow. Maybe that didn’t make any sense but who cares? This is just a good goddamn story. Character interactions are all on point, the art, the expressions, the tone, and the atmosphere with all the wonderful references just feel like we’re marinating in high quality Sonic content. I live for that delicious lore and the world it’s baked into. 

Archie Sonic the Hedgehog - Issue #270: Champions, Part Three: Raising the Stakes

What a weird selection screen for abilities. I’m tempted to choose “Hammer” just to see what about that makes more sense than calling her an all-around type. Also, WHAT THE FUCK?! That thing says World’s Unite in 3 on it! We’re already this close to World’s Unite! Jesus…!

I knew it felt too soon back then but man, Archie really had no chill around this point in time huh…

Spoiler

Marvel at This Showdown Variant

I appreciate different styles but I don’t always like them. This is an example of a style that just isn’t for me, personally. It’s not bad. It looks better than a ton of early Archie stuff, for sure, but it feels a bit off for me still. Interesting that Chip is there too though. He looks kind of cute. Then again, that statement feels redundant considering it’s Chip. Also, I’m guessing it’s some sort of Marvel fighting thing. Maybe Marvel Vs. Capcom? I’m sure someone will tell me if it is.

—

Writer: Ian Flynn
Pencils: Diana Skelly
Inks: Terry Austin
Colors: Gabriel Cassata
Letters: John Workman
Cover by Jennifer Hernandez, Terry Austin, and Matt Herms
“Marvel at This Showdown” Variant Cover by Brent McCarthy

Fuck whoever’s idea it is to put the credits at the end. I know it’s not anyone in the credits above me so I feel fine saying that. 

We open on Eggman standing on the top of a building with Breezie overlooking Casino Park as it stands within Empire City. He says it’s “a city within a city” which is some neat world building. Admittedly, there is a part of me that does prefer Casino Park be its own city but when you take into consideration that Empire City basically acts as its own representation of an entire continent in Unleashed, it’s probably a lot more appropriate in a sense.

Like, I’d imagine Empire City is like the capitol or the main hub of that continent and the other cities around it would be areas like Central City, Casino Park, and Westopolis or whatever. Places like that.

For other areas, maybe Soleanna is off the coast of Spagonia, somewhere. 

It’s sometimes fun to headcanon a map of the world but it means nothing really. The point is that she’s got a neat city for her troubles. She’s grateful but she’s also not a fool. We can see the fishie ships in the sky overhead so it’s definitely true that Eggman’s forces have arrived but Breezie knows this isn’t Eggman.

“Eggman” freaks out at the accusation and tries to save face but she calls his bluff and he transforms into Neo Metal Sonic.

JUST LIKE IN HEROES! SILVER GOOP TRANSFORMATION AHOY!

People have taken this scene of her schmoozing with Metal Sonic as proof or at least a hint to the notion that Breezie is still a robot in this comic because apparently she also was in the show.

That’s interesting to think about considering she has, a couple of times now, talked about being brought up from nothing and being shown how to fend for herself. The notion that she was really poor and did what she could to work her way up into becoming a sleazy business tycoon is a fairly typical story but there is an air of genuine mystery to it.

I personally don’t entirely want to think too hard about it. The thing I care more about is how genuinely weird it is to see someone… hitting on Metal Sonic.

Like, that’s weird right?

I also like that he emphasizes the “Neo” in his name. I do like the look and feel of this form. It’s a nice thing to have in his back-pocket in case you need someone to represent the Eggman Empire when Eggman isn’t around. Then he can go back to being the silent killer at Eggman’s hip.

In fact, we know that Ian has a similar view on how it should utilized because he uses this to full effect at the start of IDW Sonic. Nothing here directly correlates to that series though. Like, yeah, he’s disguising himself as Eggman here but he’s literally only doing that because he did that in Heroes. 

I wonder if he only transforms into Eggman. Can he transform into Sonic? I wish someone would come out and confirm that he could. It would make that image of him running off with Chocola and Froggy that was in the paper in Amy’s hand make more sense. That HAS to be what happened though, right?

… Also, who was that lucky as hell photographer? Managed to snag a clean shot of “Sonic” as he was in the middle of kidnapping two woodland creatures. Holy shit dude. Is Attach from One Piece in Sonic Heroes or something?

We cut back inside where a fight with Bean and Fang is popping off, quite literally.

Tails is still moping about what happened. Again. EXACTLY like me. When I was done what I felt was an injustice, I would sit and mope about it until I was satisfied. Someone needed to come along and acknowledge my feelings and say that I was in the right or else it would be trapped in my memory forever. 

To this day, shitty things that happened in Elementary and Middle School just randomly pop up in my head. The same shit over and over again. “Hey, remember when this happened? You didn’t like when this happened eh?”

Yes brain. I didn’t. How about some happy memories instead? You’ve retained some of those right?

Thankfully, Sonic is a better person than most and the instant sympathy he has for Tails, with the adorable sad face he makes, is inspiring.

 
More pouty Tails. Aww.

Droopy sad ears! Aww!

Sonic’s face! AWWW!

There’s too much goddamn cuteness on this page. It’s making my heart explode. I’m dying two months before Frontiers. What a cruel twist of fate…!

I love how Tails’ caption is the only one that mentions he got eliminated. Granted, he’s the only one there with a caption that is currently eliminated but even when they give Espio his two pages later it just says “Chaotix Ninja” like it almost always does. It’s kind of funny, even though I know it’s there for the scene’s context.

What also needs to be factored in here is how Tails’ humiliation here was kind of… international. Like, he just got made a fool of and was beaten with a single uppercut in front of the whole world. I’m sorry but if that happened to me, especially at his age, it’d take a little more than a pep talk to get me back into the swing of things.

Complicating matters is that I'm the oldest of three kids so there wasn’t really a big brother figure I could look to for comfort like this. Like, I have my dad so I could have sought comfort from him and he would have gladly offered it in most cases but big brother scenarios like this are always sort of interesting to me because I often feel like it’d be nice to have it… but I kind of can’t.

Still, Sonic manages to get to the heart of the matter. People do know who Tails is. They know he’s Sonic’s right hand guy. The people he saved when Eggman said “Fuck it” and tried to nuke Station Square aren’t going to think he’s lame because he got a ring out in a random fight. If anything they were cheering him on and just as pissed at Honey for doing it.

It’s a nice equilibrium we’ve got going on here. Tails definitely isn’t fully over it. You can tell just by looking at him… but you can also tell that he’s a bit better. It’s appreciated.

I also like having his insecurities resurface like this. With Sonic being such a tough act to follow, it does put pressure on him to perform, whether Sonic means for it to or not. Sonic knows Tails is good enough but that’s not going to stop Tails from thinking he has to be better because Sonic is better. It’s a mentally taxing thing that I… really resonate with.

When did Tails get so relatable? Fuck man.

Anyway, Bean is fucking up his boss Fang. Like, he’s just not listening to the guy at all when he’s ordering him to take a dive. 

Bean’s doing his Bean thing. He’s a good fighter and because he’s a cartoon character he can backflip off a foot to Fang’s face, eat an apple from literally nowhere in mid-air, and land on his feet.

He makes a Mario reference. Says that he’s not sure where he is and that a plummer lied to him. Not entirely sure I get the joke. Is it like a Mario and Sonic Olympics joke because Bean is doing a bunch of gymnastics? 

Even stranger is how Fang gets pissed off at Breezie here.

His rage sends him into overdrive and he dynamic entrees Bean’s head off!

Not really but that hit looks fucking brutal. Like he snapped the guy’s neck.

Bean listened to him that time. Probably because he really did feel like just passing out at that moment. 

Still though, I’m not entirely sure what Fang was talking about. How was he set up? He got to use his blaster… unless he means the “special conditions just for you part”, in which case, yeah, she lied because Bean got to use his bombs. 

I guess he’s talking about the fact that he was paired up against Bean in general. I had assumed they were just going by brackets that I couldn’t see but apparently Breezie just decides who fights who based on what she feels like.

I originally typed out another paragraph wondering how this set up worked but then Espio just spells it out for me on the next page, thankfully.

So yeah, I can confirm in real time after reading the next page that Breezie is messing with the brackets. 

It makes complete sense. She pitted the Hooligans against each other because she’s a troll and thought it’d be funny.

Espio also isn’t happy about Bean’s elimination because he got yelled at by his boss.

There’s no money in Sonic’s world except for when it applies to Vector and he’s the only one ever expected to pay for shit.

It’s really funny seeing Espio get a dressing down from Vector like this. I do like the instances where we get to see that, yes, Vector is his boss. 

They also bring up that Espio managed to sneak Knuckles onto the roster but not Vector or Charmy. This prompts the conversation about Breezie messing with the brackets. Whoever was on the roster before must not have been as important a player as Knuckles. Plus, if Espio had gotten rid of one of the Hooligans, I think she probably would have just put them back on and gotten rid of someone else anyway.

Anyway, Amy and Knuckles fight next. They go to their respective ends of the generated battlefield and Amy has herself a little crisis. I recall something similar happening in Sonic X, though, this is brought upon by the mere thought of facing Sonic next after she beats Knuckles.

The order to fight is given and she’s still thinking about it in her head while Knuckles, looking like fucking Venom, hurls himself over top of her and just…  DEMOLISHES her.

You can hear the sound of a crashing jet engine as she and the slab she's on meteorites its way into the audience.

It’s such extreme overkill. It’s hilarious. The look on Knuckles’ face when Sonic and Tails give him that look as they plaster “Winner” over him is the best. 

Also, Razor is continuing to rake up money. The fucking Pufferfish King is losing money to this guy now. Damn.

… I honestly can’t get over how fucking funny Amy being launched on a slab of concrete into the crowd is. It’s so over the top for almost no reason but it’s just the kind of Knuckles shenanigans I like.

It's also another example of something I recall being complained about back in the day, though, purely by someone who has no sense of humor and took things too seriously and personally. 

I like Amy and Tails. Let bad stuff happen to them. Good God. It's fine.

Next we get this cute scene of Sonic visiting Amy in the infirmary.

Holy shit, I actually missed that final word bubble of Tails saying “Avenge Me!” at the bottom. For years I always just thought he was doing a silent fist salute at the sky. 

God, the dialogue, the expressions, all of this is just peak Archie Sonic. Every single page is a masterpiece to me at this point.

There probably was some bitching and moaning about how fast the fights may have seen or how easily some people were being taken out or whatever but this is a four part comic story. Stuff like that is going to happen. Maybe if this were a manga, you’d get that sort of thing but this structure works for what this is. It’s more focused on having fun than scratching any sort of Shonen battle itch… and to be honest, it doesn’t entirely fail at that either.

I actually really enjoy the short scuffle Sonic and Honey have when he goes out to face her. Though, she does it with the intention of losing. 

She talks about how she didn’t realize how serious this all was at the start and that’s fair. The importance of the Chaos Emeralds and how they’re tied specifically to what’s happening to the world RIGHT NOW isn’t public knowledge and Honey didn’t even really come for that. She came for self-promotion.

But now there’s fucking mercenaries on the roster, Eggman ships hovering over the goddamn city, and other shit. It’s completely understandable that she’s willing to throw the match.

She does agree with Sonic that they still gotta put on a good show though and tosses him onto his back in a move that catches him so off guard that his pre-battle smile doesn’t have time to wipe itself off his face.

The fight these two have rages on as we’re given shots of little commercial bits.

The announcer from AoSth is advertising Chao Cola, made from real Chao.

No, he doesn’t say that but dear lord imagine if he did.

There’s also an ad for Chao Boom, new episodes Saturday at 6AM.

Hah. Chao Boom. That show will be lucky to have two seasons with a time slot like that.

Honey tries that Hunter X Hunter afterimage move on Sonic but Sonic sees through it because she already used it on Tails and just yeets her into the sun.

She is transfixed by how cool he was at doing it though.

Oh my God, he kicked my ass so good!

Mmmm~!

Anyway, what happens next is just… just delightful.

Like, advertising is something that’s never charming in the moment. It’s always something that becomes charming when you look back on it, years down the line, when you're nostalgic for an older era.

Commercials were the worst when I was a kid but as I sit here pushing 30, I can’t help but hunger for a way to track down those old taped recordings of the Land Before Times movies and watch them, commercials and all. 

Being able to tape movies when they appeared on TV was the fucking best. Commercials being on them used to be an annoyance, something that couldn’t be handled and just had to be accepted but honestly, if I still had those tapes, those commercials would be far more valuable to me than the Land Before Time V probably. Especially for those old Cartoon Network bumpers.

Then there’s fake adverts. Always done well in most media. When there was a mod for a GTA game that tried to sell people on replacing “Sprunk” with ACTUAL “Sprite” that annoyed me. That’s realism gone too far. It’s charming seeing stuff like this instead.

Look at this bitch, just brazenly lying to the public like it ain’t no thang.

She sips champagne with the President (nice to finally see him by the way) and claims to have come from living in scraps outside of a box. It’s a promoted rags to riches story and one that a lot of people have contended with.

When Ian Flynn was asked about it on the Bumblekast in relation to the theory about Breezie being a robot, he didn’t give a direct answer but he did have himself a fun laugh at the idea that people actually believed the backstory that Breezie was advertising FOR HERSELF at her big corporate ad splash page thing. 

Like, robot or not, YEAH she’s lying. Of course she is.

The real kicker here is, of course, Sonic Man. He’s gotten a bit of a downgrade since Sonic 06 but there’s hardly anything anyone could do to match the concentrated awesomeness of Sonic Man. Sticking his arms out behind him and running like Sonic is also something I’m embarrassed I did. Even more embarrassing is the fact that other kids recognized that I was supposed to be Sonic. 

We’re still only at Chao in Space 3 though eh?

Anyway, Fang is watching this in the locker room and gets all pissed off about the lying. When will the lies stop!

He doesn’t know how he’s going to handle going up against Knuckles, especially since he doesn’t get his blaster this time. Bark pantomimes to Fang that he should just get into his head. Fang figures that’s a good idea since Knuckles is stupid.

Though, being a bit of a dummy doesn’t mean he’ll break from simple taunts. Fang goes out there and just starts throwing insult after insult at Knuckles about how much of a failure he is and how he’s dumb for letting the Master Emerald shards get lost again which… how does he know that?

Well, whatever. He knows that somehow and uses it to try and… I dunno. Make Knuckles cry? 

Whatever he thought he was doing, it didn't work. Knuckles grabs his tail and just shatters this man’s hopes and dreams and body and spirit… tenfold.

God, it's so brutal. Like damn. I know it's functioning on cartoon physics but everytime Knuckles beats someone it looks like it really fucking hurts.

Apparently Razor didn’t bet on Knuckles that time. Oh well. It’s not like he knows either of these people. Plus, he seems to only have lost a hoard of cookies. Would have been messed up if he was actually gambling real money with Pearly there but it’s cute that he’s still just as upset that he has to give up his treats.

