Megathread Archie Sonic Main Discussion

[SanPolo4389]

Oh man we're almost there to Worlds Unite. Also man these stories that had alot of foreshadowing for later just feels sad with what'll happen later.

Also man I forgot about the Lost World adaptation, mainly because of how it doesn't explain nothing about anything other than Eggman coming in and taking over. 

[thumbs13]

I know why they couldn't do it, but I really wish the entire Boom cast crossed over. At the very least, have the two Eggmen meet.

[Monkey Destruction Switch]

I recently read from shortly before the Tossed in Space arc through Return to Angel Island (though I admit I skipped the Tommy arc because I just didn't feel like reading it, lol). Overall, I think they're pretty good.

The worst thing by far was Sally's slap and the surrounding behavior. Honestly, Sally having that perspective could've worked if they just made her have a better attitude about it. It is understandable that since she's actually acting as royalty and in a leadership role over her country, she needs someone who can be by her side to support her rather than risking his life. The only problem is, it should've been obvious Sonic could never be that person...but I suppose Sally's perspective could be that they love each other and Sonic should sacrifice his lifestyle for her sake. Which does seem a bit extreme, but still somewhat understandable, and Sally's grief is mixed into all that, of course. So what I'm saying is, it would have actually been an interesting conflict with both sides being sympathetic, but Sally's reaction being too extreme really messed it up, making her seem selfish, nasty, and generally out-of-character. Oh well. I still generally liked Tossed in Space, The Return, and the surrounding content, so to me that bad moment is mostly forgivable, though maybe not completely.

One thing that sort of surprised me is that I actually liked the moment where Aurora was trying to convince Knuckles to embrace the spiritual calling of uniting with the Chaos Force and him rejecting that for the sake of returning to Mobius to try and save his friends and family. Hearing about that, it always sounded weird to me and like Aurora was being a jerk or something, but I actually rather liked it. It didn't feel like Aurora was a jerk so much as that she operates on a different plane of existence and sees the futility of the mortal world and wants Knuckles to embrace eternity instead. But of course, it made sense that Knuckles would reject that. But I liked that Knuckles' decision to return to the world was not without its downsides, namely the loss of most of his powers, plus added to that the fact that he wasn't even able to actually save the day himself. I also enjoyed that during Return to Angel Island, Knuckles reflected on that decision in his frustration and it felt futile to him in that moment.

Honestly, I think possibly the biggest flaw of these comics are they're just kinda downers? xP Angel Island under Robotnik's control, Sonic & Sally's breakup, Sonic meeting Tails' parents but them not being able to reunite with him (yet), Robotnik committing freaking genocide against Charmy's people and family...it's a lot. Plus some darkness in the Tossed in Space arc that's surrounding aliens we'll never see again, but is still horrible, such as E.V.E. destroying entire planets.

So yeah. This can be considered part of the "Dark Era" of Archie Sonic, but I mostly enjoy these story arcs. Truth be told, I haven't read that much of the "Dark Era" and I kinda want to change that, especially since clearly it's not all bad.

[SkyHorizon]

5 hours ago, Monkey Destruction Switch said:

I recently read from shortly before the Tossed in Space arc through Return to Angel Island (though I admit I skipped the Tommy arc because I just didn't feel like reading it, lol). Overall, I think they're pretty good.

The worst thing by far was Sally's slap and the surrounding behavior. Honestly, Sally having that perspective could've worked if they just made her have a better attitude about it. It is understandable that since she's actually acting as royalty and in a leadership role over her country, she needs someone who can be by her side to support her rather than risking his life. The only problem is, it should've been obvious Sonic could never be that person...but I suppose Sally's perspective could be that they love each other and Sonic should sacrifice his lifestyle for her sake. Which does seem a bit extreme, but still somewhat understandable, and Sally's grief is mixed into all that, of course. So what I'm saying is, it would have actually been an interesting conflict with both sides being sympathetic, but Sally's reaction being too extreme really messed it up, making her seem selfish, nasty, and generally out-of-character. Oh well. I still generally liked Tossed in Space, The Return, and the surrounding content, so to me that bad moment is mostly forgivable, though maybe not completely.

One thing that sort of surprised me is that I actually liked the moment where Aurora was trying to convince Knuckles to embrace the spiritual calling of uniting with the Chaos Force and him rejecting that for the sake of returning to Mobius to try and save his friends and family. Hearing about that, it always sounded weird to me and like Aurora was being a jerk or something, but I actually rather liked it. It didn't feel like Aurora was a jerk so much as that she operates on a different plane of existence and sees the futility of the mortal world and wants Knuckles to embrace eternity instead. But of course, it made sense that Knuckles would reject that. But I liked that Knuckles' decision to return to the world was not without its downsides, namely the loss of most of his powers, plus added to that the fact that he wasn't even able to actually save the day himself. I also enjoyed that during Return to Angel Island, Knuckles reflected on that decision in his frustration and it felt futile to him in that moment.

Honestly, I think possibly the biggest flaw of these comics are they're just kinda downers? xP Angel Island under Robotnik's control, Sonic & Sally's breakup, Sonic meeting Tails' parents but them not being able to reunite with him (yet), Robotnik committing freaking genocide against Charmy's people and family...it's a lot. Plus some darkness in the Tossed in Space arc that's surrounding aliens we'll never see again, but is still horrible, such as E.V.E. destroying entire planets.

So yeah. This can be considered part of the "Dark Era" of Archie Sonic, but I mostly enjoy these story arcs. Truth be told, I haven't read that much of the "Dark Era" and I kinda want to change that, especially since clearly it's not all bad.

I agree with pretty much every thing you wrote here: Return to Angel Island is one of the best things of the Pre-Flynn Era (especially with the art of Jon Gray, amazing!) and Tossed in Space isn't so bad, even if some chapters were better than other and it felt a bit useless in the end.

The Return Arc was kind of meh, though, in my opinion. Never liked Mecha design, Shadow's characterization or the menace of nuclear missiles... I mean, come on, seriously?!?

Finally, I agree with you on the Aurora thing: she was a bit of a asshole, considering that she hid a few informations from Knuckles (like being able to return), but she didn't really do it in a malevolent way. Though, I liked the fact that Flynn was planning to making her more of a hypocrite by having her BEING an actual echidna.

And Sally's breakup... yeah, pretty much what you wrote, I'd just add that making that scene IN FRONT of the whole kingdom added to the whole OOC "borderline personality disorder" vibe...

[SanPolo4389]

Also not helping the break up was that the writer Karl Bollers didn't even finish this so it was left with Sally in mixed emotions with Sonic until way later. 

[Monkey Destruction Switch]

Oh, something I forgot to mention is that what I've read of Mobius 25 Years Later (which is all by Penders, haven't read Flynn's part) sucks. I honestly mostly skimmed over it because it was either boring or aggravating. So many baffling decisions, such as making Julie-Su an overprotective housewife or making Sonic more of a jerk than normal who doesn't seem to value his old friends at all. I'm more positive towards Ken Penders' writing than many are these days, but that particular storyline has little worth to me, other than Steven Butler's artwork being very good.

On 10/1/2022 at 5:24 AM, SkyHorizon said:

Finally, I agree with you on the Aurora thing: she was a bit of a asshole, considering that she hid a few informations from Knuckles (like being able to return), but she didn't really do it in a malevolent way. Though, I liked the fact that Flynn was planning to making her more of a hypocrite by having her BEING an actual echidna.

Maybe seeing so many countless generations of death as a mortal-turned-immortal caused her to detach herself emotionally from the lives of "lesser" beings to preserve her own sanity.

 

[Dr. Detective]

 

Archie Sonic the Hedgehog - Issue #272: A Ray of Hope

At least the image is taking over more of the cover on this one. This is one of those cover images that I think I can appreciate more upon examining it rather than just looking at it with a tertiary glance. It’s got a neat style and I do actually like the colors as well. 

Spoiler

Metal Sonic Variant

The fuck is that? Is that Metal Sonic? Whoooooa. I’ve never seen Metal Sonic before. I’d better hurry and pay extra money for this variant cover. Who knew sticking a render from the internet on a cover with a lighting effect behind it could be so effective at soliciting money from me. Clever bastards.

—

Writer: Ian Flynn
Pencils: James Fry (Pg. 1-10) and Evan Stanley (Pg. 11 -20)
Inks: Terry Austin
Colors: Gabriel Cassata
Letters: John Workman
Cover by Edwin Huang
Variant Cover by SEGA

This book actually has a mention of what happened in the Worlds Unite Prelude I covered a week ago. I had never read it or this before. I only noticed it this time because my eyes happened upon the image of Sonic and Silver facing off against the Ifrit. 

I can only wonder how confused I’d have been had I seen this years ago, wondering if there was an issue of the book I had missed. Technically, there was. 

Ironically, last week when I went to pick up IDW Issue #53, I found the Worlds Unite Prelude comic at the comic book store. Of course I bought it but it really is wondrous that I managed to find that exact comic a week after I reviewed it.

It’s like how the radio at my job keeps playing old songs that I’ve just so happened to get into. Or when I finish binge watching the Sopranos right before She-Hulk decided to spoil big parts of it. Still a massive close call on that one. 

The issue itself begins with Sonic and Antoine destroying a bunch of badniks in Apotos while Chip cheers them on. We get Sonic mentioning the adventure he had with Silver and a little yellow box telling the reader where to find that. Again, I either missed it or it sailed over my head back in the day, as a lot of the talky bits tended to.

Chip starts to feel down. Observing cool people doing cool stuff tends to get you to start questioning your self-worth. It’s practically a daily grind with me.

Sonic’s a good boy so he gets Chip on the up and up. He, of course, can’t help but do it with his finger almost up Chip’s nose though.

Oh my gosh! It’s the Ice-Cream Man!

He doesn’t speak nor is his super yummy stuff the catalyst for giving Chip his name but he showed up! Hurray!

That’s it though. No more of him. Sad.

Anyway, we cut to Knuckles on the Sky Patrol, explaining his whole deal to the Freedom Fighters about the busted up Master Emerald and how the island is still floating but will drop like the world’s sickest beat if they restore the planet.

Amy, despite initially being a bit bitter about losing to Knuckles back at the tourney still, perks up when she realizes she can offer assistance to Knuckles while he’s on his mission.

She has the Mystic Melody. Together, they discover that she can sense the Master Emerald shards from afar while Knuckles can do it up close.

It seems like the perfect plan but then Rotor, who continues to be portrayed as pragmatic almost to a fault, interjects with an argument that basically begins and ends with “the needs of the many outway the needs of the few”.

He’s not a complete asshole about it, of course, but it continues to be interesting witnessing this being a highlighted bullet point of his character. 

It’s not just a reboot thing either. This part of his character has been around even before that. I don’t think I took heavy notice of it until I saw him be all gung-ho about letting Naugus die from both his illness and during the Battle Bird invasion where he saved Tails but let Naugus just drop to his death. 

The book isn’t super in your face about it nor is it stating that he’s like this because he’s smart. Tails is smart too but he’s not galavanting around about how pragmatism is the one and true way to tackle a situation, always and forever. Rotor isn’t necessarily being a dick about it either but the differences are there and they’re open enough to have this register as a neat way to differentiate him and Tails.

It probably still wasn’t enough for most people but I recognize and appreciate all the effort. Rotor’s always been a tough guy to keep relevant as far as these comics have been concerned. The constant hypnotizing of his family was a sick joke that kept him out of the book for so long and the retirement angle due to smashed back syndrome was actually a really good direction to take him, in my opinion.

Anyway, Rotor says that in order to do this they need to find the Gaia Temples. He’s right of course. Maybe restoring the planet immediately can be held off a tiny bit but they at least need to know where the temples are first so that they can get the early jump on it. Problem is that Eggman is looking for them too and it always complicates things when the doctor has no chill.

If you were disappointed by the lack of Ice-Cream Man though, don’t worry, we’ve got your other favorite NPC here to bring focus to.

No, it’s not Brenda or Def Big or Lil Kate or Louie Mountaine or –Wow. I’m only naming ones from Empire City…

No, it’s Gregorios.

Gregorios HYPE!

Also, I know that the “That’s bad, that’s good” gag probably stretches back to something like the Simpsons or even further back than that but growing up the way I did means I only liken it to Team Rocket at the end of Pokemon Movie 2000.

So this is a bit of a hefty change from the game. It’s still structured a bit like a game though. Instead of Sun and Moon medals, they need Sun and Moon keys to activate the chambers of the Gaia Temples. Also, the Gaia Gate will allow them to access the central chambers of all seven Gaia Temples. 

Convenient and simple enough. I did feel a bit winded when Antoine moaned at having to search for both the temples AND the keys now... ALSO, we still haven’t found all seven Chaos Emeralds yet, I don’t think.

God. This was made way more complicated in the books. In the game, again, we already had all the emeralds so that was fine. Professor Pickle had all the info we needed and whenever a new temple was found we’d just go to him and he’d tell us. The only thing we needed to strain ourselves to search for were the Sun and Moon medals and those were mostly a gameplay element.

This is way too much and the fact that Issue #272 here is when we’re just now finding this stuff out is incredible. I’m starting to wonder what the point of Professor Pickle himself even was in these books.

So after Sonic bullies Antoine a bit, they talk about how Eggman probably doesn’t know this stuff yet but since Metal Sonic was sent after him, he knows something important is here, at least. Then night time is just here and Sonic turns into the werehog. They go and fight Dark Gaia monsters.

Then uh… honestly, there isn’t much else to this. I mean, there’s a ton of pages left but it’s just a really well choreographed fight against another Dark Titan.

As soon as it shows up, Sonic and Antoine immediately have Chip call for back-up, which is interesting. They must have known not to fuck with it without everyone they could get being there just by looking at it.

The others arrive and they try to take it on but it’s sturdy. Knuckles mentions that he and the Chaotix defeated it by bombing it and punching it a bunch so they go for big punchies at it. Knuckles remarks that he likes Sonic as the werehog because he also enjoys big punchies.

When fighting, they uncover a shard of the Master Emerald lodged into its back. Sonic stretches his arm to grab it. Antoine runs up it. Then he uses his sword to shank it out before Knuckles and Amy defeat it.

And that’s that.

They’ve won.

After that, they have a post victory hug with Bunnie holding Antoine and refusing to set him down because he looks cute like this. To be fair, she’s completely right. This is adorable.

Thankfully, despite my protests from earlier, receiving this info from our boy Greg has helped speed things along tremendously. Thanks to the list of names of people who have keys to the temple, they no longer need to find the actual Gaia Temples themselves. They just need to head to all these locations and grab the keys. That way, they can head back to the Gaia Gate in Apotos and access the chamber for all seven of them through it.

It feels like a bit of a lame, unceremonious way of scrubbing the search for the temples off the list of things we need to do but, to be fair, they weren’t making ANY progress on finding these fucking temples. Being handed a list of people with keys to the Gaia Gate is a much more refreshing thing to have happen. 

Essentially, one thing on the To-Do List was just replaced with another after they succeeded at finding precisely none of the temples. 

Man, I didn’t even really take into account how many temples they located. When I first wrote this up I thought that the Gaia Gate was inside a temple in Apotos. However, later, Antoine says in the Sonic Universe issue that they haven't found ANY of the Gaia Temples, which means the Gaia Temples don't all have a Gaia Gate inside them. There's just a single Gaia Gate in Apotos that allows them access to all the Gaia Temples. Apparently. I'm not ashamed to say that it confused me quite a bit.

Well, anyway, this means that Amy’s mission of helping Knuckles out is viable. She can stay with him to search for the Master Emerald shards now.

Sonic is very concerned to hear that Amy is leaving too. 

Again, it’s cute.

Scourge isn’t here so I’m glad someone is taking up the position of stealing his girl.

We cut back to the Sky Patrol where Cream has officially had it with the Freedom Fighters and their bullshit. 

Also, Cheese is just… freaked out by Omochao.

Good golly Ms. Molly, those faces.

Uhm, anyway, she’s here to tell them about a Chaos Emerald that was discovered in Crystal Desert Zone. 

She hates giving up info on new gems but it’s an emergency since it would seem Metal Sonic is there.

It’s funny because he contacts Eggman and apparently he needs to check in to get clearance from Eggman to do stuff. Eggman is just like “I mean, he’s my boy. Give him clearance to do whatever the fuck he’s doing”. 

He’s in the middle of something.

Yes, that be the Lost Hex. 

What happens in the Lost World preview I reviewed isn’t going to happen the same way here, I’m afraid. But why? Well we’ll find out after we hit another milestone.

This issue had one very important thing happen in it. Then after that important thing happens, they realized they had like half a book left to fill so there was just a neat fight and that’s really it. Yeah, the pacing of this whole Unleashed Saga… it’s not great. Ian is severely talented but he’s also clearly hampered by juggling so much stuff. The fact that the entire hunt for these temples just got nixed in the span of a single conversation feels weird, regardless of the practicality behind the new thing that was introduced. It all makes sense the way it’s explained but it’s hard not to notice. Even worse is how the equilibrium of the pacing is going to be thrown off even more due to the event that’s about to take place. I may not hate Worlds Unite but it cannot be denied that it’s foisting onto the comic was not a good thing. Especially now. We’re not even done with the problem that arose from the ending of the first crossover and another one is happening right the fuck now.

 

Sonic Universe - Issue #75: Fury

Man, it always bothered me how insanely boring the main cover of this issue looked. I mean, it’s a good looking image of Sonic. Spaz always knows how to draw a really good Sonic but that’s really it. He’s just pointing at me against a white background. Apparently, they knew that because they overcompensated like crazy with all these fucking variants…!

Spoiler

Variant #1 of 7.5

This cover is pretty good. Tracy is always a good choice for a nice piece of artwork and the white background is actually being put to better use here with the images of Sonic and Metal here peaking through the large 75. Nice. It does feel like it’s missing a certain something though. Perhaps the space banner on top of it. Oh yeah. The first cover went back to the original SU design. That’s probably another reason why it threw me off a bit. That original design is better though so I’m not complaining.

Variant #2 of 7.5

I really dig this one. It’s cute and also way more inspired. Seeing these two have their little race down the streets of Apotos does remind me a lot of the first and second levels of Unleashed in a good way. The two huge images of Sonic and Metal Sonic act as both a framing for the image but your eyes can see it as a starting point before they zip off into the distance, presumably disappearing into the sky somehow. The only thing that bothers me is Chip’s tongue.

I dunno. It gets freaky the more you look at it, doesn’t it?

Variant #3 of 7.5

This is the best cover of the bunch, bar none. The faint praise I had for those other ones doesn’t even come close. The art is fantastic, sure, but the fucking colors are brilliant. Those are the real winner here. Not only that but, conceptually, it’s the most appropriate cover for this issue. Not only does it properly highlight what happens in this one but it acts as a milestone issue for SU as a whole with the space background. Plus, the space background covers the whole issue. It isn’t just a blank white. The white is condensed at the center where the two hedgehogs seem to be colliding so hard that a wormhole of pure awesomeness is being generated. This is fantastic. A+++ cover! Holy shit, dude!

