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[Dr. Detective]

Archie Sonic the Hedgehog - Issue #275: Worlds Unite - Part 11: Killing the Giant

Another milestone issue in the Sonic and Mega Man crossovers? Say it ain’t so! 

Actually, this is rather shocking. Like, honestly. This happened for the main Archie Sonic series during Worlds Collide, it happened with Mega Man just a few issues ago, and here it’s happening for Sonic again. Well, I suppose it does remove the stigma of being expected to think of something special for the issue.

I love the colors on Sonic here though. It’s a very inspiring look. The blue glow around the front is really nice. 

Spoiler

Variant #1

It’s a family group shot. Sort of. The heroes are on the front and the villains are on the back but they’re all standing on the same platform so I guess they coordinated this photo op well. I’m still not a huge fan of this style but the talent on display cannot be denied.

 

Variant #2

I really love the Chemical Plant background. This photo op is just all villains and imagining them all coming together to take this photo, whether they be a part of the Eggman’s Dozen or not, is a nice thought. Some of them definitely aren’t. Also who invited the Brownie Monsters? I mean the Dark Gaia Spawn.

 

Variant #3

This is probably the best of these covers though. I can imagine this one feeling initially underwhelming if you were just looking at it from the front but this complete piece is honestly kind of breathtaking. One thing I really admire in a 2D image is when they manage to somehow capture the feeling of vertigo while being stuck in a high place. This is definitely one of those images and I love the background elements to it. 

There’s a little bit of a tick at the back of my head at the fact that it’s Green Hill, Chemical Plant, and Angel Island (which reminds me of Sky Sanctuary mostly, which is the least upsetting of the three considering it’s story relevance to be fair) during this time of seeing them way too much. I love the Little Planet chain behind the island and the Space Colony Ark in the sky too.

 

Variant #4

It’s extremely hard to find something to say about this cover because I feel like all I have to say about it has been said multiple times at this point literally every time this artist and their style crops up. There’s only so many times I can remind you all that I’m not a fan of this look despite thinking it might be fine for those who are without sounding redundant. So for this one I’ll say… I’m impressed by how real the grass looks. 

 

Covers Unite Variant (Part 11 of 12)

Chun-Li is firing a bunch of kicks at an intensely block heavy Zavok. Also, Nights is flying and looking in awe at the giant Mega-Leg covering the entire left side of the cover. They’re truly loving how fucking huge it is.

—

Writer: Ian Flynn
Pencils: Tyson Hesse
Inks: Jim Amash
Colors: Matt Herms
Letters: Jack Morelli
Cover by Patrick “Spaz” Spaziante and Matt Herms
Variant Cover Art by Edwin Huang, Lamar Wells w/ Rick Bryant and Matt Herms, Tracy Yardley w/ Terry Austin and Steve Downer, Rafa Knight, and Ben Bates

We’re finally here.

It’s the big showdown and it’s basically, from what I recall, just a huge, awesome, display of wonderful art.

Sigma’s plan did have one fatal flaw to it. That was assuming the worlds he invaded wouldn’t or couldn’t fight back or rally in time to do so. But Sonic and his friends are just too fast, you see?

I do continue to like the fact that Sticks seems to just hang on to everyone and no one seems to mind. From one panel, she’s sitting on Mega Man’s shoulders and in the next page she’s riding on X.

This is a wonderful spread. I was admiring it quite a bit before my brain reminded me that this would have probably reminded me of the Avengers Assemble scene if I was more hyped for the narrative itself.

I just think it’s really neat just seeing everyone here like this. However, the novelty of what’s happening and the phenomenal artwork can only do so much.

It’s also funny seeing Comedy Chimp and Fastidious Beaver just gliding on a parasol in the background. They remain on the battlefield and are just floating away from lasers.

Witnessing game characters do their stuff and get saved by things that could previously only happen in someone else’s universe is really fucking cool.

Then, of course, there are even scenes where characters of their own worlds are having nice little character conversations with one another.

This entire page is dedicated to just the Street Fighter characters hashing things out, slightly.

It’s really cool.

Of course, despite how cool this is in concept and how great all the wonderful, action-oriented artwork is, the fact that it really is just that is hard to ignore.

Not everyone is going to read this book and have themselves a nice little sit down to JUST admire the art, no matter how good it is, without the narrative substance to back it up.

As awesome as it is to see a drawn panel of Mega Man and Alex Kidd teaming up to beat up Sigma’s henchmen–!

–the effect of an image this cool, adorable, and heartfelt can only be substantial for so long. 

For about as long as you’re willing to look at it.

For some that could be for a really long while and for others that could be for a literal couple of seconds or even less depending on whether or not you’re the type of reader to glance at a page with no words on it and have your eyes travel down it and flip over to the next one until you find more words.

Granted, expecting people to actually read is a bit of an assumption on my part. Here in the year of our lord Zod 2022, there are still people who comment on Twitter posts with preview pages of the IDW comics to complain about something despite having NOT read what’s actually in the preview pages. Thankfully, the people who do are ready and willing to call those fools out for either not knowing how to read or being too lazy to do so.

The point is that the substance of what this issue offers is going to be different for people depending on what you value the most out of a comic. 

Which is in part why this issue could be seen as problematic. 

It’s not blending what makes comics such a strong tool for narrative cohesion well at all. It’s just page after page of characters fighting and it HAS to be that because there isn’t time for it to be anything else.

We get one page where the doctors and Xander Payne are walking together, reiterating that they’re going to Sigma’s old base to take control of the great power to alter universes themselves. Eggman mentions he wants to create a universe where he has his revenge on Sigma on loop, which sounds tortuous in the worst way imaginable.

Xander also says that he doesn’t like working with or helping the doctors but he’s doing it because he’s foreseen it. This is his destiny whether he likes it or not. What is that destiny? We still have yet to find out.

The most important part of this page is the fact that Eggman makes this face.

And that’s it.

After that we just transition into some really awesome looking battle shots and scenes. They take advantage of what they have here as far as showing off these characters. They even show Sticks and Aika, the girl who inspired Sticks’ design, throwing their boomerangs off together in the heat of battle.

Unfortunately, that really is it.

The chance to use sequential art to tell an actual story with these fight scenes has long since been squandered. Instead of that, it really is just a bunch of cool money shots without anything to properly connect them.

That’s what sucks about it. Had there been more time, all of this could have instead been a well plotted fight scene where the characters got to bounce off one another in an attempt to achieve a goal in battle. Much like how it was in Infinity War and Endgame. It wasn’t JUST scenes of them fighting. The battle in Endgame started out with a few shots like that but it quickly transitioned into something choreographed, with layers, and attention shifting from person to person depending on what needed to be done.

That just can’t happen here. It kind of has to just be scattered shots of these characters blowing up randos. Not even interesting looking randos either. It’s just Sigma and some robots that somehow look even less defined then what we were facing before. It feels like Sigma’s first defense was probably his best one.

So after 9 pages of fighting, with one of the shots being of Nights having the time of his life and Reala just looking annoyed and done with life, which made me laugh, Signa evolves into the third version of himself.

Sonic and Mega Man celebrate a victory too early when they see his weird Zavok body fall apart. Sticks has to be the one to point out that they only beat some of the Mavericks and that he should still be getting more power before he emerges from the wreckage, looking smaller and sleeker.

It’s basically the same conceptual thing with Freeza and his final form. Only the form of the body he was in was way bigger than Freeza’s previous form.

What follows is the second half of the issue where instead of the heroes beating up random mooks, it’s Sigma being better, faster, stronger than everyone like he’s Aizen or some shit.

Him being able to stop the celestial brush is legitimately scary though. It’s like a godly fourth wall break being disrupted by a character within the story. The idea of it is just frightening.

When this happens, they hussle over to where Cream is for their last resort and grab the Chaos Emeralds. Mega Man doesn’t remember doing this last time so Sonic gets to re-explain it to him so he can re-experience it. 

I feel really sorry for Mega Man. It feels like he’s getting the short end of the stick both in the story and in real life, whether it be these comics or his standing in gaming. 

At least he’ll get to feel powerful again.

If only for a little bit.

This issue was really thick but that’s really only due to the side story at the back of it. It’s a milestone issue so they had to add something special to it. Here it’s the story that was in the Super Sonic Digest where Sonic and Silver had their little preview adventure in Apotos. It was the set-up to the Silver Age coming up. 

It being here means it’s out of order, technically, but at least I now know that I have access to the story without owning the Digest with the Sonic Comic Origins story inside. 

I already covered that story so we’re done here.

The artwork was great. 

That’s it.

The first half was the heroes fighting stuff. The second part was Sigma beating them up. It ends with the two heroes going super once again. Hurrah. 

Moving right along.

-

Mega Man - Issue #52: Worlds Unite - Part 12: Last Rights

Ah yes, the “epic” finale. I remember this one being quite the finale alright but not for reasons I would describe as epic. Maybe epic could be a qualifier. Like, “epically weird” or “epically anticlimactic”. They say it’s not about the destination but the journey and that’s true but when an ending makes light of the journey we just took and, nay, says that the journey didn’t matter at all then I feel it’s appropriate to say that the destination does matter in that case.

Because it wrecked the journey.

Spoiler

Super-Powered Variant

Nicely drawn. I think I may like the way the characters look here better than on the main cover. That said, I like the colors of the main cover better. 

 

Covers Unite Variant (Part 12 of 12)

Our last part shows Alex Kidd dodging a plume of fire to the balls and Viewtiful Joe posing before the blast like a beautiful bastard. He looks fabulous.

 

Full Covers Unite Variant 

This is the most stunning, most grandstanding, most powerful piece of artwork that I feel probably has even been created in the history of the Archie comics. It’s not my favorite one, of course, because the subject matter of the piece puts my personal bias ahead of everything else. However, from a pure standpoint of technical achievement and hard work, it’s hard to imagine anything else quite like this existing. This truly is a work of art, the likes of which deserves to be in a museum, hanging up there with works of art that deserve it far less.

I can’t get over imagining how tough it must have been to create this. Well done.

—

Writer: Ian Flynn
Pencils: Tyson Hesse
Inks: Jim Amash
Colors: Matt Herms
Letters: Jack Morelli
Cover by T. Rex & Matt Herms
Super-Powered Variant Cover by Reilly Brown
Covers Unite Variant (Part 12 of 12) by Ben Bates

This is it. Sigma is all powerful, sort of, and is now going up against these two super dupers.

Zero complains about being trapped on the sidelines for this and as a result it leads to Sally telling Nicole to tell them what she told her. Namely that the universes, nay, all of reality is collapsing thanks to Sigma’s meddling.

So apparently that’s what their contribution to this is going to be now. 

It’s very sad. 

I liked the issues where everyone was being recruited and for as transparently fast-paced and out of goddamn time Issue 11 was, I did at least appreciate seeing them all get to fight even if there was no story progression or coordination to ANY of it.

But this? It’s the last issue which means even that’s all over. It just makes all that recruiting feel like a massive waste of time! They had the Chaos Emeralds already so if just going Super ends up being what stops this then it’ll feel even more pointless.

Because then I’m just left wondering why they didn’t go Super immediately and stop Sigma before he finished powering up.

I don’t envy Ian’s position here. This feels like a massive hindsight situation where figuring out where to best put all these pieces might have been something that comes to you after the fact.

The structure, in my opinion, should have been the first part being kept relatively the same except maybe cutting down on a lot of the redundant bits of fighting. Then IMMEDIATELY begin recruiting everyone. Then have the rest of the crossover be a coordinated fight and journey against Sigma and the Deadly Six. 

It’s really unnecessary, what they did at the start. Having the Deadly Six lead the charge with a random group of robots only for them to get defeated and for another group of robots to show up and to have them get defeated so that more randos can be fought after the recruitment happens… It's too much.

Just have the Deadly Six leading a single army of these Mavericks. That’s it.

That is all you needed to do.

One round of an army versus another army would have carried the book perfectly fine and it would have given them enough room to actually have some worthwhile banter and what not. It would have made the SEGA and CAPCOM stuff feel more worth it. 

The doctors have located the Master Engine and are excited to get a chance at utilizing it to make love to the universe, basically. 

Xander, however, is at a crossroads.

It is interesting how essential to things the doctors started off as and remained throughout the course of this second crossover. That is also commendable too.

It probably could have been achieved the same way had the structure been different too. 

As for the fight with Sigma, it looks extremely pretty.

However, Sonic teasing Mega Man remains the highlight. 

Look at that panicked face. It’s got “Stop teasing meeeeeee~!” written all over it.

Despite how cool all this looks, it can’t save it from being slightly underwhelming as far as execution goes.