We cut to Eggman who is lounging in a big bed with Orbot and Cubot with numerous soda cans, a bowl of popcorn, and pizza around him.

This looks like the most comfy thing ever. Aside from being fully clothed and the boots on the bed I guess.

I know “in bed with Orbot and Cubot” sounds suggestive and it is…

… Anyway, the sleepover is interrupted by Metal Sonic’s call. His E.T.A is one hour. He also calls up Bean and tells him to prepare for some heavy battle interruption nonsense.

With a smirk on his face, he speaks about how Breezie may have rode his coattails to success but that doesn’t mean she’s on his level and is ready to give her one last lesson.

As an aside, I do also appreciate that he makes a comment about how they can handle any job he gives them unless Sonic is involved. It really goes to show why he does bother with them still. Eggman really has no leg to stand on when it comes to that though. Sonic gives him a run for his money too.

The final match is happening. There is no change in the scenery this time. It’s just going to be pure Sonic Vs. Knuckles action with no distractions.

Except for maybe the pissed off sniper in the distance.

Maybe that’ll cause some problems. I dunno. Perhaps.

I’m impressed by the pacing of this story. We breezed through those fights but we still had multiple pages dedicated to each one, at least two each with multiple panels. Plus, the ones that weren’t just an all-out brawl had some really funny punchlines. Knuckles just demolished the competition here. Friend or foe, he doesn’t hold back. Sonic saying that he’s got a headcount of him defeating Knuckles is cute. I don’t think that’s true and Sonic knows it. Still though, it’s always great seeing them go at it. It’s rare but it’s always welcome.

 

Archie Sonic the Hedgehog - Issue #271: Champions, Finale: The One Left Standing

This isn’t the best cover of the bunch really. It’s delightfully chaotic, sure, but it’s a little hard to get a read on some of it. Knuckles’ mouth is weird too. Tails punching out Fang is one thing but Amy and Honey? The betrayal in Honey’s eyes is hilarious.  Bean is so crazy he’s got a different colored eye now. What else? Oh and World’s Unite in 2 is on the cover and it’s giving me anxiety. I don’t even hate World’s Unite either.

Spoiler

Arcade Variant 

This one is a pretty good one for these Rafa Knight covers. The colors look good. The idea is pretty neat. I like and appreciate the amount of detail. Also, is the idea here that the characters literally jump into the game? Sonic is the one standing by the machine but if he’s calling the next game then it means he’s not playing as either of them right now. That wouldn’t surprise me really; having a video game machine that can zap you into the box.

—

Writer: Ian Flynn
Pencils: Ryan Jampole and Diana Skelly
Inks: Terry Austin
Colors: Gabriel Cassata
Letters: John Workman
Cover by Tracy Yardley and Ben Hunzeker
Arcade Variant Cover by Rafa Knight

It’s an old tried and true classic matchup for the final round. It’s Sonic Vs. Knuckles once again. At one point in time, all roads lead to Sonic Vs. Knuckles. Then along came a Shadow and it was only some of the time for a bit before not much at all.

It didn’t completely disappear of course. Here’s an example of it at play. They even recount all the times this happened before.

Sonic then starts to wonder how Breezie managed to get her hands on a Chaos Emerald.

We flashback to two weeks ago where the answer is basically that it was just found. There’s two pages of really entertaining antics involving the AoSth characters but that’s basically what happened. Nothing special.

Still, it’s a really fun read. I love watching these guys go at it.

"Gentlemen?"

It’s kind of amazing to think about someone being the Queen of Global Entertainment. Like, apparently she just runs everything on the entertainment front. All streaming services lead back to her most likely. She owns XBOX, Playstation, and Nintendo maybe. She gets a cut when all the theater chains play any movie perhaps. 

Am I exaggerating? I do not know. That’s what it feels like though. She’s like several notches above Disney, which is hard to fathom.

Breezie knew what she was gonna do with the emerald as soon as she got it of course.

Eventually, Sonic’s intrigue also leads him to finally asking how and why Knuckles is even here. Knuckles explains and we get a really great Sonic moment out of it.

The transition from him making faces at Knuckles to him looking shocked and concerned is excellent. It’s a really powerful display of how good and heroic he is while not skimping on the fun part of his character.

It largely speaks for itself as a scene but I do have to share my appreciation for it. For some reason, I recall not valuing Sonic in the reboot all that much back when I first read this. Perhaps I was still too down on the Sky Patrol thing to really see that much difference in the way the characters were being handled or something. It’s all a blur. I’m sure it wasn’t for a good or fair reason though.

We get the two-page spread showcasing the big final match and all the wonderful reactions it entails. 

There’s quite a lot to talk about here.

The composition of this scene is brilliant, first and foremost. At the top are all the people watching it as it happens on sight, except for one notable person on the bottom page. The headliner of the fights, Breezie, is on the top left. Meanwhile, most of the people watching from home are on the bottom, literally bursting through the TV’s as they get into it, with the final one on the bottom right being Eggman, the other headliner of this situation.

Of course, in the middle we have Sonic and Knuckles fighting one another. One block and dodge for each of them and one successful hit from each of them.

Tails is into it so much that his eyes have transformed into the kind that Sonic usually has. No, but of course it’s a coloring error. The middle of his face is supposed to be his fur color not white like an eyeball. 

Amy looks like an animal. She was already on Sonic’s side but after what Knuckles did to her she probably wants him grinded to dust. Espio and Honey are enjoying themselves. Chip is so into the popcorn that he’s literally submerged within it. I bet it tastes phenomenal too. Not like that shit they got at Eggmanland.

Sally looks like she’s either blown more of her father’s money on a bet and can’t handle Sonic looking like he’s about to lose. Meanwhile, right next to her, Antoine’s waving a little Knuckles flag. That’s my boy. I’m rooting for Knuckles too, honestly, even though I like Sonic more. I just like seeing Sonic humbled.

Then we get the only image of a character that isn’t at home that was put on the bottom. She stands out, intentionally, not only because of this but because she’s someone we haven’t seen before. It’s pretty obvious that this is the missing Meropis princess that was talked about before. She’s traveling all over the place and managed to catch the event as it was happening. Incredible. I love it when you can literally see a plan coming together as it’s happening within the comic.

Also, rain is pouring out of her umbrella. Lovely. This may sound weird but I wouldn't mind having a rain umbrella.

Rouge’s image looks the weirdest to me. She’s bursting through the TV but looks like she has the least to lose here so her expression being mild just kind of makes this funny. Then my boy Vector is shown cradling those betting slips like they’re a child’s blankie. Finally Eggman is just vibing. You may recognize that Eggman image from the Motobug streams perhaps.

It’s a really great page, hampered only by that one minor coloring error I mentioned. 

We get a scene of Bean and Bark in the middle of executing the next phase of their back-up plan in another really cool and interesting scene showcasing Bean at work.

Sinister as hell and competent looks good on him. It’s also another example of him being extremely lucid and making sense. I keep bringing it up but I enjoy it too much not to comment on how good he is as this type of character. I truly don’t ever really know what to expect out of him.

My headcanon, by the way, is that this gum is the same type Vector uses to fill up with fire in Heroes.

So… what happens next is really interesting but also a little disappointing in a sense. Sort of.

Bean gives Fang the word that he’s done setting the bombs. On his mark he says to set them off. 

Fang says “Mark” and Bean says “Twain” as the bombs go off and the power goes out.

Fang then has Sonic and Knuckles in his sights at the same time but for some reason, impatient and rude as hell Metal Sonic just kind of throws him off the mark for no reason and zooms by Sonic and Knuckles, catching their attention, as he tries to go for the emerald in the safe.

It’s a needlessly self-destructive maneuver and I’m not sure why he did it like this. Fang had both Sonic and Knuckles in his sights and neither of their attention was on the enemies they were facing.

After this, Metal Sonic goes to the security door and bashes through the glass to steal the emerald. Because he alerted everyone he has to dodge Sonic, Knuckles, Espio, and Honey before bursting through the roof in an attempt to escape but–!

Thanks to Tails, presumably appearing out of his own hole in the roof somewhere off screen, he’s beaten back and the emerald is taken.

Sonic crawls out of the hole soon after to witness his buddy’s success, because, of course Tails succeeds in the way where it actually matters in the end.

I can’t imagine how good it must have felt delivering that stress ball kick to Metal Sonic.

A neat little thing is how all the characters in this issue get introduced with the yellow boxes in this section as they’re trying to stop Metal Sonic. It’s a neat way of doing it. 

But man… Eggman’s big gambit at the end there fucking wrecked itself at the last second. It seemed pretty solid one second but it got really derpy for like no reason just because Metal Sonic has no chill. They’d have been better off had he not done anything.

Tails gets his moment though. I’m so happy for him. His little arc here is complete.

In the Sonic universe there is a chance for happiness. 

It shouldn’t bother me but it kind of does bother me that the image of Eggman in those speech bubbles is the same but reversed. For some reason, knowing that Eiichiro Oda always re-draws everything just puts this unfair expectation in my head that every other comic should do it that way too. 

After this we get a scene of Honey and Breezie in her office. She’s signing on to do a brand deal where all of Breezie’s staff has to wear her clothing. She’s never designed for robots before, apparently.

It’s all hunky dory at first until Honey cuts the bullshit and outlines the very skeevy nonsense that just happened straight to Breezie’s face.

This is probably the most interesting conversation in the arc because you could honestly argue that the two people participating in it are weird reflections of each other. Honey is definitely not a villain, in any sense, but her actions and mannerisms kind of give off the vibe of someone who is like Breezie but way lighter in her frame of mind. 

The business part of her operation seems like it’s coming first in some spots and in others she’s got her eye on making sure the heroes save the world. It’s a neat balancing act. She’s virtuous without it sacrificing her business angle and that makes her unique.

Breezie on the other hand feels like the pure definition of Chaotic Neutral.

Eggman was NOT on her side at all in that final skirmish and she didn’t give a fuck. She still didn’t really try and do much about Eggman bursting past her security and Metal Sonic making off with her prize.

It didn’t matter because she knew the heroes would try to stop him and the show that was put on because of those actions was what garnered her attention. It’s her making full use of the conflict between good and evil to make a profit. 

Honestly, I couldn’t think of a better way to introduce and handle a character like this. Despite what Eggman said before about running the show she played him completely. There’s no way around it. 

Outside, standing by Sonic’s All-Stars Racing Transformed vehicle, we see the heroes waiting to head out. Knuckles has to be convinced to come with them to the Sky Patrol for a bit. He has a few things he needs to drop off with Sonic… like a godly spirit.

Yes, it’s finally time for Sonic to meet Chip.

It’s pretty funny.

It’s sad that it only feels slightly better than the first time Anakin and Obi-Wan meet.

Yeah, the stigma of Sonic Unleashed and the way Chip is handled when he first meets Sonic is always going to linger in my mind, naturally. It happening this late in the arc does feel sort of off and considering how little I recall there being left, the dynamic doesn’t have a ton of time to develop.

So, the focus is definitely going to be more on him just getting to know and forming connections with everyone instead. I recall that being a hard sell and leading to less than ideal results but it’s forgivable. The fact of the matter is, Ian was trying to juggle way too much stuff at once. 

This era of the book is filled to the brim with that. We’re about to get into the living embodiment of “TOO MUCH FOR YOU TO HANDLE” in a few weeks. 

It’s not entirely his fault of course. Penders really did leave him with a massive pile of shit in his lap… twice, for him to clean up. It’s astonishing that a man he’s never really properly interacted with could so successfully fuck with him like this and be so vindictive to him on Twitter for no reason for years after this book was no longer relevant.

On the flight home, in the plane version of Sonic’s car, that Tails is choosing to fly this time, we get a nice little scene of Chip being introduced to Mr. Monster Guy.

It’s interesting because he was introduced to Mr. Monster Guy first in the game. He was still just as scared though. 

Anyway, the last scene of this story is Sally being contacted by Gregarios. Apparently, Professor Pickle has officially outlived his usefulness to the narrative so this guy, one of the NPCs from Apotos, has all the answers Sonic needs to fix the world.

Again, weird decision but… 

Hmm…

Champions is over now and there was too much to talk about and too much to marvel at. That’s not a bad thing at all for someone simply reading and enjoying it but it was tough for me as someone trying to review it. However, I love this arc all the same. Every page was a marvel to look at. I had to hold myself back a lot from simply just pointing to every panel on every page and describing in detail why this particular drawing or this particular expression was so good. Honestly, the story and match-ups were all fun but what really makes this arc is Diana Skelly’s art. This book really would only be half as good as it is without it and it’s a shining example of how the comic book medium and visuals can be used to craft something ingenious.

It’s important to get that stuff down. You can’t just say “fuck it” when it comes to the way the characters look and express themselves. It doesn’t matter how good your story is, it’ll feel worse than it actually is if the characters look like shit. Everything has its function and purpose in the medium it was created for. Ace Attorney works because it knows how to utilize its portraits alongside its excellent music combined with expert timing to a masterful degree. It’s one of the reasons why stuff like Forces bothers me so much. Technically higher production doesn't equal a more professional looking or professional feeling product.

Different mediums have different ways of making themselves stand out so there’s no point in going into all that. Just know that it was done beautifully for this arc. Instead, it’s time to relax and look ahead to the future. It’s the start of September and yet Eggtoberfest is just over the horizon. 

[Kuzu]

Yes, that is a Marvel vs. Capcom reference. 

[SkyHorizon]

"Champions" in my opinion was the best Arc of the Reboot and surely a candidate as Top 5 Best Arcs Ever.

Sonic especially shines in it, I've always loved the way he immediately said to Knuckles: "Dude, do you want me to throw the match so you can get back search for the ME?". I mean... it's just perfect, if only his dialogues could be this perfect in games...

...oh, wait, Frontiers is coming!

[SanPolo4389]

19 hours ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

No, obviously, that’s just me purposefully trivializing the reaction. You’re free to be disappointed Tails was made a fool of and lost the fight if you wish.

Man oh man I remember people on DeviantArt (Specifically people that like Tails) being pissed at seeing him go down like that even if it was played for laughs and also on Honey for pulling that stunt because they seem too serious on the characters. 

19 hours ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

What else? Oh and World’s Unite in 2 is on the cover and it’s giving me anxiety. I don’t even hate World’s Unite either.

Don't worry you still got like an issue of STH, 3 issues of Boom, and an arc and an issue of SU until you get to Worlds Unite.

[Mega]

Something I think is really important when discussing game characters vs comic/cartoon characters is...

Not everyone got into Sonic with the games. My first exposure to Sonic was SatAM (which, admittedly, is also why I'm so critical of a lot of things Archie did with the SatAM characters in the early era- especially Sally and her dad).