Variant #4 of 7.5

Here we have the exact opposite of that other one. I’ve talked about how often images without clearly defined lines tend to be a bit risky. If it’s a painting it’s usually pretty good because the definition of the brush strokes does a grand job of making something look almost otherworldly. This doesn’t quite feel like that. This feels like someone got a little too crazy with the airbrush tool in whatever system they were using. 

The concept behind this one barely makes sense either. If Eggman were running away then I’d get it but why is Eggman running towards Sonic? Shouldn’t he be in an Egg Mobile or a robot if he’s going to bother? I know Eggman is faster than Sonic but your boy in blue doesn’t even look like he’s escaping him either. He looks more like he’s tap dancing or something. The weird blue streak by his foot seems to indicate that movement is happening but the streak’s arc doesn’t make much sense. Is he spinning around? If so, I guess the light streak would make more sense but why is he doing that at all?

Even stranger is the background. The city is a completely different style from Sonic and Eggman. Honestly, Eggman almost looks like he’s a completely different style from Sonic. Probably because his shading is less defined with him being so far away but that honestly makes him look better.

Not a fan of this one. It looks weird.

Variant #5 of 7.5

This is a cover I feel like I want to like more but the more I look at it the weirder it looks to me. The concept behind this one is super solid. The idea is great but the art feels weird. The image of Metal Sonic looks strangely lopsided to me, first of all. Second of all, the lighting feels off as well. I guess because the light of the roof and the TVs are supposed to be the same that’s why the images on the screen are all colored the same as the rest of the interior but it clashes a bit with Metal Sonic. At least to me. The lighting feels like it’s only affecting him while everything else is awash with the same color, which could work, but it doesn’t. Not this way at least. Then there’s the fact that every image on the monitor is the same image of Sonic, just copy and pasted. It’s also a re-used render of Sonic’s model from Unleashed.

 

Variant #6 of 7.5

Another white background image but easily the one that’s hardest to complain about. This reboot has been going on for a bit at this point so there’s plenty to pull from as far as a character collage for a front cover. It’s not as impressive as the one from #125 or anything like that but it works for what it is. Admittedly, while I’m impressed by the amount of hard work that goes into drawing a ton of characters at once, I’m not too high on this cover. It might be a mixture of the art-style coupled with the fact that I’ve seen so many other great collage covers lately, especially with IDW. This one doesn’t measure up exactly. I don’t even mind that some of the characters chosen and some of the ones left out feel completely random. I like drawing images of a random assortment of characters sometimes.

Variant #7 of 7.5

I like the idea behind this one. The image itself is also pretty good. I like how the white background blends in with the space background here and the idea of these three stars of Sonic Universe casting shadows highlighting their individual adventures is a cool one. Funny how Chip is still in Knuckles’ shadow even after all this time but I guess everyone that would be in Sonic’s shadow is aboard the Sky Patrol. If you want to show him off… actually, you could probably still have fit him next to the Werehog there. Hmm. 

Well, whatever. Good cover. Not the best but probably the second best of this bunch.

Variant #7.5 of 7.5

Oh wait. Nevermind. This is the second best of the bunch. Sorry, number 7. You’re going down to third place. Honestly, this cover just makes for an awesome companion piece. I understand why you would call it “7.5”. It only works if you’ve seen the actual normal cover or have it in your possession. This would work really well in a binder. Flip the cover over and BAM. Dere he is. The mad doctor whining about him not getting his own cover for the milestone. It’s glorious.

I will say, as an aside, the drawing of Eggman here does look a tad goofier than most but I suppose that helps sell the image better. 

—

Writer: Ian Flynn
Pencils: Tracy Yardley
Inks: Jim Amash
Colors: Matt Herms
Letters: Jack Morelli
Cover by Patrick “Spaz” Spaziante
Variant Covers by Tracy Yardley (1), Ben Bates (2), Tyson Hesse (3), EGA Studios (4), Patrick Thomas Parnell (5), Lamar Wells w/ Gary Martin and Gabriel Cassata (6), Evan Stanley w/ Jim Amash & Matt Herms (7) and Jonathan H. Gray w/ Jim Amash & Matt Herms (7.5)

Ah. Jon Gray did that last Eggman image. That explains why he looks so much more cartoony. 

Also, Matt Herms is back on coloring duty. Hell yes baby!

The issue begins in media res with Metal Sonic making off with the Cyan Chaos Emerald and Sonic, Tails, and Bunnie giving chase. He’s kicking sand up as he flies and Sonic hates it. Sonic does the same thing to Tails later though, which is amusing to me.

We cut to the aftermath of a battle Metal had with the G.U.N unit that was there. He demolished them, unsurprisingly. Rouge contacts Sally to rant to her about how she should have been sent by the commander to handle gem based missions. Honestly, she’s right. I don’t know why he wouldn’t have done that.

Eventually, Sonic ends up body tackling Metal Sonic into a Genesis Portal that opens up in the area. Metal Sonic detected it and tried to use it as a means of escape but Sonic managed to give him a hug tackle into it before that could happen.

Sonic always makes the big plays. Those leaps into the fray he’s known for are always admirable, even if they do stand as an example of why he needs someone like Tails by his side.

It makes me all the more sad that Lost World’s chance to explore that side of him was squandered. It was right there and instead the problem became about… not that. Somehow.

They get spit out in what seems to be the Flame Core or something close to it.

Upon spotting each other, Sonic gets distracted and Metal Sonic takes that opportunity to be the world’s biggest shit heel.

Reminds me of that scene on DuckTales where Louie fucking keels over when Webby tosses a shovel into his gut. I can hear the hefty breath being squeezed out of him.

Silver lands next to Sonic to ask if he’s okay. Sonic tells Silver to grab Metal but Silver says he’s already gone.

“It’s like he’s faster than YOU…”

“Lies and slander.”

That was a good exchange.

Anyway, turns out this isn’t Silver’s future so it’s not the Flame Core. Aww.

Instead, it’s just a random scary fire dimension. Silver was in the middle of closing the Genesis Portals like he and Sonic talked about before Metal Sonic and him fell through one. With it closed, they’re stuck here unless they can reach one of the three portals Silver has detected. He shows Sonic this using a hologram thing on the back of his glove?

Next thing you’ll tell me is that those buttons on Eggman’s jacket actually do something. Har har h-ahem.

So yeah. Silver’s plan is solid, if not still based on a hunch. He’s closed so many of these portals and has noticed that a high percentage of them lead back to Sonic’s world and time. We all know why that is but it’s a great use of phenomena about the comic to exploit things to their favor.

Granted, there is still a risk since “high percentage” doesn’t equate to “100 percent chance” and that would concern me greatly. Sonic being trapped there with Silver would be quite the way to spend the rest of his days. It’d be a neat excuse for some SonicXSilver content for those shippers out there though.

The two of them get to talking more. Sonic highlights the futility of Silver’s mission a bit, talking about how them popping up all over the place might mean it’s a pointless task. Silver admits that it’s daunting but says he couldn’t live with himself if someone stumbled into one on accident and got lost or stuck forever when he could have prevented it. Sonic says he’d do the same.

Then, however, he asks Silver if they win at the end of this Unleashed arc and Silver… says he probably shouldn’t say because he doesn’t want to mess up the time stream?

Sonic rightly points out how fucking rich that is coming from him. Silver’s defense is that he did it to save his future but as Sonic points out, he’s doing this for the same reason in his time. 

Honestly, the only reason not to say, if Silver does indeed know, is so that we, the audience, don’t find out and ruin the outcome. I mean, sure, we know Sonic will win in the end but having it directly stated by the characters that it’s a definitive fact makes following the journey there feel pointless. With an arc that’s been going on for as long as this one you definitely don’t want to already know the outcome of it.

…Which might honestly still be a problem considering it’s based off of a video game and we know how that game ends so it’ll likely not be that different here. 

Granted, I honestly don’t even recall the Dark Gaia fight in this book. I remember more about the Egg Dragoon fight than that. I guess I’ll have something to look forward to again, I guess.

Silver gets out of having to explain why he can’t just tell Sonic once they reach their destination. This would have worked better if Silver’s future was in ruins because of the Unleashed arc and he told Sonic they fucking failed but that would require Silver going back to the past to help them instead of going all over the place to close these Genesis Portals. 

The two start talking about how Metal Sonic can probably sense the Genesis Portals. Sonic thinks this’ll be a good way to ambush him but then stops and rethinks that, realizing that the two of them think alike so maybe–!

Sonic kicks the emerald out of Metal Sonic’s hand and the two start to race for it, side by side.

The fight stretches into the volcano and Sonic ends up kicking Metal Sonic into the lava after Silver grabs the emerald and shouts “Hey Metal Sonic, you’re too slow!” like a pansy.

You can’t use the double barrel shotgun blast of two memes in a fucking row like that. Come on now.

Sonic races back up to Silver and asks where the portals he inspected while the fight was happening leads. Two of them lead to two different worlds. One of them leads back to Sonic’s world. Also, luckily, pretty close by where he was too. Sure, why not? He’s going back anyway, might as well have it be a less stressful trip home.

Anyway, they shouldn’t worry anyway. Any second now Metal Sonic is going to stick up his hand and go “There is only one Sonic” and die–!

–Try to kill the other Sonic so that he’s the only Sonic is what I meant to say. Yes.

He bursts after them and the old tried and true master plan of tricking someone into going past them works. 

Over the course of the issue, Sonic has said that Metal Sonic never stops. Here it’s put to good use. 

The book makes this maneuver seem more impressive than it might actually be but to be honest it still looked sick as hell. I mean as long as it looks cool, it’s fine. It looked awesome when Sonic did it to Eggman in the movie. 

Back with Sonic and Silver, the question of “Do they win?” gets brought up again. Silver’s response is interesting and his reaction after Sonic leaves is even more so…

First of all, I wonder if there are people out there who wonder if Sonic would even need to ask this? I personally don’t mind it. I like the idea that Sonic has doubts. It makes his journey to endlessly run towards the ending he desires something a lot more admirable and heroic. Not to mention, it’s just more relatable as someone who’s entire being seems to just be riddled with doubt.

The big thing is Silver’s non-answer here and why he chooses to deliver it. We all know Sonic will win but Silver either doesn’t know or doesn’t want to tell Sonic that in his timeline he loses. The third option is that Silver knows Sonic wins but if that were true the last line he has there would make absolutely no sense so it can’t be that one.

If Silver knows Sonic loses then him saying he’s sure Sonic can do it means he’s banking on Sonic to change fate. If there’s anyone out there he knows has the ability to do that it’s John Ce-Sonic the Hedgehog.

If Silver doesn’t know then he was being all weird about not being able to tell him for no reason. He could have just said “I don’t know” and that would be it. He of all people should and would know though so I don’t think it’s that either.

So, my headcanon is that Silver was desperately fishing for an excuse not to tell Sonic that in his future he fucking failed but wished to trust in Sonic’s ability to rewrite reality in order to ensure that he won. 

Either that or he knows Worlds Unite is coming, in which case, we all lose.

Again, I don’t even hate Worlds Unite but it’s going to be a fun punching bag regardless. The chances I get to kick something while it’s down and have no one complain about it are few and far between. Let me have this. 

Silver goes through a portal and ends up in an ice region. He asks where he is and the caption says “FIND OUT IN SONIC THE HEDGEHOG WORLDS UNITE BATTLES #1”.

In my case, that meant finding out “never” at the time because the place I got my comics from was absolutely not going to carry the Worlds Unite Battle books. So yeah, that was another story that I was just left in the dark about for a long time.

It really does feel like we’re going back to those early Archie Sonic days where the story was constantly broken up between like five different books at a time or something. We STILL have another issue of something that isn’t Worlds Unite that’s preluding to Worlds Unite before we get to Worlds Unite! STILL!

We get a very amusing full page scene of Sally charting out a plan to recover Sonic from the Genesis Portals. She’s already got holograms set up for how they’ll split into teams and what jobs they’ll do.

Then Sonic falls through a portal and lands directly in front of them, Chaos Emerald in hand.

It’s funny but… man, do we really need even more scenes showcasing how we don’t need a tactician character? You need to start bringing Sally’s contributions up a little more because she’s not been doing so hot lately.

We get another really great scene between Sonic and Amy though.

I wanted so bad for him to do that kissy face but for him to lean in a little too fast and just actually do it. That would have taken the wind out of his sails there.

So Sonic’s a stinky boy now. 

The group gathers for a group shot to lead into Worlds Unite with. It’s a proclamation about how they’re the Freedom Fighters and how they’ll win in the end and all that junk.

Antoine pointing out that they literally haven’t found a single Gaia Temple is ringing in my ears harder than ever though. Like, JESUS. I did NOT remember things being like this.

Going into Worlds Unite the tally looks like this.

Chaos Emeralds: 6/7
Gaia Temples: 0/7
Sun and Moon Keys: 0/7

Madness. Sheer madness.

Granted. Finding the keys means that they only need to bring them back to the Gaia Gate and that’ll lead them to the corresponding chamber for each temple through said magic gate. So really, the keys and the temples are basically the same thing.

I would say that makes things easier but considering we didn’t even know the Gaia Gate and the keys were a thing before Issue #272, it literally only means the focus has shifted from the temples to the keys themselves and the number for those still sits at zero.

We end the issue on a note that spells trouble.

Seems Eggman has already taken over the Lost Hex. That was easy… or rather, seemingly easy seeing as how Orbot is clearly possessed.

A part of me keeps forgetting that these crossovers are all set-up within the books themselves and not just a retreat to some other special disconnected from them. Like, no, this actually happens within the book. It’s just hard for my brain to register that when you know that the ending of THIS one makes it irrelevant that it did.

That was a lot of fun. It was better than the last issue, for certain. It was nice seeing Sonic and Silver team up. They’re a really great pair, honestly. I’m glad my favorite time traveling dork is being kept busy. Metal Sonic, meanwhile, is facing banishment. With that done, both the main series and Sonic Universe are ready to do the unification of the words. We just have one more thing to cover and then the Avengers can assemble.

Sonic Super Digest - Issue #12

If I thought the Lost World comic was scrubbed from the internet, it’s got nothing on Sonic Super Digest #12. Holy shit. Talk about a witch hunt. Fuck me. People really didn’t see the book’s cancellation coming did they? I can’t imagine this would have happened if they knew. I can’t imagine the IDW books fading into obscurity in any way, shape, or form after this either. Hopefully, we’ve learned our lesson.

Granted, these are usually just a collection of a bunch of stories that already happened so I understand why the ones without a new Sonic Comic Origins story inside wouldn’t be bothered with. However, this one has one of those so come on internet! 

Spoiler

Sonic Comic Origins: The Traitor

Writer: Ian Flynn
Pencils: Adam Bryce Thomas
Inks: Rick Bryant
Colors: Matt Herms
Letters: Jack Morelli

This… shook me.

I honestly didn’t think I’d ever see Dr. Julian Snively appear in these comics again. I also had no clue this story even existed, once again. There’s so much of this comic that I just did not have access to because I couldn’t get to any comic stores at around the time these were happening. I had to rely on regular book stores and they only carried issues of the main comic, SU, and the spin-off books like X and Boom. They didn't bother with the side books, extra stories, free comic book day, and they never carried any variants. It floors me. I eventually learned how comics are supposed to work and found an actual comic book shop but man, I wish I had figured all this shit out earlier.

Not only is Snively here, but I was wracking my brain trying to remember where I’d seen this blonde lady before. 

Then I remembered as soon as she said her name.

It’s Madonna. I saw fan-art of her with this very design in a fan-comic. In it, Sonic was walking by and she tried to play it cool by going into a “draw me like one of your french girls” poses in front of him because he used to be her boyfriend.

Yeah, it’s the scrapped human girlfriend that Sonic was supposed to have in Sonic 1. It didn’t end up happening and years later it almost happened again with Princess Elise. I can’t help but imagine the entire Elise situation happened because SEGA of Japan was just really married to the idea of Sonic having a human girlfriend.

“Sir, I know Sonic is a success but I’m telling you this human girlfriend idea has legs… and really curvy hips.”

Sonic 06 was actually supposed to be a reboot, don’t forget. That’s why it’s actual name is just “Sonic the Hedgehog”. 

It really is amazing thinking back on that game. I swear, the circumstances behind and the reality of Sonic 06 only gets stranger and stranger the further into the future we get. Sonic and the Secret Rings, Sonic Colors, and Sonic Generations make more sense to call “Sonic the Hedgehog” than Sonic 06. Especially considering Sonic’s the least important character in that game and one of nine playable characters. 

The doctor seems to not be trusted by G.U.N here. Makes sense, considering his history. He says he’s lived his life in service to G.U.N but a literal picture of Eggman’s silhouette floats by when he says that. The lighting must not have been good when they snapped that photo. 

I will say that it does confuse me a bit that the reason this is happening is because of what happened back in Total Eclipse. I actually don’t know what he did to warrant this in that arc seeing as how his argument to secure the Master Emerald was a completely sound one that Shadow agreed with eventually. I mean, WE the audience know that’s not the real reason he wanted it but from their point of view there’s very little to go by here. I guess we’ll find out as we go along.

Okay… seriously?

The more I read this the more upset I’m getting honestly.

WHY THE FUCK IS THIS STORY IN THIS BOOK????

Why would you put THIS story here?! Because the Digest is where the Sonic Comic Origins go? I’m sorry, I know that’s like a neat little gimmick to you but this is pretty crucial information!

I had no idea Snively AND EGGMAN were both members of G.U.N! 

The mention of Eggman double-crossing King Acorn happened at the start of the reboot. We saw his Classic Eggman design shaking hands with the king. I had assumed it was because he was still working for King Acorn but no.

Ian decided to make the king less of an idiot and only had Naugus be an evil conniving bastard instead of making the king someone who surrounded himself ONLY with evil bastards that would betray him like Eggman, Naugus, AND Kodos. Even his most trusted super special agent Geoffrey betrayed him because of how much of a bastard the king was.

Here, the existing factions both have people within them that are obstructing things from behind the scenes. It works so much better and HOW DID I NOT KNOW ABOUT THIS?!

This also makes sense as to why G.U.N even has Snively around. If he used to work for Eggman and then went to G.U.N when that fell out it’d be a lot less forgivable even if his genius would undoubtedly be quite the important boon to their military might. It makes sense that the government and military would be in bed with shady people to get what they want of course but knowing that he was always with G.U.N and just had a fling with Eggman fits so much more smoothly.