Sigma realizes that the power from the Master Engine has stopped and is about to fly off to regroup but Super Sonic rams his entire being into him and kicks him towards Mega Man, telling him to deliver a slightly smaller shot this time.

Mega Man is more composed now and does the thing.

And then after he does the thing, they BOTH do the thing.

And then Sigma is just… beaten.

“Too bad it’s all over… FOR YOU!” Sonic said, calmly.

I recall being massively disappointed by the conclusion of this fight back in the day. Reading it over again, I’m definitely not as blind-sided by it as I was back then. It feels strange to say that the impact is lessened here but it kind of is for a multitude of reasons, none of which are excuses.

For one, Sigma’s final form wasn’t that impressive looking to me. I didn’t get “God” when I looked at him, I guess.

Second, it feels like this wasn’t really the start of the fight with him for some reason. Sigma has been headlining this story for so long it honestly felt more like one continuous fight going through all of it. Like a really exhausting but less long version of the final Majin Buu fights. Seeing him just demolished in nine pages (with only seven of them focusing on the fight and one of those pages being when he’s just getting killed) wasn’t as big of a boon to me as it was back then as a result. I got more of a “Finally! He’s done!” sense. Which isn’t a sense you should want to have. Sigma just kind of transitioned into being more annoying than anything.

He came off as so painfully generic by the end, it wasn’t that fun or impressive watching him do his thing anymore. 

Third is just the fact that reading these all in a row probably helped a tad. I jumped right from Issue 11 to Issue 12. The wait wasn’t long. Still, the pacing stood out regardless.

It’s not a very good look. 

I mean, technically it is. It LOOKS beautiful. Everything about the art looks phenomenal. This is definitely how you want your finale to LOOK.

But the soul at the center of what’s happening is just all wrong.

Also not helping is that Sigma’s final explosion is kind of squished in between a panel of his face breaking a part there. I had trouble figuring out if what I was looking at was even an explosion. There’s so little room.

Still, thankfully, the charm of having all these other characters here IS managing to carry through.

This does just make me even MORE sad that they weren’t allowed to have any focus though. Like, I want to see more of them doing stuff and saying stuff to each other and it just does not have enough room to breathe for it to be possible.

Even now that things are falling apart, I can taste the desperation from everyone as reality is cracking apart, like the Doctor Strange spell from No Way Home.

None of their stuff is working. The celestial paint brush can’t fix this. Super Sonic and Super Mega Man manage to induce Chaos Control and it does jack shit. Mega Man asks if he did it wrong but Sonic says it was perfect. It just didn’t work.

They see more people giving it their all and looking distressed and scared and it’s honestly really effective. 

I don’t know what sending a chicken elder to crow for morning means but the sad and scared look on Billy’s face when he doesn’t get a response from the God of Chickens makes me genuinely sad.

All of these expressions and the way they’re rallying together to TRY and make this fucking work is HAVING an effect on me despite how short and small their contribution has been and it’s making me even more upset about how much this has been fumbled. It’s making me want to see more with the full knowledge of this being the last issue and the fact that everyone’s done nothing but fight in a bunch of innocuous, interchangeable looking fight panels with barely any character interaction HURTS!

This genuinely hurts and it’s not because the crossover was unnecessary or took time away from the other books anymore. That I’ve gotten over.

It’s that it couldn’t even capitalize on its OWN existence. That’s what really hurts about this. 

We’ve reached the end and I’m seeing glimpses of what this could be from all these characters and right as things are about to collapse and come undone, hope comes in the form of a technological zealot on a mission from… God? Destiny? 

I dunno.

Everyone’s savior comes in the form of Xander Payne.

The doctors have full control of the Master Engine now. They’re the reason Sigma stopped getting power from it, which is an explanation for why he lost so fast but it doesn’t make the quick loss satisfactory. Again, it’s got the same veneer as Purehito losing to the Fairy Tail guild because some cats found the source of his magic and demolished it off-screen, in a revelation that happens during the exact moment it’s time for him to be defeated. It just sucks and it’s not engaging or interesting. It just reeks of “We need to end this shit now. Here’s a good reason why it has to end so fast so you can’t say it’s illogical”.

It’s about to get even worse though.

Insert the meme from that one show I haven’t seen yet here. Think, man! Think!

The idea of undoing their evil and risking his life to create a reality where their technology doesn’t threaten them all is enticing to him. It’s exactly what he wants to do and… welp. He goes for it.

Sigma dies twice today.

Now… hmm…

Okay. Hmm...

How best to get what I’m feeling across.

Endings like this are usually, not all the time, but usually very disappointing and often borderline infuriating to read as an audience member. The typical ending where everything that just happened didn’t actually happen and all the time we just spent on this 12 issue story that invaded the pacing of four separate books wasn’t worth it at all…? Yeah, that’s a suck-ass feeling.

Done a certain way, these endings where time resets are just extremely unsatisfying. The first Pokemon movie is the main example of this that comes to mind when I think of it. It’s a decision so bafflingly incorrect that when Mewtwo returned in Mewtwo Returns, Meowth had to give an impassioned speech about why deleting the memories of the experience they just had from everyone that led to the conclusion they reached was a dumb idea. The compromise was that only the villains would forget, which as a punishment for being evil, is fine.

I’m clarifying that these kinds of endings are usually bad because there are ways to make them good or satisfying so long as the soul behind what needs to happen is maintained. No Way Home is an excellent example of this in my opinion. I won’t get into why but that serves as a particularly haunting and impactful way to do these kinds of endings. The story isn’t ruined by it happening. It gets, by far, the most impact because it happened and the WAY it happened was different.

Here it’s… sort of like that? Kind of.

But not really.

Because of Xander’s maneuver, the universal realignment that happened affected things differently for all the main continuities. HOW that works for each continuity is… not possible to discern, except for Mega Man X’s world.

Since Xander shot Sigma in X’s world and he was defeated there, X, Zero, and Axl rushing in and finding nothing keeps them there and as such they have no recollection of any of what happened because they never went on this journey.

It still sucks that this is the case but at least the logic flows naturally and it makes sense. Plus, again, X and Classic Mega Man meeting is something that just can’t happen. It’s extremely sad and it makes me question the validity of the line “It’s better to have loved and lost than to have not loved at all” because part of me feels it might have been better to have never met at all than to have met and then to have lost the fact that they’ve met. 

Again, I’ve never played a Mega Man game. All I know of these characters are from these comics and cultural osmosis and I’M disappointed that this happened. 

Meanwhile, with Sonic and Eggman, they… sort of remember it? Except, not… really?

Like, it’s portrayed more as a FEELING than an outright memory but at the same time they recall their respective partners from the other universes.

It’s incredibly strange. 

Because I didn’t pay attention to the part where Team Dark died when I read this initially, I completely missed the part where Sonic called Shadow to see if he was still alive.

It’s strange how both the incidents of him dying and Sonic checking to see if he lived passed me by. Just flew right over my head. I didn’t even know this was a thing until I heard Ian talk about it on his podcast despite having read it.

My brain really must have not bought it SO hard that it didn’t even register as a thing that happened.

Eggman’s recollection of the events makes it seem like he feels more spooked, than anything. He calls off the invasion of the Lost Hex, probably sensing danger, or rather, an inclination not to submerge himself into the confines of something so close to what he just experienced.

He doesn’t remember the plan but he does catch on to the fact that a plan failed and that he tried to do it with Al.

Tails, Orbot, and Shadow being confused by Sonic and Eggman’s behavior does clue me into the fact that they don’t remember shit though. They don’t even FEEL anything like Sonic and Eggman do which sucks.

I guess it doesn’t matter for Shadow. All he did was die. He doesn’t need to remember that. I do wish Tails could remember getting to meet and fly around with Nights though.

I honestly don’t see the harm in having them all remember what happened. Time barely ever makes sense. It all still happened even if it was erased from the timeline. You could write that their memories weren’t affected.

A lot of that still happens here. Take Xander Payne for example.

Dude’s old now. He doesn’t seem to care though. What this means for the Mega Man book, I’ve no clue, but it LOOKS like this ended up being more important for them then it did Sonic’s world. I wish that could mean they all had a chance at recalling the incident.

The one upside is that it does seem that this time Mega Man remembers Sonic.

He was thrown more of a bone here than he was in Worlds Collide. I still maintain that whatever happened in Mega Man’s world, it can’t be so disconnected from Sonic’s that he NEEDED to forget the events of Worlds Collide. 

I don’t really think it’s necessary that any of them forget and I’m going to headcanon that the other universes we didn’t see all remembered this happening too. Because fuck it. Why not? Sticks remembers fucking everything! So do Comedy Chimp and Fastidious Beaver, much to them and their therapist’s dismay.

She says she bets they don’t remember it all because of all the time-travel wibbly-wobbly but if that’s true then how do YOU remember this?!

I get that it’s okay if the Boom cast remembers it because it literally doesn’t matter if they do. Especially since their book is about to be canceled, but come on. From a narrative stand-point, what does it serve to have them all forget?

The ending here is weird too. Sticks ends the issue on some sort of odd note about how there’s more Genesis Portals and worlds out there and in the middle of it all is some sort of nexus. 

We get a shot of a planet (whose planet it is, I do not know) where there’s magical purple stuff and cubes floating around it. This might be the nexus she’s speaking of but where this place is, what it means that there’s a planet here, and why… ANY of this is being talked about is something I have zero recollection of being followed up on.

Even funnier are the captions at the bottom.

“You can catch more of the Blue Bomber every month in Mega Man!” it says. Yeah! For three more months specifically.

Then we’ll go on “hiatus”.

We’re still technically on “hiatus” right now. Oh boy. I sure hope that it’ll one day end. That there “hiatus” that’s happening.

Then the caption says “The hilarity continues in Sonic Boom!” 

Yup! 

For one more issue. 

God. This shouldn’t be funny but it is. It’s hilarious. 

Fuck you, Archie.

Leaving this re-read of Worlds Unite behind has left me with an odd feeling. That being a feeling of complacency. I’m not… mad or upset by this. I went into this knowing what it was going to be and I felt it in my gut that a re-read of it likely wasn’t going to make it any better, so that likely softened the blow. It also helped that because my reading comprehension is far better these days than it was back then, I was able to properly grasp what was happening. Not everything blurred together as an amalgamation of random explosions and fight scenes.

That said, that’s really all this was. If Worlds Collide was the Namek Saga then this was Goku Black. All of it was just one long, drawn out, endless fight that was only broken up by scenes of gathering more people to then have more fights. It only really felt like it had a proper story structure at the beginning. By the end it really did just devolve into a display of really cool artwork in service to a story that had nothing left to give anymore.

A lot of the ideas are cool. Some of them aren’t. Sigma’s whole thing was something I was willing to see through to the end but by the time we reached the end, I was tired of him. At least the way he came across in this book, he doesn’t have anywhere near as much charisma as Eggman or Wily and his minions are far less interesting to look at.

What really stands out as the biggest shame to me though is truly the fact that I saw glimpses of what I wanted there at the end. The fact that there wasn’t enough time in this crossover to capitalize on seeing all these franchises meet and properly act as a unit is heart wrenching. On top of that, there was SO little time, in fact, that the last we saw of them they were panicking and sad about the fact that they were all about to die. 

That’s the last we see of them. Billy is sad that he can’t get the God of Chickens to send an elder to crow for morning. That was the last image of Billy Hatcher probably put to page in a comic or otherwise and that thought is really upsetting. There wasn’t enough time to give them a proper send off. Not even a dialogue-less collage where we see panels of them living happily in their own worlds again while Sticks talks about all that happened. 

It’s all cramped and rushed to hell. Sigma gets beaten extremely fast, Xander makes it so it all didn’t happen anyway (rendering whether or not they could defeat Sigma in their super forms meaningless because Xander could have done that at any time) and then some people don’t remember, some remember a bit, and some remember everything seemingly at random. 

It’s not a very fun or satisfying read, overall. I managed to get through it fine. It wasn’t torturous by any means. It’s extremely EASY to read because so little of substance is here after the deluge of dialogue in the first part finally eases up but that only contributes to how lopsided this crossover was. Heavy in the first half and so fast and light in the second to the point where it just all falls apart.

Worlds Unite is not good. It’s definitely worse than I remember it too, sadly. Still, I remain firm in my position that it’s easier to appreciate what I liked about it then lament what could have been now that we’re seven years removed from it.

Goodbye Mega Man. I’ll see ya soon.

-

Sonic Boom - Issue #11: Eggman Gets a Gorilla

Issue eleven of Sonic Boom, the finale of the entire Sonic Boom comic book series, is titled “Eggman Gets a Gorilla”. 