I get that for younger Sonic fans who weren't brought up in the era where there were tons of alternate iterations of the character and story at once, it can be frustrating when all you know or what you prefer is the games, and this can apply to older fans, too, but I feel like if series like TMNT and Transformers and MLP and superhero comics can have alternate continuities and original casts in said continuities, it's fine in Sonic, and I'd rather see Sonic embrace that sorta thing than try to homogenize everything.

[Kuzu]

You're pretty late to the discussion. 

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Oh, fuck…we’re approaching Worlds Unite.

Because I totally wanted to be reminded of that shitty ass arc.

Eh, who knows? I might’ve softened my stance over it after all these years.

Doubtfully. But we’ll see.

[Kuzu]

I think this is the part when I just zoned out of the comics for a bit. 

[Dr. Detective]

Sonic Boom - Issue #5: Eggtoberfest!

Oh my God, Happy Eggtoberfest everybody! It’s a month early, but honestly, it’s as it should be. Halloween should be more than a month long. Two months minimum is what it deserves. Who’s with me? I mean come on. All people recognize September for is the time when you gotta go back to school. Back to school commercials used to make my stomach drop worse than some Halloween specials. Let’s have fun for longer than that. Spoopy Season ALL THE WAY!

Spoiler

X-Ray Variant 

I’m not entirely sure how someone can be too cool to be X-Ray’d but it does amuse me that Sonic would be made of literal, concentrated awesome. He’s got a jamming song in his head, a sword where his sharp quills are, a car and a skateboard in his feet, and rings to power his crotch. My boy is decked out. 

Currently these two covers are the best Sonic Boom covers in my opinion. 

—

Rotten by: Bill Freiberger
Percipled by: Steven Butler
Oinked by: Rick Bryant
Cholera-ist: Matt Herms
Loiter-er: Jack Morelli
OMG Ker-ver by: Patrick “Spaz” Spaziante
OMG X-Ray Variant Ker-ver by: Diana Skelly, Rick Bryant, & Matt Herms

So, during the process of getting acclimated to Sonic Boom, we initially had Ian Flynn starting out as the writer for these stories. Or at least the first four.

When news broke that the actual show writers were going to take a crack at writing for the comic, I recall there being some relief. The issues I read before weren’t super beloved and, in the case of the one where Knuckles and Amy were fighting, really hated. People thought that having someone who worked on the show handle this kind of Sonic series would work better.

Granted, it’s hard to push the blame for this directly onto Ian. The Boom series kind of came out of nowhere and blindsighted everyone with a backhand to the face. All of a sudden, the man is writing for three comics and it’s like… what?

He did eventually get used to writing for the Boom universe though. He ended up writing one of my favorite episodes of the show where Sonic and Tails make a bet and Tails is playing the role of Wil E. Coyote trying to catch Sonic the Road Runner. It’s a very lovely episode. I enjoyed seeing my little fox boy get so angry and frustrated with his failed traps like an adorable little Peridot. 

Issue 5 is usually where it seems most comics hit you with what they’re really about to be from here on in (more or less) so we’ve got Mr. Bill Freiberger acting as writer for the book today. A note in the comic very handedly tells us that he writes for the TV series, in case you didn’t know.

Our story begins with Eggman holding up a picture of a bridge and saying it’s for sale.

You have my attention.

Eggman is trying to sell his “Bridge to Nowhere” to somebody because he woke up with a burning desire to blow up a bridge. Specifically.

However, he realizes it would be stupid to blow up his own bridge so he wants to sell it so that he doesn’t have to worry about that nor any loss in money. 

It all checks out. Nothing deranged going on here.

Sonic is standing by, watching this, and explains to Eggman that no one is going to buy a bridge from him because he sucks and no one likes or trusts him.

Eggman disagrees and basically goes up to Comedy Chimp and says it’ll work on him because entertainers are notoriously bad with money.

It doesn’t work. He blows him off because he doesn’t trust Eggman… though he does say it sounds like a good investment. If it were anybody else he’d probably have gone for it.

Eggman sulks in his evil lair, wondering why people don’t like the evil man that randomly torments and attacks their village for no reason. He needs a plan to win back the good will of the people so that he can immediately take that good will away again.

Orbot hands him a book on how to be a good samaritan and Eggman yells at him that he should have given it to him at the top of the page.

Hijinks ensue.

I can see all these scenarios being things that would happen in a small neighborhood or a village but it’s actually tough imagining anyone helping a random person out by carrying their groceries home or helping an old lady cross the street where I live. I may have a faint memory of someone doing the groceries thing but in all my 29 years of living, I’ve never seen anyone help a random old lady cross the street. Maybe if the lady was their own grandma but…

Well, either way, Eggman tries to do all that stuff and is beaten with canes for his troubles. Now, of course, the first two are kind of overreactions, sort of. However, that last one with the baby was never going to work. 

Like, don’t go up to people and show them how much you love kids by randomly reaching to touch said stranger’s baby. 

Eggman is lying in the dirt, aching and in pain, as Sonic, who was watching all of that, gloats a bit more.

Eggman’s response is to get angry and shout for his minions to attack. We get two pages of Sonic, and his friends who arrive out of nowhere, just destroying robots.

As I was flipping through those pages I really came to understand that this was definitely one of the show writers. So often, to fill dead space, they’ll just have the heroes just beating on random assortments of Eggman robots with very little in the vein of proper choreography or even a real throughline. Sometimes it’ll have that if the story is centered around what’s happening in the fight, and that’s usually done well enough, but a lot of the time the fights are just robot smashing sequences.

That’s literally what this is here. When it’s done, Sonic looks over to try and gloat at Eggman again but the dude’s gone.

So, when he gets back to his lair he ponders what to do some more and Orbot reads from the book that bribing them with a party or a carnival might do the trick.

But Eggman needs a permit and he’s got to jump through hoops to get it.

I love that text box for the Mayor. 

Like, are they describing what a mayor is or just what Mayor Fink is? Because that’s his name. He has a name and the writer of the show didn’t use this character’s actual name so… it sort of reads like he’s just saying that a mayor is a low level bureaucrat… which is true, I guess.

Eggman’s got some impressive cardio to work through too. I appreciate that the hoops he jumps through look like giant rings. 

I can only assume he’s got shoes on loan from Alberto Robert. 

Anyway, Eggman has gotten his permit and he’s managed to successfully make Eggtoberfest a reality as well as this glorious two-page spread.

Yes, that is upside down Eggman in lederhosen.

Fun fact, this issue is called Eggtoberfest and yet it came out in March.

Have any of you played Spongebob Squarepants: Revenge of the Flying Dutchman? It was the very first video game I had ever owned.

Don’t play it. It’s not very good. Unless you want to immerse yourself in the haunting, quiet, scary atmosphere of that game. It’s successful at being extremely creepy and often in ways I don’t know if it intended to be.

The reason I ask is because the music playing in my head right now is Chum World. It’s the only location in the game, aside from the Dutchman’s Graveyard, that has its own music. For literally all the other locations, it plays the same track over and over again unless you change costumes.

Yeah, music changes are tied to just the costumes you wear and those only get unlocked as you progress and… there’s only 3 other costumes. One of which is almost functionally useless for anything other than a mission or two; a mission where after I beat it, I killed the guy who gave it to me for fun. Cause you can do that.

Chum World is basically just an evil carnival theme.

It starts out sort of unassuming with minor sinister undertones until it just gets randomly super sinister out of nowhere and quiets back down again.

That game loved doing shit like that. Just creeping you out at random.

The people here are enjoying it, kind of. One of the guys there even says that they unconditionally trust whoever made this place.

Then they get on the rides and the rides don’t start because Eggman forgot to hire ride operators.

So people IMMEDIATELY charge at him with torches and pitchforks, taken from the torches and pitchfork shop that Orbot set up in the carnival. He says in hindsight, he should have gone for a cuddly stuffed animal shop.

In order to fix this problem, he goes to Sonic’s friends and pleads with them to operate the rides for him.

They decide to go ahead and do it to keep watch over this whole thing.

I probably would have asked why he didn’t just build robots to operate the machines himself but I’m guessing our friend Bill just didn’t think of that.

Sonic and his friends working there goes… better than you’d expect it would, I suppose. Maybe?

The Knuckles joke was the best of the three here. 

Also, yes, I unironically would like fries with my fries.

With that done, Eggman seems to have this in the bag… he thinks.

Turns out, nope.

No one, and I do mean no one, is buying what the doc is selling.

When I saw this for the first time I remember being sort of impressed. I didn’t expect the book to actually make the villagers just cleanly aware of Eggman trying to doop them like this but it making sense that they wouldn’t is being used to good effect here.

It’s just them talking about how sad and desperate he is and how much he fucking smells like ass… while also taking advantage of him as he tries to take advantage of them.

Eggman has had enough of that shit.

Yeah, he just starts blastin’.

His robots blow up his own carnival and spew fire everywhere. Tails saves the walrus baby from the flying rocket ride and says “I got ya kid” before giggling in happiness at how he usually never gets to call anyone else “kid”.

Amy slams her hammer onto the hammer game thing and the bell flies off and destroys a robot above her. Knuckles’ fries get fried and he beats a robot down. Sticks surfs on a boat from the Eggman water ride to ram it into something and make it explode.

All that heroic junk happens and the heroes are celebrated once again for saving the day.

It’s such a mystery.

We end on Comedy Chimp coming up to Eggman, deciding to actually buy the bridge from the guy who just tried to blow everyone up. Apparently, he’s gotten over his distrust of Eggman now.

How? Why? I don’t know. I guess when he said “ATTACK!” and launched those missiles at the ferris wheel with actual children in them, he realized this was a man he could trust.

Eggman says the bridge isn’t for sale anymore and then we get this exchange.

An obvious and sloppy transition into the next story arc, you say?

Tune in next time on Sonic Boom for not just any race but a special race to see who’s the fastest!

Short, sweet, simple, and kind of fun. There actually is a notable difference between how Bill and Ian write for Boom. This issue was somehow way more wordier than the other ones I feel and yet, somehow, filled with a lot more open space for random bits of action. That’s kind of what the show is. A lot of amusing talking followed by random action. It’s serviceable usually. I like the show as just a thing to sometimes have on in the background. It’s mindless enough for it to work. 

What helps this issue out is more so its dorky atmosphere and the premise behind it. Eggman’s delusional nature is being played up in a way that presents him as cartoonishly deranged. In another series, him being confused as to why his actions aren’t being perceived as likable or peaceful would make him into another Yoshikage Kira from Diamond is Unbreakable. Here, he’s just an idiot. 

 

Sonic Universe - Issue #71: Spark of Life - Part 1 of 4

Back when this came out I deemed this probably the most forgettable, uneventful, uninteresting Sonic Universe arc I’d probably ever read. I didn’t have any intense feelings about it one way or the other. I just remember it being a thing that happened and nothing else. It focused on a relationship that I wasn’t super invested in and I don’t recall anything major happening that would have fixed that issue. Tails and Big are in it, so that’s good, but I also don’t remember them doing… anything. 

I don’t know. We’ll see. It sounds like I’m being really mean to this arc but truthfully, the level of ambivalence I feel towards it really is just that. I truly don’t have very many thoughts about it as I’m heading back into it but as I always say, this could be the result of me just having read the words but not having absorbed any of the information back in the day.

Spoiler

Web Lynx Variant

I like the colors of this variant. The 3-D modeling thing still isn’t my cup of tea though. Sorry. The image is really inspired from a visual flare standpoint though.

—

Plot: Ian Flynn
Script: Aleah Baker
Pencils: Tracy Yardley
Inks: Jim Amash
Colors: Matt Herms
Letters: Jack Morelli
Cover by: Tracy Yardley & Ben Hunzeker
Web Lynx Variant Cover by: Rafa Knight

So Ian came up with the plot and Aleah wrote the script eh? Sounds like an interesting turn of events. 

The story begins with everyone fighting off the Dark Gaia monsters at night. Rotor is telling them, as they’re fighting, to get the monsters off his ship and Sally appropriately responds by saying that they’re working on it, the prick.

We also see the outcome of Tails actually attempting to fight against the Gaia Monsters.

I mean, yeah, I figured that would happen but it’s the principle of the thing, you know?

Night terrors from the deep makes it sound like they’re all still coming from the ocean, actually.

Sally dives off the Sky Patrol to slice the monsters and free Tails. Tails saves her in turn and then the sun rises to kill them all.

Later, everyone is tired and Cream’s job to offer maid services fails to come in handy when she says she’ll go and make coffee and then… I dunno. I guess Rotor’s coffee machine eats her.

Man, I don’t know when a character saying that a joke is bad became cringier than simply telling a bad joke to me but it did. I wanted to tell whoever said that to fuck off.

It was Nicole, who pops out of her screen to tell Sally that what she did back there was reckless. The sun was about to come up so she should have let the Dark Gaia monsters chew on Tails for at least another minute so that they could disappear instead of yeeting herself off the ship. 

There’s an argument to be made somewhere in there but Nicole randomly disappears and calls out for a Dr. Ellidy as she goes.

After dramatically dropping her muffin, Sally then says that they ought to head to a place literally called Isolated Island to make sure Dr. Ellidy is safe. They know who this man is but haven’t seen or heard from him in a long time. Sally tells Tails and Big that they’re with her and as Cream holds a mop in the background she asks where Nicole went.

Nicole apparently went to the Digital World where the Digimon play. Rotor describes it as a very strange, mystical place that no one really created. It just kind of exists. Maybe it’s a cloud that connects all computer systems. Maybe it even predated computing in the first place.

That’s a very interesting idea. The idea that the digital world existed and the birth of computers merely gave people access to it. That’s a neat, far out concept.

In the Digital World, Nicole spots Dr. Ellidy being attacked by some creatures and saves him. He sees her shadow in the light of the area and is about to call her “Nic…” but when he sees her he finishes and says “Nicole.”

I recall little about this story but I do remember Dr. Ellidy and what I gleam to be the conflict with him so, I feel like the emphasis on the unfinished name and the bolded “Nicole” he says while tearing up means something. As in, Nicole wasn’t the one he wanted to see and it was out of disappointment when it turned out to be her.

On the flight there, with Sally and Big just sitting dangerously on the wings of the Tornado (I know Sonic does it but it still looks extra dangerous when some of the others do) Sally explains who Dr. Ellidy is.

Apparently he’s sort of Nicole’s father. Also, he used to be head researcher and developer of computer technology for the kingdom… and then did ring research that went into making those ring energy blades for Sally later on.

Like, way later on. He was only lead researcher and developer back when Sally was a kid. Some things happened and he basically retired.

Turns out, he’s the one who gave Nicole to Sally. Sally wanted to give her a name and the king suggested the name of a queen from the past before Dr. Ellidy had a heart attack trying to skirt around using a different name…

The ugly dull glaze of the old flashback ends and we’re back with Nicole and Ellidy as he tries to get out of the digital world. He says he was investigating a problem and thought he’d take the direct approach.

That didn’t go too well. Apparently, he’s worried about being dehydrated while stuck here too. I guess it’s not something you can tell when you’re in the Digital World.