Snively tells them… mostly the truth. Whenever anything concerning his intentions or involvement crop up, he bends the truth to make it seem like he was the poor, put-upon victim who had nothing to do with any of the evil happening.

Like, when the king figured out Eggman’s treachery and Naugus started growing impatient with the doctor, Eggman banished them both to the Special Zone.

However, when Madonna asks why he didn’t stop it, he says one thing and we’re shown another.

This mixture of Classic Sonic and SatAM elements is quite the thing to marvel at. It’s so strange seeing Swat-Bots standing next to Motobugs like that. 

Also, unbelievably, the idea of Eggman working for G.U.N happened here before the movie. I just… I can’t… how did I not know?

Snively’s story gets a little into the kind of fare I’d expect from a story put into a Digest that isn’t in the main book at this part. He talks about how the Freedom Fighters rose to power and how Sonic destroyed the Death Egg. It’s all stuff we didn’t see but stuff that needs contextualizing here in this reboot. We don’t need to see it but it’s nice to.

Of course, it’s also here where that really confusing bit that CONFUSED the fuck out of me for years on end came into play. Remember back during Total Eclipse where Knuckles chewed out Julian for being the one who tried to grab the Master Emerald and the caption said “Sonic the Hedgehog 3 - The Game”?

Well, turns out that was some bullshit, kinda. Eggman was defeated around that time and Snively went there on his own to do nab the emerald. 

Apparently Sonic 3 the Game has Snively as the villain and not Eggman.

Man.

I can’t really logic my way into giving them the benefit of the doubt on this one. This sounds like they really screwed up giving out the proper information to people. This backstory explains something that was mentioned in a Sonic Universe arc from BEFORE now that was treated as something that didn’t need a proper explanation because it happened in Sonic 3 the Game only it totally didn’t.

Some of how these elements are being carried over just aren’t working. Like, obviously, I understand it means to say that Sonic 3 happened without telling us that it was different because OF COURSE it was different. But it’s a bit different when you show a character that was not in Sonic 3 the Game and say the explanation for why Knuckles is mad at this character who wasn’t in Sonic 3 the Game is in Sonic 3 the Game.

You know?

Wow.

This is blowing my mind.

Anyway, Snively ends his rant by saying that Knuckles is a savage and that he is right to try and secure the Master Emerald for G.U.N and for the safety of the world. 

Again, Shadow agreed. It makes sense. 

Snively also says he wants it on record that he’s as loyal to G.U.N now as he’s ever been. 

Then it’s over.

It says not the end but I’m fairly certain it is the end for Julian here.

Then again, I said that same thing at the end of Total Eclipse so what do I know? Apparently not as much as I thought I did.

Dammit.

For this Digest I could not find the full thing online. I just couldn’t. It doesn’t exist. I had to find the preview pages for the first part of Snively’s story and then I had to look on Youtube for the rest. It’s obscure as obscure can be and that’s a crying shame because this is EASILY the BEST and most interesting and most IMPORTANT of the Sonic Comic Origins stories we’ve gotten so far. I am almost appalled by how impossible it is to find this thing. 

The other stories in the digest were Part One of Worlds Collide, Part Three and Four of Treasure Team Tango, Part One of Shadow Fall and Part One of Ambushed! That was the story where Sonic became the Werehog. No issues of Total Eclipse, surprisingly. As I said, whatever else was in that Digest aside from these reprinted stories is stuff I can’t find online. The Snively story is the only thing that’s been preserved, which is understandable since it’s easily the most important thing, but still. Not being able to find the book properly does bother me a little, even if it probably was just meaningless fluff.

With that out of the way, we’re officially done. There’s no more preamble we need to cover and no other books to look at because ALL the relevant ones I’m covering will be doing the same thing. Next week, finally, we’re covering Worlds Unite.

May Sigma have mercy on your soul.

 

[SanPolo4389]

7 hours ago, Dr. Acula Mike said:

Next week, finally, we’re covering Worlds Unite.

(Matt Mcmuscles voice)
It's time.........to talk........about World Unite.

(Insert clip of the Zero X4 Iris scene but him holding the canceled Sonic and Megaman comics instead of Iris.)

WHAT AM I FIGHTING FOOOOOOOOOR!?

[Monkey Destruction Switch]

Oh yeah, another thing about those comics I read recently...the mass de-roboticization and how it was handled was SO WEIRD. It literally happened in a short BACKUP STORY without explanation and the explanation turned out to be because of aliens...kind of crazy honestly, considering roboticization was an important part of the very premise of this particular Sonic universe. But eh, I guess they just didn't want to deal with it anymore. All things considered, roboticization wasn't utilized nearly as interesting-ly, consistently or compellingly as it could've been. Oh well.

[Dr. Detective]

Sonic Universe - Issue #76: Worlds Unite - Part 1: Across Time and Space

Alright, we’ve done enough preamble and preparation. It’s finally time to talk about Worlds Unite, starring Sonic, Eggman, Mega Man, X and Pals, Sigma, Zavok, Zor, and Shovel Knight.

Yeah, I’m not going to know most of the people who show up in this book, unfortunately. Most of the people I know from SEGA I know through either the All-Stars games or cultural osmosis. I know even less about the Capcom stuff. I barely feel like I know enough about Mega Man. This is one of those things that can’t reach its potential for being the absolute coolest if you don’t know the majority of what’s in this book and even then it doesn’t have enough room to breathe in order for that to really sink in either. I will not fret just yet though. I recall things starting out really well at least, though, that’s probably because it was paced like a regular story at the beginning before it realized it didn’t have enough room to do this project. 
Maybe as a show or a game this had better legs but as a comic… well, you know. 

The biggest thing to talk about, of course, is how this feels like it happened way too soon. We know the reason it’s happening at all is because Worlds Collide was a massive success. Therefore it only made sense to do two of them and have them be so close to each other. It’s like how Colors was a success so Wisps got put in everything regardless of context or the game’s structure. You know how it is. Only, this is a comic and it is very much interrupting three different series at the same time to accomplish this. Even worse is how two of these series get canceled pretty soon after this, rendering the project pretty much useless and with those series missing about three issues of extra content that could have been better served to at least give the world a bit more of them before they disappeared.

Then, of course, the surviving two comics died shortly after. Regardless of my opinion on this book, from a business sense the idea to do this again so soon and so brazenly was bad and they should feel bad. They don’t though.

Spoiler

Crossover Kick-Off Variant 

Man, these models look less computer generated and more like play dough. It reminds me of a really colorful Robot Chicken sketch. Especially the Mega Man characters. They just do not look right. Neither does Sally really. Actually, I think the main series Sonic cast easily looks the best. Might be because that’s what the artist is used to doing but it might also just be(not in Sally’s case) that seeing them with 3D renders like this is something I’m used to, more or less. I can actually see those renders of Sonic, Tails, Amy, Knuckles, and Shadow being advertised for a game. Well, I guess the Knuckles is a tad wonky to me but the rest are pretty solid.

Covers Unit Variant (1 of 12)

Wait, what? Don’t worry. It’s a small piece of a frankly, quite INSANE whole. I don’t know how anyone could possibly allow themselves to suffer through creating a piece of artwork as insane and bonkers as the full complete image of this. There are works of art that look impressive and then there’s works of art that looking at it exhausts me. There’s talent that makes you want to kill yourself and talent that makes you feel sorry for the talented person. This might be both. 

It’s really good guys. Also, Tails is fighting in this mess and I’m always here to see my boy fight.

—

Writer: Ian Flynn
Line Art: Dan Schoening
Colors: Luis Antonio Delgado
Letters: Jack Morelli
Cover by Patrick “Spaz” Spaziante
Crossover Kick-Off Variant by Rafa Knight
Covers Unit Variant (1 of 12) by Ben Bates

Credits were on the back again. All of my hate. You know the drill.

We’ve got a lot of new people here though. It’s a pretty special occasion (Archie thinks) so I understand why. 

It looks incredible, I gotta say.

Or at least it does for the Mega Man side. The Sonic side may see your mileage varying. 

X invades Sigma’s base, making it past a Vile character (Boo me please) and reaching Sigma. 

Sigma is apparently Zordon right now. The caption calls him a living virus. Those are never good. 

“I’m off to find teenagers with attitude! Think you can stop me? BWAHAHAHAHA!”

Funny thing is, he kind of is. Sort of.

Sigma rants at X about how things are all going according to keikaku and how Eggman kind of helped him kick start things really well.

Kick start what? I dunno. Eggman taking over the Zeti did something special for Sigma. I guess.

Sigma escapes. But where? Well we find out by cutting to Green Hill Zone, Sonic’s apparent favorite running spot.

Basically, everything’s as it was the last time we saw our boy in his own continuity. We’re not being transported to a special in-between world where this story can happen uninterrupted all on its own.

Sonic is still in a shattered world crisis and we even see him saving both a flicky and a shard of the Master Emerald.

Sonic looks…. Ehhh?

It’s weird.

He looks very strange. There are a couple of shots where he looks fine enough but I don’t think the anthropomorphic animals will be this guy’s strong suit. It’s kind of like how Tracy’s art wasn’t quite the best fit for Mega Man’s characters. 

There are people that can do both. I’m one of them but they won’t hire me so best to stick to Ben Bates for the majority of this thing in my opinion.

No, of course they won’t do that.

Plus, the Mega Man stuff does look REALLY good. 

Seriously, look at how adorable this is.

Look at that! Look at Rock! He’s so cute driving off in his… little–giant tractor thing–actually what the fuck is that he’s driving?

It’s sad because he’s so wrong here. 

Worlds Unite being described as a disaster works both in and out of universe I’m afraid. 

I like the thought of imagining him being pulled over because he looks like a kid. That’s a little funny. That exchange would be something to see.

Also, whaaaaaat? They think Dr. Wily is dead? Oh dear!

I have yet to read the Mega Man comics. I’ll be doing that on my lonesome after this with no reviews accompanying it but I can’t wait to see what brought that on.

Rock leaves making a promise that he is going to undoubtedly break and we cut to Eggman who is not having a good time with the Zeti.

Man, the amount of times I’ve seen Eggman sitting uncomfortably while surrounded by the Zeti feels like it’s been a lot. It’s probably only been put to print twice but the fact that it works so well as an image makes it worthwhile to look at again.

This remains a really compelling and interesting way of doing this. The conquest of the Lost Hex happened pretty much off-screen. The Lost World comic I reviewed was basically just a prequel to the events of the game proper where nothing happened but here, something happened that we deliberately didn’t see.

It’s not really infuriating or anything. It would have been neat to see but it also doesn’t really matter. The point is that Eggman was in the middle of a conquest and that conquest was hijacked by Sigma when he took over Orbot and smashed the conch.

Now the Zeti are free and seemingly on Sigma’s side. I think?

The incorporation of the Deadly Six into this story honestly works really well as a part of this overall set-up. I don’t have any issue with them being here. It was definitely a little strange, at the time of this being released, to have their introduction in the books be a crossover event. Not to mention, as the story goes on, the “Too Many Cooks in the Kitchen” syndrome will probably have me second guessing the necessity of this.

As of now, though, this works really well as a way to bring Sigma into the fold while sort of mirroring the Lost World plot, in a way. It’s basically as though Worlds Unite is the Lost World arc of these comics only wildly different in every conceivable way, shape, and form. 

But Sigma needs a new body. He was forced to construct one for him so that he could go into that one instead of being stuck inside Orbot. He had no choice because Zavok was likely going to crush his head like a melon. I guess that’s what Sigma meant when he said that Eggman conquering the Zeti already helped him out. With the Deadly Six hating Eggman, getting them to help him get Eggman to do what he wants was easy.

Honestly, the way Eggman, Orbot, and Zavok are drawn look fucking great. The Sonic villains are all in top form. Probably because their designs aren’t as spindily. Maybe that’s the reason Sonic looks so off.

Either way, Eggman makes Sigma his fucking body for him but Sigma is looking to exploit him more for free labor. Eggman can’t get away with saying no, less Zavok rip his face off so he says that he’s tired and also that Sigma’s tech is too advanced. He needs help.

So Sigma brings him some help.

Thus enters the now Undead Dr. Wily. Or perhaps just plain alive Dr. Wily! Hurray!

Eggman ain’t too thrilled to see him. Why it was likely just yesterday to him that they had their little falling out from before. Granted, that was mostly Eggman’s fault but you better believe he’s going to hold it against Wily.

Still, when Zavok locks them both in the same capsule, Eggman says all the right words and makes sure to press the Mega Man button to get Wily’s attention.

They get to work on creating armor for the Deadly Six at Sigma’s command. The doctors are, of course, plotting to somehow come out on top in all this. They want Sonic and Mega Man’s help but they want to elicit that help in a way that ALSO doesn’t have them get in their way. It’s like the world’s most impromptu game of chess with these guys.

They know that Sigma has built something into the armor to act as a fail safe against the Zeti, so Eggman is delighted by that at least. 

In fact, it comes into play immediately. As soon as Zavok and the others put on the armor they try to take control of Sigma. However, Sigma’s got a strong will or something. I dunno. He hypnotizes them I guess.

Admittedly, this wasn’t the kind of change I was too jazzed about.

To have the Deadly Six show up and just immediately, before the first issue is done, have their agency stripped from them so that they can be drones working for Sigma was a little… meh. I was kind of hoping Zavok might also just do what the doctor here is doing and be more of an opportunist but, to be fair, the Zeti being able to control machines IS enough of an opportunity. They really had no reason to assume it wouldn’t work.

To be honest, I’m not sure I even fully understand why it didn’t but here we are.

Still, not exactly the best choice as far as utilizing them for this kind of story in my opinion. I recall liking how they were USED but the fact that it was because they were hypnotized never really sat well with me. It’s like if in Lost World, when they took over Eggman’s operation, Eggman immediately took it back the next scene. It’s not really the same thing since Sigma is an entirely different beast who probably also hasn’t had much time to shine in these books seeing as how the Mega Man book is focused on classic and not X. 

Already we’re faced with examples of things in this book having to give for the sake of another. 

Anyway, the doctors decide to start their plan. This gambit they propose to Sigma is pretty brilliant and works in all their favors, seemingly.

In order to avoid having Sonic and Mega Man stop Sigma from using his Master Engine to steal the power from their worlds, they’re going to send the Deadly Six to ambush them, convert them into minions for Sigma, and have THEM power the device that’s going to steal the power. 

It still relies on them facing Sonic and Mega Man but hey it works so there’s only so much to scrutinize here.

Sigma waxes philosophical to a metaphorical X, who isn’t here, about how he won’t even be able to comprehend what the fuck he even IS when he sees him next time. It’ll be like trying to imagine into existence a new color or a new letter or a new number. It can’t be done fuckers!

With scattered scenes of the Deadly Six ambush happening (that we’ll see the full scenes of later) we end on our two heroes captured and in capsules.

It’s like the end of Worlds Collide but at the start this time. We’re breaking boundaries, people. Give us a million dollars already.

As Sonic and Mega Man are the only characters from Worlds Collide that we didn’t get to see turn into Roboticized Masters aside from Proto Man, I guess, this is honestly a development I was also happy to see. As a first issue, it sets up the events well but it does so at a breakneck pace. Most of this was a lot of explaining what the villains were doing to properly get things where they need to be and that’s fine. Honestly, I prefer this seeing as how the rest of the issues would need as much breathing room as possible regardless of what this crossover was trying to accomplish. In something like this, the details hardly matter all that much. 

The problem is just that, even with things like this, the story will still end up rushed. Not only that but we’re already seeing the beads of trouble set in as far as proper utilization of these characters. Again, I recall liking how the Deadly Six are used but stripping their agency and making them lackies for their first appearance in Archie and having it be THIS crossover just feels odd. Granted, if they hadn’t done this, they wouldn’t have shown up in Archie at all as it turns out. Just barely making the cut before the book was canceled so that they also had a hand in Archie Sonic history sounds like the closest of calls. Man, it’s hard to keep my thoughts straight sometimes. So far, the biggest problem just seems to be that there isn’t enough space. It sounds insane for a 12 issue story but it’s true. 

For some reason they had Bill Freiberger do the Off-Panel for this issue. I’m struggling to fathom why. 

 

Sonic Boom - Issue #8: Worlds Unite - Part 2: Broken Heroes

It’s so dense. Every frame has so much going on. 

It’s true though. These covers just know how to go all in on the stuff it wants to show you. Even years after the fact, I’ve discovered stuff on covers that I didn’t notice before and I feel like that’ll very much happen going back through these again.  Love that side view of Eggman, especially. Of course it’s because it reminds me of Sonic Adventure 2.

Spoiler

Happy Fun-Time Crossover Variant 

This is just adorable ain’t it? This is the kind of thing variant covers exist for. Showing characters chilling with who they're crossing over with in a more slice of life setting. He can probably make the braids work for him too. Who knows?

Covers Unite Variant (2 of 12)

This second piece of the puzzle has half of Sigma’s big fat face at the top. Rotor is smashing something. Bunnie is seemingly fighting Master Zik alongside Sticks and Guts Man. Crazy stuff is happening man. It does very much look like a broken piece to a puzzle though. I guess with a collage this huge it would be hard to make it like the rest of the connected covers. It’s hard to say that these truly stand on their own compared to the usual four part covers we often get.

—

Writer: Ian Flynn
Pencil Breakdowns: Dan Schoening
Pencil Finishes: Tracy Yardley 
Inks: Terry Austin
Letters: Jack Morelli
Colors: Luis Delgado with Special Thanks to: Peppers, Amash, and Herms
Cover by Patrick “Spaz” Spaziante
Happy Fun-Time Crossover Variant by Ryan Jampole
Covers Unit Variant (2 of 12) by Ben Bates

We begin this issue of Sonic Boom where we last left off. If you recall the ending to that one, Sticks found herself launched far off from where she was and landing at a convenient place to cross over.

We see Boom Eggman currently losing to Boom Sonic as this happens. They show us the rest of the Boom crew as they were in the last issue right before they lost sight of our crazy girl.

Sticks ends up catching X, Axl, and Zero as they step out of a portal. They talk about how Silver made a Genesis Portal to get them there which was immediately confusing but don’t worry, the Mega Man Worlds Unite Battles #1 DLC pack explained it there. I did not have it at the time nor any way of accessing it before finding it at a comic shop years later so this was lost on me.

There’s already too much. Too much is happening. 

It’s strange how this next scene is just the three robot Mavericks standing and talking about needing to find help from the locals because the Genesis Portal closed behind them and they have no way to get back. Even just typing that out kind of exhausted me because it’s a bunch of information that just got dropped on my lap without so much as a page turn.

Then Sticks hits Zero with her boomerang and calls them out for allegedly invading the area to attack the villagers. She tries to scare them off by claiming they’ve got lazer bees or something but X just explains that he’s a good guy.