It’s about Eggman getting a Gorilla.

Honestly? This is the absolute best way they could have gone out. I’m not even joking. 10 out of 10. Would gorilla again.

Spoiler

Boomtastic Variant

Man, this Boomtastic Variant isn’t very boomtastic. It’s just a collection of Sonic Boom renders put into some squares. That’s it. You could tell they had already forfeited their ability to give a shit seeing as how the end was here. They might as well have not made a variant cover but then they probably wouldn’t have been able to make more money selling two copies of the same issue. 

I get variant covers because it’s a nice display of artwork. However, if it’s all a bunch of CG renders from the internet, who the fuck cares? Why bother?

—
Writer See, Writer Do: Sam Sandak Freiberger
Penciller Checks in: Diana Skelly
Mighty Inker Young: Rick Bryant
King Colors: Matt Herms
Curious Letters: Jack Morelli
Planet of the Cover of the Comic: Skelly, Bryant, and Stever Downer
Rise of the Variant of the Cover of the Comic by SEGA

This finale issue of Sonic Boom was written by Sam Freiberger, the son of executive producer of the Sonic Boom TV Show, Bill Freiberger. You know, the same Bill Freiberger who wrote exactly one issue of this Sonic Boom comic after the news came out that the show’s writers were going to write for the book and then proceeded to write a bunch of the Off-Panels instead.

Fun fact, Sam Freiberger also had a guest appearance on Season 1, episode 9 of The Suite Life of Zack and Cody. I’ve probably seen this man before but I do not recall him or that episode because I watched it when I was a literal child. I was 11 years old when that show came out. Now I’m 29. Time came for me, Zack and Cody and it’ll come for you too!

The credits are all monkey/gorilla/primate puns too. Penciller checks in is a reference to Dunston Checks in, an allegedly terrible movie about a monkey checking into a hotel or something. I dunno. I didn’t see the movie, just the Nostalgia Critic review about it back when I had respect for Doug Walker.

Mighty Inker Young is a reference to Mighty Joe Young, a movie whose commercials would play all the time on a VHS tape of a movie I must have liked to watch a lot because I saw the advert for that film quite a lot too. Never saw the film though.

King Colors is obviously King Kong. Curious Letters is Curious George. The last two I bothered to jot down are references to Planet of the Apes and their sequels. The rest I didn’t bother to jot down because it’s all the same gunk.

Anyway, check out this sick looking robot.

Wouldn’t it be really cool if Eggman was piloting a robot that huge?

Of course it would. Which is exactly why he isn’t.

Because this Eggman isn’t allowed to be cool. 

It’s a time of great peril as far as being able to respect the doctor within this franchise. The 10 years of him being the main villain were ironically the space in time where it was the least possible to take him seriously. Poor guy.

It served as strong proof that him being the main villain wasn’t a fix for anything if the writing wasn’t satisfactory. Which, for Eggman, I would have argued was perfectly fine from Adventure to Unleashed. I truly didn’t agree with the complaints and I’ve stared down the barrel of what happened as a result of those complaints for years now. 

That said, I did legitimately have a laugh imagining Sonic literally saying “HAHAHALOLOLOL!” out loud. 

Imagining that sound coming out of someone’s mouth while they’re genuinely laughing is just funny to me. It’s like some kind of One Piece laugh. I kind of want Sonic to actually laugh that way.

Eggman then goes back to his lair and finds out that EGGFAN91, the guy who gave him the idea, is just throwing criticism at him again.

It’s solid meta commentary on the nature of fans and fanbases. If the characters have time to wonder about this stuff, it’s more than likely that they’re not properly doing their jobs well though. 

I mean, EGGFAN91 probably criticizes everything you do because you fail all the time man. Either that, or you fail but not in a way where you go down looking like an awesome, credible, worthwhile threat. 

It’s the nature of how you were in Sonic Boom. Amusing, to be sure, but no one’s ideal version of Eggman. I’m sure there’s people out there that like you as a version of Eggman but I couldn’t imagine anyone saying you were their favorite unless they just hated all the other Eggmans before this point. Or just found you the most amusing and valued that above all other aspects of Eggman’s character, I guess.

There are Eggman haters out there though. Blasphemers, I like to call them. They do exist however and the ones I recall watching Boom didn’t like you either so… I dunno man. Get Gud, I guess.

Eggman pantomimes a plan that makes little sense as a result of this. Somehow he logics his way into ordering a gorilla. He says the robot thing not working out is his reason. Four to six weeks later he’s forgotten he ordered the thing but opens it up and–!

I mean, yeah. Obviously.

So he rushes out of his base and goes to the only person who can save him.

His buddy Sonic.

To quickly explain the situation, he tells him to read Issue 11 of the book. The issue they’re in right now.

Did Sonic stop reading there or something? I wonder what would happen if he read the rest of the issue and was freaked out by what he saw and tried to do everything he could to stop it but things played out the same way. Or something.

I think going full meta for their last issue would have been really cool. Just reading a comic within a comic as the characters try to not be the comic issue they’re reading sounds extremely hard to pull off and might result in the universe collapsing in on itself… but that’s why it should have ended that way.

But no, they don’t do that.

Instead Sonic goes to Eggman’s lair to go take care of the gorilla himself. However, when he gets in there, he sees the guy watching TV and eating snacks.

The gorilla says he was just mad. He was stuck in a crate for two days and then when he got out that “guy” just started ordering him around so he flipped out.

He says his name is Kyle.

So, apparently, actual anthros like Sonic and the others can be legitimate online purchases. 

The fuck kind of world are they living in?

Sonic invites him to stay at his house but that goes about as well as Eggman ordering a gorilla.

Apparently Sonic really needed that word bubble.

He somehow tripped over a tiny bug too. A whole ass gorilla tripped over a bug.

Also, it looks like those word balloons are made of glass shards. It sucks imagining them falling into those chips. I’d hate to be the guy picking them out of there.

Sonic goes to Tails to complain about the house guest he took on while the fox is busy working on a machine of some kind.

Tails’ advice is that the gorilla is in need of a job to occupy himself.

So Sonic puts his foot down and the gorilla gets a job.

He gets one at the supermarket but crashes and destroys stuff there.

He gets one as a stockbroker but turns out the guy he worked for was committing fraud and gets arrested the next page. That one is just plain not Kyle’s fault though so I guess he was just unlucky there.

The last one is him washing windows but a bunch of planes circle around him outside, probably suspecting that he’s about to do some King Kong shit.

Again, not his fault.

Kyle is back at Sonic’s home, sulking about being unable to do anything right even though those last two attempts at getting a job were literally, once again, not his fault. 

Sonic apparently didn’t ask Kyle what he WANTED to do as a job and decides to ask him now. All those other jobs were just things Sonic suggested or told him to do, I guess. Kyle says he wants to do comedy and hey… guess what?

California, here I come.

Right back where I started from.

Anyway, the issue isn’t over. 

That story wasn’t enough to fill out the book but luckily, hints of what was happening on the flip side of the rest of this issue were laid out throughout this first story. In bits at least.

Sonic Boom - Issue #11: True Stories

Writer-Be-Told: Sam Sandak Freiberger
I Swear It’s the Penciler!: Diana Skelly
Inker-Upon Scrutiny: Rick Bryant
Honest-to-Goodness Color: Matt Herms
Lettered the Whole Book and Nothing but the Book: Jack Morelli

Ladies and Gentlemen, I am happy to report that this will be the last time I ever have to record those freakishly hard to write down credits ever again. Round of applause for my hand eye coordination. They’re getting a rest.

We begin with Eggman looking for an earpiece he just lost. He does a joke he did in the last story where he asks the him of the near future to do something, only, last story it was the him of the past. It’s a joke only a comic can really do because they’ve drawn four Eggmans on the page to simulate him looking around his room frantically but have one of them talk to the other ones, even though what he’s doing would make that impossible in real life.

It was a clever enough joke when they did it in the first story but them doing it again is a little less funny. They try to lampshade it by having Eggman say “Didn’t we do this joke in the last story?” which is never funny, however. 

Lazy lampshades of the fact that you’re doing something you shouldn’t be doing seldom ever work, if ever. 

Eggman decides the best way to find it is by looking around all the spy cameras he installed around town.

Like, he literally put them in people’s houses, which is extremely creepy but we won’t dwell on that.

First up is Tails.

Eggman calls him a flying squirrel, which was so unbelievable to me that I thought he was talking about a random NPC for a second there before he clarified he was indeed talking about Tails. Even for a comedy book, it took me off guard imagining Eggman forgetting the kind of species Tails was.

My boy was building a dance instructor robot. 

It’s cute. I like Tails in Boom. He’s one of the few characters I felt benefited a lot from it. He needed a little more fun in his diet. The concerns about him being a bit too mild a person were a bit legitimate. I liked what Boom did to address that about him. It made him one of the best versions of the character in my opinion. 

It also stood as proof that Pontac and Graff’s way of addressing it was… flawed, for lack of a nicer term.

We cut to Amy who is shown fighting against the bug that Kyle tripped over in the last story.

God, the facial expressions are great.

A lot of what the Boom comics did with their art is something I’d love to see return again. It really did take advantage of how different its dynamic could be on this front.

Not a huge fan of the Ker-Trolololo there at the bottom though. You get one internet word with LOLOLOL in it from me. The one where Sonic laughed was a pass for me because I genuinely find the idea of him laughing like that funny. However, the use of the ker-sound effects in this comic is a running joke that I never understood. I don’t get why they all begin with “ker” and I never will. 

Oh well. 

Then we cut to Sonic, who is showcasing for us what he likes to do best in Boom. 

Sleep.

Yeah.

As amusing as it is to see Sonic just laid out like a gross slob like that in his hammock, I can see why his interpretation here might not be everyone’s cup of tea. In Sonic X, his sleeping on the roofs thing just came off, to me, as more of a side-thing he did. Like, yeah, he was lazy but when he was off to be energetic, he REALLY showcased how energetic he was without fail. He was also a lot cooler and more approachable. And way less grumpy.

In Boom he’s just constantly lazy to the point where he proclaims that 2 in the afternoon is when people are trying to sleep. It’s funny but it does have the veneer of Sonic being a withered old version of himself.

Or me now that I’m almost 30.

We cut to Eggman spying on Knuckles where the joke is he’s buying a hat and then he insults the fedora he wore in the OVA.

Get it? The joke is that he’s an idiot.

I think.

Eggman hears this and tosses the brown fedora he was wearing on the floor.

Why was Eggman wearing that fedora?

For this joke? A callback to Eggtoberfest for no reason?

I don’t know.

At this point, it should be clear that this story isn’t really a story. It’s just an excuse to cut around to the other characters and tell jokes that don’t have anything to do with anything.

Like, the set-up is that Eggman is looking for his lost earpiece and is spying on everyone but there’s nothing about any of these cutaways that has anything to do with that so it just comes off as a random collection of scenes.

The only one that does is the final joke we end on where even Eggman is pointing out the formula and mentions there being only one main character left.

Okay, that one was pretty good.

It’s kind of the only one that works as a joke because it’s tied to the situation going on and utilizes Sticks’ character in a way that makes sense for her.

It’s also funny that a jungle girl like her uses technology to spy on people, despite it looking like a makeshift spy glass she stole from the Chum Bucket.

Then Eggman gets pissed off and turns off the camera. He turns to stomp away and crushes the earpiece he was looking for.

Okay.

Honestly, you can feel the book running out of steam.

It’s got nothing left.

It ends on this page.

It’s not even a joke. It’s just the thing that happened at the start of the issue except with a girl gorilla now.

Apparently he ordered another gorilla?

I don’t know why. He said it was a mistake to do that the first time but I guess he’s just really stupid.

The one bit that I found kind of amusing were the ker-smash sound effects turning into long division the more they happened.

I’ve never seen that before so props I guess.

That’s it.

That’s the end of the Sonic Boom comics.

Despite the numerous sound effects attempting to give off the effect of something loud happening, it truly did end with a huge whimper.

So that was it. That was the final Sonic Boom issue. It feels weird to be at the end of them here because I barely feel like I went on any kind of journey with them at all. Like Sonic Boom proper, it felt like “a thing that happened” and that’s it. This series will not occupy a space in my mind after it’s gone except to maybe marvel at a lot of the beautiful art from time to time. Fantastic art and wonderful facial expressions aside though there wasn’t much here to leave a tried and true impact. 