Nicole helps him out and as she does he asks her about the form she’s taken.

"It can make choices for itself now can it? Oh ho…!"

Nicole opens up a digital wall and they rush through it.

Meanwhile, Sally’s group lands and they’re greeted by a Motobug that wishes to assist them. It keeps repeating this greeting before they do eventually decide to follow it after confirming that they wish to see Dr. Ellidy.

They’re unaware of why a Motobug is leading them to Dr. Ellidy or asking if they need assistance and it gets even weirder when they see his house, surrounded by obviously repurposed Eggman robots.

Then we see Dr. Ellidy’s real body and the dehydration angle makes more sense to me now. When they said his consciousness was uploaded to the Digital World I didn’t realize that was literally just his consciousness. He wakes up and scares the shit out of everyone.

Geez. I don’t know if those rings around his eyes are bags or if it’s just a thing that happens to his species when he gets older. He had some under his eyes when he was younger but they’re way bigger now. 

He thanks them for saving him. They say he should thank Nicole and say that it should be in person. Ironically, the guy who is now doing ring technology research doesn’t know what they mean so Tails sets up a ring on the DS and out comes Nicole’s body. She greets him like he’s a rival she hasn’t encountered in a long time or something, even though I know that’s not what she intended.

Dr. Ellidy might see it that way. He sits and talks about how everything around is real freaky and scary. He sent his repurposed badniks out to fight against the creepy Dark Gaia monsters that have been appearing all over the place and is confused as to why the water isn’t falling off the edge of the cracks in the world.

Nicole enters the room and she and Sally have a talk about it being magic and how they hate that explanation and blah blah blah. It’s fine. It’s a weird world with talking animals and God monsters. The world is a jigsaw puzzle now. It’s. Fine.

Anyway, as soon as Dr. Ellidy sees Nicole he’s immediately just like “A’ight. I’mma head out.”

Nicole asks if her being around is making the doctor feel distressed and Sally assures her that he’s just tired… which isn’t wrong, technically.

The two continue to talk in private about what happened. He went into the Digital World to fix whatever was messed up about his badniks lately and something trapped him there.

Even worse, whatever did probably, most likely, followed them back to this location through the digital world.

Wouldn’t you know it, it did.

Say hello to Phage.

I remember… not understanding what Phage was or what their deal is but I also recall being taken in by the design. Just a mask with a creepy black mass behind it. It’s cool.

Although, I literally just now noticed the weird grin in the black energy and I like it a lot less now. That’s not really necessary. It’s far creepier as just a black mass with a mask over it.

So far, no huge revelation or event has caused any meaningful shift in my perception of this arc but that’s fine. It’s the first issue and its purpose was to set up everything I already knew was going to be here. The four characters that are involved, who Dr. Ellidy is, the initial spark that hints towards his former relationship with Nicole, the idea behind this Digital World, and the reveal of the villain at the end are all expected things to see. 

Honestly, reading through that didn’t take a terribly long time despite how wordy it was. I don’t know if it was because there wasn’t much I wanted to talk about or because there wasn’t much to talk about in general. 

Sonic Universe - Issue #72: Spark of Life - Part 2 of 4

This is the best cover of the arc. It looks so pretty. I love me a good side-eye view of my heroes and the digital effect accompanying the bright colors sells the image so well.

Ah. This is really nice. I kind of just want to keep staring at it. 

Spoiler

Matchmaker Variant

Don’t play with fire like this. It’s not going to go well. Like seriously. Ian learned this the hard way. Do everyone a favor and just draw a curve from Sonic to Knuckles. 

Man, the Omega to Blaze thing leaves me speechless for some reason. I know why it’s there but it’s still so weird. STILL. 

—

Plot: Ian Flynn
Script: Aleah Baker
Pencils: Tracy Yardley
Inks: Jim Amash
Colors: Matt Herms
Letters: Jack Morelli
Cover by: Tracy Yardley, Jim Amash, & Ben Hunzeker
Matchmaker Variant Cover by: Jennifer Hernandez. Jim Amash, & Matt Herms

So this issue begins in a bit of an interesting manner. I had assumed that this development had happened at the end of the arc but it would appear my memory is more dubious of the events at play than I thought.

Dr. Ellidy is revealing to them his latest discovery, a Red Star Ring.

Sonic Colors has invaded the chat.

Nicole has no records of such a phenomenon. In this world of worlds, rings are just things that exist or appear out of lakes and shit. It would amaze me if there weren’t mysterious things like this all over the place.

Granted, there is also a part of me that does still find it a tad strange whenever gameplay element stuff ends up in the comics but I feel that’s only because the games don’t bother with it. If they did, obviously, I’d probably be just fine. 

I have a Red Star Ring toy that came with one of the Jakks figures so I guess it all works out. Big’s figure is coming soon. Sally, Nicole, and Dr. Ellidy, I’m afraid, will not bear witness to such a luxury. A part of me still holds out hope for the IDW cast though. It’s definitely very possible. Chaos 0 was on my list of long shots and it happened.

Anyway, Dr. Ellidy explains that the ring formed some couple of days after no activity from the Lake of Rings. It usually spits out a ring once a day but it went dormant and then after a short amount of time this thing popped out. The fact that it’s a natural phenomenon is so strange now, considering nature decided to make a star shape in the middle of it. It getting bigger and turning red, fine, but the pattern is interesting.

Though, I suppose nature does that often with a lot of other things too. Maybe it’s not that weird.

Big opens a server room thinking it’s a fridge. There’s a joke about how he didn’t know computers could go bad. That’s his contribution to the conversation.

Anyway, Sally gets it into her head that they could analyze the Red Star Ring and use it to help Nicole keep her form for longer. Using a regular ring does the trick but it uses up too much energy and it has so little in comparison.

As I’m reading this I’m remembering why I don’t remember any of this stuff or what this story was about. It really is, so far, a bunch of pseudo science mumbo jumbo detailing things about a thing that I don’t yet have a reason to care about.

The only interesting thing is Dr. Ellidy’s obvious reluctance to do much with Nicole. It’s fun observing his facial reactions and the ellipses he sometimes puts at the ends of his sentences. 

Anyway, he explains that he had a badnik monitoring the Lake of Rings since it’s gone dormant again and is likely making another Red Star Ring but the feed cut out even though his computer says it’s still online. So he went to check it out via the Digital World but that didn’t work out well. So, Tails offers to go fix it since it might be a malfunction on the badniks part. 

Nicole brings up that Dr. Ellidy was the victim of a targeted attack and he doesn’t deny it despite really wanting to. So… Sally and Big end up heading for the Lake of Rings and I guess Tails and Nicole stay behind to investigate the computer.

Well, either way, on the way there we get the perfect example as to why Big the Cat is best boy and why being a simpleton is sometimes for the good of the world.

Boy, what could she be talking about there…

We get another flashback and it deals with little Princess Sally asking Nicole a bunch of logic questions. Rosie comes up to her and says she’s got a lesson to do but Sally, being a little kid, is like “I don’t need lessons no more! I’ve got THE INTERNET!” or something.

So then Rosie asks her to do a tactical logic and morality puzzle on the spot and Nicole suggests something practical and straight-forward much like a computer would.

Sally freaks out about this answer and says she wants to save everyone. Nicole says “WELL TOUGH SHIT! LOGIC NOT FOUND BITCH!” and Rosie is all “I told ya soooo~!”

They hug it out and she apologizes, saying that she knows she’s not ready for tactical warfare which… is a nice thing to admit but man what a way to spring that on her. It’s not super endearing for her but it did make for a very interesting scene. Witnessing Nicole in her infancy be this way is one of the more fascinating things about her state of being in general.

Dr. Ellidy and Tails are having a discussion about her at the moment. He’s impressed with how far she’s come and Nicole joins in from her handheld while in the Digital World. She’s inspecting the place as they’re talking and Dr. Ellidy’s firewall seems fine but a hint of Phage sniffs her from behind or something and she goes tromping off to try and catch it.

Dr. Ellidy asks her if she remembers how she came to be.

Nicole says she remembers everything but… HOW she views those events are different now from when she was first activated. Understandable. She’s changed quite a bit. That’s not really too different of a concept similar to growing older and looking back on past events as the person you are now, though with Nicole, it’s probably a far more drastic change.

We get a scene of Dr. Ellidy activating Nicole and tearing up, thinking he achieved what he wanted with her but when he gets a generic, computer like response he just sulks. 

We also get another flashback from Nicole’s perspective about a time when Sally was crying in her room. She was there for her but not… in the same way she would be for her now. It’s a tad chilling, honestly. A bit… I dunno. It has an air of mysticism I guess.

Sally’s just crying in her room, in a thunderstorm, about all the hard things her friends are going through and even though Nicole is a tablet right now she’s genuinely thankful for her presence.

… Nicole just sits there with an ellipsis on her screen, either waiting for input or… contemplating a feeling…?

I like that it doesn’t tell us which. Nicole doesn’t respond. The scene ends here. It’s really well done.

Anyway, Big continues to be the best thing about this arc.

Despite the introspective scene with tablet Nicole from earlier, I still find myself far more intrigued by learning that Froggy gets jealous when Big leaves him behind.

Maybe that’s why Froggy hops off so often. He wants Big to follow and chase after him. What a sassy bitch.

Sally finds the downed Badnik that was overlooking the lake. It’s not destroyed but it’s not responding to anything either. Then Big points out the Red Star Ring in the lake and fishes it out. As soon as Sally is in the middle of saying how easy that was, the badnik wakes up and attacks her, now with glowing red eyes.

Big circles around and kicks the thing to bits. Sally proclaims that shit is freaky now. Whatever took over the system is definitely aggressive and it seems to want those Red Star Rings. We have an objective from the villain now, I guess.

Anyway, Big was promised by Sally that he could drive them back so he gets all excited to do it as they get back in.

I was already excited but I’m suddenly way more excited to get my Jakks Pacific Big figure, soon.

They drive back and it’s dark out now, pretty much.

Anyway, more talking. Tactically business like stuff. She tells Dr. Ellidy that they had to destroy the badnik. No progress was made on figuring out what’s wrong with the system. Tails lets out a yawn and that’s the signal to stop for the day.

Dr. Ellidy leads Tails and Big to some chairs he deems as really comfy. He doesn’t have a guest room. 

Oh really? No guest rooms on Isolated Island eh?

Despite being told that going outside is bad Sally goes outside anyway because… bad reception? I guess? 

She gets into contact with Rotor and they’re having a conversation somehow. I don’t know how since she can clearly hear and respond to Rotor but we can’t see or hear any of what Rotor is saying to her. It’s very strange. Maybe they wanted to save space on this page where nothing is really happening?

Sally just kind of stumbles towards a creepy dark hole and then Dr. Ellidy is all like “SNOOPINGAS USUAL I SEEE~!”

*Dr Ellidy acting very strangely* is here.

Yeah, so, I would say this issue was better than the last one by virtue of having more interesting, thought provoking scenes within it. There isn’t really an adventure happening right now. There’s not been any confrontation with any villains. The one thing that attacked got destroyed in a single hit and was just there to add to the mystery feel I … THINK the arc is going for. I think that’s what they’re attempting here.

I’d be okay with that but I don’t quite know if that’s true. They showed us Phage. We know what’s causing this problem. We can infer that it wants the Red Star Ring for power. WHAT Phage is isn’t a mystery it’s really invited us to ask just yet but I suppose that just comes with the territory of a new entity appearing within the book. I don't currently feel that mystery coupled with whatever Dr. Ellidy is feeling is quite enough to hold it up.

The stuff surrounding Nicole and Dr. Ellidy’s relationship is interesting but it’s surrounded by a lot of slow stuff so far. Even at the end of the issue they make a point of saying nothing was accomplished. Not really. They have a second Red Star Ring now I suppose. 

So far, my mind hasn’t changed. Even though I’m paying more attention and not just letting the words fly over my head here it’s not intrigued me enough to shift my thoughts out of the zone of just feeling like this was an arc that happened and little else. We’ll see though. 

 

[Dr. Detective]

 

Sonic Universe - Issue #73: Spark of Life - Part 3 of 4

Eliminate all threats! Is that the best a user can do? I will repair your data! Is that the best a user can do? Eliminate all threats! Insignificant user! *Gasps like he just ran a marathon*

Spoiler

Extreme BFFs Variant

I’m guessing the point of this one is to make it look like a crayon drawing a kid drew. I don’t quite know if they achieved that because this doesn’t look bad enough for a kid’s drawing. I’m guessing it’s more of an amateur artist drawing in high school kind of thing then. That seems like it fits better. I couldn’t imagine a kid being able to properly draw and proportion that air board Sally is on. That shit’s hard, even for me.

—

Plot: Ian Flynn
Script: Aleah Baker
Pencils: Tracy Yardley
Inks: Jim Amash
Colors: Matt Herms
Letters: Jack Morelli
Cover by: Tracy Yardley
Extreme BFFs Variant Cover by Agnes Garbowska

So… we begin with Dr. Ellidy and Sally right where we left off… only the thing that was uncovered by the darkness is in full view now.

Yikes.

God. I shouldn’t have responded with that. Everytime I say YIKES I think of Mr. Caffeine.

Mr. Caffeine. My love. Please come back. The world needs a different flavor of cringe these days.

Anyway, uh yeah, Dr. Ellidy’s daughter is dead and Nicole was supposed to save her. Seeing as how she’s still dead and Nicole isn’t, that plan must have gone wrong.

As this is happening, Nicole finally meets Phage. Here in issue 3, Phage graces us with a proper introduction as well. We can say her name now even though I’ve been saying it this whole time.

Nicole is considered to be an interesting specimen by Phage. Nicole is a digital program that made a body for herself to interact with the outside world. Nicole explains this and thinks Phage will see it as illogical but in a surprising twist, NO. Phage thinks it’s pretty dang swell.

Nicole asks Phage some questions next. 

She asks if Phage is the one who invaded the system, tried to kill Dr. Ellidy, and attacked her friends with that lone badnik.

Phage doesn’t deny doing any of that, answering her with a simple “Yes” each time. 

An honest machine is a good machine.

Well, most of the time. Nicole says that’s all she needs to hear to lock Phage inside a digital rectangle that says quarantine on it.

Phage bursts out of it in the next panel and hovers over Nicole, saying that what she did was cute. Adorable even.

Phage finds Nicole interesting but figures talking is too slow so they’re going to… invade her? I think?

We don’t see. Instead we cut back to Dr. Ellidy’s flashback as he explains to Sally what the hell his entire deal is.

He was working in the lab, late one night, when his eyes– no, I’m not doing that.

He was talking with Uncle Chuck about progress made on his Digitizer. Uncle Chuck is very concerned and Dr. Ellidy blows off his concerns because he actually is taking care of himself and just wants updates on things that can help his daughter. When Chuck reveals that his roboticizer project isn’t yielding any progress, that’s all she wrote.