Then Sticks perks up and decides to go be a hero on another world for a bit. 

Instead of bringing along her usual flock she brings in two random stowaways instead.

Yes, they weren’t the cameos I was expecting but to be honest I prefer this.

The word from on high was, apparently, that they didn’t want the Sonics crossing over in this. So this wasn’t to be a Spider-Verse situation. I’m cool with that. I don’t know about anyone else but I don’t really have much interest in seeing Boom Sonic interact with regular Sonic. Or Boom Tails with regular Tails. Or even Boom Knuckles with regular Knuckles. It just feels like a novelty that I could get all I needed out of from looking at someone’s quickly posted fan-comic on Twitter.

Thrusting Comedy Chip and Fastidious Beaver into the fray stands better as a representation for Boom and it amuses me more, personally. That said, Sticks randomly yoinking these guys from the ether to bring them along is played up as a thing she would just do because she’s cooky but it is also hard to ignore the fact that she doesn’t give a reason why she’d not go to her more reliable friends who know how to actually fight.

Sticks’ team is presumably told everything that they’re trying to do. They sneak into Boom Eggman’s base and Zero scares Orbot and Cubot into complying with their desire to build or activate an interdimensional portal to another world… which Boom Eggman just has?

I mean, I guess Steve Eggman IS a thing so…?

There’s a cute line where, as Zero is pointing his beam sword at Cubot, the scared yellow bot asks how the beam knows when to stop. 

I do kind of wonder that myself, honestly.

Welp, they get a portal up and going and head on in.

We cut back to Sigma and the doctors with their captured heroes in tubes. Sigma restates the thing he already said about previously being dubious but now being excited for the doctors plan and then leaves because that’s what bad guys do. He’s got to go be evil in the bathroom or something.

Eggman then starts making quick chat with Wily but because he’s talking like he knows him, Albert here has to tell Eggman that they’ve never met.

That, of course, bugs Eggman because they totally have. Wily’s memory of Worlds Collide is gone because Mega Man properly restored his world and Sonic couldn’t.

At least, that’s the logic the comic is using. I honestly don’t see why both worlds can’t remember what happened. I truly do not get why that’s only okay for Sonic’s series.

Sensing an opportunity, Eggman basically decides to play up the fact that he knows Mega Man but especially the fact that he knows Dr. Light. 
He then basically takes two entire full pages to just recap the entirety of Worlds Collide from the doctor’s point of view.

There are two tidbits here to note. One is that Eggman lies and says that Dr. Light fed Wily a rumor that he tried to have him killed. We’re shown Eggman tossing Dr. Light out of the airlock so if you, for some reason, haven’t read Worlds Collide, wowie, Eggman’s lying. He knows why he has to, of course. That’s the reason their equilibrium was thrown off and they ended up failing. More or less. Dr. Wily was going a bit further than he usually does but he still has a conscience at the end of the day, unlike Eggman.

The other tidbit is that when it talks about how Wily found a Chaos Emerald and used it to seek out Eggman, it says this links back to the end of Sonic Generations, the game.

Man, I’m kind of interested in seeing how IDW Sonic handles incorporating elements from games that come out into its book because this thing the Archie Reboot is doing where it’s just saying it happened in a text box in the corner at a spot during the comic’s run where you didn’t see it and have no frame of reference for it continues to curdle the brain.

I don’t even know how to properly process this. Upon reading it, seeing this box say “The End of Sonic Generations – The Game” almost made my mind do that Patrick Star spilled milk thing. I mean, I get it, sort of. It links to the Genesis Portals in a way but the origin of those was the botched attempt from Super Sonic to fix things when Eggman rammed into Sonic’s ass. I don’t even know where Sonic Generations fits into this.

I know it happened in this new continuity the way the old games did (until it gets revealed that Snively was piloting the Time Eater instead or something right?) but why is it being talked about here and now?

I pondered over, also, scrutinizing wasting two full pages just recapping Worlds Collide but I can sort of see the benefit to it. 

The next two pages are the doctors continuing their conversation. I find it funny that Albert is so shaken by the idea of Thomas lying. It’s really funny. 

Eggman says to take it as a compliment because he was about to suffer a humiliating defeat and had no choice but to resort to playing dirty. It’s great that the one lie in that whole thing was caught as an off thing by Wily just because he knows Dr. Light so well.

However, he accepts what Eggman says here because, at the same time, he’s got a massive ego and the idea that he backed Light so far into a corner that he made him resort to being naughty delights him.

The two shake hands and are in sync again. 

They then detail their brilliant plan together. They both had the same exact idea to modify the other’s hero to take on … the other’s hero!

Yeah, Eggman was gonna modify Mega Man to fight Sonic and Wily was going to modify Sonic to take on Mega Man. They’d restore themselves to normal and then be mad at Sigma. THEN, while Sigma is dealing with them the doctors will be free to be bastards on their own.

They delight in bringing Sigma back in for the wonderful demonstration and grin at what their beautiful bromance has blossomed once again.

With that, the transformation is underway.

Back in Mega Man’s world, Dr. Light is sat down, shaking with worry and fear because Rock hasn’t returned yet. Things get worse when a newscaster on the TV says that a robot is demolishing the city.

It’s a really fast, blue metal ball. Hmm.

Over in Sonic’s world, Sally and the Freedom Fighters get a call from Sally’s papa that they’re being attacked by a “badnik” the likes of which they have never seen before either.

The heroes always win so what are they gonna do now that the heroes are against THEM?!

Probably still win.

Good lord, Eggman had no chill when he re-designed Mega Man didn't he? He gave the poor kid his mustache as sideburns. 

Okay! We’re two issues in now and already so much stuff has happened… mostly in conversation. In the book proper, all that’s really happened is that Mega Man and Sonic were captured and now they’ve been turned into Roboticized Masters. The Deadly Six are here but they’re being controlled by Sigma too. Also, X is here and he found Sticks, Fastidious Beaver, and Comedy Chimp. That’s basically what’s happened so far.

Honestly, I’d still say the pacing is fine at this point. Aside from a few foibles, I didn’t have much of an issue reading these two issues. There are… A LOT of words but it’s all fairly easy to understand for the most part. It’s funny because I remember that very much not being the case at all back when I first read this. The biggest problem is still the constant linking back to things that either didn’t happen or we didn’t see happen. I’m about to cover those right now but once again, when I first got this, I didn’t have access to these Worlds Unite Battles so it did still bug the shit out of me. Let’s enjoy ourselves with some cool side stories to round off.

Mega Man: Worlds Unite Battles - Issue #1

Too many cooks spoil the broth but I guess it also provides a neat opportunity to make some extra scratch, right? I actually don’t know because Archie just kept losing money on this as far as I’m aware. Their tactics didn’t seem to be working all that well. I’m glad I at least own these books nowadays though. I recall them being fairly neat.

Spoiler

Worlds Unite Variant

This one is a little off-kilter but I suppose that’s to be expected a bit. The covers that wrap around themselves like this can’t be expected to always line up properly sometimes. It looks cool though. I don’t know why but it’s just generic enough that a part of me can’t help but wonder if this is a repurposed cover for the first crossover. 

—

Cover by Jamal Peppers, Phyllis Novin & Ben Hunzeker
Sketch Variant by Jamal Peppers
Worlds Unite Variant by Patrick “Spaz” Spaziante

Alright, so, the premise for these three extra stories is that there’s too many fights that happen in these books to give proper focus on. Sounds like a bit of a rough thing to have to compartmentalize with the existence of something that already is too big to fit itself into existence but okay. 

The book runs down the fighters and lists out who’s going to go up against who like it’s a wrestling promo. It’s a pretty fun gimmick.
 

Mega Man: Worlds Unite Battles - Issue #1 - Battle #1: Mega Man Vs. Deadly Three

Writer: Ian Flynn
Artist: Ben Bates
Letters: Rachel Deering

I remember this one the most, namely because of how fucked up the thing that leads to Mega Man’s defeat is.     

Right off the bat, I gotta say, the way the Deadly Three that came along to get Mega Man to fight here is bonkers. It looks really fucking cool. Especially Master Zik. I kind of wish he was doing this crazy Yoda shit all the time.

The story just details Rock’s journey when he left Roll behind. He claims he was teasing her but man if what I saw you do before you left is what you consider teasing then you really are the goodest of boys.

It’s also funny because as he’s jamming to rock n’ roll down the street he gets ambushed by Zomom, the Yellow Devil of the Sonic verse.

Yeah man. It’s not nice to call people names. Maybe I underestimated you.

What’s interesting about the art here is that it’s Ben Bates but something about it feels a tad different. I think it might be because the lines are a bit thinner. You can kind of see it a bit when he’s in the middle of his transformation in the fifth panel.

I do really like the look of this though. There’s so many swivels and moving lines. Not to mention, the text accompanying it blends in so well with the scene. I actually didn’t initially catch the part where you can see Zomom’s name bursting from the ground with him.

The Deadly Six don’t let up on him. Mega Man is in the middle of targeting Zomom and getting a big fat load of question marks as far as finding out what the fuck he is before he gets ambushed by Master Zik and knocked across the landscape Dragon Ball style.

Zazz, meanwhile, comes in like a berserking wild cat in an alleyway and scratches the shit out of Mega Man.

It’s like he’s keying a car but with like ten keys at the same time and really really fast. 

I also love that Mega Man, despite saying earlier that he can’t hurt a living thing, finally says fuck it here and just decks Zazz with an uppercut. The cut between the torrent of fury swipes to Mega Man just going “KNOCK IT OFF!” kind of kills me a bit.

Zomom grabs him and does a tornado dive through the trees on him that looks like it hurts. Then of course, you’ve got Master Zik, coming in, doing his best mimic of a Finish Buster, complete with the hand signs and everything.

Well, here he’s actually firing off a blast with each swipe unlike Trunks who just does a bunch of hand motions before firing one huge blast.

The other Zeti there join in. They’re powered up from Sigma’s weird armor so they can do the thing where they shoot energy beams and bombard him with them like three Vegetas on a bad day.

Mega Man is pretty much spent.

But he gets a burst of courage and determination as he lies there in the dirt, remembering all the people he loves and who he’s fighting for…

…and says this wonderful line.

I LOVE that this is what motivates him to stand up. Obviously it’s not JUST that (because of all the images behind him) but the fact that him not wanting his sister to go “I told you so” is the line he leads in with here for his epic “stand back up” scene is maybe the cutest thing ever. His ego isn’t as big as Sonic’s but it’s nice to be reminded that he has one. 

Basic sibling rivalry can yank that out of you.

Then we hit upon the one scene everyone remembers.

Yeah, you can get away with this because “he’s a robot” but this is one of the examples that highlights how messed up that still is. Especially since he looks so much like just a regular boy.

Master Zik takes control of Mega Man’s arm cannon and makes him blow his brains out, mass execution style.

I think the thing that makes this work so well is just that look on Mega Man’s face when he realizes what he’s about to do to himself. Like, God, the pants to be darkened look of fear on his face.

It’s like the universe literally went out of its way to make sure he lost that bet with Roll earlier and did it in like the harshest, most overkill kind of way imaginable.

It really is a great fight though. It was drawn extremely well. It made excellent use of the Deadly Six and their powers. Mega Man’s defeat makes sense due to not only being ambushed but outnumbered and on top of that, even if he weren’t, their powers make it an inevitability that this would have happened anyway. 

I can’t help but admire the balls of that last scene though. I’ve always liked Master Zik personally so seeing the old man just brazenly make what is to him a literal child blow their brains out just highlights how fucking messed up he is. It loses a bit of its punch since he’s doing this for Sigma via mind control but we all know they’re basically acting the exact same way outside of that.

Very good first story. I have a feeling it might be my favorite one just because of the way it ends.

Mega Man: Worlds Unite Battles - Issue #1 - Battle #2: Maverick Hunters Vs. Vile

Writer: Ian Flynn
Pencils: Jamal Peppers
Inks: Terry Austin
Letters: Rachel Deering
Colors: Elaina Unger

So I don’t know who these characters are. Not really. I won’t be able to scrutinize anything concerning lore or characterization as it pertains to Mega Man X. I’ll just enjoy some nice art.

That’s basically what this is too. 

We’re witnessing Axl and Zero in the middle of their fight with Vile after X went inside to confront the floating disembodied head of Sigma.

Axl seems like a Michelangelo type and Zero seems to be a bit more serious based on the little bits we get with them.

Apparently Axl has the ability to transform into people via a chameleon chip or something. It’s a maneuver that doesn’t end up working. 

Eventually, Vile very clearly has the upper hand but a third party arrives to nab him in place, making it a bit of a reverse situation from the last story.

What’s funny is that most of this was just an awesome looking fight but it stops the instant Silver shows up because his power is to stop you.

So, Axl and Zero, while slightly confused by the arrival of this furry weirdo, take the opportunity to go inside and meet up with X. As we know from the main book, Sigma is gone. He went through a weird portal.

Silver, upon speaking to them, mentioned he came here to close a Genesis Portal and since one led here Zero puts two and two together and decides to introduce X to Silver.

That of course sends them on their way to the Boom Universe where they get Sticks and her crew and then they get into another portal that’ll send them somewhere else. 

A LOT is happening if you couldn’t tell. I wish Silver stuck around. I’d rather see more of him than some of the Sonic characters they chose to be in this crossover, personally.

Pretty good. It does amuse me that the fight literally just stops when Silver shows up but eh. Whatever. It was still cool looking.

 

Mega Man: Worlds Unite Battles - Issue #1 - Battle #3: Sonic Man Vs. The Robot Masters

Writer: T-Rex
Artist: Brent McCarthy
Letters: Rachel Deering
Colors: Elaina Linger

The art for this one is interesting.

It’s by all means very good in its own right though. I love these facial expressions. 

The show Albert is talking about is, of course, the fruits of their labor in the creation of Sonic Man as he’s set to take on the Robot Masters here to protect the city.

These guys all show up and proceed to get their collective shit pushed in via some fantastic looking paneling and fight choreography.

When a motherfucker named “Time Man” literally didn’t see this shit coming, you know you’re fucked.

Some very “I’ve immediately failed you” energy right there.

They try their best but they all fail. Poor Ice Man gets seemingly the worst of it. Dude gets grilled to a crisp and tossed into the others like a fireball. It’s kind of sad.

At the end of it all, Sonic Man reigns supreme.

That’s it.

Two out of three of the fights in this issue saw the bad guys pulling out the win. Amazing. I guess it really was worth posing the question of who could win in the end after all.

This was quite possibly the easiest and fastest I’ve ever covered anything on here. It’s most definitely because this battle book is exactly what it advertises itself as. It’s a book of fights. Those don’t really require much before a set up and because the setup for this already happened in the crossover up to this point, it’s mostly just the fights you need to pay attention to. They’re all really cool, really awesome looking fights too. There’s not much to say about them aside from that and that’s okay. 

Artwork! It’s really, really good.

That’s the one thing I do recall as a big takeaway from Worlds Unite (except the middle part but we’ll get to it). It’s a huge spectacle and it takes the chance it has to show stuff off to REALLY show stuff off and the vast majority of what I remember from the beginning and the ending looked phenomenal. As for what I’ve covered today, honestly, I enjoyed it. Worlds Unite doesn’t have that bad of a start in my opinion. If it had more room to go at a similar stride I could even see this working. 12 issues isn’t enough though and these battle books aren’t going to mitigate that issue.

[SanPolo4389]

On 10/3/2022 at 9:03 PM, SanPolo4389 said:

(Matt Mcmuscles voice)
It's time.........to talk........about World Unite.

(Insert clip of the Zero X4 Iris scene but him holding the canceled Sonic and Megaman comics instead of Iris.)

WHAT AM I FIGHTING FOOOOOOOOOR!?

Reposting this since no one seemed to notice.

[NegaMix]

So, regarding the whole "Dr. Wily is presumed dead" bit (which I'll put in spoilers in case you'd rather just wait until you've read the Mega Man comics):

Spoiler

Just before Worlds Unite, the comic had just wrapped up it's long arc based on Mega Man 3 where, after Wily is defeated (again), his castle begins to collapse with him still inside. Mega Man escapes thanks to Proto Man (who's going by the name "Break Man" at this point in time) but Wily seemingly isn't so lucky, and is presumed to have died in his castle.

In actuality, though, he survived and is sectretly brought to meet a mysterious man called Mr. X (a "character" in Mega Man 6 who was actually just a disguise of Dr. Wily's, but in the comics he's an actual separate character). Before Wily can do anything else or learn who Mr. X is, though, that's the point where he's grabbed by Sigma and forced to work for him.

As for the whole "Sonic Generations is how the doctors first met" stuff... that's just down to the reboot not allowing ANY reference to the old continuity. I guess they figured that, with the reboot saying a lot of game stories happened in some form anyway, they'd use the opportunity to tie-in Worlds Collide's opening to Sonic Generations' ambiguous ending for Eggman?

Either that or, due to how the first Genesis Wave resulted in something VASTLY different in this new continuity, they figured it was easier to say that Generations was why the Chaos Emerald ended up in Mega Man's world this time.

[Dr. Detective]

56 minutes ago, NegaMix said:

As for the whole "Sonic Generations is how the doctors first met" stuff... that's just down to the reboot not allowing ANY reference to the old continuity. I guess they figured that, with the reboot saying a lot of game stories happened in some form anyway, they'd use the opportunity to tie-in Worlds Collide's opening to Sonic Generations' ambiguous ending for Eggman?

Either that or, due to how the first Genesis Wave resulted in something VASTLY different in this new continuity, they figured it was easier to say that Generations was why the Chaos Emerald ended up in Mega Man's world this time.

Probably, but it's extremely confusing when it's just boiled down to a mention in a text box like that. Those boxes are typically done to tell the reader to refer to something if they wish for clarification on what's going on but so often that's just not been the case. Even if they can't talk about the old continuity stuff like Total Eclipse telling you to remember what happened in Sonic 3 when Knuckles is yelling at Snively for trying to take the Master Emerald is weird. 

In my mind I was ready to just be like "Well, I guess that means Snively was working with Eggman when that happened" but then no. Turns out Snively was alone. He did that by himself. It's tough figuring out what to trust and what things mean when the set-up is so weird and there's so little info being offered whenever it does this. IDW doesn't need to worry about this because it doesn't have an old continuity to blend and because everyone is basically a free agent it doesn't stick out as much when the comic exclusive characters like the Freedom Fighters and their flying Hall of Justice is gone. Could have really used that during the events of Sonic Adventure during the flood. 

I don't envy Ian's position here. This situation he was forced into sucks. I remain impressed it worked as well as it did.