This would normally be the part where I would run down my top 10 favorite issues and favorite covers of the series but there were only eleven issues and three of them were a part of the Worlds Unite crossover which technically leaves me with eight of them. Though, I could totally see myself including the Worlds Unite issues on the list despite that. I definitely would have actually, now that I’m thinking about it.

The existence of this comic series is weird. What I mean by that is that it existing isn’t weird but it existing in this state is weird. It was just another leg of the unnecessary multi-media advertising push that Sonic Boom was back in 2014 and HOLY SHIT! SONIC BOOM IS TWO YEARS AWAY FROM BEING TEN YEARS OLD! NO! NOOOOOO! OH FUCK! I’M TURNING INTO DUST! OH GOD! OH MAN~!

Anyway, this comic was just another thing to add to the long list of things that were being pushed all at the same time. As such, looking back on it and the eleven issues it managed to crawl to before it was canned kind of makes it hard not to look back on as an amusing failure. Like, it’s existence feels like the heartiest joke of all in a way. 

They pushed out a TV Show, video games, t-shirts, keychains, a toy line by TOMY, an Archie comic, and other stuff ALL at once before anyone had any time to ascertain whether or not they would even like this. I remember the brand being pushed for the future with an image of Classic, Modern, and Boom Sonic as the three new pillars of the franchise and the concerned reactions that was going to have. I’m sure I’ve mentioned people even being worried that Boom would replace Modern Sonic, which is still hilarious to think actually was a thought in people’s heads once.

Fast Forward to today and it’s just a weird footnote in Sonic’s history. Just an example of a really weird time in Sonic’s history where SEGA went a little insane but in a way that’s still hard to discern. The hows and whys of Boom’s existence and why it was thought to be something that needed so much money IMMEDIATELY pumped into it is staggering to figure out. The prevailing theory I have is just that they knew they needed something to generate interest in the brand again and decided to go all in on Boom, throwing an extremely irresponsible amount of money at it and having Stephen Frost be just the absolute worst person to have shilling it. He’s gone now by the way. *Sad smallest violin noises*

I don’t hate Boom. Not all aspects of it anyway. I enjoyed the TV show for what it was and these comics are harmless. The game will make an interesting time capsule experience when I finally go back to it someday. I haven’t touched Rise of Lyric since I played it back in 2014 so I’m sure that experience will be interesting, looking back. Still, it’s hard not to look at it and feel it’s an example of SEGA going all in on a new branch of Sonic because, instead of working towards fixing the Modern Sonic brand during the time between Generations and Lost World (which wasn’t even the worst time for Sonic at that point so I really don’t know why they were panicking this much) they just decided to go scorched Earth.

It really does feel like a time where the series was the most ashamed of itself for multiple reasons, which, despite being able to enjoy Boom for what it was, I can’t begrudge anyone for not liking it simply because of what they feel it might represent. 

It had its time in the sun and I’m glad we’re moving on to something that feels like it might be Sonic feeling proud to be Sonic again. Embracing what he is instead of telling us that what he is was always dumb and stupid just feels more respectful and exudes more confidence in what they’re trying to sell us. At least to me it does.

So long Sonic Boom. Your reign was short and I’m honestly not too broken up about that, all things considered.

[NegaMix]

49 minutes ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

Dude’s old now. He doesn’t seem to care though. What this means for the Mega Man book, I’ve no clue, but it LOOKS like this ended up being more important for them then it did Sonic’s world. I wish that could mean they all had a chance at recalling the incident.

They seemed to be setting him up to have a notable role in future stories - basically just giving Dr. Wily the resources needed to make more robots during the events of future issues the hit NES games Mega Man 4 & 5, available as part of the Mega Man Legacy Collection, out now!

They would explain how exactly Xander Payne became old man Mr. X after Worlds Unite, but uh... he doesn't really DO anything after that.

Spoiler

The final MM issue would show that Wily eventually takes the Mr. X disguise for himself, by the time of Mega Man 6's events (to match up with the game itself) while Xander himself is apparently flung through a Genesis Portal to... who knows where. Or when.

And that's the last we ever see of him.

49 minutes ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

He was thrown more of a bone here than he was in Worlds Collide. I still maintain that whatever happened in Mega Man’s world, it can’t be so disconnected from Sonic’s that he NEEDED to forget the events of Worlds Collide.

Worlds Collide kinda needed to be forgotten by Mega Man's cast, as the Genesis Wave there simply pushed their timeline forward. Not to go into massive details or anything, but the character and identity of Break Man was pretty important at the time, so having Mega Man even slightly know who was under that helmet because of time-travel shenanigans with a speedy blue hedgehog... well, it wouldn't have worked.

[Dr. Detective]

1 hour ago, NegaMix said:

Worlds Collide kinda needed to be forgotten by Mega Man's cast, as the Genesis Wave there simply pushed their timeline forward. Not to go into massive details or anything, but the character and identity of Break Man was pretty important at the time, so having Mega Man even slightly know who was under that helmet because of time-travel shenanigans with a speedy blue hedgehog... well, it wouldn't have worked.

Alright. It's been a bit since Worlds Collide so I did forget about the part where things were re-aligned like that. It still sucks and stands as an example of why crossover endings can sometimes be unsatisfying but I can acknowledge it being done for an actual reason.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

Alright, let's do this one more time. Full rundown on my thoughts on the remaining Worlds Unite issues (spoilering them because there is quite a lot here).

Worlds Unite #3:

Spoiler

-I'm not sure if Tracy worked on the first few issues, but it's kind of immediately apparent with Issue 3, personally. Some of the robot masters look pretty good, but others like Quake Woman look a little off, similar to how Mega Man and Proto Man looked during Act 2 of Worlds Collide.

-Already said it, but I absolutely love how they brought in various Eggman gadgets to work as M'Egga Man's arsenal. It's a fun way to further the idea of mixing universes - already beyond the roboticised masters and such. It's such a cool idea that Eggman essentially took a look at Rock's weapon systems and hit upon the idea that he can essentially turn him into a walking, talking armoury of his greatest inventions. Little weird how Rock loses all the weapon data later on, but still a cool idea.

-I honestly can't recall if the Freedom Fighters or the other characters are supposed to remember Mega Man. We're talking about the Genesis Wave nonsense again and all the timey-whimey memories, which may or may not fade over time, but I feel like there was supposed to be a implication that only Sonic and Eggman remembered it clearly because those two were directly there, in the centre of the Super Genesis Wave. Could be wrong, but shrug.

-The inclusion of the Freedom Fighters honestly isn't something I see much of a issue with, personally. Worlds Collide effectively halting the plots of both Sonic and Mega Man was kind of a iffy move at the time, so I do like that they tried to keep it in-line with the ongoing storyline at the time (at this point, later on is a different matter altogether). I do definitely agree that this is far too bloated, and has too many characters, but it's very hard for me to say it should've been the Freedom Fighters who got the boot when I can think of more characters who did even less. 

-I do have to admit I find it a little weird how Mega Man's arsenal is tailored to various Sonic items, while Sonic Man is more Sonic elements turned into Mega Man weaponry. I do think it works a bit because I'd see Eggman being more ego-driven to want to show off all his weapons compared to Wily and the Robot Masters just having their own kind of gimmick they utilise, but still. 

-The musical notes is meant to be Proto Man's iconic whistle that he does whenever he enters a area.

-What's interesting about Mega Man mentioning someone wanting shot in the face, is it was actually something in the comics, originally. In the initial arc of the series, Mega Man grapples with going from a helper robot to a fighting robot, and one of those phases was essentially divorcing himself from Rock, and getting power mad, and taking joy in taking down the robot masters, so this is kind of a resurgence of that. 

-Indeed, the intention was to use Gemerl as a Shard stand-in, it's why he has a much closer to the text personality in IDW.

-Gemerl is a mixed bag, IMO. I know what they were going for, but I do think it probably should've been realised at some point that people just kind of wanted Shard back. Shard was a special character with a interesting backstory and character arc. You can't just transplant and replace Gemerl's personality with a expy of Shard's, and hope for the best.

-Again, I do love how it feels like either Wily was more assertive this time, or Eggman gave in to please him - but it's great how Sonic Man and M'Egga Man are much more like robot masters this time, with personalities in-tact. As cool as the roboticised masters were in Worlds Collide, it was pretty lame how they were just silent weapons ala Metal Sonic. It's nice they used Worlds Unite to take a second angle on it, and call back to Wily's displeasure at their lack of personality in Worlds Collide.

-If you want more Evil Mega Man @Dr. Detective Mike, read The Return of Dr. Wily (Issues 9-12) of Archie Mega Man.

Worlds Unite #4:

Spoiler

-Not gonna lie, I honestly dislike how so many milestone issues got absorbed into the crossovers. The milestones in Archie Sonic (at least in the Flynn era) were always massive, status-quo changing events. Eggman burning Knothole to the ground and the start of his descent into madness, Sonic's ultimate defeat of Eggman driving him utterly insane, Sally's death at the hands of the new Death Egg. 

Mega Man never even really got any of these big milestone stories because all of them got absorbed into the crossovers, and as a result, beyond a special cover, it never got to shine. It always felt a little weird that the big covers had to give half the cover space to the Sonic cast, and the storylines were just random parts in the overarching narrative. Same for Sonic #250, which was originally supposed to be the end of the Team Freedom arc, and Sally finally being saved.

-I have to agree that image of the random Mega Man heads floating towards Sonic Man is pretty funny.

-Yeah, even to a person who has played the entirety of the X series, that image of them walking out ain't any less weirder. X is meant to be - for lack of a better term - a more serious take on the series, and it's visuals match that, especially in 2D art. They do not mesh nearly as well with the Sonic cast, and especially the Boom cast.

-Xander just farting time portals out of his eye is still just really dumb. Very convenient that it waited til just this minute to get him out of jail.

-Yep, Shadow's dead, and it sparked controversy for good reason. Not only was it so haphazardly shoved in for the sake of it (so much so that people at the time thought Shadow would reappear for a Big Damn Heroes moment later on, that was never to be), but it later came out that the only reason this pointless, needless fluff was thrown in was by editorial mandate wanting to try raise the stakes and make it feel like an event comic (and much like when pointless deaths happen in event comics, it got called out because of how dumb and pointless it is/was).

I mean, it was obvious it wasn't actually going to be a permanent killing, and it would likely be reversed, no way would SEGA let Team Dark, and Shadow die, but they were dead for the duration of this storyline, which just makes it really stupid. I don't remember much about people think they were genuinely permanently dead, but it was a sign of bad things to come for a story that was already pushing it's luck. And I do think it's clever Ian used someone no one would ever really believe, but it was a double-edged sword when you have so many needless, pointless characters in this crossover, and you kill off the fan-favourite team, even for the duration of a single plotline. 

-That panel of Mega Man just looking at Roll following Sonic reciting that name, as if he can only go "...yep, that is roll" honestly makes me laugh a little. 

-You'll learn come Archie Mega Man that Rock is really good with speeches. 

-The bonus story with X is a nice one, and one of the very few points I'd say really stands out in Worlds Unite. Would've been nicer to have it in it's own milestone issue rather than sharing a crossover, but still. I think I vaguely recall some annoyance with Dawn of X because people thought it was legit gonna be a Classic/X crossover, until it was revealed to just be Xander doing stupid shit in the future, so this was nice to see before Archie screwed the comic over.

-Yeah, the reason the X/Classic universes can't collide is essentially the same reason why Mega Man had to forget Worlds Collide - X is the future timeline of Classic. X is created by Light, Zero is created by Wily. Having both of them aware of their future creations could cause heaps of headaches that Capcom probably just wanna avoid.

-It's not really that there's no out, for Mega Man. Dr. Light can remove the upgrades, he was actually planning to following the Mega Man 1 arc, but with so many dangers continually rising up in the world, Rock chose to stay as Mega Man for the foreseeable future to help save other people.

-Overall, yeah. Still probably the best of Worlds Unite in my opinion. Kinda sad that the best part of Worlds Unite is the part that has so very little to do with the story overall, but still.

Worlds Unite #5:

Spoiler

 

-Oh lord, here we go. Act 2...

-Sticks running off to fight a broom is honestly the very start of my big problem with Boom's inclusion with the crossover. It always feels like - despite Sticks being billed as part of the main crossover cast (the variant cover showing that), it's like they didn't really have any idea how to use her, so they constantly shove her off to the side and have her do her own thing, and it's something that exists all through Act 1 and Act 2. She contributes nothing in Act 1 beyond bringing in comic relief with two other useless Boom reps, and then starting with Act 2, she's off-doing her own weird thing, and just largely kept away from the main action.

-Xander just straight up pulling a 'Pathetic' on Eggman and Wily.