So, he focused on the digitizer and tried to have his daughter Nikki live there but… it didn’t work. Nikki died and the artificial intelligence that was mapping her neural scans just became Nicole.

Sally’s got her answer for why Dr. Ellidy is all weird around Nicole, though, she takes a bit of a leap in assumptions which causes Dr. Ellidy to snap at her.

“Look, I’m sorry for your loss but you being all weird about your dead daughter around Nicole is hurting her feelings bro.”

It’s kind of strange… as a response? Just a little?

I can’t help but feel like Sally doesn’t ACTUALLY care about this and just wants him to stop feeling all off around Nicole… which, may or may not be the case but in either situation it’s a fairly unreasonable request. From what I can tell based on when he first saw Nicole’s body when Tails put that ring in the DS, he wasn’t aware she could just summon a physical form and walk around until just today. He seemed calm around her when they met in the Digital World so it didn’t seem like he harbored any hard feelings at the time.

However, I do understand that adjusting to seeing her walking around like that when she has what his daughter was supposed to have just out of the blue like that would rattle him. It hasn’t even been a day and he’s only voicing this now because of Dark Gaia’s voodoo magic making his feelings spill out.

What I’m getting at is that, even before this moment, there was little reason to assume Dr. Elidy was blaming Nicole for her death and as he points out, he wasn’t. That’s why he gave her to Sally instead of deleting her.

The Dark Gaia voodoo starts to affect them both now and they begin arguing. It’s a little funny though because Sally’s counter argument is still a little weak despite that. 

Sally knows what “Hurt” is. So does Sora. 

Sora does know hurt.

It’s just the level of hurting that’s being compared and contrasted here doesn’t exactly measure up. Like, yeah, Sally lost her father but her father came back. Nikki’s not coming back. That ends the actual argument right there because Sally can’t exactly respond with “Yes huh! Why didn’t you go to the ding dang daughter store and buy a new one?!”

Instead she’s seriously about to say “WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?” like a true royal before realizing that’s not something she usually says (unless you’re reading her dialogue from the early, early Archie days) and freaks out, realizing she’s being corrupted.

I kind of wish she hadn’t realized it and just went off on him like a pampered princess. “DO YOU KNOW WHO MY FATHER IS?!”

Instead, she grabs Dr. Ellidy by the hand and rushes inside to keep away from the monsters that are arriving. She wakes Tails and Big up and then hurries into the computer room with him before the door shuts them out.

They’re locked inside and the big reveal happens…!

Wait a minute… Dr. Eggman? HE WAS BEHIND THIS?!

I’m not that shocked but I also kinda am… sorta. 

It’s hard to explain. I remember Eggman contacting Phage at the end of the Unleashed arc because he needed their help on something but I was unaware Phage and Eggman were affiliated with one another at the time I read that.

Why? Because I completely glossed over this scene.

Yeah. I read this arc but I truly didn’t really READ this arc. 

The words were seen by my eyes but my brain just didn’t commit it to memory aside from the tidbits about Dr. Ellidy that I picked up. It’s strange because I remember actually being interested in Phage. You’d think that would mean I would have paid attention when they were explaining their deal but I guess not.

Phage has Nicole captive and is in control of the system. They’re going to use it to kill everyone, take the emeralds, and the Red Star Rings for Dr. Eggman. Sally is willing to give Phage the other stuff if they let Nicole go and Phage says No.

I love how Phage just gives straight yes or no answers. It’s great.

Dr. Ellidy suggests shutting down the system and Sally says that’ll destroy Nicole too. Dr. Ellidy doesn’t want to risk it but Sally refuses to give up so easily. We’re now at the part where Dr. Ellidy isn’t seeing value in Nicole’s life. This is the part where she can truly say she’s seeing something a bit more mean in the way Dr. Ellidy is viewing her. Before it was just a bunch of awkwardness which, at worse, could maybe be construed as a bit inhospitable.

Nicole says “Fuck this” and starts to fight back against Phage, giving Sally a quick warning. Sally says that Big and Tails need to head to the Lake of Rings to get the Chaos Emerald there. Big knows the way so guess what? He’s driving again! NOT TAILS!

JANE! STOP THIS CRAZY THING!

Geez. How did Big get into that thing? How’s he gonna get out?

Well, anyway, we have another flashback to when Sally and Nicole started building their relationship. Nicole formed her holo-lynx self when Sally was sleeping one night and Sally finds her, thinking she’s probably some kind of intruder.

She goes to confront her instead of being scared though and sees Nicole in her form as we know her today. She says she wants to see some stars so they head out to go look at some stars.

It’s a homage to that one story with Nicole where she first formed a body and wanted to do the same thing. It’s not as good in a single page, nor is it as affective without them actually seeing the stars on this page but it gets the point across, at least.

Phage is chasing after Nicole in the Digital World. Because Phage speaks in threes, they tell Nicole that it’s futile, pointless, hopeless and is better, faster, stronger than her.

Nicole then runs into a room of someone else’s memories before Phage Kool-Aid man’s their way through the wall.

Phage loves doing that. Just bursting down walls.

Anyway, back with Sally and Dr. Ellidy, Sally takes off her jacket to throw it over the camera watching them, I assume so that Phage can’t see them through it I guess, and decides that she’s going to use the digitizer to go in and help Nicole.

She hands Dr. Ellidy one of her blades so that he can defend himself if the door breaks down.

Dr. Ellidy tries to stop Sally from going and risking her life. His reasoning is that she’s a princess, which is… pretty weak as a reason considering all she’s done and all she continues to do.

Dr. Ellidy isn’t outright SAYING this but his behavior seems to be suggesting to her that he wants to use this as an excuse to not save her… which… probably isn’t the EXACT case but...

There’s no Dark Gaia smog making her say this now. That’s all Sally.

I recall being really mad at Sally back when I read this all those years ago. Seeing as how the dead daughter angle was the one facet to this thing I was paying attention to and feeling sympathy for, the reaction she had most definitely didn’t sit right with me. It just kind of felt like she didn’t give a fuck about his feelings because the feelings of her friend were being hurt which… is true… but not in a malicious way, if that makes sense?

Like, reading this now, I get it more. Dr. Ellidy isn’t SAYING that Nicole isn’t a person worth saving but to Sally he’s acting like it by prioritizing her life over Nicole’s instead of taking the chance that they BOTH could be saved instead. I do think Dr. Ellidy is being genuine with his concern for Sally but the dismissal of Nicole’s well being in this equation is setting her off. 

Which is understandable. I may not still like the fact that she snapped at the guy but when the person you’re talking to is resisting the notion of helping save another life it gets frustrating. His daughter died but Nicole dying would be just as bad because, like it or not, Nicole exists now and she IS a person.

… That said, there’s an itch in the back of my head that still FEELS like this is a little unfair. It’s not even because I believe Sally is wrong. I just said that she isn’t. I think I just feel really bad for Dr. Ellidy. That might just be the situation. In which case, yeah, I guess Sally blowing off how he feels about his dead daughter and yelling at him would make me upset with her regardless of how right or wrong she may have been. 

Sometimes emotions don’t run on logic. Oh well.

Either way, Sally gets her big damn hero moment. Phage is about to absorb Nicole but Sally cuts into the scene and, I guess, because she’s in there digitally through her mind, she has both her lazer wrist weapons and jacket again.

If it’s the Digital World and she can re-summon another lazer wrist thing then I guess maybe this place can have you summon other stuff too? Maybe? Worth a thought.

This final page could have looked cool but because of this issue’s dumbass decision to stick the credits at the end it’s cluttered with a shit ton of words. There’s so much goddamn clutter in these Archie books. Damn!

This was easily the best issue of this arc, hands down. With our villain finally directly active the situation is ramping up. Phage as a presence works really well and despite knowing they work for Eggman, the continued shroud of mystery they occupy sells their threat level really well too. However, the conversation between Dr. Ellidy and Sally are what truly sets it apart. This is where the heart of the story, for me, lies and it being juxtaposed with Nicole coming to life and witnessing images of a past life of someone she has no recollection of, offers a neat perspective. It’s not enough to keep me from saying that Big is the best part of the arc so far but this was genuinely good.

Sonic Universe - Issue #74: Spark of Life - Part 4 of 4

They were taking a really big risk with this Sonic Universe arc. This is the second best cover of the arc. Sally’s wrist blades just have a very neat glow to them and I’d imagine that for Sally fans it was awesome seeing her in a badass action pose on the cover of one of these issues. However, therein lies the heavy risk associated with this arc. 

It’s not about any of the game characters. Tails and Big are on the first two covers, at least, but that naturally doesn’t happen for these last two issues because they don’t really matter to this story. Ian Flynn talked about how Sonic Universe arcs were directed at the game cast because the game cast is ultimately what sells the book. Scourge got away with his arc because he’s the Evil Sonic. It can be excused. Sally isn’t obscure by any means but the pull she had in the 90s just isn’t what it used to be and it would seem the sales of this arc, between her and Nicole, ended up being proof of that. Sort of.

Some say it didn’t sell all that well because of who the focus was on and others say it was another “Girls are Icky” thing. I don’t know. I couldn’t tell you. I got the issues because I wanted all the Archie Sonic comics I could get my hands on to follow the story but I certainly wasn’t excited by the idea behind this arc and despite the last issue finally finding its footing for me, ultimately, I feel like what this will end up feeling like is an arc that had potential but didn’t do much other than happen for a lot of people. That’s a bit of a shame too. 

Spoiler

Tails Variant

As if illustrating the earlier point, here’s a variant focusing on Tails because… he’s a popular character that you all know and love and he’s here too. Yeah.

It’s just Tails’ Lost World render against the background of what looks like that one level from Sonic 4: Episode II. It’s been a while since we’ve had a variant cover this lazy. 

—

Plot: Ian Flynn
Script: Aleah Baker
Pencils: Tracy Yardley
Inks: Jim Amash
Colors: Matt Herms
Letters: Jack Morelli
Cover Art by Tracy Yardley, Jim Amash & Ben Hunzeker
Variant Cover provided by SEGA

So Phage is doing their weird talking in threes thing as they threaten Sally and Nicole. It sounds like it’s supposed to be sort of a joke but it’s only kind of funny if you think Phage just keeps throwing out synonyms of what their saying because they think Sally and Nicole are stupid.

Phage talks too much.

Instead of running, Nicole summons a weird tuning fork thing and uses it to stab Phage in the heart that they suddenly have. It’s wrapped up in the inky blackness that is their body.

Phage doesn’t like that, showing it’s weird growling mouth that ruins their aesthetic once again, and tries to kill them with glowing digital squares. I don’t actually know what Phage is doing here but it gets Sally to say that they need to get out of dodge. 

She says that Nicole should escape to her computer while she just gets out of the digitizer and then they’ll just delete this place and take Phage with it.

Instead of that, Nicole grabs Sally’s arm and drags her off. Why? We’ll find out after a brief interlude with Tails and Big.

They arrive at the lake and are immediately attacked. Not to fear though. Big is good at fishing so he nabs the Chaos Emerald.

Bad news though, their ride is a tasty treat for Dark Gaia Monsters.

Evidently they eat lead.

Back in the system, Nicole and Sally round a digital corner and start to argue a bit. Sally doesn’t get why Nicole had them run off together instead of splitting up. Nicole chastises Sally for putting herself into danger. Sally rants about how she told her to escape. Nicole is like “I tried fool, Phage wouldn’t let me” obviously.

Then she calms down and says she actually attacked Phage because she doesn’t want Sally to get hurt and the comic treats it like Nicole acted irrationally and is now learning a lesson about being human and blah blah blah.

Sure. I don’t really see it as anything all that nuanced, honestly. I don’t even agree that stabbing Phage and making off with Sally was an irrational move. Phage was already trying to kill them.

We also hear that the digitizer works by interpreting the system in a way your mind can understand. This is why Sally still has both her ring weapons but she can’t fly. Her mind doesn’t believe she should be able to. 

We don’t have the rest of the Neverland level for Sally to learn to fly off of Captain Hook’s plank so they gotta do something else.

They have this conversation where I’m clued into the fact that where they are right now, Dr. Ellidy’s system, is different from the Digital World, which confused me at first. I thought it was all the same thing but no. So Sally’s plan is to lure Phage out into the Digital World and then use the Knuckles’ Chaotix ring that she’s connected to Nicole with to yank herself back into Dr. Ellidy’s system and then use Nicole’s power to keep Phage out.

It’s kind of clever if only because of the way the rings are used. 

FOOOOOOLED YOU~!

Phage is REALLY fucking mad now, by the way.

Honestly, this part of the story feels pretty climactic despite it also, honestly, feeling like very little happened to get us to this point. 

However, Phage ranting like a lunatic as they try to burst their entire being through the doorway that Nicole is trying to close as we cut to all the players of the arc and how overwhelmed they are does sell the situation.

But man, what the fuck does THAT mean, Phage? Forgive you for what? You don’t care what happens to the physical world but you care about what Dr. Eggman thinks of you? Are you his daughter? Is that you M? Did you somehow survive both being deleted forever and a spatial dimensional distortion and come back as Phage?

What on Earth was the plan for Phage? 

Time is up for Dr. Ellidy though. The banging on the door is no more and the possessed badniks break in to attack him.

In a last ditch effort to save the day, he rushes over to Nicole D.S and links the Red Star Ring onto her instead of a regular one.

This transforms her into Overclocked Nicole.

And that’s it.

The big final push was closing a door on somebody but it was a fairly epic closing of the door on somebody, I must say.

The badniks return to normal and drive off the Dark Gaia monsters that Big and Tails were being overwhelmed by. All the others that were attacking Dr. Ellidy return to normal and are nice to him again. Sally gives Nicole a hug and says she saved them all even though Nicole is mostly just like, “I locked her out of the room. She’s still around…” 

Well, whatever. She apparently can’t come back any time soon for… some reason. I don’t actually know how this works. 

The next day, Tails is telling everyone that they’re going to meet up with Rotor in Apotos. This is honestly one of the few times where I feel like this whole comic thing with Sonic Unleashed would have worked better as a game rather than a comic.

As in, these stories where they’re going around the world feel like they’d work a lot better in a game you could play straight through rather than a month-long wait between a single issue of two different series. Like how each world in Kingdom Hearts has its own mini plot that is (allegedly) supposed to connect to the overall story. It’s weird how easy it is to forget that Sonic Unleashed is happening despite the Dark Gaia monsters literally being a plot point here.

Dr. Ellidy is having a chat with Sally. He feels a bit embarrassed that a Chaos Emerald was right under his nose and looks back on how obvious the explanation for the appearance of the Red Star Rings is now. That’s actually some neat lore. Put a Chaos Emerald in a lake of rings and it produces Red Star Rings instead. 

Also, we’ve got another Chaos Emerald. I’ve actually lost track of how many have been found at this point.