[Dr. Detective]

Archie Sonic the Hedgehog - Issue #273: Worlds Unite - Part 3: Clash of the Corrupted

They look so awesome but so stupid at the same time. Especially poor Mega Man. You’ve got to horrify and embarrass the poor lad at the same time eh Eggman? It’s a bit of a wonder that one of the images from a previous cover is in the background but I guess it works. The image in the foreground is the one my eyes gravitate towards regardless. Let’s see how cute a Sonic and Mega Man showcase as villains can be.

Spoiler

Evil Reborn Variant 

Oh my. That’s a pretty sinister looking cover. The poor doctors. I couldn’t imagine how painful it would be to be puppeted on large coils like that. Really like the look of the shine through the Lost Hex in the background. That place is quite an interesting landscape. I couldn’t stand just being on a floating landmass that just had literal pieces of it missing and a large drop below. Yeesh.

Covers Unite Variant (3 of 12)

Here’s the other half of Sigma’s face. Shadow seems to be going after Zor. Actually, everyone here sort of seems to be doing that. I don’t quite know what Zor is trying to do though. He looks like he’s trying to grab Cream’s outstretched hand. Meanwhile Antoine looks like he doesn’t quite know if he should cut it off or not.

—

Writer: Ian Flynn
Pencil Breakdowns: Dan Schoening
Pencil Finishes: Tracy Yardley
Inks: Terry Austin
Colors: Luis Delgado
Letters: Jack Morelli
Cover by Patrick “Spaz” Spaziante
Evil Reborn Variant Cover by T. Rex
Covers Unite Variant (3 of 12) by Ben Bates

Credits at the end again. I hate you.

We’re in Mega City where Sonic Man has just finished wasting a bunch of fools in a fight we just saw in the Battle Book. If you didn’t, it’s thankfully pretty easy to figure out what happened. He shoots spin dashes from his arm cannon. It’s pretty sweet.

Sonic Man defeats Fire Man by grabbing him. That’s all we see him do. He just grabs him by the throat area and tosses him to the side. As this happens, Time Man is explaining to Bomb Man that even with time slowed down he’s too fast to hit, so they’re fucked.

Dr. Light is told by Roll that the distraction team lost so now he has to send another team out there to handle things. These guys.

Oh hey.

I know who… some of these guys are.

I remember Shadow Man and Snake Man. Spark Man and Wood Man seem familiar. Quake Woman seems to be someone who gets talked about a lot though I don’t recall seeing them before this so I guess that’ll be a nice surprise waiting for me when I read those Mega Man books.

Sonic Man finishes setting up and activating the Unity Engine which creates a very scary looking purple beam in the sky. Loki’s invasion looks like it might be coming to fruition but then he gets punched in the face by the flying fist of Hard Man and taunted by Flash Man.

So while he goes to deal with that M’Egga Man (Great name. Eggman continues to be a bastard) is fighting off the Freedom Fighters in Sonic’s world.

M’Egga Man here is, of course, giving them a run for their money and utilizing Sonic centric items and obstacles to fight them off. That ever elusive ball and chain has returned and it always seems to be attached to the mightest of foes.

Of course, Sally makes a comment about not being sure Sonic could take on this one because it’s Mega Man. Obviously. 

Tails, Amy, and Knuckles are there but they don’t seem to recognize this robot or even this style of robot which is fair enough. He looks fully decked out in Eggman garb. I wouldn’t glance at this thing and immediately go “Hey that’s that Mega Man fellow” either. At least not instantly.

Sally asks Cream to get backup and Cream contacts her mom who then contacts Gemerl and tells him that danger is afoot. He was busy getting firewood to last them three years, he says, as he hauls a fucking tree over his shoulder. That will have to wait now.

Then he gets ambushed, somehow, by Big’s incredibly hard to miss but hilariously moon sized frame. 

They just dropped this large cat on that poor boy and I just can’t help but feel ever more sorry for him.

One thing to point out here is that we’re being introduced to our players for the Sonic side of the equation in Worlds Unite. 

So with the undoubtedly much better and more succinct Worlds Collide, the focus was more on having the worlds of Sonic and Mega Man as the general populace know it collide for a special comic crossover event. As such, the Sonic characters used there were exclusively the game ones. Not all of them but the ones you could get the most mileage out of story wise. Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy, Shadow, Rouge, Omega, Vector, Charmy, Espio, Silver, Blaze, Metal Sonic, and Eggman were all there. Pretty big cast but nothing a 12 issue story can’t handle.

This time, the approach is definitely much different. Instead of a big open world that’s disconnected from the comic worlds these casts inhabit so that we can tell a story that would be more accessible to people who aren’t familiar with them we’re just starting things off in the realm of the comics first.

We’ll eventually reach an area where things have merged but seeing as how this is the third issue it feels a little weird kicking things off this way for the heroes for one.

However, the other thing, and the more important thing, is the change in cast. 

So, Ian talked about this before but apparently he got some people who were disappointed by the fact that Worlds Collide didn’t showcase any of the Freedom Fighters. Now, the reason for why that happened was obvious but hey, we’re doing another one. So I guess he figured that this time he would make the central Sonic cast the Freedom Fighters proper this time.

If people wanted that, I guess I understand, but man… I can’t say I had too much of an interest in seeing the Freedom Fighters crossover with the SEGA and Capcom characters versus the cast from Heroes and Generations. 

There are too many characters in this crossover so he had to go with one or the other. I suppose at the time he thought it was only fair to include them but it just didn’t pan out well as far as my own personal investment.

Ian lamented this decision later, though, he stated he would have kept the focus on I think just Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and Amy and not necessarily included any other Sonic game cast members. I guess that’s fine. Brevity is more of an issue here than anything. 

I’ll admit that it does bother me a little that it’s set up this way for reasons other than anything based on pure logic. Despite not hating the Freedom Fighters I tend to feel certain ways about the where and how they appear in things like this and Worlds Unite was one of those situations where I’d have rather just seen the game characters only again.

It’s purely an emotional and preferential take. I have no hard logic or SUPER SERIOUS reason for why I feel that way. 

I’m not going to pretend there isn’t still some lingering bias there. Even after going on such a long journey with them up to this point, I’m not as attached to them as a lot of other people are, I'm afraid. I ironically feel more attached to Mega Man but that's probably because his type of character is more up my alley than most of the FF. 

Sonic Man defeats the reinforcements that just arrived. A guy with time stopping powers is still too slow for Sonic Man and he wraps them up in rings and blasts them.

You can’t stop him. He’s too fast.

He’s the fastest.

Break Man shows up and warps the non-combatants away so now it’s his turn to fight.

Who is Break Man? Why does he look like Proto Man with a mouth mask on? All these questions and more will be answered in the other book that I haven’t read yet. I will eventually though. This will all make sense one day.

The thing that bothers me the most about this page are the musical notes around the Unity Engine. Is that like a Mystic Melody being activated or something?

M’Egga Man defeats the Freedom Fighters with bombs that surprise them with a troll face.

SURPRISE BITCH!

There was a scene with a disembodied robot head from Total Recall that this reminds me of.

Yeah, the Freedom Fighters get bombed to shit and are taken out. Right as M’Egga Man is about to close the deal, Gemerl arrives and fires a bunch of rockets down at the area.

He must be a really good shot and those explosions must be super specifically designed to only hurt his enemies. Otherwise he just bombed an area where the unconscious Freedom Fighters were already just bombed.

So yeah, Gemerl is here and he’s got… quite a way with words.

Despite that, the best bit on this page is M’Egga Man angrily saying “SOMEONE ELSE WANTS TO GET SHOT IN THE FACE!” 

Like, Jesus.

Anyway, Gemerl isn’t a super huge wise-cracker here. Not yet. However, it is extremely noticeable how different he’s talking and acting here compared to what I’m used to from IDW. 

I will say that my time with Gemerl is very obtuse. I knew OF him when I read these books initially, years ago, but I wasn’t aware of his personality or even really what his entire deal was supposed to be. I knew who Emerl was because of Sonic X and my later watch through of a Sonic Battle playthrough. Most of the details surrounding what happened there are lost to my mind since it was so long ago. It’s easier to remember the details of games you’ve actually played after all. 

I’ve just plain never played any of the Advance games. I’ve never seen their stories either. I currently have no means of playing them either. Well, maybe I do now that I finally have that Gaming PC I’ve always wanted but I don’t CURRENTLY know how to use it to my advantage to find a way to play them. Point is, Gemerl is a character that I know little about.

Despite that, though, when he showed up acting like this I recall thinking to myself that this seemed a bit off. It felt more like he was acting kind of like Shard. I don’t know if this is true or not but perhaps the intention was to utilize him as a replacement since Shard was off the table now? At least in terms of a wise-cracking robot who looks cool and then jobs out. 

Cause that’s what he does. He and Break Man just gets blasted and they’re done.

Well, Break man falls to a spring thing from Sonic’s arm.

But yeah, you know. Pretty similar stuff.

It’s delightful seeing that cocky evil smirk on M’Egga Man’s face and that cheeky comment he just made. It’s always cute when you get to see the good boys go bad.

So yeah, that’s what Gemerl is here.

It does bug me a bit. I don’t know how everyone else feels about this. I think I may recall hearing some complaints about Gemerl’s attitude in IDW when he first showed up. People may or may not have been on board for how plain he might have seemed in comparison but to be perfectly honest, I prefer the way he is in IDW. 

I don’t know about the rest of you but I’ve kind of had my fill of wise-cracking characters. I didn’t need Gemerl to be another one. Not to mention, Gemerl’s introductory issue in IDW was such a grand, wonderful, dramatic situation. The verbal skirmish he had with Sonic and the lesson he took from Cream were all really, really well done and I feel like it only achieved what it did because Gemerl’s personality is so straightforward. 

Like, it comes off a lot more sweet to me BECAUSE he’s a lot more serious and more of a normal robot who values protocol. It makes the moments where Cream is teaching him to have more of a heart stand out a lot more. If he already had his personality in check then I don’t feel like it’d do much of anything for me.

So, the two robot jerks have won and get ready to activate the Unity Engine.

Man, I really want to see more Evil Mega Man. 

Oh well.

They’ve activated the engines. Sigma starts laughing because keikaku-dore and the two doctors standing behind him fist pump because their plan is coming along swimmingly as well.

As soon as Sigma’s plan to merge the worlds and siphon the energy from them starts, the two Robot Masters see one another in their line of sight and the secondary objective they’ve been implanted with activates.

Now they must face off against each other.

Have you seen Sonic and Mega Man fight? Yes?

Well how about again but as evil robots this time! One was already a robot. He just needed to add the evil.

Considering what this crossover is trying to achieve and what’s happened so far, I’m starting to feel a little worried. That was the third issue and it was spent entirely on these two just decimating the resistance that was coming to try and stop them. The heroes failed and the Unity Engine activated. I guess, maybe, jumping directly to the part where they just activated the engines and started fighting would have been too quick but the cover of the issue didn’t seem to think so. In the grand scheme of things, witnessing these characters show up to lose probably won’t feel like too much of a set-back. I can see how in a normally paced story this issue would have been fine but I’m already starting to fret about the time crunch here. Going into Issue four the Worlds still haven’t united and none of the heroes even know what’s going on. Hopefully the end of the fourth issue ties things together neatly enough. I may look back on this thinking that this part wasn’t the problem after all. It doesn’t necessarily feel like it is yet.

 

Mega Man - Issue #50: Worlds Unite - Part 4: Death and Destruction

Man, what “luck” to have it be that both of these series would have a milestone issue in the middle of a crossover. That’s honestly a little shocking. For Mega Man here, some might even say it’s a bit unfortunate. I wonder what a normal Issue #50 for Archie Mega Man proper would have been had it not been this. Granted, what’s happening is still fairly significant if Sigma being here means anything, I guess. It’s also not a bad thing to share your milestones with another series sometimes. I don’t know if it needed to happen twice though.

Spoiler

Variant #1

“I live again… again,” exclaimed Sigma as he ran into battle with the Deadly Six behind him like they were makeshift Power Rangers. This is an incredibly strange cover but it’s pretty hype. I appreciate things that are just unapologetically ridiculous.

Variant #2

I’m not too huge a fan of this art style. I feel like this cover would be absolutely up my alley if the structure of everyone’s faces was just a little less angular. There are some really nice colors and the background is cool.

Variant #3

Holy shit. Now this is a cool as fuck cover. Intense, gritty, and realistic without sacrificing that boyish charm that makes Mega Man who he is. That background looks like the sun has exploded in Crisis City. I can totally see that happening too. The inside of that arm blaster looks like it’s proper heated and not just a bright pretty light too. 

Variant #4

The fuck is this? 

What?

Uhm… yeah, I’m not going to beat around the bush here; this shit is ugly. I was about to compliment the city but then I properly looked at it and the way the buildings go all crooked in the corner and look a little squished together on the bottom aren’t appealing. The less said about what I assume is homeless Zander Payne with tooth decay, the better. 

 

Covers Unite Variant (4 of 12)

In this part, Big is going toe to toe with shrimp. Amy seems to be helping out Ice Man there. Rouge is dodging or narrowly avoiding a laser. Also Bomb Man threw a bomb. Cool.

 

Convention Exclusive Variant

I like seeing the work in progress images of covers a lot. That doesn’t mean I’d want to own it as a variant cover. I’d rather just catch that online. No offense but I ain’t paying extra for something that’s decidedly unfinished. Although this was a Convention Exclusive. I’ve never been to one so I don’t know if this was still priced or if it came in a tote bag or something.

—

Writer: Ian Flynn
Line Art: Dan Schoening
Colors: Luis Delgado
Letters: Jack Morelli
Cover by Patrick “Spaz” Spaziante
Variant Covers by Edwin Haung, Patrick Thomas Parnell, Roger & Idalia Robinson and Irvin Rodriguez
Covers Unite Variant (4 of 12) by Ben Bates
Convention Exclusive Variant Cover by Patrick “Spaz” Spaziante

Sigma is laughing his ass off. He finds this fucking great. 

The power! THE ABSOLUTE POWER!

The doctors say they’ve done their job a little too well and the Worlds Uniting is shown with this epic as hell two-page spread of massive, wonderful, jaw-dropping talent!

FUCK!

ARTWOOOOOORK!

This is artwork at work ladies and gentlemen! Can you see it? Can you feel it?

It’s great because the clash that’s happening between Mega Man’s cybernetic looking world and Sonic’s jigsaw puzzle Unleashed planet is also shooting up through the Lost Hex. It’s super cool.

Soooo, because this is happening, literally everything starts to happen all at once and my eyes kind of glazed over a bit. I had to slow down because each new page some character was greeting another new character and being saved and explaining something else and I just had to stop to collect myself.

Especially when the fourth faction of characters showed up. Or were they the fifth?

Eh, the first faction is M’Egga Man and Sonic Man. They’re fighting each other.

The second are the Freedom Fighters. They see the downed Robot Masters and are confused because they’re robots but they look like they’ve been fighting that Sonic shaped robot which… should mean nothing since they were fighting the M’Egga Man one but I guess they figured since it’s Sonic shaped it’s probably Eggman’s doing. Safe bet, honestly.

Meanwhile, the third factor, Hard Man, Flash Man, and the other Robot Masters are observing M’Egga Man and realizing that that’s Mega Man. Others, like Bubble Man, take one look at Antoine and want to shoot to kill but Break Man tells him to go easy for fuck’s sake.

They all save some civilians together. Then Sally gets saved by Flash Man from… honestly, it’s hard to tell.

After looking it over a few more times I think what’s happening is that Dr. Light’s house is being zapped in over top Sally so Flash Man stops time to save her before she’s crushed or stuck in the walls (which would be far worse).

This brings in our fourth faction of Dr. Light and Roll who step outside to see … just the weirdest scene ever.

M’Egga Man hurling bombs of his own head at Sonic Man like that looks hilarious. It reminds me of Foxy’s bombs from the Davy Back Fight. I can’t help but imagine all the little M’Egga Man heads going “Fi Fi Fi Fi”. 

Since neither side wants to fight and are opting to explain to each other what’s happening, the sailing is pretty smooth and shockingly quick. I suppose, here in the fourth issue, it kind of has to be.

Then, on the very next page, without giving me time to breath, the fifth faction shows up.

That image of Comedy Chip is so rugged. It always stuck in my mind after all these years.

Also, seeing X walk out of a portal with Sticks the Badger on his shoulder and Axl with Comedy Chimp in front of him and Zero with Fastidious Beaver ahead of him is surreal as hell. I haven’t even played Mega Man X and barely know who they are and it looks SO strange.

Then on the very next page, again, we cut to faction six which is just Xander Payne.

His eye can create portals or some shit. I dunno. 

Stuff is happening.

The coolest part of that image is seeing Chemical Plant’s aesthetics crossing over with the prison. The place is filling up with Mega Mack and it’s got one of those strange loop-de-loops in the center. What a time to be alive.

I couldn’t have asked for a weirder prison escape.

Shit continues to hit the fan as the objectives of M’Egga Man and Sonic Man are at odds with our survival. They’re still fighting and trying to kill each other and it is helping nothing.

That is, until the doctor’s plan finally comes to fruition and turns things around.

They built in a failsafe that destroys what they’ve wrought upon Sonic and Mega Man. The Eggman tech in M’Egga Man activates as M’Egga Man fires a beam at Sonic and destroys the Wily armor. Sonic Man’s Wily tech activates when he fires a beam at M’Egga Man and destroys the Eggman armor.

Then the voices of the two doctors echo in their heads.

Hear that? Nothing else matters! Focus on Sigma! Do not focus on Eggman. Do not bother Wily. And PLEASE excuse my dear Aunt Sally!

Despite the fact that what they built into them worked the doctors are tip-toeing away from Sigma with a hush in their voices. The idea worked but the plan didn’t. The two of them were supposed to do that part HERE when the Worlds Unified. They had no idea that they would just immediately come across each other right away.

Honestly, I can’t even blame the doctors for thinking that might not have happened. The odds of it happening seem astronomical.

Maybe activating the pulse bombs brought them close together somehow but guessing that also seems like an impossibility really.

Sigma is pissed and upon witnessing this happening, immediately realizes that the doctors sabotaged him and sends the Zeti out to bring them back alive but not necessarily intact.

Anyway, we reach a part of the story that was apparently controversial when it happened. 

I missed the controversy because, to be honest, I didn’t have a clue what the fuck was going on in this story when I read it all those years ago the first time. Both times I’ve read this, I completely missed this moment happening, somehow. 

Legitimately, I DO NOT REMEMBER this happening or reading this happening when I first got this book. 

I just don’t. At all.

Wild right?

So yeah, when Rock recovers and Sonic asks if he’s okay, they both look up and notice a G.U.N cruiser with Team Dark and the Commander fused with a Government building.

And then it just blows up.

Oh and it killed Mayor Dorado too. Whoever that is. I’ll find out one day.

Sonic snags Shadow’s inhibitor ring out of the air and claims that this being here means that he’s dead I guess? I suppose?