-God, I have to say it here, I absolutely despise Xander's role in this whole crossover. He feels like a Mary-Sue, an original character with literal time travel powers who can basically ensure the ending he wants because of said time-travel powers. It not only feels flimsy if you read Mega Man before, but he's just pretty irritating throughout this imo. It takes the stakes out of the story when we have a character with the future knowledge to ensure who and what is needed. 

-I do not like this art whatsoever lol. The human characters look fine, but both Sonic and Mega Man's casts look so off. Sonic especially. Reminds me of Bunnie's issue of Countdown to Chaos.

-Mega Man has very good reason to distrust Wily. Not to spoil too much, but the arc literally before Worlds Unite is called 'The Ultimate Betrayal', so there you go.

-I really like how they parallel Sonic and Eggman, honestly. It shows that despite their opposing sides, their egos are kinda similar. Eggman exaggerates his story to make it sound like Wily and he were always best friends and Sonic/Mega Man manipulated them, and now Sonic changing that fight so that he so effortlessly won.

-This is easily the highlight of the issue frankly, and the big reason I would say this issue is the only really decent one out of the entirety of Act 2. It's just fun seeing all of these characters interact. Even Sticks, I honestly like here, it's fun seeing her comment on the main cast and pointing out the differences of the main series and Boom. 

-To be fair, I don't think it's such a done deal that Mega Man forgets. Pretty sure they do generally remember things following the end of the arc.

-The return of Eggman and Wily's friendly rivalry, even in something as simple as Tails admiring Wood Man's design is neat.

-To be fair to Sigma's colours and all that, I feel like that's a bit of a general problem. IMO at least, Act 2's colouring has the same problem Act 2 of Worlds Collide had. Way too bright and vibrant. I don't think it needs to be totally gritty like the first act, but even if you compared to Ben Bates' art in Part 9 of WC, and such, there's a difference.

-Things are about to seriously go downhill. To give my take on a question, though - I believe Ian had his hands tied. The SEGA/Capcom reps were not licensed for the entire book, they were only licensed for the last four issues, which meant Ian was stuck with filling out four issues. Yet another problem of this series.

Worlds Unite #6:

Spoiler

-Sigma...cannot change sizes. Unless it's a specialised mechanical body he's built for himself. Either Wily or Sigma's proportions are widely screwed up. 

-Wow, I did not realise we actually had 42 characters in play by this point. It's nuts. I mean, sure you could argue the Robot Masters in WC easily overpass that, but they were just foes in the way, they weren't actual active main characters.

-While the image of the robots attacking is one thing, I'm more concerned with the actual looks of the characters. Knuckles especially looks really off. It reminds me is #255's art.

-Aaaand there's us shoving Sticks out of the way. I know why it happens, and I know I can't technically say she does nothing, but it's pretty evident they had absolutely zero clue what to do with Boom. Sticks is shoved away at practically every change, and the other two literally call out how useless they are. And maybe in a story arc with a lesser cast, I'd be able to cut it slack as 'just comic relief', but when you have 42 characters as it stands, and way, way, WAY more to come, I just cannot give them a break for having pointless cast members present, especially when they killed off Team Dark so pointlessly as well. They are focusing on all the wrong things.

-It is absolutely amazing how the Zeti, nor Sigma realised that 'oh yeah, they're robots, lets lead with that'. Not that it changes how utterly idiotic what is to come is, but still. 

Yeah, I uh, I don't have much else to say here lol. Just kind of blah art doing filler fights doesn't help matters much. 

Sonic Worlds Unite Battles #1:

Spoiler

-Again, even barring the lame excuse for two number 1 issues, I just don't like the existence of this at all. Again - the act we're currently in is literally nothing but filler. I see absolutely no reason why they could not have just implemented these fights into the main series (Barring the Sticks/Roll one for how pointless it is I guess). Oh right. I forgot.

Sonic VS The Deadly 3

-I cannot get over just how funny it is that we are two issues into Act 2, and yet having Tracy's artwork for a fight feels like a much needed reprieve. Also helps that it's a fight that's story important and happens in a unique locale, rather than 'lets have another filler fight extend the time until we can use the sega/capcom characters on a barren battleground'. 

-That little image of Sonic as he knocks into Zeena is great, lol.

-I feel like what you can tell from this issue is this is a story where the writer didn't really have the best grasp of the Deadly Six, and as a result, they couldn't really get as interesting with them as we got in Mega Man's side of things. There, we had all of the Deadly 3 members there more or less on point, with Zik mocking Rock's lack of skill, Zomom going on about food, etc. Each of their abilities was utilised well there, and all of them compounded against Mega Man. When stuff like Zik's fruit attacks failed, they went right for the other main ability with the three, and made use of the fact that Rock being a robot makes him extra in-danger to the Deadly Six.

Meanwhile, not only are the Deadly 3 in Sonic's issue not written in-character (Zavok is always shown as either manipulative, serious/stoic, or underhanded, with a ounce of respect to Zik, and Zik's training probably being why he's like that, so he especially is so off here). But none of their abilities is really used well either.

Instead of Station Square, why not have them sent to one of the numerous ice zones, or hell - even Holoska, and have Zeena use her snowman attacks there? If we were going to the junkyard, why not have Zavok use his powers to create that gigantic mecha-dragon he pilots in his boss fight and use that on Sonic? It's such a waste, and contributes hard to how lacking it is compared to Mega Man's fight. 

Sticks VS Roll:

-This fight honestly frustrates me because I think it's both among the best well-drawn in the entire series, and a fun idea in general. Ryan Jampole in general, to my knowledge - is both a big Mega Man fan, and has done tons of art featuring the cast, so he was perfect to be handling a Roll-centric fight. But the problem is...it's just so absolutely pointless.

-Part of me finds it hard to buy the twist. Like, even for how Sticks is, I feel like her going after a broom is kind of a push for why she'd do so much to attack Roll. Primarily because of the fact that Roll's a robot and Sticks always had huge paranoia for robots. While the likes of Mega Man and X are evidently robots, Roll is pretty indistinguishable, and I could see Sticks taking that as a reason of being paranoid - like Roll is a prototype of a special kind of spy robot that can infiltrate various places, and such. Her going for the broom feels more like "XD Random" more than a actual funny twist to me.

Knuckles VS Break Man:

Ahh, finally. The fight with my boys. Probably my favourite fight out of all the books.

-To be fair, there's kind of a reason why I can buy Break Man going for this angle. This is following him kind of starting to realise Wily has weaponised his anger and such, and used it to cause untold amounts of harm. This happening so soon again after that - I can kind of feel like Break Man would rather die than cause more harm to others, especially when he can't control himself. Not that I disagree with Knuckles, I do think Break Man is being dumb, but still. 

On top of that, Break Man does have a history with being terrified that his actions aren't his own actions, and that he could be reprogrammed to do things he hates. So the Deadly Six taking control of him and effectively locking his sense of self in his body while he has no control over it would probably also be pretty horrible for him. He'd rather die on his own terms than be forced to hurt others by someone else. 

-OOF THAT UPPERCUT IS SO GOOD

-Easily my favourite out of all of them. A fight that made a ton of sense, and one that has a really good narrative between the two red rivals. It's one of the things Collide never gave us, so this is really nice. Not sure if I should be annoyed why this wasn't in the main series, or be joyful because if it was in the main series, it'd be mangled with bad art.

Worlds Unite #7:

Spoiler

-Snake Man's not really evil, than he is just kind of creepy. It's been awhile since the last time I read the Mega Man series, but I do recall Shadow Man being the only one who really explicitly wants to backstab Light and co, while Snake Man is just unintentionally creepy. He was also a robot built to battle Mega Man by Wily, so it could just be a result of him having fun going back to his 'original' purpose in a sense, even if unintentional.

-No, you aren't crazy. This is just horrendously sloppy writing, and again kind of highlights issues either Ian or editorial had at the time. The stupid jabs at Cream were unnecessary, Sally thinking she'll have much to add is petty silly, and it just feels like they needed an excuse to get Sally into the action but couldn't think of much to give her even though she literally has energy blades that are pretty dangerous. 

-I honestly have to admit I was wrong about the Deadly Six. Act 2 is that forgettable to me that I do tend to forget they did have their personalities in-tact (which I incorrectly attributed to only the Battle books keeping). I always just remember them kind of quietly following Sigma's command in the first act that I forgot they do talk more in Act 2. Not that it changes how lame it is to have them under Sigma's control in the first place.

-Again, I think they just needed a excuse to fill pages. "Let's have Sally do the big damn heroes moment even though she can't do anything until Eggman and Wily are done". Frankly, the fact they decided to redo the whole 'heroes fight heroes' moment, not only from Worlds Collide, but ALSO from Act 1, when it was done far more interestingly with Sonic Man and M'Egga Man is just another example of it. It's all just lazy filler to fill page space, even if it doesn't make much sense.

-Oh thank goodness. Cream has a first-aid kit. She's helping. Woo.

-I do have to agree about the team-up aspect. In all honesty, a arc where Wily and Eggman both have to team up with their arch-enemies could be potential for a story in of itself, and lead to a lot of interesting new dynamics and plot ideas. Instead, it's just shoved to the backside, and is more about Eggman and Wily do stuff, while Sonic and Mega Man are just like "eh". They're there for some Deus Ex Machina shit and walk away again. It's lame.

-That Zavok armour looks so dumb lmao.

-Ah, there we go! There's the Mavericks! All here to fill another issue of space til they can afford the drawing point of this Sonic and Mega Man crossover!

I'm just gonna mention this outside the spoiler tags since this applies to all of Act 2 and 3, and not just this issue. So...

On the point of Chun-Li, it wasn't gonna happen. From what I recall from the time on Bumbleking, and I could be wrong, but I distinctly remember this being speculated as the case - the Archie team only had the budget to pay up for the various franchises in Issues 8-12. As such, they quite literally couldn't have any of the other characters show up, even though they were necessary to set things up.

As a result, the way they had it handled was showing things that imply Chun-Li was present, but things that couldn't actually prove she was present. Like, a small part of her clothing, or her in shadows. 

This isn't even the first time it had to happen, since in Dawn of X, since they couldn't use Sonic, they just had to have Xander mention seeing Mega Man meet a 'giant talking animal', which Sonic was hidden off-panel. 

This is called a Lawyer-Friendly Cameo (to go by TV Tropes), and the idea here was that they can imply it's Chun-Li, but if it were to turn into a issue, they can turn around and say "That's not Chun-Li, that's just a woman who happened to be wearing something similar to her!", or "That isn't Chun-Li shadowed, that's just a bundle of shadows that just so happens to resemble Chun-Li. 

So that's probably why Act 2 is so filler-y, and they tip-toed so hard around the Street Fighter stuff.

Anyways.

Worlds Unite #8:

Spoiler

-Again, I think it's just bad art compounded with not great colouring. On top of things just looking off, the colouring doesn't really do it many favours, and makes it feel much more static, for lack of a better term.

-The Maverick fight is just yet another example of trying to do something from Worlds Collide but so much worse. Not only because they don't have Ben Bates' beautiful artwork to help it, but because they've just turned the Mavericks into zombies. It doesn't help matters that the Mavericks (IMO at least) aren't as memorable as the robot masters, but in Worlds Collide, despite being time-clones, the robot masters having their personalities in-tact made it so fun.

Stuff like Sonic running around clowning on them wouldn't be nearly as fun if Quick Man wasn't reacting in-character, or the reactions of the robot masters when we had that big spread of Sonic dashing to numerous of them, mocking them and being out right confused by a few of them. Here, it's so utterly boring and drab. It's no fun when the Mavericks are just puppets firing a weapon and that's it. There's no personality, or fun interactions. We could've had stuff like the X4 mavericks calling out X and Zero for attacking them, or the X7 mavericks questioning why Axl had turned on them. But nope, nothing. Nada. Ziltch. 

-This is the point I genuinely really start hating Sigma here. It's the point where either Ian or editorial was constantly trying to amp up the threat of Sigma over, and over, and over again, increasing it more and more, and it's going to have utterly disastrous results by the end. 

-I'm kinda disappointed with the Hadouken reaction. If only because X has that as a unlockable move in X1 and it would've been fun to have him do that for the sake of the injoke. 

-Ah there we go. Yet another plot-thread that's probably gonna go nowhere. 

Worlds Unite #9:

Spoiler

-I feel like I have to preface this by saying that I'm someone who is honestly a lot more harsh on these following issues than most. Personally, it's because while on a surface level, the SEGA/Capcom heroes are a neat idea, it just leads to absolutely nothing. It putters out into pointlessness, which just leaves the good feeling like a empty shell.