Dr. Ellidy tries to apologize for what was said the night before and Sally says that neither of them were in their right minds so he can forget about it. He does admit that he hasn’t been fair to Nicole though and Sally says he should tell her that but… he still needs time to think.

Sally and Nicole have a talk and Nicole reveals that she already knows about Dr. Ellidy and his daughter since she found a room with a bunch of old files in there. Sally keeps trying to play the mediator of Nicole’s feelings by telling her it isn’t her fault and junk but Nicole just lays out the facts that she exists because she scanned Nikki’s brain and wasn’t able to become her before she died. So instead she came into being as someone who knows thoughts and feelings and junk.

It’s an explanation for why Nicole is an A.I that was able to develop into their own being. As an explanation, it’s fine. I don’t know how other people view this. If people liked it better that Nicole was just an A.I that grew sentient by happenstance or because she scanned the brain of someone else doesn’t really affect me either way. It’s mostly negligible to me. I honestly care more about Phage then that at the moment.

Dr. Ellidy did say earlier that he needed more time before he could approach Nicole but right before they leave he shows up again to take the first step towards being more comfortable around her. Or at least thankful.

Nice, small, first step.

Glad he took it too because I’m pretty sure we don’t ever see him again after this.

With that, they take flight. Sally, oddly, asks Nicole if she wants to get the fuck back into her computer but she only does this so that Nicole can refuse her and say that she wants to feel the wind in her face.

The issue ends with them taking flight and Sally opening her mouth wide so that all the bugs can fly into it, the same way she told Big to close his mouth so that wouldn’t happen.

I guess we’re off to Apotos? Or perhaps somewhere else depending on where Sonic is now that he’s left the Champions arc. We’ll see.

How the fuck is the Tornado carrying that many people on its wings…?

So that was Spark of Life and, credit where it’s due, it does benefit from another once over. It’s not as boring as I remember it being if only because of the last two issues. However, even with that taken into account, it does still ultimately feel like a story that sort of just happened. I don’t quite know what I would have done to improve it. Its subject matter is founded on a fairly interesting concept and a re-working of Nicole’s origins, sure, but the story it has to tell is fairly basic to the point where the entire first issue of set-up and the entire second issue of… I guess more set-up, sort of, just kind of felt like meandering. The third issue is where all the drama is and the fourth is the conflict resolution, which was handled well, but it still feels like the lack of a stronger start hampered it overall. The setting isn’t especially interesting either. 

What saves this arc from being a complete wash is Dr. Ellidy and Phage for me. Thankfully, those are the two new introduced players that served to make the story function and thus provided it with some self-worth on some level but I think the lack of interest I have in following Sally and Nicole’s relationship is probably what really made this not work as well for me. A lot of this does rely on you caring about the two of them a whole bunch and I only mildly do. Sally I still can’t say I find to be all that interesting and Nicole is fine. She’s there and I don’t have a problem with her. That’s really it. 

It’s still “an arc that happened” in my head unfortunately but I don’t feel like it was necessarily a complete and total waste of my time either. That said, I’m totally going to forget it again the second I move on. I just know how I’m wired.

Again, it doesn’t seem like this one sold all that well and I don’t really think a lot of people talk about this one often either. I can see why but there’s… a spark of life here. Somewhere. A little bit.

Sonic Boom - Issue #6: Everybody’s Super Sonic Racing, Part One

An expected title for an issue like this, though, the joke on the cover doesn’t really make much sense. I think they’re trying to joke about how often comic companies like to put out a bunch of number 1’s on their front covers to make people think that they’re buying the first issue of a comic. That seems plausible. Archie does that later with Mega Drive and it’s very much not welcome. 

Goddamn. Again, there’s so many words on the covers. It’s cluttering everything up. The cover is structured like it’s been made a mess on purpose though. Everything is toppling over. I guess I appreciate that. 

Spoiler

Boom Crew Variant 

It’s just the cover of Rise of Lyric… but on the cover of a comic. 

I got nothing. Moving on.

—

High Speed Driver: Ian Flynn
Race Navigators: Ryan Jampole & Jennifer Hernandez
Pit Crew: Rick Bryant
Flag Waver: Matt Herms
Tire Rotator: Jack Morelli
Flashy Decal: Tracy Yardley, Rick Bryant, & Matt Herms
Other Flashy Decal: Provided by SEGA

The credits have gotten so outlandish that I legitimately can’t tell what they’re even supposed to be anymore.

Issue begins with Sonic being chased by a Cheetah robot. Apparently it’s been doing so for 20 miles. Sonic says this means Eggman has finally made a fast robot.

Since Metal Sonic exists in the Boom Universe, I call shenanigans. 

I can’t bring up all the robots he’s built that are fast enough to fly ahead of Sonic while he’s boosting towards them in boss battles because Boom doesn’t have a ton of those.

Well, anyway, Sonic trips over his own introduction box and is about to get got by the Cheetah robot when his friends save him.

He was really freaked out by that thing.

Anyway, I say his friends save him but not really. They show up to try and help but the robot stops and opens it’s maw instead. Out comes a hologram of Dr. Eggman and he openly challenges Sonic to a go-kart race.

He uses the usual method one would use to get a person like Sonic to agree to it, of course.

They all agree to participate… except Sticks.

She says that there’s no way she’s going to do it. Sonic tries to get her to join because it’ll be fun but Sticks makes a very good and a very obvious point that it’s likely an Eggman scheme.

Tails, for some fucking reason, says an incredibly fucking stupid thing and Sticks says the logical, smart thing in response, and everyone just looks at her like she’s the dumb one before heading off to prepare for the race the next day.

NONE of what she’s saying here is crazy or outlandish guys. What’s with those faces?!

Eggman builds things that look like that and has plans that do crazy shit like that all the time. Yeah, maybe there’s also an avenue where he just wants to race. He’s weird like that, but why act like the alternative isn’t possible and far more frequent? What even is the joke with Sticks anymore? Is it seriously that everyone else is crazy and stupid but she just acts like she is? That’d be a pretty clever one if I was certain that’s what they were going for.

Well, anyway, we get to the race and apparently…

...apparently Eggman was the one who provided all their go-karts…

…and Tails points out that he must have made them pretty quickly and asks if they’re structurally sound but then they just decide to race in them anyway.

Man, like… I get that Boom is a comedy but it’s asking me to swallow a lot of bullshit right now. It’s not like Eggman challenging them to a race and them accepting couldn’t be done. I believe the show actually does something like that later. I also remember these issues being the best of the Boom comics for me, personally. The race itself I remember just being a lot of fun.

But this set-up is so weirdly handled. Instead of dedicating a page to Sticks pointing out to the others that Eggman’s got a plan and making them look dumb by not only thinking she’s crazy but also gleefully riding in the karts that Eggman made for them, why not just have Tails make the karts and say that Eggman snuck to his place and sabotaged them while they were sleeping?

That would have made better use of those two pages in my opinion. It still would have been goofy but it wouldn’t have curdled the brain like this.

The other racers participating are Orbot, Cubot, a Mysterious Masked Bomb Racer, and Comedy Chimp.

The race starts and the sabotage begins.

I will be writing my reaction to what's happening as I was thinking about it in real-time. 

It’s weird how this is handled. It looks like Eggman installed these lights into their karts where they pop out and signal to something or initiate something…? I think?

Like, for Amy, it pops out a light while a bunch of adorable ducks are crossing the road in front of her. At first I wondered if she did it herself to light the way but we see that same light pop out when Tails’ downfall happens and it… leads to something else? I think?!

So yeah, Amy gets attacked by an army of rabid robot duckies.

Orbot and Cubot then attempt to run Tails off the road. They say that this is part of the plan but if Eggman sabotaged the karts I’m not sure why they’re bothering.

It doesn’t work. They end up fighting each other and exploding when they crash.

But then, Tails stops his kart to inspect it, thinking now that he should check under the hood to see if Eggman did anything to his kart now that Orbot and Cubot have attacked him.

This is where we see that light pop out again and it doesn’t seem to do anything… but then, it’s hand grabs the steering wheel and wheels it forward while Tails it looking under the hood. 

Does Tails not notice the light or does he not care? Or did he activate the light himself? Did Amy do it too? Were the ducks the sabotage and the light is just a regular fixture to the go-kart? If so, then it steering Tails’ car wouldn’t make sense…

These sabotages are a lot harder to figure out then I remember.

Thankfully, what Tails ends up doing fucks himself over in a really great way.

“I’m such a genius. WA HA HA HA oh no I’m dying actually.”

I do like moments of cocky Tails when they’re done right. It’s cute. Even better when it’s followed by immediate comeuppance.

Next we cut to Comedy Chimp who just… talks himself into crashing his go-kart.

Sure. 

That may as well happen.

Back with Eggman it gets revealed that what Sticks said is correct. I finally get some of this confusion cleared up to about the lights. Eggman says that what he’s doing is exactly what Sticks said he’d be doing. Literally, she’s right about everything, even the part where Eggman calls them his Who-Za-Ma-What’s-Its. 

Those lights aren’t lights at all. They’re scanners and they’re scanning the heroes and collecting their bio data for something called Project Hodge Podge. 

So those scanners aren’t being activated by them which means it’s just a thing popping over their heads and scanning them out in the open and they just… don’t notice or don’t care…?

Eggman yells at the bomb robot to do it’s part of the job next. 

It’s going towards Sonic, supposedly, but comes across Knuckles instead who tries to have a common courtesy chat with it.

It doesn’t talk to him and because it refuses to engage in conversation Knuckles decides the best course of action is to punch it in the face.

Man, Knuckles, if your response to someone refusing to engage with you in conversation is to punch their face off I don’t think you deserve common courtesy.

Anyway, Knuckles is out. Eggman comments on how that was meant for Sonic but oh well. He’s got another trick up his sleeve and it… works.

Sonic drives up to the bridge, notices everyone is gone with the cutest, saddest look on his face, before the robot planks on the bridge fold up and he drives his ass off of it.

Honestly, this was the smartest tactic I’ve ever seen Eggman in this series pull off.

When Sonic falls off the bridge, the planks re-align themselves properly and Eggman just drives on by, kicking back and relaxing.

So, shock horror, Sticks was right. Again.

Man. 

Anyway, Sonic is dying.

If the Boom franchise’s success could be summed up by a single image…

… This was a weird re-read for me. I remember really loving this issue because of all the wacky race elements to it and upon re-reading it, the things that ended up getting everyone taken out were all just as fun and as funny as I remember. That Tails scene is still probably the best scene in the entire book in my opinion. However, I didn’t recall the set-up being so odd. I’m glad what those lights were eventually got explained but even still, witnessing the characters being this stupid in the face of Eggman in order to make him look smart was a trip. Sticks being right yet again about her conspiracy theory stuff is also a tad annoying but what’s even worse is that it wasn’t even conspiracy theory stuff. It was just common sense. So very strange. I still ended up enjoying it but the set-up for this one definitely could have used a few more rounds of duct tape. 

Also, it looks like Bill isn’t writing for the comics anymore. Huh.

 

[SanPolo4389]

The one thing I remember from Sparks of Life isn’t even the story itself and more that I remember a guy on deviantart being very mad about this story of I think of Nicole’s new origin story (because he was a really big fan of Nicole) and just said he quit reading the Archie comics because they stopped being about the pre reboot and hated the reboot version entirely. And then later he kept hearing about the Archie stuff from others and kept complaining they were all terrible. 

[Dr. Detective]

6 hours ago, SanPolo4389 said:

The one thing I remember from Sparks of Life isn’t even the story itself and more that I remember a guy on deviantart being very mad about this story of I think of Nicole’s new origin story (because he was a really big fan of Nicole) and just said he quit reading the Archie comics because they stopped being about the pre reboot and hated the reboot version entirely. And then later he kept hearing about the Archie stuff from others and kept complaining they were all terrible. 

I mean, that sounds less "I hate this because it ruined the point behind a character's origin" and more "I hate this because it was different". 

It's nice that so far into the reboot they realized it was a reboot and stopped reading. They're about to get their wish though. Instead of rebooted Nicole there's just gonna be no Nicole.

[SanPolo4389]

39 minutes ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

I mean, that sounds less "I hate this because it ruined the point behind a character's origin" and more "I hate this because it was different". 

That’s basically what it felt like he was saying but didn’t want to admit it. 
Then wrote a list about the things he hated about the reboot most of which were of how he thinks the heroes are worfed and stupid because they made bad decisions. 

And also he knew about its cancellation and was glad about it. 

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

I swear, never ceases to amaze me how people get unnecessarily spiteful about the reboot.

And I say this as someone who never wanted it on record.

[Dr. Detective]

 

Archie Sonic the Hedgehog - Free Comic Book Day 2015

Okay, so there’s already a lot to talk about. Despite what it looks like, we’ve still got like six (maybe seven) more comics to cover before we’re ready to begin World’s Unite. This issue was released on Free Comic Book Day and as such doesn’t really, properly, line up with the exact time World’s Unite is technically ready to come out. We’ve still got a few Sonic stories to cover until then. However, it seems it was close enough that we were able to get a prelude to World’s Unite… and apparently another one later.

I have not read this. I haven’t read any of this or any of the upcoming digests. So this whole time there were things related to World’s Unite that I just… was not aware of. With a story that cluttered and in need of space to flesh itself out that would have been nice to know.

Secondly, however, finding a good version of this comic to read wasn’t exactly all that possible. Kind of. It looks alright but obviously no one cared as much about it as they did the preservation of the main issues of the book. Also, for some reason, the Mega Man story reads fine but the Sonic story, on both the sites I managed to find this thing, were uploaded with the pages upside down. I guess to keep with the comic’s accuracy but like… you can flip the book upside down in real life. It’s not meant to be read upside down… and backwards. 

Oh yeah, it’s uploaded upside down and backwards because, again, that’s how it was in the book. You’re supposed to be able to read it from both ends, which is why there’s a Sonic and a Mega Man cover that you can flip upside down. We’ve had an issue of the comic that was like this before but that other one was uploaded in a way where it was possible to read. I don’t know why it was done this way other than to be as lazy about it as possible.

So now in order to even read the Sonic portion, I need to grab the images from the bottom and flip them both vertical and horizontal as I read upwards. Fine. Let’s do this I guess.

Spoiler

Script: Ian Flynn
Pencils: Patrick Spaziante, Jonathan Hill, Powree, Ryan Jampole, and Jamal Peppers
Inks: Gary Martin, Patrick Spaziante, and Rick Bryant
Letters: John Workman and Jack Morelli
Colors: Matt Herms and Patrick Spaziante
Cover: Evan Stanley, Jamal Peppers, Gary Martin, and Ben Hunzeker

Mega Man - Worlds Unite Prelude: The World of Payne

We’re half a page in and already my reaction is–

What a line to begin your comic. With Mega Man stating who Xander Payne is and saying he’s like Dr. Wily but with a dash of extra crazy. I assume he’s not speaking to anyone in particular. If he is then… it’s a really weird way of talking, I gotta say.