Maybe the reason I don’t remember this happening is because my brain wasn’t processing what was supposed to be happening here correctly. If I were just skimming through these images when I was younger I probably just saw Team Dark in like a panel and in the next one an explosion or something and Sonic talking to a ring he found.

It goes by quick enough. 

Apparently, there were people who fell for this. 

Apparently, there were enough people who fell for this that it stirred up a controversy about Ian killing off Shadow or something as if SEGA would ever…!

Well, as if they would ever AGAIN I mean…!

Yeah, I mean, even back then and without ever once listening to a single episode of the Bumblekast, I knew no one in the main series of Sonic games was going to be killed off in the comics. That’s just not something you can do nor does it feel like something that ever felt possible for them to do. 

There are a lot of reasons why but the main one is mostly just based on the atmosphere of the series at the time. These characters were still being promoted in the games despite SEGA’s terrible treatment of them. So long as they were around in them I couldn’t see an avenue where the comics would kill them. Simple enough.

I guess a lot of other people could? The internet is a very strange place where people would readily believe just anything can happen at anytime without so much as a tiny speck of common sense or introspection on their part.

I’m willing to bet another section of the controversy was just that this moment was stupid and pointless… which it is. There was no reason for this to happen but it’s kind of what the guy in charge wanted.

Ian didn’t want it. I don’t even know if he necessarily wanted to do Worlds Unite (though he did say a third one was being planned too which… yikes) but I know for a fact that he didn’t want to do THIS.

He was told by the head editor or the president or somebody at the top that in order to sell the high stakes of this crossover as super serious business for realz yo we needed to kill off a character. Or a group of characters.

So, in Ian’s mind, he figured the only way to satisfyingly do that would be to choose someone no one in their right mind would believe would ever possibly be allowed to get killed off in that fashion. Not just Shadow but fucking Rouge and Omega just blew the hell up. As if that was going to stick.

Well, apparently, there was another snippet of controversy that he choose Shadow because of some sort of personal vendetta against him which, at the time, made absolutely no sense. I can sort of see people making that still incorrect accusation nowadays after ‘Cowards Run, I Win’ but it still makes no sense and is based on nothing. It also ignores the way he’s written and handled the character in stuff that isn’t this too.

This was just an all around bad and ridiculous decision. I’m not mad at it. It’s a little too quick and a little too transparent and who-gives-a-shit for me to be legitimately bothered by it. I didn't even remember it happening. But it’s still very strange.

The two of them scrunch up their eyes to simulate the act of mourning for their losses in a single panel and then just immediately ask what’s happening but piece it together due to recalling the name Sigma and remembering that this is all his fault.

Sonic asks Mega Man to team up again and Mega Man asks who the hell Sonic even is. Sonic gives us our second recap of Worlds Collide and Mega Man is pretty stunned but Sonic seems friendly enough and he knows everyone’s names already.

It’s very cute.

Anyway, Sally is here so she does that thing she tries to do where she pretends to be a leader or something.

Mega Man is clearly being the leader though.

I’d follow that adorable lad to my death, I would.

I had myself a little giggle at the top image. Like… does Zero always stand with his back to everyone all the time so that his long flowing locks can show off like that or…?

We end this part of the story on Sigma watching this happen and being all “BUT I’M REAL GOOD AT HIDE AND SEEK YA’LL!”

Also, he’s got an army. It’s a band of robots or something.

I’m sure they’re all important designs and characters I would know the name of if I played the games or something.

Sure would be nice to have more room to glance at them though. If only that large text-box weren’t in the way.

It’s such a shame that we absolutely HAVE to put the credits at the back of the book where our final splash page is after all these years of not doing that for a very good reason. Oh fucking well I guess.

Mega Man - Issue #50: The Choice

Writer: Ian Flynn
Pencils: Powree
Inks: Rick Bryant
Colors: Luis Delgado and Anna Chher
Letters: Jack Morelli

As a fairly special bonus to have for Mega Man’s special 50th, one that I didn’t remember had happened, we’ve got the official meeting between Mega Man and Mega Man X!

Now, this is interesting because it highlights another problem with Worlds Unite as a concept.

According to Ian, and I don’t know why this is the case exactly because I’m not familiar enough with either of these franchises, but a meeting between Mega Man and Mega Man X CAN’T happen.

I have speculation as to why. It probably deals with Dr. Light and time paradoxes and what not but it’s something that just can’t happen and as such it contributed to why the big… disappointing thing to end this special crossover had to happen.

So, I can at least see the value in getting to have your cake, even if you can’t eat it too.

Mega Man and X bond over their desire for peace and the woes of having no choice but to fight in order to preserve that peace. It’s a little sad when it comes to Mega Man here seeing as how he volunteered to do this, probably expecting a way out when all was said and done and just… hasn’t found one.

Looking at this it feels like the story of a kid who sentenced themselves to purgatory.

In reality, it’s probably just the stigma of constant releases. I think Mega Man 2 was supposed to be the original end but they saw success and whoopsie we made a video game icon. Granted, Mega Man doesn’t really have to worry about that anymore. Mega Man 11 was about four years ago now, which isn’t too terribly long, granted. It came out after Sonic Forces which means Sonic’s been going on longer without another main series title.

Sure, Mega Man doesn’t have any spin-offs but… he’s in Smash?

Eh…

He’s got it better than Captain Falcon.

X tells his story next. That story I read long ago about Dr. Cain finding X and waking him up. Also about how the Reploids were made and integrated into living with humanity. Then the story shifted to how some Reploids went rogue and were considered Mavericks. 

So a team called the Maverick Hunters was formed. They were a team of Reploids sent to hunt down other Reploids basically. It was apparently led by Sigma until Sigma himself went Maverick and started bombing places and threatening to send off nukes.

It gets super dramatic and Rock and Roll get lost and enthralled in his story.

Of course, this leads to X talking about how humbled he is by Mega Man, seeing as how Mega Man made a choice all his own and stuck to it. He talked about how he once gave up and had to be reminded of WHAT HE WAS FIGHTING FOR. It all worked out in the end.

This is the part where Roll asks him to back up a bit and we directly confront the reason why these two can’t meet. It fucks with the time stream and as I guessed it is because of Dr. Light.

X does contemplate telling Dr. Light not to create him because he blames himself for the bad stuff that happened. Mega Man tells him not to because they don’t know what else Wily had cooking that he could have prevented the spread of.

I would also like to add that X’s idea to introduce Reploids to the world helped create a heaping helping of progress for the world. You can’t foist all the bad on your shoulders and refuse to accept the good you’ve done like that man. That ain’t fair to yourself.

Mega Man tells him to knock that shit off. 

Oh yeah. I guess Mega Man is the big brother in this situation. So weird right?

After they finish training together, their two rivals in red walk in and tell them to hurry to the War Room.

Mega Man and X laugh with one another about the fact that they have complicated relationships with red colored rivals. Hardy har har.

Yeah, you could say the same thing for Sonic too actually.

So that was the 50th issue of Mega Man and it has some very stellar, wonderful artwork. The pacing however was very rushed. It also doesn’t feel like the story properly ended any kind of first third here. It more so felt like the issue just ended with everyone gathered together and ready to be like “And here’s what we’ll do for the next part I think”.

This story is moving really fast now and it’s starting to really feel like it too. This was an issue of stuff just happening and there’s too little room for it to breathe. I actually didn’t catch on that it was JUST the Freedom Fighters and not really much of the game cast in this story until we were more than half-way through the book. I missed the part where that would have been made apparent to me I guess. Feels weird. You get so many characters dumped on you at once that you fail to take into account that maybe what you’re seeing is ALL there is. 

That last story was the most well put together part of the issue of course. It was short, concise, and it had an emotional core that was genuine. It’s too bad it’ll be erased from time and mean very little. The sentimentality exposited by them will linger within our minds at least. There’s that.

Sonic Universe - Issue #77: Worlds Unite - Part 5: Everybody in the Same Boat

I quite like this one actually. I’ve always been a fan of just showing a line up of heroes juxtaposed against a line up of villains. It gives me the anime feels somethin’ fierce. Sunset is always a great way to punctuate an epic feel too. 

Spoiler

One Big Happy Team Variant

This is also a very cute variant cover. I probably wouldn’t choose to have it over the main one or anything but it’s neat. More so for the Mega Man characters though. The Sonic ones seem a tiny bit off but not bad. 

Covers Unite Variant (5 of 12)

In this piece of the puzzle we have Sonic’s whole ass and legs, Vyse ready to murder someone with electric blades of some kind, Ryu charging a hadoken at Zeena who’s rushing at him with a laser whip, and Auto just falling to his death. Also, I think there’s a devil doing the splits behind Zeena there. Probably. 

—

Writer: Ian Flynn
Pencils: Edwin Huang
Inks: Gary Martin
Letters: John Workman
Colorist: Gabriel Cassata
Cover by Patrick “Spaz” Spaziante
One Big Happy Team Variant by Claus - Justin Harder
Covers Unite Variant (5 of 12) by Ben Bates

Oh no. Every single one of the issues in this story is going to have the credits at the fucking end aren’t they? They were going all in on this terrible idea. Fuck this.

So we’re at Issue 5 and our heroes have come together finally. I think it took a similar amount of time for that to happen in the first one but it does already feel like we’re short on time considering what I know is going to show up in this crossover. We’re not in the danger zone just yet however.

The pacing of the last issue was really fast and it’s kind of hard to say that doesn’t affect how this one starts, though, the pacing of this one as it begins is mostly fine.

It’s just Sally having a meeting with the other team leaders. Sticks isn’t here right now. She’s off fighting a broom in a pointless side-story that will be covered in the battle books. It might end up being amusing when I re-read it but saying it’s pointless is pretty much the truth regardless I’m afraid.

We then cut to the two doctors who are still trying to run away from the Deadly Six. They’re not getting anywhere because there’s nowhere to run and Sonic and Mega Man didn’t change back where they were so they could save them. They’re holding out for a miracle now and it comes in the form of an extremist terrorist who hates technology.

Xander Payne’s portal carried him to this location. He’s seen the doctors in whatever vision he’s had that told him about his destiny or whatever. It’s not exactly easy to gauge knowing so little about this character aside from his entire backstory but we’ll see.

We cut back to the meeting where Sally tries to start but then Sticks falls through the ceiling and into her seat saying that she had a spy broom to neutralize. With that out of the way Sally then officially starts the meeting by… turning things over to X.

Yeah, okay. Cool.

So X explains everything he knows about Sigma since he’s obviously the one who would. Man, the formalities of the Sky Patrol and the Freedom Fighters system are a little funny sometimes. Just start with X explaining things. Why waste panels of Sally pretending she’s gonna lead something only for her to just hand everything over to X? 

It’s starting to distract me. Reboot Sally started off so good but she’s not been handled with much care since. I guess Spark of Life was a nice little showcase for her but other than that it really feels like we’re clinging onto an old system that doesn’t really need to be around anymore at this point.

As much as I hate the fact that they have a brig, it did lead to this wonderful moment.

Sonic thought having a brig was unnecessary until he saw a chance to throw someone in the brig.

You know, the thing a brig was created to do.

Also it IS unnecessary because they’re let out of it by X a page later when Eggman demands they be partners on stopping Sigma. They know everything about his plan and can give him his whereabouts and all the details down to the letter about it. 

Sonic has worked with Eggman numerous times before so it’s whatever. Mega Man is more worried about working with Wily then Sonic is with Eggman despite Eggman being the far more dangerous of the two. That just goes to show how different the relationships between the heroes are. X releases them anyway. They need all the help they can get and Sonic was literally in the middle of saying that what they were doing to find Sigma was too slow.

I always love it whenever Sonic and Eggman team up. I recall it being a hot button issue back in the 2000s of course and the desire for Eggman to be the main villain again ramped up fiercely to where we got an entire decade of just that and it led to… mostly disappointing results.

Eggman being the main villain or not is not the problem. If your stories are bland and uninteresting it doesn’t actually matter who or what the final boss is. That’s why I cherish those earlier stories where they teamed up more because the stories told were just better adventures.

But I digress. The doctors are free now and Xander is…

Crazy.

Crazy is attracted to crazy so of course Sticks hovers over him. She was inside the cell and she thought it was comfy. I’m guessing it was drawn to her. She’d probably find a more padded cell really comfy in comparison.

They explain that Sigma's plan is to merge worlds together to suck out their power to get the power to do more of the same. The more worlds he unites, the more powerful he gets and eventually he’ll be a God.

After that we get scenes of the characters interacting. It’s nice. It’s pretty much what you want out of a crossover like this. 

The tried and true Sonic and Mega Man interaction is back.

Sonic lying to make himself look better has less to do with ego and more to do with incredibly low self-esteem. 

Mega Man will yet again forget this happened so it feels a little sad. Like, if they were to do another crossover like Ian said was in the works would he just keep needing to be reminded that he met Sonic and have interactions with him that he’d forget over and over again. 

It sounds like a cruel, sick joke.

Also, Knuckles is here now.

There’s a scene where Rotor is showing the Red Star Ring to Eggman, saying it was supposed to be used as an emergency preserve. Eggman points out that this is an emergency and wonders if the Sky Patrol can handle all the energy it’ll produce.

Tails says the Sky Patrol can handle anything and then asks if Dr. Wily is bored due to his attention being divided. Turns out he’s admiring the robots from X’s world, saying the red one specifically looks like something he’d build.

Quake Woman is sharing thoughts and feels with Nicole.

Comedy Chimp is being a bad comedian to Break Man who is having literally none of it. He just takes the bucket of nuts and bolts from the guy and walks off while the chimp makes another “joke” that falls flat.

Tails is admiring the Robot Masters and Dr. Wily is getting a bit of a swelled head. Meanwhile, Xander has gone from trying to ignore Sticks to sharing his thoughts because they have so much in common.

All of this is being juxtaposed with Sigma creating his massive unity engines and robotic beasts.

Lunch arrives and when Sally sees it’s a chili-dog, she gets upset and says she should have had Bunnie and Antoine do lunch. Girl, if you didn’t want a chili-dog you shouldn’t have let Sonic do lunch. You know this. Don’t complain about the obvious happening when it happens.

Granted, this scene does try to address the earlier issue I had with Sally’s place in all this a bit. X was trying to contact his old team to have as navigators for his mission and since he can’t get into contact with them, Sally volunteers to help by hanging back and using the Sky Patrol. Cream and Cheese are here too. If you’ll recall, they weren’t in the last crossover.

More interactions happen. Sticks demands to know where Sonic’s sports tape is. Antoine and Zero start comparing sizes. Shadow Man claims to be siding with Dr. Light because he wishes to stab him in the back for the sake of Dr. Wily?

I’m not even reading the Mega Man books yet and I’m already intrigued. I do wonder if this’ll stick after the crossover ends or if it’s just a hint at what’s already happening in the main book. Oh well.

Sigma’s army is being completed now. He looks pleased with himself. He’s got a very colorful army of murder penguins and other shit. 

Actually, despite Sigma’s rugged, intense looking face, the dude has a lot of color on him and his army. They look like really neat toys. I guess it’s still Mega Man at the end of the day but it really does highlight the thought process behind the design.

Zavok comes in to report that, uh-oh spaghettios, they’ve been discovered. The Sky Patrol approaches from a distance and Sigma is a little pissed. He tells Zavok to get the Deadly Six and lead his army to keep them away from him at all costs.

Once he’s gone, he calls them fodder that are just going out there to distract them. He says that the REAL enemies he’s making will be the ones to kill them.

So we have our run down of heroes.

The navigators are Roll, Sally, Nicole, Cream, and Cheese.

The Maverick Hunters of Axl, Zero, and X are ready.

The Freedom Fighters of Sonic, Tails, Amy, Big, Antoine, Bunnie, and Rotor are shown. Knuckles isn’t in the panel for some reason. I don’t buy that they ran out of room either.

The Robot Masters with Mega Man, Break Man, Flash Man, Hard Man, Shadow Man, Wood Man, Snake Man, Spark Man, Air Man, Quake Woman, and Bubble Man are all there.

Team Sticks with Sticks, Fastidious Beaver, and Comedy Chimp are there too for whatever good that’ll do.

Comedy Chimp closes us out on a real zinger.

He says an old showbiz saying comes to mind.

"Dying is easy... comedy is hard."

Comedy is impossible in your case Comedy Chimp.

We end on this two-page spread and… I don’t wish to knock the artist or anything because lord knows it took a lot of talent to draw this but as an army of murder robots coming towards them I can’t help but feel this is a little lacking in comparison to what we got before.

Granted, I know it’s not fair to ask these artists to kill themselves drawing every robot boss in a sea of robots every single time but it’s kind of hard not to notice after the first crossover went so hard. I think a more fair example of what I mean will come up soon next time.

However, Worlds Unite goes hard too. Just not right now. It did in the beginning and I remember it doing so in the end so we’ll see.

While the art of this issue wasn’t my favorite by any means, what it depicts was a nice stretch of breathing room from the jambalaya of stuff that was just happening the issue before. It was more set-up, sure, but it was also progress seeing as how all the factions we were dealing with are finally together. The issue ends with everyone finally going into battle too so we’ve got things underway now.

As we head into Issue #6, I feel this would be a perfectly fine point to have this happen were this merely just a fusion of Sonic, Mega Man, Mega Man X, and Sonic Boom… however we know that’s not the case. Half the book is about to be over and we haven’t seen the other SEGA or Capcom reps show up yet. It’s a little much already having two different versions of Sonic and Mega Man to represent this crossover but to dump a shit load of franchises on top of that while also finding a good balance for the Deadly Six introduction, Xander Payne, and everything else… it’s just not feasible. You can already feel the heavy ambition of what this was starting to creep up on it a bit. It’s not gotten terrible yet. It still feels like the pacing is moderately fine aside from that last issue but the tides are sure to be turning now that we’re getting low on space.

I don’t want to knock the comic for what I fear it’s about to do over what it actually is doing though and right now things are relatively fine.

 

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

I swear, as someone who really hates Worlds Unite, it would’ve actually topped Worlds Collide had they kept out the non-Sonic and Megaman franchises.

Like, Boom, much as I don’t like it, was still welcome as it was still Sonic. But outside of that—NIGHTS, Street Fighter, etc—was too much given they were trying cram an MCU Endgame-esque story in 12 issues and interrupted an ongoing plot in the process. Hell, they could’ve built into that later down the line with a longer arc that could accommodate the added franchises instead of rushing it in.

It’s a lesson of structure and pacing to say the least.

[SanPolo4389]

3 hours ago, Dr. Acula Mike said:

The thing that bothers me the most about this page are the musical notes around the Unity Engine. Is that like a Mystic Melody being activated or something?

It's supposed to be Protoman's entrance theme everytime he enters.
 