-We got the absolute GOAT Hesse doing the artwork! Almost makes Act 2's art worth it. Almost.

-And the Mavericks get to show a little personality now! Don't know why it took another issue before they decided that, just yet another weird inconsistency. 

-Sonic and Alex Kidd shaking hands honestly is pretty heartwarming, and I think it was a cool move to kick the issue off with it. It would've been really easy to go with the big franchises, but they stuck with what they thought would be the neatest tribute to SEGA's history. I appreciate it. 

-Arthur's expression as he just watches on at what just happen slays me.

-I'm honestly surprised they didn't have Sticks go to the Skies of Arcadia world, given Aika's similarities to her. But then as you said, it seems to be more focused on just showing us all these worlds, rather than the dynamics of the characters chosen to go there, other than Sonic and Alex. It's a thing I'm mixed on. It's nice seeing a little time spent in these worlds, but also feels like the plot has taken a backdrop to fanservice. And given how lousy Act 2 was, that wasn't the greatest call IMO.

-Again, Sticks just kind of continues to be there. Part of me wishes Boom wasn't included, and I hate saying that because I actually quite like Boom. But it just frustrates me how the Boom comic had to lose about a quarter of it's already ridiculously small issue count for a crossover in which the main Boom cast was disallowed from appearing, Sticks has no clear direction whatsoever and is constantly just doing whatever, and the two comic reliefs are either just there, or actively annoying at worst.

-I really like how they did the Okami world. Integrating the ink-stroke attacks in the comic was honestly pretty neat. 

-Ah, a fellow Sly 2 appreciator. Huzzah! A man of quality!

-That is not Snake Man, I think it's either one of the Mavericks or one of the MMX enemies from Issue 6.

Worlds Unite #10:

Spoiler

-Monster Hunter has a lot of crossover collabs (You can probably tell, given Frontiers in of itself is having a crossover collab with Monster Hunter). Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate had a Sonic collab, and given it's a Capcom franchise, it's also had a lot of collabs with Mega Man, so this is a reference to it.

-I cannot begin to describe how much I absolutely fucking adore Tyson Hesse doing Mega Man art. There's numerous faces he gives Rock in this series, and I love all of them. My absolute favourite is in Issue 12. 

-I love how Mega Man is all into the puns as well. Cut Man in Archie Mega Man does nothing but spew bad puns, so I like to think after some time, he just became a bad influence on Rock and caused him to get into them too. 

-Putting Cream and Flash Man on the same tier of uselessness as Beaver and Chimp is just...bleh.

-God, Shadow Man looks so tired of this. It's like he's ahead of the curve and knows that these two absolutely awesome issues are about to lead to a conclusion that's going to plummet it all into the ground.

-I know nothing of Viewtiful Joe, but I am happy they're in this crossover. Always a series I wanted to try, and I wish it and it's sequel got a remaster.

-I don't really like Sticks' plot hole joke. I'm just not remotely a fan of the whole "ITS OKAY IF WE DO A OBVIOUS PLOTHOLE AS LONG AS WE ACKNOWLEDGE IT'S A PLOTHOLE". It's like...no, you knew it was a plothole, so why didn't you just choose not to do it. Given Sticks barely does anything worth a damn in the Monster Hunter world beyond speaking gibberish, if you really wanted the forth-wall break gag, why not just have her paired with Axl to begin with? It just makes the story look far more sloppy and more like we shouldn't really give a shit about it when the series can't keep consistent to it's own rules.

-Yes Sonic. You're gonna show Sigma he messed with the wrong worlds. I'm sure that is going to happen. I'm sure this will all have a very satisfying and not at all shallow, crappy, pointless end that will only serve to make what could've been a entertaining third act feel utterly vapid. 

Wow. That was a specific chain of words.

Worlds Unite #11:

Spoiler

-Oh boy. Here we go. It's all downhill from here.

-I've already complained about it, but same point about Mega Man #50 comes back here. Actually, even more so. At least Mega Man #50 and Sonic #250 felt like a proper issue. This issue on the other hand...

...ugh. This did not deserve to be the final milestone of Archie Sonic. Even the cover is bland compared to Sonic #250, or most of the covers in Worlds Unite. Why does Act 2 have better covers than a Act 3 cover and a milestone issue cover? It's just Sonic and Mega Man blasting off. Especially when Tracy's variant cover fits way more. It's just dumb.

-To be fair, given how things are about to go, I sincerely doubt Sigma was particularly concerned over all the worlds' heroes/villains being rallied together. 

-I'm one of those people you mentioned. And don't get me wrong, I really do love all the art that's on display here, Hesse is a incredibly artist and he puts so much care and love into these characters and their expression work. If they were gonna do something like this, then he's the man to do it.

But I buy a comic for story and art. And honestly, if this was in Worlds Collide? I might have been able to cut it a little slack. But this is coming after numerous bad decisions, a full act of nothing but pretty bleh artwork and obnoxious filler, and I do honestly feel like the problem with this is while the art is great, it's also so grand in scope that it's really easy to become overwhelmed. All of these heroes and franchises are coming together, but you can only have so much love when they're all fighting each other for immensely limited screen space.

And I'm sorry, but nothing can change the fact for me that this momentous moment is still in service to what might as well just be filler. We already know Xander has some dumbass knowledge of the future. We already know he's helping Eggman and Wily with their scheme and that for better or for worse will be how this is resolved. The fact all of these heroes gathered - to which what should be the main event - yet it's all just knocking down some Sigma clones with very little to say is just not good. If your penultimate issue of this massive arc has so little to say that it can afford to waste part of it's climax on just big art pieces with very little dialogue, then it flat out doesn't have much to say, and that's really damn lame.

And it'd be one thing if it was actually telling a story through the art, but it's just splash page after splash page, full page spread after full page spread of just random little attacks on Sigma robots until suddenly Sigma decides enough is enough and just swats them. It's pointless. It's absolute fluff. It's there for the sake of padding things out and posting a selling point. It's just trying to throw meaningless stakes on a situation that they've already built up to a ridiculously absurd degree (despite it not even really being earned), that they've written themselves into a corner.

We have a literal ARMY of heroes from multiple universes! We must surely be over at least 70 characters now, yet they're STILL fodder to Sigma's mooks. If this army isn't enough to stop them, then what the hell can stop him? Even Super Sonic and Super Mega Man aren't so busted that they can match up to the strengths of a full-scale multiverse army that can't do much other than smack their heads off Sigma.  

-This shit honestly annoys me so much because if you can turn your brain off, there's cool visuals. Again, Sigma being able to block the Celestial Brush is a awesome idea. But they've spent so much fucking time turning Sigma into someone that is absolutely BUSTED on every level now that it feels like the heroes can do nothing but be swatted away. 

I'll just be as blunt as I can. Ian has wrote himself into a corner. And it shows. And I'll be bringing it up again come next issue.

-Quick fun fact, X was also supposed to go super until either SEGA or Capcom veto'd it. 

Worlds Unite #12:

Spoiler

...alright. That's out of my system. Let's go.

-The variants unite cover is absolutely stunning, although part of me wishes it was just released on a poster. Kind of a waste that you need to get 12 issue variants and tried to line them up if you wanted to frame them or something. Kind of a issue I have with these kinds of interlocking covers in general though, to be fair.

-Even going super here is hurt by the crossover element. Again, even as powerful as super states can be, I just really find it difficult to buy that two super states stand a better chance against Sigma than a literal army of heroes from multiple universes. It feels weird to have super states be what 'ups the ante' when it's not even a different situation than what we got in Worlds Collide, it's literally the same duo again.

-And yeah. This again is my biggest issue of the crossover. I get it. Licensing was probably a nightmare. They probably couldn't afford more than four issues (five if you count Street Fighter getting a additional issue). But that doesn't change the fact that as it now stands - it is absolutely pointless and fluff. They didn't have a lot of time to spend interacting with them or making them feel needed. 

And that's such a bizarre issue to me. That not only is this series absolutely overstuffed and backed to the brim, yet it still feels like that beyond the first four issues, they had NO idea what to do for story, so they just had multiple parts of pointless filler to try get us here, and now that we're here, it's meaningless. The fanservice meant nothing. These series meant nothing. You shove them all in and yet they got so little time to do anything that it meant they all felt absolutely and utterly wasted. It's a crying shame. 

And this isn't even all of the franchises Ian wanted in. He wanted Phoenix Wright, and Phantasy Star Online as well. As much as I like both franchises, I couldn't imagine MORE franchises thrown into this mess.

-God I love how deviously evil Tyson makes Eggman and Wily. They look so fun.

-Mega Man's expression as Sonic teases him is absolutely BEAUTIFUL and I love it very much. I genuinely wish Tyson did more work on Mega Man before that series got fucked over by Archie. 

-While Sigma's defeat is absolutely awesome looking, I just think it's another symptom of the build-up. They were so focused on upping the ante constantly that they made Sigma out to be such an absurdly powerful, absolutely broken character, and then decided on top of all of it that they would also keep putting it all up to multiverse-shattering stakes, so even when they do manage to beat Sigma, NO NO CAN'T STOP THE STAKES BUILDING, WE NEED MORE STAKES!!

So here we go. Now the multiverse is screwed. And Ian wrote himself into a corner because when Sigma has managed to literally shatter the multiverse and fabric of reality itself because they kept trying to make him so ridiculously busted, there's no feasible way to fix the mess that Sigma made.

Not to mention again, Sigma's ending doesn't even really feel like a release. In Worlds Collide, Eggman and Wily were constantly pulling strings, putting into place new plans, had different schemes. Sonic and Mega Man was continually turning the tables and putting them on the back foot. They had to keep thinking up new ways to try ensure their success. There was a narrative arc with Eggman and Wily which was eventually paid off when their final fight was Sonic and Mega Man so effortlessly defeating them.

Sigma has nothing of the sort. He's done nothing but scream about how all-powerful he is, and instead of a constant matching of wits where Sigma had to play around the heroes' efforts to stop him, he just continuously threw crap at the wall to try make it stick. Not only does he not have Eggman and Wily's relationship or chrisma, but he's just a mustache-twirling villain for most of the plot until they decide enough is enough. He no-shots so much that it feels like a empty climax when somehow Super Sonic and Mega Man - was somehow more powerful than a multiverse spanning army that Sigma also no-sells. It just feels bad. They were pointless.

The main selling point of the series was pointless. 

-And here it is. Ian being so driven into a corner with all the attempts to drive up the stakes of the plot, and hype up how MASSIVE this threat is - that nothing, not even chaos control can get them out of it. What's that I hear? Time for a lazy and terrible timey-whimey, wibbly wobbly retcon.

It's just terrible. They've gone through enough. Sigma was about to attain godhood, and the world was ready to cave-in on itself. And keeping the plot going after the supposed 'big heroic moment' is what makes this suck more. They defeated Sigma, but so what? It all meant nothing in the end, the heroes lose. That's it. Good night folks.

-AND THERE HE IS - XANDER. HERE TO BULLSHIT HIS WAY TO SAVING THE DAY! This is such a awful climax. Xander has done nothing but sit and have future knowledge this whole time. Now he just gets to smugly end the threat and make the entire story irrelevant. Whoopee. 

-I'm just going to say it. This ending absolutely blows. And I don't see any two ways about it. They hyped up the threat to such a ridiculous extreme that they realised nothing could end it. And now, instead of a satisfying conclusion, with these worlds saying goodbye, departing on good terms, or what have you - instead the last glimpse of them is cowering in fear and panic, as their impeding death becomes clear to them. 

They could have just had Sigma being destroyed finish it. They didn't need to include the shit about the multiverse collapsing or whatever. This was all just more crap to build up the stakes, and in the end, instead of a good ending, it's disappointing. It's not a climax, it's just a stop. And how they tackle it after is just utterly confused.

Some remember it, some don't. Why? Couldn't tell you. It's not like Worlds Collide where Sonic and Eggman being at the centre of the disaster is enough to give leeway to why they remember. Here, they were all part of a altered timeline, so why is it picking and choosing who can/can't recall it? It makes no sense.

And then there's Xander. It's fairly well-known he's a base-breaking character because a lot considered him a creator's pet, and even as someone who didn't totally dislike him as a villain, I see it on full display here. It's downright infuriating how he is only here to act as a walking, talking deus ex machina. He gets to act above it all because he has time powers, he only serves to act mysterious, then he just erases the plot within seconds. It's just lazy. He has no right having such a important part, and the fact his important part is literally delivering the awful ending of this plotline is worse. 

I do at least like the idea of Xander being Mr. X. Doesn't do much to solve my frustration. But still. 