Meanwhile, said crazy guy is in prison and he’s got a shiv and they’re like “Well, we’ll do something only when it’s too late” and they leave. I wanna chastise this moment but to be honest I don’t have a problem believing the prison system would allow it.

It’s so weird though. It’s a prelude to a huge story arc and I get the feeling we’re short on pages so the expository dialogue has to be shit like this.

“Stella, it’s time for you to get your GROOVE back… AGAIN!” *High Five*

It is always kind of funny when in fiction, after something has happened once, the characters will be like “AND NOW IT SHALL HAPPEN AGAIN!” when the tale is about… doing the same thing again.

The story of Xander Payne is being told by Mega Man. This is all stuff I literally didn’t know, at all. When I met Xander Payne in the crossover I just thought he was an interesting weirdo that was skulking around in the back with Eggman and Wily till the plot may have use of him… and it did in a very big, very sudden, very disappointing way.

Here, it all seems relatively interesting despite being simple. 

He was a soldier who was fighting off the Robot Masters. He met Mega Man when he beamed in to try and do the same but he didn’t wait and rushed in shouting “I’M A GENERAL! WEEEEE!” or something and almost got killed.

He wakes up to discover that he’s got a robotic eye now and that made him really bitter.

The natural reaction is to swear hatred against all technology and dedicate yourself to wiping all of it and its equivalents out, one by one! THEN we’ll murder every member of the Green Lantern Corp and take their rings! MWUHAHAHAHAHA!

He joined the Dark Legion Emerald Spears, an anti-technology extremist group, but the results they were after weren’t lining up with the methods he wanted to use.

See, Xander was okay with putting people in harms way to save them from the robot scourge. It was necessary for the betterment of humanity. They didn’t know what was best for them. Dying is good if it meant not dying to robots.

His boss is the teacher from South Park about it though and that pissed Mr. Payne off.

So he kicks the dude in the face and becomes the leader.

I don’t… think he’s dead but… he also looks kind of dead.

I’m certain he did more to him than just kick him in the face that we here at Archie central can’t show the audience.

Well, long story short, he becomes a drinker and a fiend and one night he goes off crazier than usual. He grabs the knife. Dr. Light didn’t like that. Not one bit. Then he comes at Mega Man with the knife.

WHY SO SERIOUS?! HE PUTS THE BLADE IN HIS MOUTH! 

LET’S PUT A SMILE ON THAT FACE!

Evil origin story. He’s large and in-charge and he’s got a scarf.

My man is nuttier than a Nut Goody at this point but he still, somehow, hasn’t gotten crazy enough yet.

So he takes it up a notch when he decides to use a time machine to go and stop the robot rebellion that’s totally happening.

However, he goes to the future and sees Mega Man X and starts screaming in his face about him being responsible for the robot uprising that happened and how everything is a lie and to rise up to fight the oppression and tin foil hats and lizard men and HERE COME THE MEN IN BLACK…!

 

Archie Sonic the Hedgehog - Worlds Unite Prelude: Sonic Comic Origins Presents: Into the Unknown

Yeah, that’s the best you were getting out of me when it came to that last story. 

He devolved into crazy rambling so I did the same. This one I might be able to follow a bit better.

Holy shit. Okay. So, remember when somebody said they were off to Apotos? I couldn’t actually remember when they visited it initially. Turns out it happens in Issue #272 right after this. 

That’s okay though because the visit to Apotos apparently starts here in a Free Comic Book Day issue!

Yeah, Sonic’s fighting Eggman in Apotos. It’s a traditional Sonic Vs. Eggman fight too. He’s in the Eggmobile and everything. It’s always neat whenever these two actually get to square off. It feels like Eggman’s just been stuck in that dark room for forever.

Even more shocking, THIS fucking happens!

HOW… THE FUCK…?!

IS THAT IBL– Oh, it’s the Ifrit. It’s a different “I” monster.

Still, I didn’t see that coming. I didn’t even know this happened before. I guess I understand why no one would have naturally brought it up in regular conversation. The Ifrit isn’t typically a thing most people just shoot the shit over but damn.

“Getting the FUCK out of here–!” - Dr. Eggman.

Sonic takes it upon himself to try and fight that thing. He at first says that he wishes Tails and the Tornado were still here but thinks that maybe it’ll be nice to be on his own… until he realizes that, nope, that’s a dumb thing he just thought. 

He desperately needs help and it arrives in the nick of time.

Our favorite boy with the pot leaf hair is about to smoke this fire creature alongside his friend who takes speed… into battle.

Silver threatens to feed Sonic to the Ifrit if he makes another time pun. Sonic does so. Silver does not feed him to the Ifrit.

Coward.

Anyway, Sonic asks why the villain from the Sonic Rivals series is here after they worked so hard to keep it in its dimension. Silver says it’s the SEGA Genesis’ fault.

I mean, the Genesis Portals.

That still sounds just as confusing to Sonic and Silver says he’ll explain later. The point is that they need to push it back into its hole.

So, Sonic leads it back to its hole. He escapes too.

Sonic’s been there before too. I only watched the cutscenes of the Rivals games and that was several years ago at this point. Like the Rush series, the details are lost on me.

Then Silver does the thing and then he does the other thing and the day is saved.

Sonic probably could have tanked that landing.

He just wanted to be held by Silver.

And who can blame him? He’s a delicious cinnamon roll.

So, after this happens we then get our much needed explanation. 

I… don’t remember if this was explained properly in the Silver Age comic that ends up happening later. I recall that arc being a little empty and full of mystery and set up for stuff that was supposed to happen later.

So if the proper explanation for the Genesis Portals actually does only fit in here then that’s a little… not fair. However, I doubt that’s the case. My mind most likely isn’t properly recalling things.

That said, this is a pretty succinct and clear explanation.

Meet Professor Von Schlemmer. 

When he was reintroduced into the Archie Sonic comic line, there was a lot of talk about him. On here, I recall someone going off about how bringing in these AoSth characters and re-designing them to fit with how the Modern Sonic comic looks was a bad thing, actually. You know, because it taints the original AoSth or some shit like that. 

The reasoning behind it I thought was stupid and I didn’t agree with it. The original Von Schlemmer would not work for this and the original designs of ALL the characters in AoSth, including Sonic, Tails, and Eggman are all wildly different as well.

If the argument was that they shouldn’t have brought them back at all if they were going to be re-worked and re-designed, I’m sorry but that’s fucking stupid too. I disagree. 

There’s merit in doing what you can to keep characters and concepts alive this way. It may not always be for the best but if there’s an avenue worth exploring, I say go for it. Absolutely nothing bad happened as a result of bringing this character in either.

The only bad thing that happened was him leaving as a result of the book’s cancellation.

Literally every time I went back through this thread’s earlier pages and read some of the ridiculous reactions to these new designs cropping up I couldn’t stop myself from somewhat bitterly and eagerly awaiting the part where they found out that the alternative was a cancelled fucking book.

The Archie that ALLOWED shit like this to happen was quite the unique thing. I may love and prefer the IDW comics more but I can at least recognize that this bygone era was something special in its own right. I may have taken it for granted and I may prefer the new comics we’re getting but I at least can look back on these now with a fresh, less bitter, less childish eye and appreciate them for what they are. I can only hope the people who bitched about the AoSth representation not being accurate enough realize that it was better for them to have the AoSth representation period.

As for me, the only thing from the old cartoons I want is a Modern Manic.

Maaaaaybe, a comic version of the Meterex Saga.

Anyway, as for the actual explanation itself, it’s pretty neat. The story is continuing to get mileage out of what happened at the end of World’s Collide. It’s essential to the continued story of the comics that everything that happened before the reboot DID in fact happen and I can’t help but appreciate the attempt to continue having it be that way.

Sonic thanks Silver for all his hard work and for keeping everyone safe. Silver laments about the dangers that could pop out of the Genesis Portals right as we cut to him having inadvertently created a danger that could pop out as a result of him talking about the Genesis Portals.

The government may be spying on you but Eggman does it better, goddammit.

So that’s it. That’s the a prelude to Worlds Unite. We’re not quite there yet, which makes this, as a prelude, feel more like set-up for an arc way down the line. I mean, it's not WAY down the line but still. That’s an interesting feeling. Not jumping right into it after reading this is a neat experience. This was also the first time I’ve read this and it was honestly a very fun time. The Xander Payne story was honestly a little hilarious, low key. The more it devolved into nonsense, the easier I found myself doing it too. The Sonic story was an interesting introduction to some story elements we’ll be confronting later. It really does amaze me, reading this, just how well Ian is at planning ahead. This reboot caught him way the fuck off guard and already we’ve got so much stuff he’s alluding too and a ton more that we just never got to see. While also doing a Mega Man book on the side. He’d probably deny this but he really is a rare and special kind of talented. My word.

Comparing him to Ken Penders, the man who put him in this position, feels like a sick joke. Honestly.

Sonic Super Digest - Issue #15

WHOA! Look at that! This is a really pretty cover. Sonic running through the Green Room like it’s nothing. Here’s another story that I haven’t read. They’re coming at me left and right at the moment. I found this one online too but it was very tiny. It was very hard to read. Plus, there’s very little content here so I might throw in a little something extra. Why not?—

Spoiler

Sonic Comic Origins: Castaway

Writer: Ian Flynn
Pencils: Adam Bryce Thomas
Inks: Rick Bryant
Colors: Matt Herms
Letters: Jack Morelli
Cover by Tyson Hesse

There’s not much to go on about with this one but what gets covered here kind of shocks me because it again stands as another example of something I wasn’t aware of that gives context to something I needed more context for.

Here it was, in a book that I’ve never read before that I’m just now reading a decade plus later.

This story begins with Sonic surfing with Razor.

The dialogue between the two makes it sound as though Sonic is taking a break from Gaia Temple hunting. I don’t know WHEN exactly this took place. Sonic said he was going to Apotos two issues ago so him coming back here to look for a temple was probably because Apotos was… on the way? I guess? 

I dunno.

I guess we can consider this a flashback.

So, yeah, Sonic is surfing and Razor apologies for not being able to help him find a temple here. The conversation naturally leads into why Razor doesn’t know the land well and we get his backstory.

He used to be a pirate until he grew a conscience and was kicked overboard.

He ended up drifting to the place where Coral and Pearly are and was healed. He realized that they were there alone and started to bond with her over that.

Then Mr. Captain Jump-to-Conclusions showed up and started to harass Razor upon meeting him. Granted, he had a compelling reason to at least pull him in for questioning but I can understand not wanting to trust authority figures like that.

It’s a short story so Dolphin lady showing up to be like “Actually it was resolved off-screen” is fine. The point wasn’t about the thief. It was about showing us that Coral is someone who genuinely cares for and looks out for Razor.

Upon listening to this story, Sonic’s got a shit-eating grin on his face. Platonic relationships don’t exist to him or anyone on the internet so he says “When’s the wedding” and Razor starts to vehemently deny it.

Sonic takes that as his cue to leave and it leaves us on a note that, yes, indeed, platonic relationships don’t exist.

They’re a myth.

I genuinely wasn’t aware that he might have had feelings for her. I may have even given the comic props for not going that route before but at the same time, I guess I don’t have an issue with it either. Let the side characters do what they will.

It does kind of floor me that having not read this story before, I was just left completely in the dark about this for literal years. Like, goddamn.

Anyway, that’s it. Not much to talk about here. The rest is an issue of Sonic Boom that I already covered. Then there’s the first issue of the Silver Age, which surprised me. Next is an issue of the main Sonic comic where we see Rotor confront Tundra but that isn’t something I’m going to cover yet. Then, shockingly, there’s an issue of Babylon Rising which is from the Pre-Reboot. It doesn’t involve any characters that aren’t allowed in the book anymore. The Babylon Rogues and the Battle Bird Armada are still around but it’s still shocking to see.

The last story is the third issue of Spark of Life, which we just covered. So that really is it.

So, instead of that I’m just going to continue treating this like a prelude to World’s Unite and use this extra space to talk about that Sonic Lost World comic they released that advertised itself as explaining stuff and instead explained nothing.

Archie Sonic the Hedgehog Halloween ComicFest 2013

Writer: Ian Flynn
Pencils: Ryan Jampole
Inks: Rick Bryant
Letters: Jack Morelli
Colors: Dustin Evans
Cover art provided by SEGA

Now, unlike the Sonic Super Digest we just covered, I actually OWN this book so I can actually, properly talk about it with a retrospective viewpoint.

The disappointment was palpable with this one.

You ever get a fleeting hope that something would be explained to you because something advertised it would and then just not deliver? “We have the answers for you right here” it said, dangling the issue in front of your face like a fish stuck to a hook.

It didn’t though. It sucked.

Sonic Lost World is a bit of an oddball in the franchise for me. It’s the definition of a Sonic game that I think about and genuinely, 100% feel completely okay about. I don’t have any strong feelings about it one way or the other. I played it and I recall having a better experience with it then Colors despite being perfectly okay with the idea that people would likely prefer Colors over it. The idea didn’t bother me. I didn’t like the game enough to defend it from that opinion. I genuinely do not care when people say they hate it and I don’t care when people say they love it.

There’s few games in the franchise where I can say that and not be on either side of the spectrum myself but this is one of them. It’s a game that I can play just fine and be like “Yeah. Okay.” 

Sonic Lost Potential feels more like the perfect fit because there’s a lot about that game’s setting and story that really had the makings for something cool and interesting. Colors had an interesting setting as well but both games do almost nothing with them and Lost World, despite having a more involved story, somehow has even less of an explanation for it’s story elements. We at least know what Eggman’s Interstellar Amusement Park is and why he built it. We don’t know what the fuck the Lost Hex is or who the Deadly Six are or what a Zeti is or why these Zeti in particular are evil monsters. 

I didn’t even find out that SEGA told Ian it was okay to flirt with the idea of introducing OTHER Zeti until he talked about it on the Bumblekast. There are OTHER Zeti?!

But despite that, I did end up more invested in Lost World’s story because the thing it had over Colors were actual story and character beats. Real ones that weren't immediately forgotten or ignored when they were introduced. The problem with those was that, in a vacuum, they’re all pretty solid. Individual cutscenes in Sonic Lost World are actually pretty excellent. I fucking love the scene where Sonic kicks the conch out of Eggman’s hand and the Zeti immediately try to kill Eggman. I love the scene where Zavok taunts Eggman and Eggman punches down the ice wall. I love almost all the scenes where the Zeti get introduced to Sonic individually. I literally quote the scene where Zavok charms Zeena into going after Sonic word for word sometimes, for like, no reason. You can hear the eye roll in his voice when he tells her that she seems to be taking her goddamn time, nevermind the fact that he actually does it.