 

[SanPolo4389]

3 hours ago, Dr. Acula Mike said:

He was told by the head editor or the president or somebody at the top that in order to sell the high stakes of this crossover as super serious business for realz yo we needed to kill off a character. Or a group of characters.

I think it was the editor Paul Kaminski who asked Ian to do that and to quote TV tropes, "include Xander Payne to such a degree that he nearly overshadowed the rest of the cast." I also like to mention he quited from Archie after the 4th part of this.

3 hours ago, Dr. Acula Mike said:

I’m sure they’re all important designs and characters I would know the name of if I played the games or something.

No they're just bosses and sub bosses from the Megaman X series.

3 hours ago, Dr. Acula Mike said:

In this piece of the puzzle we have Sonic’s whole ass and legs, Vyse ready to murder someone with electric blades of some kind, Ryu charging a hadoken at Zeena who’s rushing at him with a laser whip, and Auto just falling to his death. Also, I think there’s a devil doing the splits behind Zeena there. Probably. 

Thats Firebrand from Gargoyle's Quest that's a spinoff from Ghost N Goblins.

[Dr. Detective]

 

Sonic Boom - Issue #9: Worlds Unite - Part 6: Fire in the Sky

Ah. Great cover. A nice show of chaotic nature and everyone seems to actually be to scale as well. I guess we’re all ready for a deadly melee today, correct? Let’s get to the part where they all beat the shit out of each other. Finally.

Spoiler

E.F.F: Evil Friends Forever Variant

Unless Sigma can change sizes, this is a bit odd to look at. Actually, it’s not just Sigma. Zazz and Zavok look gargantuan here. It’s almost frightening. Not to mention the art-style is… unique. I wouldn’t call it bad but I suppose its flavor isn’t to my tastes.

Covers Unite Variant (6 of 12)

In this one… eh… honestly, I don’t have a clue. Eggman’s punching a rock being held by some guy. The girl who inspired Sticks’ design from Skies of Arcadia is fighting something, I think. There’s Gilius Thunderhead attacking too. Yeah, there’s too many people here that I don’t know I’m afraid.

—

Writer: Ian Flynn
Pencils: Edwin Huang
Inks: Gary Martin
Colors: Gabriel Cassata
Letters: John Workman
Cover by Patrick “Spaz” Spaziante
Evil Friends Forever Variant Cover by Brent McCarthy
Covers Unite Variant (6 of12) by Ben Bates

Sonic’s World - Sonic, Tails, Amy, Knuckles, Big, Cream and Cheese, Gemerl, Nicole, Sally, Antoine, Bunnie, and Rotor

Mega Man’s World - Mega Man, Roll, Break Man, Rush, Air Man, Bubble Man, Flash Man, Wood Man, Hard Man, Snake Man, Spark Man, Shadow Man, Quake Woman

Mega Man’s Future - X, Zero, Axl

Sonic Boom World - Sticks, Comedy Chimp, Fastidious Beaver

The Deadly Six - Zavok, Zazz, Zomom, Master Zik, Zeena, Zor

The Mad Men - Dr. Eggman, Dr. Wily, Xander Payne

Conqueror of Worlds - Sigma

We have 42 characters at play right now. There’s an avenue where that could work but preferably, I’d lean more towards having the majority of the ones we need to fight be the villains. When it’s the heroes, concern of making sure everyone gets a time to shine and show off raises a lot more. With World’s Collide, the massive amount of Robot Masters were used to just give the smaller number of heroes a smogesboard to show their stuff. It didn’t really matter that the Robot Masters themselves weren’t developed much for the sake of that particular story.

We’re fine for right now though.

Well, at least as far as being able to handle the characters we do have. When it comes to the scale and spectacle, we haven’t reached anything as cool as what Worlds Collide did just yet.

Check out this two page spread.

I said last time that it’s not fair to expect the artists to kill themselves drawing a shit ton of robots and junk but I dunno man. If you’re gonna go for the massive two page spread of enemies, it’s gotta go a little bit harder than this. Especially after what Worlds Collide did.

I’m not saying to literally do this again:

But you can tell by looking at that new one that a couple of corners were cut. It already doesn’t help that the designs of Sigma’s toys aren’t as impressive or interesting but some of them are clearly being copied and pasted onto the same page at the exact same angle too. That’s also fine in a sense but it would usually be a lot harder to notice if there wasn’t so much empty space.

We’re not at the climax yet though. This isn’t the money shot we’re building up to. This is issue 6 so we’re literally at the half-way point. I’m going to keep things in check from that perspective because, again, I recall the way Worlds Unite looked at the end being kind of breathtaking.

I think what it really comes down to for me, mostly, is that I’m just not a fan of this artstyle.

I recall the battle in Worlds Collide where they fought on a vast, empty expanse of land not looking anywhere near as bland as this place does.

Back during that one, the ground had texture and there were still some obstructions and landscapes in the background.

Here it’s just a literal flat line with a flat single color and maybe a two-toned sky.

You’d think it wouldn’t be so easy to notice but it is. It’s incredibly easy to notice and it’s weird how distracted I am by it.

On the Sky Patrol, the navigators are all doing their jobs to coordinate the people from below. As this is happening, Nicole is keeping an eye on the two doctors working below deck.

Eggman is insulted by this since they’re trying to help but Wily says not to bother since the lesser minds will always be intimidated by their genius.

It’s amazing what good charisma can do. I know in my heart of hearts that Nicole is making the right move by spying on them and the doctors do end up talking about eventually abandoning ship and retreating to the Lost Hex to retake control of Sigma’s operation… yet I still can’t help but take Eggman’s side and shake my fist at the “injustice” of it all. 

Like, yeah, the doctor is trying to help you! Cut him some slack! He totally doesn’t deserve it but he’s such an awesome character goddammit.

More fighting is happening. 

Antoine stabs his sword into a robot dragon and kills it.

Then as Rotor celebrates he gets kicked in the face by Master Zik, in this glorious looking image.

I don’t know why but this image makes me feel things. I kind of want to get it framed. 

Maybe it’s just the expression on Rotor’s face or something. I can’t explain it.
So anyway, the Deadly Six are here and they start to change the tide of the battle due to being significantly stronger than these action figures Sigma sent along with them.

Sticks is trying to get Comedy Chimp and Fastidious Beaver to stop running away from the fight but they refuse. They’re useless and they know it, which I can respect.

Sticks tries to dive in to fight and gets walloped by Zomom’s fist without him even needing to look back and see her as he’s too focused on fighting Sonic and Mega Man at the same time. 

She falls back and spots an open Genesis Portal just randomly floating in the air. Those are naturally going to be popping up a lot more over the course of not just this story but in the main comic in general. This situation being what it is, I can buy it happening this way too.

It gets a little tricky trying to figure out how long they stay open though considering the rigamarole Sticks is about to go through.

Even not having yet played the one Street Fighter game on my shelf, I know who that is. If not through playing the games then through cultural osmosis alone. 

Honestly, there isn’t anything else left to say about this book.

… That sounds weird and kind of insulting but it’s the truth.

The rest of it is just scenes of the heroes fighting the Deadly Six.

There are some neat flourishes here and there. Like seeing Knuckles using the leaf swirl to rush over to Zazz and give him an uppercut to that freakishly elongated jaw of his.

So that’s a thing that’s kind of cool.

Uh, eventually, Sonic gets a bit overwhelmed by Zavok and rushes over to the two Mega Mans, having apparently been setting up a plan this whole time.

The plan was to have the two Mega Mans blast him at the same time, together.

They do that and Zavok goes flying.

Zeena asks if he’s okay and he is but the Mavericks look into their eyes and seem to put together that they're under Sigma’s control.

They then plead to allow them to help them break out of that control but Zavok’s just like “Control? WE do the controlling boy!”

Then, oh no, the robot boys have been taken control of.

Yeah, you know, that was pretty easy to cover. It was basically just an issue long fight. First against some robot things that don’t matter and then against the Deadly Six. The development of Sticks going to the Street Fighter world will bear fruit later and the ending bit where the Six take control of their robot allies is a nice complication but ultimately that’s all this was. I wish I could say I had a fondness for the spectacle of the fight but I didn’t, honestly. I’m just not a fan of this artstyle so the issue needing to rely only on the artstyle and their visuals of the fight to carry it through didn’t do much for me. We’re about to be more than half-way finished with Worlds Unite in a bit. Now for a brief word from the fights we just couldn’t show you in the story proper, yet again. 

Sonic the Hedgehog: Worlds Unite Battles - Issue #1

This is such a cheap way of giving these issues two number 1’s. I always remembered these Battle Books having slightly funky titles and this, I think, is the reason why. Because the first one was a Mega Man book they got to title that one as a number 1. This one is a Sonic book so it’s also a number 1. LAME. 

Archie, you’re so fucking lame. This cover is nice enough though.

Spoiler

Sonic Vs. Mega Man Variant

Mega Man is attempting to blast Sonic’s head off while speed lines intensify in the background. Cool. It’s not a bad image at all. There’s just not much to say about it.

Sketch Variant

It’s the same thing as before but as a sketch. Maybe I could print it out and color it myself if I were a kid with time on my hands again. 

—

Cover by Jamal Peppers, Phyllis Novin & Ben Hunzeker
Sketch Variant by Jamal Peppers
Sonic Vs. Mega Man Variant by Roger & Idalia Robinson

So, the formula here is the same as it was before. Three stories, three battles, one book of beautiful artwork. 

 

Sonic the Hedgehog: Worlds Unite Battles - Issue #1 - Battle #1: Sonic the Hedgehog Vs. Three of the Armored Deadly Six

Writer: Joel Enos
Art: Tracy Yardley
Colors: Matt Herms
Letters: Rachel Deering

The instant the issue began I felt relief. It was Tracy Yardley with Matt Herms’ coloring. A feast for the eyes.

The image looks like it could be a cover in and of itself. It really works.

It’s funny though because the next page, this little gremlin guy, as far as he knows, just pops out. Sonic is just battered around like a hacky sack and punted by a checkerboard ball all the way through a portal that leads to Station Square.

Literally, he ends up in Station Square. It’s raining too, which is cool. Always love me some rain.

So, this is obviously the side of the story where Sonic fought the other three of the Deadly Six. This one is a bit oddly written though. 

There’s a bit of strange behavior on display from these characters, mostly in how they kind of just talk for the sake of talking. There’s even a point where Zeena gets splashed with water and Zavok falls on his butt and laughs at her, pointing like a little kid, and it’s so strangely out of character and weird.

I had started reading before I properly looked at the credits and the writer is Joel Enos. I suppose a different flavor of writer does explain this then. It’s always interesting when I notice a change in the way things are written and then checking it out leads to my theory being correct.

This fight isn’t as good or as cool looking as the Mega Man one. These three aren’t constantly keeping up the pressure like the other three were. Sonic just feels like he’s sort of letting himself get knocked around this time.

Zeena gets pissed and just punches him through another portal to an Eggman junkyard while he’s on the ground, ass over teakettle there.

Then when the three of them walk through the portal, Zeena makes a bad pun and Zor is just really done with all the talking and whines for them to just finish it. Which, yeah, I get. This story isn’t very long but they’re not doing much.

Even stranger is how this one ends.

Master Zik had that really brutal and cool ending with controlling Mega Man and making the poor kid blow his brains out.

This one, they all control a bunch of the scrap surrounding Sonic and it just crowds around him. I don’t quite know what happens here. I guess it’s suffocating him or something?

I mean, whatever they did, it worked. Sonic was defeated somehow.

Then Zavok tells Zeena to keep her armor clean (?) and then she hits him, which an in-character Zavok would not have just responded with a “HEY!” like this was an old sitcom.

Yeah, this one was weird. It was definitely not as cool or as good as the Mega Man one. Having the Zeti overwhelm Sonic with the scrap was a cool idea. They should have just punted him here and skipped over the Station Square bit so that we could see him get overwhelmed by these robots properly. 

There was way too much talking for something this straight-forward.

Sonic the Hedgehog: Worlds Unite Battles - Issue #1 - Battle #2: Sticks Vs. Roll

Writer and Pencils: Ryan Jampole
Inks: Rick Bryant
Colors: Elaina Unger
Letters: Rachel Deering

There was a section in the story proper where Sticks disappeared to fight a broom. This is that section… only it’s slightly more complicated than that but not really.

The story for this one is a bit on the cheap side but it’s amusing enough. It relies on you being okay with just how random Sticks can be sometimes. Sometimes it’s better when there’s a logic to the madness that you can understand, even if the logic isn’t sound.

Here, it just begins with Roll being called to a danger room and Sticks basically attempting to kill her with all the weapons she activates in the room. 

Roll can fight. Her weapon is a broom. It’s kind of amazing.

Well, not “kind of” amazing. The art in this part of the story is fucking incredible and it does a damn fine job of making Roll look badass as hell. 

Imagine, flying around on a witch’s broom and also using it as a melee weapon. That’s a recipe for an interesting moveset right there. She looks like quite the awesome anime protagonist.

Dr. Light sure knows how to make ‘em.

Eventually, Roll punches her way through a huge steel wall and calls Sticks a crazy beaver.

Sticks comes out with a torpedo in hand and blows the shit out of Roll while saying that it’s “Mister Beaver” to her.

Then as Roll gets blasted through the air, she corrects herself and says she’s a badger. 

She doesn’t correct the “mister” part though. That’s fine.

Roll is fine but she’s on the floor now. Sticks dives for what she thinks is her but in a shocking twist (?), she goes for the broom instead.

It happens.

I don’t know. I can at least say this is a genuinely insane and crazy thing to have her believe, sort of. It’s not like during the racing issue where she wasn’t being outlandish or crazy at all to be suspicious of Eggman and the others treated her like she was for reasons I still can’t fully comprehend.

Granted, even then, the idea of a broom being a spy for Sigma still isn’t impossible for this world. Like, the Tails Doll is a thing you know? 

It’s hard justifying a conspiracy theory main character, man. Having them around is fine but having them as a main cast member takes a lot of extra care. 

Sticks pointing at the TV and saying it’s hypnotizing you sounds crazy in the real world but in Sonic’s world, that can happen. A lot of what she says is happening actually can happen. It’s tough. 

It gets even weirder when they deliberately decide to prove her right.

That doesn’t happen here though. Instead, Roll plays along with it to spare Sticks’ feelings.

She does this despite the fact that Sticks tried to blow her up. I guess when you can take it, there’s truly no need or reason to be upset.

God, I love that wonderful smirk on Roll’s face. Dr. Light’s kids are good kids but I love that they’ve got a sassy side to them.

Anyway, that was better than the last one. It was written better and it was actually drawn better too. It didn’t have much of a point aside from dumb fun but sometimes that’s all you need. 

That said, this last story will end up being one of the ones with something to actually say.

Sonic the Hedgehog: Worlds Unite Battles - Issue #1 - Battle #3: Knuckles Vs. Break Man

Writer: Aleah Baker
Pencils: Diana Skelly
Inks: Terry Austin
Colors: Elaina Unger
Letters: Rachel Deering

Another really good combination of artists and a great writer to boot. Nice.

So this one takes place directly after Issue #6 of Worlds Unite. Knuckles is backed into a bit of a corner by a piece of sheet metal he must have broken off of one of the robots. Break Man is trying to destroy him because the Zeti just took control of the robots on their side.

When I read this Battle Book before it was outside of Worlds Unite’s context because I had just picked these up at the comic shop years later and hadn’t re-read the entire thing while checking out what I missed. So, the context for why Break Man was trying to kill Knuckles was lost on me a bit.

That didn’t matter though. Ultimately, the point it tries to get across still stands out.

Knuckles realizes that Break Man isn’t in control of his body but he can still talk so he wants to figure something out.

Break Man immediately jumps to suggesting he become a suicide bomber.

It’s quite the bleak leap but I suppose he’s just trying to be efficient. Sort of.

He says to take him away from his friends and try to destroy his core. It’s nuclear unlike the others who are solar powered so it should do the trick and cause an explosion that’ll make a dent in the opposition.

Yeah, I gotta agree with Knuckles here. Killing yourself over these lame robots reminds me of a lot of the lame noble “sacrifices” in something like Fairy Tail. Unsatisfying and totally not worth it.

Knuckles gets really pissed off as he punches at the guy and admonishes him for not being able to think of anything better. Break Man’s excuse is that he’s being pragmatic but Knuckles just takes that as him quitting and he can’t stand it.

However, he also stops to appeal to who he thinks this guy he’s fighting might actually be underneath there too. It’s not like Julie-Su where she’s just telling him to get over it and fuck your feelings.

He’s not allowing Break Man to quit or slink back into the “I quit” or “I can’t do it” phase.

When I was a sad, depressed teenager reading this I probably didn’t like this. The idea of just being told over and over again to try harder was one of those things I reacted to with stubborn defiance.

I did kind of agree more with Break Man’s sentiments that when things are hopeless, just accept it. 

That does make it all the more admirable that there was a chance and he managed to take it to accomplish something other than what he said to do there at first.

Knuckles is a stubborn idiot but he is right.

Fuck it. Even if it is hopeless, at least try. Who knows? You might find that 1% percent chance of victory. 

I mean, if shit is fucked anyway, why not?

It ends with a nice little exchange between the two of them. 

There isn’t much else to say. That was a nice ending.

Also, I appreciate that the ground in this story actually has texture and separate tones of colors to it. That works a lot better than what I was seeing in the issue before this one. Thank you.

Overall this was a good book. I must say, I thought the Mega Man one was better. It had the better Deadly Six fight. The other two fights were just as important too. This one had way more dialogue in it but that was only really an issue for the first story. The poignant nature of the last story kind of needed it and the action scenes that were there looked fucking excellent so I can’t say much was sacrificed as a result. But between the first story being so weird and the second story being mostly a preferential joke (a beautifully drawn and colored one though) I do feel like the first one squeaks by as the better of the two. Still, not bad

 

Archie Sonic the Hedgehog - Issue #274: Worlds Unite - Part 7: Gears and Wills

Ah, this cover makes more sense now. Looking at it from afar I was wondering why they were fighting each other but I guess now with the context of what the Deadly Six did last issue I no longer have to wonder. Although, it is slightly amusing that Sticks Vs. Roll is on the cover here. Roll is a robot as well so it makes sense but given what I just read, the joke is pretty hard not to notice. 

Seven issues in and we’re kicking it off with another heroes versus heroes thing eh? Hopefully Sticks’ mission comes in to interrupt it fast so that we can get a move on with the Capcom and Sega stuff at long last.

Spoiler

Heroes Collide Throwback Variant 

It’s a throwback to a previous cover from Worlds Collide in celebration of the same thing happening again I guess. Only, this one looks a lot worse to me. I’ll always just prefer pure 2D art. Or a painting that looks 3D because those are usually brilliant to look at. 