-Also yeah. Pretty sure the Mega Man cast do recall parts of the storyline. At least the main ones (IE, Wily, Mega Man, etc). Which I think would solve most of the issues you'd have with X, as long as Dr. Light doesn't remember him.

-And there's yet another problem with Sticks. I'm just gonna be blunt, I don't like her role in this series. She feels as much of a creator's pet as Xander does, frankly. Sticks just gets to screw around with the rules and messes up the continuity because "lol, random, crazy amirite?". And I could be a bit more understanding of that if the story in of itself wasn't already a jumbled, screwed up mess. And when you have a character who can just dick around with the continuity, and decide that they - ABOVE ALL ELSE - get to remember it all, despite it making absolutely zero logical sense, it goes beyond forth-wall breaking and comedy, and veers straight into 'we don't give a shit, none of this matters'. 

Sticks gets to have the biggest role outside of everyone else here, yet the Boom presence still feels disjointed and bad. It feels like they had no idea what to do with them, so they just tried to push them as far away as possible, and when they couldn't do that, they used Sticks to push this disjointed mess of a plot whenever they could. Sticks was at her most fun in #5 to me, and that was when she got to feel just like part of the cast instead of being some random entity who can do more than them because Boom is comedy-driven. It didn't fit to me at all.

-I'm guessing the Nexus might have been what Worlds Collide 3 was gonna be about? I definitely don't remember them following it up as well.

>hiatus

sigh

I think it's just evident at this point I have very little nice to say about Worlds Unite. It's a shame, really. Because there's good in it. I think Act 1 is good, I think the Battle books has decent fights. I think Issue 9 and 10 are fantastic. But when you have six other issues that are ranging from meh to outright bad, and a ending that just absolutely shits on everything that already didn't feel great, it just feels less like a love letter, and more like a picture of a middle finger being directed at the fans who followed this.

And I'm sorry - but the fact Sonic Boom and Mega Man would be so hastily and haphazardly cancelled after this is almost definitely why I am so harsh on this. It'd be one thing if it was just a bad story. It'd be another thing if it was a bad story that effectively says 'screw you' after it wastes your time for 12 issues straight - but it's ANOTHER thing when it's a storyline that not only was a awful waste of time, told you to screw yourself at the end, THEN the reveal comes that two of those series were getting axed very soon, and they've just now had their issue counts substantially cut down because they had to contribute to this absolute mess. It was all just the perfect storm for a awful storyline IMO.

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

Ah, Worlds Unite. The event where we were grievously cheated out of the gloriousness of Ace Attorney being included. One of many flaws with that story.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

4 hours ago, NegaMix said:

They seemed to be setting him up to have a notable role in future stories - basically just giving Dr. Wily the resources needed to make more robots during the events of future issues the hit NES games Mega Man 4 & 5, available as part of the Mega Man Legacy Collection, out now!

They would explain how exactly Xander Payne became old man Mr. X after Worlds Unite, but uh... he doesn't really DO anything after that.

  Hide contents

The final MM issue would show that Wily eventually takes the Mr. X disguise for himself, by the time of Mega Man 6's events (to match up with the game itself) while Xander himself is apparently flung through a Genesis Portal to... who knows where. Or when.

And that's the last we ever see of him.

Worlds Collide kinda needed to be forgotten by Mega Man's cast, as the Genesis Wave there simply pushed their timeline forward. Not to go into massive details or anything, but the character and identity of Break Man was pretty important at the time, so having Mega Man even slightly know who was under that helmet because of time-travel shenanigans with a speedy blue hedgehog... well, it wouldn't have worked.

While we're on the whole Xander talk, I should probably mention - for the sake of clarifying it - apparently it was the editor at the time who had this random want to push Xander into the limelight so much, which is probably why we ended up with him having such a large role in Dawn of X, Unite, and the MM4 plotline, despite X not even being apart of that/MM5. Yet another of the editorial/executive meddling that went into Unite. 

I honestly do feel a little bad for Ian. I mean, maybe he enjoyed having Xander around, I don't know. I did think making Xander into Mr. X was a decently clever idea, but it does feel like Xander's renewed importance following Worlds Collide was just a result of that, and I would imagine had the comics continued on, we would've gotten more of it until whenever we got to the adaption of MM6.

[SanPolo4389]

6 hours ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

what it means that there’s a planet here, and why… ANY of this is being talked about is something I have zero recollection of being followed up on.

It didn't. That planet was called the Genesis Nexus where was meant to be a meeting place for the crossovers. Ian described as a simple place to let characters crossing over meet whenever it happens. And in the end, they would return to their world.

[SanPolo4389]

6 hours ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

I remember the brand being pushed for the future with an image of Classic, Modern, and Boom Sonic as the three new pillars of the franchise and the concerned reactions that was going to have.

Apparently that picture that was on the Sonic The Hedgehog youtube channel is now replaced.

[Dr. Detective]

 

Sonic Universe - Issue #79: The Silver Age - Part 1 of 4

Interesting cover. It has a lot of the right colors for a Silver the Hedgehog story. I do believe I recall the tale for this one laying out some rather intriguing groundwork for how Silver’s entire thing was supposed to work going forward. It won’t really be fully realized, of course, but it was interesting enough, I think.

Spoiler

Hero Variant

Another game render over an uninteresting backdrop. Whatever.

—

Writer: Evan Stanley
Pencils: Tracy Yardley
Inks: Jim Amash
Colors: Matt Herms
Letters: Jack Morelli
Cover by Evan Stanley
Hero Variant by SEGA

Reading the credits and finding out that this one was written by Evan Stanley puts things into perspective for me. I recall reading this one back in the day and feeling as though the pacing of it was a bit off and the writing for it was a tad different from what I was used to.

In the end I recall having the opinion that it was just okay but not worth a ton to me at the moment. That was me not knowing the book was going to be canceled soon too. 

The way Ian and Evan write is completely different from each other, though, they both have such a strong understanding of the characters. I do ultimately think I’ve always preferred Ian’s stories and the way he writes more but I can’t exactly say I feel Evan’s stories are bad. She also has a better track record of her stories ending with better pacing.

This one begins with someone calling out for a hero to save them. It’s juxtaposed with Silver trying to use his power to close a Genesis Portal. I was looking at the face in the panel and it reminded me of the Time Eater, for very good reason.

So, we’re here in Onyx City, 200 years in the future, where everyone looks miserable. Meanwhile, a council of people in robes comes online to say that “Hey, everything is great so long as everyone reports to their assigned workshifts. We even have these snazzy robots patrolling the streets to make sure everyone does their job right.”

They encourage the citizens to be narks and report on anyone who isn’t reporting for work but Silver, hiding amongst the crowd, doesn’t want to do their job for them. The robots call out for those in “Teal” class to do work and they spot someone in this apparent class and are about to forcibly bring them in to do work.

Silver is about to shout at the robots to stop but then keeps quiet and decides to help from behind the scenes with his powers.

Good luck buddy. I’ll call you a cab.

There’s a lot of interesting things about what’s happening here already. Most notably the cuffs around that dude’s hands and feet. There’s obviously something up with them and the robots are able to do something to them to cuff people. I guess having it be that they’re shiny prison gauntlets is a neat contextualization of what they are. It’s not just the fact that they’re future gloves from the future.

Silver’s future has rarely ever been described as a good place to be. It was once in Colors DS and again at the end of the Metal Virus arc but other than that it’s usually some variation of dystopian bleakness. 

Which I’m a fan of. 

Even better is that Silver’s on the run from this stuff too because his cuffs would naturally interact with whatever that robot was doing to that poor guy.

He’s also appropriately adorably alone and talks to himself like he’s me.

Although, I’ve never used my hand to mimic the voice before. I just have full on conversations with myself. Sometimes I’ll start saying words and then stop when I realize that I can hear myself.

He starts practicing with his psychokinesis all on his lonesome but is then spotted from behind by a doctor. A man from AoSth that appeared in episodes I haven’t seen named Professor Von Schlemmer. 

He’s yet another character that speaks in a way that’s hard to read on the page but it’s charming so I’ll give it a pass.

I do have to bring up that when I was originally going through the old pages of this thread, easily, the most controversial stuff I happened upon was centered around this guy right here. People were already up in arms about the comic daring to bring in Breezie and redesigning her to better fit with the style of the comics but oh boy.

Not Von Schlemmer.

I’m going to be upfront and say that it was indeed very ridiculous. The conversation about not including him at all if his style was going to change to accompany the book makes no sense to me. Especially for a series like this that’s gone through so many style changes through several different mediums already. The style of the Archie Comics themselves isn't even consistent. 

Hell, the main series of games has been long overdue for a style change. We need more of what Kingdom Hearts 3 was doing when it comes to the way the characters look in my opinion. Maybe even something cell-shaded despite me not entirely preferring that. Anything new would be welcome. I enjoyed Frontiers story but it really needed and deserved a much better presentation. 

Silver is extremely hesitant to be in the presence of a scientist because he’s heard “stories”. The professor really wants his attention though because he’s certain his powers will be able to stop the Genesis Portals.

Silver, at this point in time, doesn’t know what that is.

Luckily, the universe decides to speed the plot along by literally and somewhat conveniently (depending on who you ask) opening up underneath them so they can fall through it.

Silver thinks the professor is doing it, somehow, and asks him to stop but the professor tells Silver that he isn’t and that the way to stop it is to use his powers.

Left with little option, Silver does indeed use his powers to zip them out of there and condenses the portal closed.

That was the first of the Genesis Portals he’s closed and Von Schlemmer is very hands on with Silver by giving him a hug from behind.

This doctor is very touchy feely and I like it a lot. Silver isn’t so he asks him to put him down but he only does so to make a mental note that the portals are stronger than he calculated.

Reality as they know it is going to die.

Von Schlemmer says that they need to see the council about this but upon hearing that, Silver refuses. Apparently people with powers like him don’t return from ever seeing the council.

The professor thinks that’s ridiculous, for some reason. I guess his position doesn’t afford him a good view of society.

He must be pretty strong because he lifts Silver up and puts him under his arm, saying that he’s saving reality whether he wants to or not.

These are the council of freaks observing everything.

They speak in a way that’s pretty amusing. They state a thing that’s happening and follow it with Yes.

Then when the last person speaks up with an inquiry, they turn to face them and go “Yes?” as a funny little language punchline to that gimmick of theres.

Unfortunately, or fortunately (depending on who you ask, hoho) they’re a little dismissive of their smallest member bringing up the fact that one of the portals closed. 

They mention that this hasn’t occurred in any of their other tests which gives you the clue you need about how some of these portals are likely being allowed to flourish. 

However, they also decide to “disregard the outlier” which might not be the best thing to have done.

Leaving the room, the smallest one that brought up the inquiry looks up at the clockwork behind them.

We end on a full page shot of that thing that can only be used as a full-page finale spread shot because you recognize it from Sonic Generations.

If you hadn’t then this thing would mean nothing.

To think there was a story to mine from Generations though. I mean, hey, the Time Eater was mysterious enough and unexplained enough that it was certainly open for more things in the future.

Pretty fast and pretty short. For a story that was introducing us to an entire future society and even had a sciencey character that talks with an accent that’s sometimes hard to read, it was also shockingly straightforward. There wasn’t a ton to chew on here after the first initial spark of interest generated by this future world as the rest of it was mostly stuff around the Genesis Portals that we already knew. What little we don’t know is being kept hush hush for now so let’s hurry and get to finding out what that could be.

--

Sonic Universe - Issue #80: The Silver Age - Part 2 of 4

This one is a more typical snapshot of the events of the book kind of cover and it’s okay. It’s cute. It kind of reminds me of those tiny mermaid girls from the start of the Fishman Island arc in One Piece. Only, I know they’re really based off of those Sonic Colors drones from… Sonic Colors.

Spoiler

Chaos Crisis Variant

I think this might be one of the only Rafa Knight covers I think looks genuinely really good to me. Or rather, pleasing in a way where the others weren’t. It’s the one that most looks like it could be an actual painting.

—

Writer: Evan Stanley
Pencils: Tracy Yardley
Inks: Jim Amash
Colors: Matt Herms
Letters: Jack Morelli
Cover by Yardley & Herms
Chaos Crisis Variant by Rafa Knight

So we begin with the professor trying to prove to the council that there’s a way to save all of reality but his words keep being written off as crackpot theories because that’s just the way scientists in fiction are viewed. Especially by the patriarchy.

Although, I’m not sure why he drew a chili-dog on his little whiteboard here.

Even still, he has a way to prove it but Silver doesn’t want to because it might ruin his life. It’s a pretty good reason to not want to do something but I can also see why weighing that against reality collapsing would be a tough call.