I REALLY love the scene where Sonic meets Zavok and he tells him that they have Tails and they’re going to turn him into a robot. The music for that scene is great. So great they brought it back in Forces. Then it transitions into Dragon Dance with him taunting you across the sky as you rush after him to try and save Tails. Genuinely really good display of tension.

The PROBLEM is that these scenes only work individually.

You try to glue them together into a cohesive whole and it just does NOT work. 

The idea behind Eggman punching down the ice wall and saying he wants to strange some Zeti is awesome… but he never does it.

The idea behind Sonic being blamed for the Zeti revolt in that scene where he kicks the conch away is great… but instead, the narrative tries to blame him for “Trusting Eggman more than Tails” which literally did not happen.

The idea behind the threat of them turning Tails into a robot is cool as shit and then it just dies the instant we see Tails get out of it by using a toothpick because Zomom did something wildly OUT OF CHARACTER and left an unfinished sandwich on the desk in front of him!

I’ve never seen a story with so many good scenes SABOTAGE itself with a bunch of other scenes. It really is incredible.

I was hoping this comic would at least have been able to shed some light onto the proceedings but it doesn’t.

However, because it’s written by Ian Flynn, it does have some good bits of dialogue to it.

Keep in mind, this comic came out in 2013 and my dude is already making jokes about how “original” the Green Hill terrain is. We had no idea.

When I initially wrote this up, I thought this might be an example of a comic that the internet just doesn’t think exists. I’m lucky I have the issue and can read it properly because there was NOTHING on the net about this one folks. There isn’t even a Youtube video with the pages uploaded. The best I could find was one where it showed the first six pages but, I guess, when the comic came out and people realized it was mostly some bullshit people stopped caring.

There wasn't even anything online, again, aside from the previews.

I did eventually find a site that had the full comic… but the dialogue balloons were all in Spanish.

I was literally editing and revising this finished review and about to upload it when I gave it one last college try... and discovered that the comic WAS reprinted in something called a Sonic Super Special Magazine. The ninth issue, to be precise.

So, I gave that a shot and HOLY HERA, I fucking FOUND it!

Jesus Christ. I think I OWN one of these magazines despite not realizing they existed.

That’s fine though because there’s a point where it doesn’t matter anymore as the comic just devolves into the first cutscene of the game.

Like, it starts out as the first cutscene in the game where Sonic is telling Eggman to “DROP THE CRITTERS” which still sounds fucking weird. We then flashback to days ago where my man has landed on the Lost Hex, ready to pave it over.

He doesn’t explain what it is, just like my homeboy Tails refused to do so. We legitimately do not know. Pontac and Graff were given the reigns to write the story for this game instead of translate the dialogue like they did for Colors but I know there were still some things they couldn’t control. Like, they clarified that the Deadly Six were characters that SEGA wanted, not surprisingly. I’m guessing the Lost Hex was also something they wanted as well.

How much leeway they were given towards explaining what these things were, however, I do not know. I have to imagine, if they actually cared (which, let’s face it, they probably didn’t) they would have asked what these things are or if they could provide more clarification… but it didn’t really happen that way.

So instead we’ve got Eggman just waltzing onto the planet and immediately coming across my favorite Cherry-Flavored Beast, Zavok.

This doesn’t work.

Zavok dodges and then uses his powers to take control of the robots.

Eggman finds this fascinating, clearly not fazed. He then whips out the conch and uses it on Zavok which makes him relent.

Now… this next page was going to be the last one I showed you because I was all out of pages that I COULD show you, including this next one.

What I did here was something I’ve NEVER had to do before. I took one of the bigger pages with the language I can’t read and edited over it in English using the comic that I have in my hands as a base and manually replaced the dialogue.

Yes. Really.

The only dialogue balloon I didn’t replace was the one where Zavok says his name because… well, that’s his name. Can’t do anything about that, now can you? 

However, as I explained, literally right before I was about to upload this, I gave it one last search and FOUND the proper comic in all it's non-glory.

So I did that for no reason. Here's the actual page as it was in the book instead.

I just felt it necessary to show this page because the writing here is probably the best this book has to offer. Even with the base it’s working off of, Ian gets Eggman’s dialogue down so goddamn well. He really can spin almost anything to his favor. It’s incredibly fun writing for Eggman and you can tell he’s very much indulging in that fun here.

So, despite having found bigger images that I can type words into the balloons for… I’m not going to. The rest of this book doesn’t have much that’s as worth showing as the page above me.

We see a reenactment of the scene from the opening of Sonic Lost World BEFORE the opening cutscene of Lost World. You know, the one where the Zeti come down from the sky to scare and capture the Flickies for Eggman? That one.

As they do it, Zavok grumbles that it’s beneath them. Don’t know what to say dude. You’re doing it.

We cut to Sonic who is just running in the fields and notices that it’s real quiet. The animals are missing. He contacts Tails who is already with Amy and Knuckles and finishes Sonic’s thought for him when he’s about to bring it up.

Sonic rushes on over when Tails asks if he can be there in time. Sonic, of course, makes the joke about him asking HIM if he can be there fast enough but Tails says he doesn’t know how far away he is literally a second before Sonic scares the shit out of him by arriving with a blast of speed.

Sonic asks Amy to round up any more critters she can find. He then asks Knuckles if he can stay here and offer protection. Knuckles agrees to do so, which is a kind enough gesture, but it doesn’t explain why he’s even on the planet right now to begin with. 

Seriously, I still have no clue why they bothered to make a Knuckles model and got Travis Willingham to voice him in the game. I know he was also the voice of Zavok so it’s not like he was wasted but the decision to put Knuckles in the game had to have been made from jump. Was it just to shove a middle finger in the faces of anyone expecting him to be in character? It had to be purposefully vindictive right?

Well, anyway, Sonic and Tails rush off. Tails has Eggman-Specific radar which Sonic is surprised by. Tails says “After all we’ve been through?” and Sonic backs down.

That’s still a bit creepy but Tails watches Sonic shower and take bubble baths so… you know. He’s… a bit of an oddball. Most nerds are.

The rest of the comic is literally just the opening cutscene for the entire rest of it.

A couple of lines are added and that’s it.

After Tails says “That’s harsh!” when Eggman drops the capsule of flickies, Sonic gets an added line where he says “Tails, keep the plane steady… I have a plan!” and then he does the maneuver where he zips off the wing of the bi-plane to fail at grabbing the capsule.

I do like it better in the game that it’s something that Sonic just does though.

Another added line is after Cubot says “He must really love those things”. The line is changed to “Sonic must really love those things!” and when Eggman is annoyed by them zipping in front of them, he pushes them behind him and shouts “Front seat for evil geniuses only!”

Which really just does not need to be there. I get that he probably wanted to add some more flavor to this scene but, honestly, this opening scene is fine as is in my opinion. I would have added in a line where Tails explains what the fuck the Lost Hex is but he can’t do that so…

It doesn't help that the art is just really bad in that last panel. 

Instead Eggman fires on the wing with his awesome looking laser gun and they land on the Lost Hex.

There is one last page where the dialogue changes that lends itself better to existing however. It’s just a bunch of sentences that clarify that the capsule will likely be fine, something the game sort of glossed over a tiny bit. We presumably find it at the end of the first level of the game but it’s never outright clarified. If it is the same capsule, it’s one of the few bits of gameplay story integration that game does.

Sonic says not to lose that capsule and that they’ll catch up to where it lands. Tails says that’s right because they’re sturdy enough and maybe the animals inside will be okay.

Either that or when you open up the capsule, animal soup will pour out of it. But hey, if it worked for Indiana Jones...

Then they fly to the Lost Hex. Tails says “That must be the Lost Hex!” but they took out the part where he says “Cool!” in this comic.

Wonder why.

Anyway, that’s it.

It explained jack shit. It just showed you how the Eggman takeover happened utilizing things about the game that we already see in-game.

Riveting.

I love that the ad at the back of the book says "New and improved color powers" and it shows the rhythm wisp.

I actually loved using the rhythm wisp. The music was nice and all I had to do was tap the screen. Simple. 

It made no sense but whatever. At least it wasn't the fucking rocket wisp back when they forced us to use motion controls before that was patched out. Remember that?

Finding the images for these last two comic reviews was a chore. Holy shit. The internet may not be the preservation hub that people make it out to be. I was REALLY shocked by how impossible it was to find the Lost World comic at first. The thing could not be found in English, at least not in full. I got lucky at the very last second. If my eyes didn't happen upon one of the search results mentioning a Sonic Super Special Magazine then I was fucked as far as having images to show. Thank God, I actually own the comic. Jesus.

It’ll be a nice little bit of history that I own I guess. As a comic it’s functionally useless. The art is mostly fine but isn't all that great and the part of the story it shows us doesn’t do anything. It barely functions as a prequel because half of it is taken up by what is literally just the opening cutscene and the stuff before it was all mostly assumed. Were it not for Eggman’s dialogue it wouldn’t even be worth showcasing. As for the Digest, it was a cute story. It probably would have been better served at the tail end of a proper Archie Sonic issue but I guess people need a little extra something to pick the Digests up. I still don’t quite know what the point of them is though. Reading something in a trade, in order, feels like it would be worth selling then just a random assortment of stories. 

That was indeed the strangest thing I had ever done. I hope I never come across a situation like that again.

Sonic Boom - Issue # 7: Everybody’s Super Sonic Racing - Part 2

Okay, phew, I can get back to something a little more normal. It’s time for part two of the epic race saga of Sonic Boom. World’s Unite in 1 is on the cover. God, we’re literally licking the soft underbelly of that second crossover. 

Gross, I know. I try.

Spoiler

Insubordination Variant

This is an excellent variant. I’d get this one in a heartbeat. Both these covers being ones with dialogue on them works a lot better for something like Sonic Boom. It also helps that this one feels a bit more inspired than the one with Eclipse on the Master Emerald. The art being so rugged and intense sells the joke a lot too. Really nice set we have here.

—

Sky-Writer: Ian Flynn
Riding Close to the Bottom: Ryan Jampole and Jennifer Hernandez
Blacking Out: Rick Bryant
Feeling the Colors of the Wind: Matt Herms
Writing His Last Will: Jack Morelli
Hopes They’re Covered: Jamal Peppers, Rick Bryant, and Matt Herms
Additional Coverage: Erik Ly
Bungee Cord Specialist: Jonathan H. Gray

As crazy as these credits get, I’m at least grateful to understand what positions people are supposed to be in this go around.

Anyway, last time, Sonic was about to die.

He tries to save himself via the title card but the floating yellow paper that appears in mid-air in the comic version of this world isn’t enough to do it. Tails is though.

I love that the momentum of the sudden stop made him smash his forehead on the steering wheel. Nice touch.

So Tails whisks Sonic to safety where his cart lands in the laser tether provided by Amy and Knuckles and then hits the grass safely.

Sonic is surprised they’re here so fast but Knuckles isn’t because in real time, they had an entire month.

Sonic calls it “Release Schedule Humor” though so it didn’t actually take them a month. If it had, that would mean Sonic had been falling for an entire month and he’d have been dead before he even hit the ground.

Amy asks if they can stop breaking the fourth wall, seemingly as exasperated about how many of her hammers they’ve taken to that thing as I am.

Dear old Bill really did only write ONE issue of this book eh? Man, what was with all the fuss about getting the guys from the show on this book then? I remember people making a big deal about that. Looking back on things in retrospect is often very amusing.

Tails says that Eggman rigged the race and also says that they should have seen it coming. Him pointing that out doesn’t really soften the blow that you didn’t but good looking out, I guess. Knuckles wants to beat Eggman up.

Sonic says no. He wants to win the race fair and square to prove a point and then beat Eggman up.

With that “plan” in mind, Knuckles grabs Sonic’s car and yeets it back onto the road.

Eggman, meanwhile, is singing a little ditty about how he dropped Sonic off a bridge and wishes he could do it again when he hears the sound of a vengeful go-kart approaching from behind.

He turns back and has that Sonic Unleashed moment of wondering how Sonic caught up, only it makes more sense.

He then sets off all the cheats at once.

It’s very serious what’s happening here.

Despite Eggman being ahead, somehow, Sonic’s kart passes him again. He gets teased for being left in the dust and Eggman declares that he’s not going to be Mr. Not Nice Guy anymore.

He presses a button and the kart transforms into a Spider-Kart! It’s got radioactive spider oil!

Meanwhile, as we near the finish, we see Sticks in the stands, as she didn’t participate in the race, going over all the things she was right about.

She’s smarter than Tails. It’s official.

I like how that ending bit implies that the mech becoming a dragon would have been a step too far. Or at least I think that’s what the joke is but if it’s not, that’d still be okay because it wouldn’t have been weird at all for that to have happened.

What is Eggman even going to use the Bio-Scanners for? Has he used what he plans to use that data for yet? Is it for the Spider-Kart’s radioactive spider-oil?

I dunno. Maybe I missed the answer to that or maybe it doesn’t matter.

Either way, the calvary of Tails, Amy, and Knuckles arrive in to beat up the Spider-Kart so that Sonic can Ker-whoooosh across the finish line for a Ker-Win and get a Ker-Yaaaay from the crowd.

Literally a page later he takes that back.

He doesn’t want to see them try but they do anyway.

However, the others almost miss the fun because Tails couldn’t park his plane a little closer.

Look out. 

There goes the spider-kart.

I don’t get the “Ker-” sound effect joke. I really don’t. 

Anyway, Eggman leaves the scene in the most dignified way he can.

Zoro may be a swordsman but my man Eggman takes after Cabaji. Can you be a swordsman on a unicycle? I think not. Unicycles make everything better. I win. Haha!

Sticks ended up flying off into some unknown direction during all the fuss.

It’s here where we get a moment I wasn’t sure happened on the last issue of the book or here.

It happens here.

It’s just Sonic reaffirming with his friends how much he loves them. 

It’s got very huge “final issue” vibes emanating from it, certainly.

I always do that.

Whenever I’m snacking on french fries I always go, “How fry-y” off in the distance, outloud, in public.

It’s a real problem.

Anyway, World’s Unite has creeped its way into the fray over where Sticks is.

That’s right. We’ve lost Sonic Boom to the crossover folks. The only holdouts are the main series and Universe but not for very long.

That was alright. Shockingly, a lot less to complain about than in the last issue but also far less fun than that one. The racing antics of Issue 6 were just a ton of fun, even if the way the book tried to squeak the logic of the premise out made little sense. Here it was just down to Sonic and Eggman, which isn’t as fun. It was largely the same thing we’ve seen already by this point. I do appreciate that the approach to this race didn’t feel like the Transformed comic where everyone was just ganging up on a single dude. I still wish I could have gotten something where everyone was everyone’s enemy but this still felt more chaotic than the Transformed one as a result, at the very least. 

This issue in particular suffered a bit from being more straight-forward. It was to the point where the bio-data thing may as well not even have happened. There’s still so many things I don’t get but it’s easier to brush that stuff off just because of the general intended “Who gives a shit” nature of the book.