Cover Unite Variant (7 of 12)

In this part, X is screaming and cursing at the sky. Roll looks like she’s about to smack someone with her broom. A spider person is sweating quite a lot for a robot. Guile is about to show them why Guile’s theme goes with everything. And Dr. Wily looks eager to get into the action but either can’t find an opponent or is too busy laughing at a battle across from him to care.

—

Writer: Ian Flynn
Pencils: Edwin Huang
Inks: Gary Martin
Colors: Gabriel Cassata
Letters: John Workman
Cover by Patrick “Spaz” Spaziante
Heroes Collide Throwback Variant by Rafa Knight
Cover Unite Variant (7 of 12) by Ben Bates

We can say this takes place after Knuckles defeats Break Man.

Sonic is running away from Mega Man and X, holding his arm because they shot it.

Zavok is bragging about how half their allies are machines so they’ve got control over them.

Sonic tells them to fight their control, assuming that they’re not already trying for some reason. Mega Man tells him that he is. Axl doesn’t want to be a Maverick, thinking that this might be something similar to what the Sigma Virus does. Zero tells him to try his best to hold his punches while clashing with Antoine, the guy he compared sword sizes with earlier.

Other battles are happening too.

“Whoa! Look at me! I’m Snake Man. I throw snakes at people! Bada bing and gabagool and stuff.”

I gave him that accent in my brain for literally no reason.

Is Snake Man secretly evil? He seems like the type. Snakes being evil might be a stereotype though. Perhaps I should apologize.

Sally, sitting aboard the ship and apparently unable to continue doing whatever it is she’s doing, says that they’re outnumbered down there and SHE’S the one they need to turn the tide???

I’m… a little confused here?

This page is almost infuriating.

We’ve got the obligatory scene where Cream says she can help and Sally’s response is “Fuck you Cream! You can’t help! You’re useless! Literally why are you here?” again. It’s like a running gag at this point.

Then she turns to Roll, of all people, and says she doesn’t want to lose her to those monsters, which makes sense. Roll is a robot. I’m sure Roll knows that and doesn’t need to be told…? 

But the strangest thing is that, as soon as Sally goes out there, she gets decked in the face by Gemerl and then has to be saved by Knuckles. Then she gets swooped up by Sonic and shouts orders at everyone that way.

But like… why couldn’t she shout these orders back on the Sky Patrol? Did… did she need to be on the ground floor to tell them to cut the power to the exterior defenses and move to the center of the dome so that you can stay out of range? She’s shouting this order to Nicole who is still ON the Sky Patrol she JUST left.

Like am I crazy? Does this make sense to anyone else?

Sally only gives this order when Master Zik points out that they’re trying to lower the Sky Patrol to blast them with their weapons so Zavok sends Zeena to take control of the cannons.

I was about to ask why they don’t just take control of the Sky Patrol but thankfully Zazz points that out for me.

It’s kind of freaky seeing them act like themselves while their eyes are glazed over from the mind control. 

I also really hate what this armor does to their aesthetic. It’s so weird looking. Again, having them be Sigma’s flunkies would have been fine if they weren’t under his control to me. Even if they’re acting like themselves, their agency being gone makes this less interesting to me. I know Sigma did it because Zavok naturally doesn’t want to take orders and thought he could control Sigma like any other robot but I’d have probably written it so that he tried, realized it wasn’t going to work, and then had him plot to overthrow Sigma later while pretending to be on his side. 

Then, during this battle, they were planning on making their play and the Street Fighter guys show up to stop them or something.

Something like that. I know it muddies the water a bit more and we’re about to get way more characters than this thing will know how to handle in a bit but the story and the pacing both need a touch up and we do not have enough room to choose both. I’d have rather gone for the story.

Again, that’s just my feelings on the matter. I’m sure I’m the only one who cares about that particular thing.

We cut back to Sticks who takes an entire two pages to explain to the person who found her outside on the sidewalk the situation with Sigma. She starts by going on about a bunch of nonsense about pasta and then when your girl tells her to course correct, she gets into all the stuff about the evil bald man with a massive chin trying to take over the worlds and junk.

She is down to fight an evil bald man alright.

We cut back to the heroes where Sonic comments on how tough the Reploids and Robot Masters are.

Sally finally starts to try and do that field leader thing and tries to make a plan… that Sonic initially vetoes. Sally is about to tell him to shut up and do the plan but she gets shot in the arm and it’s like… *Shrug*

Goddammit. Like… *sigh*

Anyway, Sally coming out here was for fucking nothing. Everything gets resolved when the two doctors instead beat the door open and fire the Egg-Wily Uppity Robot Scrambler Cannon.

You know, it’s ALMOST as if… ALMOST as if Sally should have just stayed on the fucking Sky Patrol and waited for the doctors to come out and do that thing they just did. 

Instead of rushing out to get punched in the face by Gemerl and shot in the arm. 

She knew they were in the middle of working on it and told them to hurry up. All she did by going out there was give them another person to worry about saving. It’s so strange! I DON’T get it. Why did she do that?!

With that, the Reploids and Robot Masters all short-circuit and collapse to the ground. The armor the Deadly Six are wearing breaks off too, thank God. Also, the gun they just used immediately overheats and peters out. They didn’t have enough time to fix the heating issue.

Sonic immediately zips over to Eggman with his feet on his chest, grabs his collar with his fist raised, and shouts “YOU JUST KILLED MEGA MAN!” effectively making an ass of himself for assuming. Dude didn’t even check.

Wily says they didn’t because they need all their help. Also, they didn’t disrupt the Sky Patrol’s systems. Eggman tells Sonic to get the fuck off. 

Oh but when it comes to what the doctors said about the Zeti, they believe them.

Man, the heroes just look so lame right now. Honestly.

None of that, none of that, NONE OF THAT was handled by them.

Knuckles defeated Break Man in a side-story that wasn’t even a part of this main issue. It was literally just Eggman and Wily firing a cannon that stopped all the robots and the Deadly Six at once. 

I normally wouldn’t complain about the heroes being bait until the doctors finished their device but the way this shook out still feels odd to me. 

I know. Tell me about it. Jesus.

I have such a fondness for whenever Sonic and Eggman team up. This story isn’t quite doing it right so far. I dunno. There’s either too much stuff in the way or too little of the dynamic there for it to carry through I guess. That and there might be a little Eggman and Wily bias here on my end. Just a smidgen.

Sonic and Mega Man do a hand shake. Mega Man, of course, feels really bad but Sonic blows it off because it wasn’t his fault.

Sally wants everyone to the medical bay now that Nicole has reported that they’ve still got 40% offensive capabilities on the Sky Patrol. The less said about the brig the better.

Zero doesn’t want anyone to go and recover and instead thinks it’s a good idea to press on the attack before Sigma completes his plan. Obviously, this makes little sense since that would mean just killing themselves but he’s also correct in saying that Sigma isn’t going to wait for them so it’s a risk they’ll need to take. He doesn’t want to have a discussion about it though. Outright says there isn’t one.

Mega Man says that’s dumb because he’s almost been destroyed by a bunch of Robot Masters before. Breaks between fights are important. Sonic’s on board with the idea of attacking first and worrying later and looks around for Sticks to back him up on it.

Then rumbling happens. 

Sigma steps inside his new body with Zavok’s face on it for some reason and rises up, merged with the planet like Moro from Dragon Ball Super.

Zavok would be pleased by the flattery, I guess. 

It would appear that they literally have no time. The argument was kind of pointless.

Then, another two-page spread happens. 

Now this one is definitely more of what I was talking about from earlier.

The dynamic posing is a little lacking compared to the other one I posted but this definitely instills the feeling I was looking for earlier.

I’m not saying they have to keep doing stuff like this but if they’re going to do it then, hey, I have a preference.

It’s tough relaying this without sounding mean, of course. The earlier charge into battle spread was just so underwhelming from a visual standpoint. I try not to knock the artists work because I know how hard it is drawing just one of these fuckers feels like. Imagining trying to draw all of them makes my fingers cramp.

That was Issue #7 and boy, I’m shocked. I seriously thought we were getting Chun-Li this issue but no. Instead of Sticks meeting her last issue, talking with her this issue, and showing up at the end of this one it’s just a bigger squad of Sigma’s resurrected robots come to attack. They’ve got cooler designs but it feels like some sort of muso game on hard mode where you just took out the preamble and then here comes the real group of baddies to fight.

I’m mostly satisfied with how that situation was handled but despite how impressive that last spread was, I can't help but feel a little disappointed by the fact that we immediately seem to be jumping directly into another horde of robots situation after we just got done doing that. 

It almost feels like what we just did could have been skipped over entirely. We’re going into Issue #8 without any of the SEGA or Capcom reps showing up still. This is shocking. I did not remember it taking this long for it to happen and we’re honestly already starting to spin our wheels a bit. Hopefully we just jump right into the recruitment part so that this fight can be had with the franchise reps first and foremost.

That would have probably been a lot cleaner actually. Like, we handle the Deadly Six in the first part and then when we get to this void, these robots get sicked on them and in the confusion they just go off to recruit for help through the Genesis Portals and come back with an amassed army or something.

There’s something to that, I feel. This could have been trimmed down easily. One or two or more of these factions needed to go in order to do it though.

 

[Kaotic Kanine]

I must apologize, because I'm aware that my responses are focused around Cream. I'm trying to diversify my posts in this regard. But I honestly don't have much to say about World's Unite thus far, and much of what could be said has already been said by others. I'm also in a seriously negative mood at the moment and need to vent. So...

6 hours ago, Dr. Acula Mike said:

This page is almost infuriating.

We’ve got the obligatory scene where Cream says she can help and Sally’s response is “Fuck you Cream! You can’t help! You’re useless! Literally why are you here?” again. It’s like a running gag at this point.

Fuuuuck this page. And absolutely fuuuuck that scene with Cream especially. When this issue first came out, I was already getting fed up with Cream being told to stay out of missions and fights by Sally, as well as being inactive in the first 6 issues of this crossover considering Cream didn't even get to be in the first crossover. I was hoping that Cream would get to take part in at least one fight to make up for that absence. But instead, for the fiftieth time in a row, Cream gets told by this stupid chipmunk to sit put on that stupid air ship and do nothing of actual value while Sally got to go out with everyone else and try to contribute to the serious fight going on. It was the straw that broke the camel's back for me that made me start getting very vocal about Cream's treatment within the comic and cemented my hatred Sally's whole character, which had begun since the Mecha Sally Saga if not before, for reasons I've illustrated before.

Because seriously, what the fuck is the point of this "running gag"?! It sure ain't funny. It's not joyful, it's not even cute or heartwarming. It does Cream a serious disservice by being baby'd by a canon foreigner, being told not to do things that she had done before in the games (which are now canon to this comic's history), and then indeed sitting out on the cool action that everyone else is involved in. And I fail to see the benefit for Sally in doing this to Cream, seeing how Sally previously doing the exact same thing to Tails and Amy in the previous continuity are heavily criticized. Like, of all things to bring back for Sally's character in the Reboot, why the thing that is mostly disliked?! And have her do that to a character who is already heavily neglected in the games by this point! Cream's inclusion into the Freedom Fighters could've greatly compensated for the games dropping her from the cast altogether, but instead it feels like she may as well have been dropped off back to Vanilla after that Metal Sonic fight.

In fact, I remember back when this issue first came out, someone in the BumbleKing Forums literally said: "Why does Cream exist?" Because really, why is Cream in the main cast of the comic book if she's not allowed to do anything? She's serving no purpose to the story or even the other characters, she may as well not exist. And as someone who cares deeply for Cream's character, actively wanting her to be the "fifth member of the main heroes" again... I do not want to be thinking that. Nor do I want others to. But Ian Flynn has managed to do exactly that with his writing of Cream in the Reboot, and that fucking stings. Especially since Ian has managed to make Silver and Big into badass fan-favorites who contribute plenty to the story and other characters. Why the fuck couldn't the same be done for Cream?

"Oh, well, she's a young girl. She shouldn't be fighting to begin with." HAVE YOU NOT PLAYED THE GAMES??? The same games that have Cream being just as combat capable as the other characters aside from Sonic and Shadow! Even Sonic X made clear that Cream's fighting capability is canon to her character, not strictly a gameplay thing. Sure, Cheese is the one doing most of the actual fighting in those instances, but Cream still delivers personal hits too; it ain't Cheese who delivered that final blow to Emerl in that Sonic X episode. And need I remind you that Cream could spin dash in Advance 2 and 3? Also, Cheese would be next to nothing without Cream alongside him, given how dependent Chao are on those who raise them. But if Cream's seriously not allowed to fight, fine: have her contribute to missions and battles in ways that don't involve her throwing fists. Sonic Chronicles had her being a godly support for the party, providing healing and energy to everyone. In that sense, Cream could've played a crucial role in this battle by keeping everyone alive and energized until the Doctors did their thing to shut down the Zeti's control over the Mega Man cast and Gemerl. Literally anything is better than being forced to sit in a desk far from the fight and literally do nothing.

But no, let's instead have Sally charge out into the battlefield and get her ass kicked, with Cream's sole "contribution" to this story being to give that chipmunk a band-aid. Big the Cat gets to wrestle and toss foes alongside Sonic and Amy, but apparently Cream can only provide cookies and band-aids after the battle. Thank you for convincing everyone, Ian Flynn, that Cream is utterly worthless as a Freedom Fighter and as a participant in this crossover. Even though Cream could've and should've been far more worthwhile in both regards. Thanks a fucking lot.

*Cathartic sigh* I thought I had more to say, but I guess that's it. Which I suppose is a relief to the lot of you. Sorry about that, again. I'll try to have actual things to say about this crossover next time. Which I'm thinking I will, since that will be when the SEGA and Capcom folks finally join in, which mildly makes up for this shitshow of a crossover.

[SkyHorizon]

5 hours ago, Dr. Acula Mike said:

It almost feels like what we just did could have been skipped over entirely. We’re going into Issue #8 without any of the SEGA or Capcom reps showing up still. This is shocking. I did not remember it taking this long for it to happen and we’re honestly already starting to spin our wheels a bit. Hopefully we just jump right into the recruitment part so that this fight can be had with the franchise reps first and foremost.

 

If I remember correctly, I think that Flynn was forbidden from using Capcom and Sega characters before the Issue 8, which is the reason why Chun-Li was neither named nor shown in Issues 6 and 7. And the reason why the second part of the story is so weirdly-paced...

[SanPolo4389]

And even then Part 8 only has some of the Street Fighter characters, the rest of the characters from Sega and Capcom don't show up until Part 9 and 10, and them all teaming up against Sigma doesn't happen until Part 11. The semifinal issue is where this thing finally happens and it just feels like it didn't accomplish anything. 

[Razule]

10 hours ago, Kaotic Kanine said:

"Oh, well, she's a young girl. She shouldn't be fighting to begin with." HAVE YOU NOT PLAYED THE GAMES???

I can't find it, but I swear there was a mandate that Cream wasn't allowed to be an active fighter. I think that's still the case in IDW. 

[SkyHorizon]

2 hours ago, Razule said:

I can't find it, but I swear there was a mandate that Cream wasn't allowed to be an active fighter. I think that's still the case in IDW. 

Oh, right! Now that you named it I remember the same. Can't say where it came fro, though. Maybe one of the old Bumblekast?

[Kazhnuz]

TBH, Cream not being allowed to fight was a bit too much overused (and lacked it's inevitable end where Cream save the situation), but is rather logical with her overall characterization, and with the one of Sally (which tends to be over-responsible and anxious). It's the classic tropes of the "anxious adult that don't want the child to be hurt". I feel something they did better in IDW, is to have the most interesting end to it : making that she is able to save the day (by saving Gemerl), but also showing that the "adults" are right too being afraid that the character will get hurt. And I might be an horrible person thinking this, but I feel that's a big things that should have been done in Archie : give us a more palpable reason why Sally is afraid of Cream being in the battle field (more than the pretty reasonnable one of "I don't want a children to suffer"). Show us her witness a children (even Cream) being hurt because of her letting them fight.

Another less sadistic solution would have been to show more Cream help in other ways. ( that doesn't involve Rotor's coffee machine )

( That's an issue I had with often the "I can help" -"No you're a kid" stories : they don't show why "adults" (here I know that the adults are teen or teen-coded) are also right to not want children to help with deadly stuff.  )

 

SEGA-side, they've always have been on the fence on what to do with Cream. She have some moment where she fights, but they're shown as the exception, not the rule. Her overall writing is more of a child, and she is often shown to not like writing ( and absent of many games, especially those where the fact she is a child could be an issue and have very unfortunate meanings, as Forces and TSR )

[Dr. Detective]

14 hours ago, Razule said:

I can't find it, but I swear there was a mandate that Cream wasn't allowed to be an active fighter. I think that's still the case in IDW. 

She's handled way better in IDW though. I think it might have to do with what Kazhnuz was saying about having her save the day in other ways. Having her be the emotional core of a story or attempting to assist by helping people and giving her a big damn hero moment is also a fine way to contribute. She doesn't need to be a fighter to get awesome moments. I covered a story here in Archie just recently where Sally told Cream to stay on the Sky Patrol and then when everyone was about to die, Cream said "Fuck that" and went out there with Big to rescue everyone, including Sally. Then Sally moaned about how she screwed up as a leader and it was just never brought up again. Now she's just doing the same thing to Cream yet again and it's weird.

I can't be upset at Ian for this personally. He's talked multiple times about how chaotic and hard this time in the comics was. I'm still criticizing it, of course, but I'm not calling him out or taking anything personally. Trying to set up a new universe while doing the Unleashed arc and juggling so many characters and concepts to, again, get an entire new universe off the ground was one thing but then your boss is like DO ANOTHER MEGA MAN CROSSOVER BUT THIS TIME WITH ALL THE THINGS and it's like... man.

There's also the fact that he's trying his best to have the Freedom Fighters fit comfortably within the swing of things and so far, to me at least, it's not seeing much success. At the start of the reboot it showed promise but as things have gone on I'm feeling like it's been hard keeping the cast of main-MAIN characters at such a high number as opposed to what I assume is a lot easier with IDW where Sonic and Tails just go on adventures and whoever's there is just there for that adventure. No worrying about what Rotor contributes with Tails there. No worrying about how Sally as a tactical leader even works or makes sense. No need to constantly explain why someone can or can't go on adventures in a stupid hierarchical system and what not. It has to be more freeing. 

If Ian ever does manage to bring the Freedom Fighters back, the Freedom Fighters system absolutely should either stay dead and buried or only be relevant to them in their kingdom. Or wherever they'd be. 

The Freedom Fighters themselves aren't an issue. It's this system. This Hall of Justice Sky Patrol/Kingdom of Acorn business. It just doesn't fit to me.