Neither are acting like it is though. Von Schlemmer is firmly on the side of making sure reality doesn’t collapse and Silver is firmly on the side of not being experimented on or whatever it is they do to people who have powers.

It doesn’t go well for the professor as a result.

After this happens, the professor walks away dejected which makes Silver feel sad and guilty because he’s the goodest boy.

That’s when he hears the sound of someone speaking to him telepathically to come back tonight if he truly can fix what’s going wrong.

Silver decides to ignore it for now and follows after the professor. He really wants to make it up to him despite having been carried over there, underarm, against his will. But Silver’s not an idiot. He knows the guy means well.

Also, they both look like they could use a friend.

Von Schlemmer is very sad about his most recent failure to get things across to them but perks up when he gets home and is surrounded by his little robot friends.

Silver shows interest in the lab and we just get a montage of him showing off his inventions, one or some of which may be set-up for something that’ll happen later.

Silver says the professor is crazy but the good kind of crazy. The professor says thanks with the addendum that sanity is overrated.

Considering the state of Twitter and certain sects of the Sonic fanbase, I’d have to disagree.

We then see the main thing he has in his lab. It’s a tube with one of the Genesis Portals contained within it. How? I dunno. Science!

This is where we get the explanation of what the Genesis Portals are and how they came to be. I believe this originally was in another book that wasn’t a part of the mainline issues. I probably had a bit of a fit, wondering why they’d put that explanation in something other than a main series book but at least it’s happening now.

I would say that the explanation is happening a bit too late still though. It IS still cool that the event that kicked this off was what happened at the end of Worlds Collide though. I do maintain that’s a great way to make what happened before the reboot still relevant.

Silver is just really scared by the prospects of having to deal with this. He’s about ready to just jump ship and leave the professor to handle this on his own. However, he remembers seeing him walk off all sad and that voice that told him to come back tonight and changes his mind.

It’s interesting because this feels like the start of witnessing Silver turn more heroic. He doesn’t feel like the kind of guy who’d jump into the fray to rescue everyone here. Not yet anyway.

That night, they sneak into the council’s tower amidst all the scary, futuristic looking G.U.N robots. The professor is very aloof as to why they need to be quiet. Apparently he was just naturally quiet on their way in and is just now being loud.

Silver manages to follow the voice in his head to the person telling him what’s what and it’s revealed to be a member of the council. The small one who was looking all unsure of the council earlier. Her.

Her name is Gold. She’s got an… interesting design. Her name is obviously an offshoot of Silver’s.

Why? I’m not entirely sure. I feel like I have an idea but I’m not sure if it’s in the book or something that I or someone else headcannoned so I guess I’ll save it until the end to talk about.

Also, they were found out by the council. I don’t know how exactly. Maybe it was the moment Silver purposefully dropped a steel grate to distract the guard robot standing behind them and it didn’t fall for it. Or maybe they were just suspicious of her and followed her.

Either way, she breaks down fast. The elegance she showed with her mind talk disappears as she pleads for their lives. She’s got a good sense of character but her freaking out leads to her mind words going into Silver’s head and he’s all annoyed. 

Like, Silver’s the most annoyed I’ve seen him be in a while actually. Then he asks if the professor brought a laser. He says nope. Then he gets laser whipped at. It’s all been a very trying time.

Silver tries to fight but seeing as how he’s outnumbered 50 to one, Von Schlemmer has no weapons, and Gold can only say that she’s sorry over and over again, they get beaten pretty fast.

Silver is knocked out and wakes up exactly where you don’t want to be when confronted by lunatics so obsessed with science that they damn the consequences.

A lab table.

Something is indeed out there. We saw something with a scary face in the portals on the very first page of this story. However, these guys are the crazy crazy kind of scientists that Silver was talking about.

Von Schlemmer actually yells at them. He tells them that their way of pursuing science, as exemplified by stamping a scary electric mask over Gold’s face, is just torture.

They do not care.

Anyone who stands in the way of science is to be eliminated.

Including themselves if what she’s warning them about bares fruit and it likely will.

They tell them to rejoice as today is a great day.

Gold sits up and with a heavy glow around her a beam of light shoots out and fires into the Sonic Generations time machine gog… thing.

A portal opens and I guess Silver and Von Schlemmer are going to go for a ride.

I’d imagine it’s like staring into the dark, empty void of the tube ride at a water park only way worse. Maybe. Depends on how deep the water is.

Things are going by quickly and they were even more straightforward here. After Von Schlemmer was rejected we went to his lab to see the macguffins that would come back later. We then came here, met Gold, and got captured so the portal could open. Where does it lead? Where are we going, if we’re goin’ anywhere at all? Who can say? 

--

Sonic Universe - Issue #81: The Silver Age - Part 3 of 4

This is the best cover of the bunch in my opinion. The dynamic posing, the faces, the art, the colors; all of it gives off that cover art feel that I love the most in the issues I purchase. What has science wrought?!

Spoiler

To the Future Variant

It’s a Back to the Future parody cover. I don’t really like the style. Everyone’s a bit too tall, lanky, and scratchy for my tastes but I can, at the very least, respect it. You have my respect.

—

Writer: Evan Stanley
Pencils: Tracy Yardley
Inks: Jim Amash
Colors: Matt Herms
Letters: Jack Morelli
Cover by Tracy Yardley & Matt Herms
To the Future Variant by Adam Bryce Thomas, Terry Austin & Steve Downer

Adam did that variant cover? I never would have guessed, honestly.

The three would-be heroes are still strapped to the table and are about to be sacrificed to the void. Silver tries to use his powers but IT’S NO USE!

Yes, the comic said the line there again. Sound the alarm! They said the line. Hopefully it was actually funny this time.

But no, his powers won’t work because they’ve got built in countermeasures for people with powers. How it works isn’t important anyway. The important bit is that the two intruders are going to be shoved into the portal… and then they are, all the while Gold shouts about how these idiots are going to let IT in. Whatever IT is.

I’m gonna level with you guys… I’m not sure I understand the scientific procedure going on here.

It may be a bit too advanced for my understanding but I dunno. This seems pretty crazy.

Luckily for Silver, Von Schlemmer did indeed pack something useful. He ended up breaking free when a creepy shadowy hand busted the restraints on his table. Best not to look too deeply into that right now. The point is, he tosses the little ball in his hand and out come The Bits.

The Bits are the little Sonic Colors robots from the multiplayer from earlier.

They break Silver free and then Silver grabs Von Schlemmer and they try to fly out… but Gold physically relays in her head and thus to Silver’s head that “It’s here!”.

As soon as he asks what a giant hand reaches out to nab them…!

But they escape!

For now!

Didn’t you two just meet today?

Anyway, the council tries to scamper off like a bunch of cowards but Silver closes the door on them. The fear is gone and now he’s just pissed. 

The council tries to talk them down with the excuse that Onyx City needs their guidance and Silver responds with “like they need a whole in the world” which is a good come back.

One of them gets angry and is about to get super racist against our fellow Quirk users when a giant hand exits the portal in the midst of some more good word play.

High up in the tower above the city you can see the destroyed top of the building and the giant hand crashing down to crush these fools.

Professor Von Schlemmer manages to get Silver and Gold out of the way but the hand ends up crushing the council members.

They look like this now.

I don’t know. My guess is that they were frozen in time. 

Who were they under the masks? What were they even trying to do? How did this insane science experiment make any sense? 

Again, I don’t know! We’ll never find out after this either so I guess it technically doesn’t matter.

Stuff continues to happen. It’s basically just an elongated showcase of this huge as fuck creature yanking the portal open so it can burst on through.

Meet the Time Eater’s twin brother Darrell.

I don’t like the name Second Devourer.

I wracked my brain over why the fuck it had this name. At first I thought the word “second” was referring to the fact that it was the second creature in this series to be based on the Time Eater. With the first being the Time Eater.

Literally, as I was typing this, some seconds ago, despite owning this comic for fucking years at this point, I JUST remembered that “Second” is also a unit of time.

As in Second Devourer as in a devourer of “seconds”.

The instant I realized that, I hated the name even more. 

It’s a really bad name.

Second Devourer?

Is the third one’s name gonna be Minute Muncher?

That name at least has some alliteration to it. Sounds better rolling off the tongue actually.

The monster starts freezing people in the streets as they try to run from it. It’s pretty scary. 

Anyway, it’s here where we get Gold’s backstory. It’s nothing too grand really. This thing attacked her home and she ran into a stray Genesis Portal that took her to Silver’s time.

The council found her and gave her that face plate thing to keep an eye on her.

I guess making her a member of the council is… a way of doing that, sure?

That’s it.

Anyway, Silver says this.

Yeah, me too. That won’t stop you though.

Also, when they landed, Von Schlemmer’s head hit the concrete when Silver’s powers gave out a little too soon. So that’s why he’s on a floating slab.

He’s planning on taking him back to his lab so that he can fix this mess.

Goooooood luck my boy.

I remain shocked by how insanely fast this story is going. It’s not that the pacing is fast. It doesn’t feel fast at all. The pacing is fine. It’s more so that… there’s very little happening here so there’s not much in need of recapping. In this issue they fell down the void… then got out of the void and a monster broke loose and started freezing everyone around it in time. Aside from Gold’s backstory, which was also really simple, there wasn’t anything else. A lot of what these pages are being used for is to showcase the art or the expanse of time used to draw out scenes of the monster ripping it’s way out of the portal, or destroying the building, or whatever else. I recognized this in the first issue where it took Silver about a page and a half to close one Genesis Portal when I expected it to take about a panel or two. But I guessed that was just to show how much of a struggle he was having due to it being his first time. However, it also just feels like the flavor of the way this story is being told. 

You know what? Fair play. It’s fine by me. Not every story needs a tremendous roundtable of dialogue to function. I’m shocked that a story marinated in showcasing Silver’s future doesn’t have more to explain to us though. I didn’t expect that.

 

[SanPolo4389]

Hey it's that arc that goes nowhere because of the book's cancelation which is kind of sad none of the things done here go nowhere.

[DaddlerTheDalek]

On 11/21/2022 at 12:29 AM, SanPolo4389 said:

Hey it's that arc that goes nowhere because of the book's cancelation which is kind of sad none of the things done here go nowhere.

That's the tragedy of post #252 Archie Sonic...

[Dr. Detective]

 

Sonic Universe - Issue #82: The Silver Age - Part 4 of 4

Actually, maybe this cover is the best one. I’m really digging the colors and the shading on this one. You can tell this was done by Evan Stanley too. Her style was really coming into its own and it just continued to look more and more incredible as time went on. Also, Silver be big.

Spoiler

Movie Poster Variant

Man, old movie posters were quite the interesting thing. One day I may try and look into how the transition from the way they used to look to the way they look now happened. Or at least I’ll tell myself that’ll happen one day. Very nice concept. Would be nice to hang on my wall. 

It also amuses me seeing clips from old movies trying to simulate what the future would be or what it might look like. It’s always very endearing. 

—
Writer: Evan Stanley
Pencils: Tracy Yardley
Inks: Jim Amash
Colors: Matt Herms
Letters: Jack Morelli
Cover by Evan Stanley
Movie Poster Variant by T. Rex

For Silver (and for us, really) the future sucks. 

They bring Von Schlemmer back to his lab and proclaim that they need his genius to take care of the monster outside. Silver suggests shaking him until he wakes up and the mental image of him doing that to a baby instead made me giggle.

But no. Instead, Gold presses her hand to the doctor’s forehead and that does it. There will never be time to go into more depth about how her powers work so I can’t exactly complain about how everything about Gold right now is pretty uninteresting and unrefined. 

It did kind of surprise me how little impact this character has made on the fanbase. You’d think with a design like that and with her being a girl, they’d be all over her regardless of how little there is to mine from her presence in this story.

Anyway, when the professor awakens he tells them “Tough shit” because the monster’s too big and so is the portal. Ain’t nothing they can do to stop it from whiting out everything.

Silver goes up to the portal in the tube and makes it close with his powers before clenching his fist and saying that they’ve got him.

I guess he felt the need to demonstrate that he could still do that? 

The professor gets a spark of inspiration from seeing him do the thing he knew he could already do and rushes off to get the bigger-maker machine.

Here it comes again, swinging back around to chekhov our gun.

They rush to go and make Silver bigger but the professor realizes that it isn’t calibrated to work on something as complex as a whole person. So, he asks for 15 minutes but Silver insists they don’t have that much time.

Gold has an idea though. 

They get to the roof and put all their hopes on a plan they don’t know will work and if it fails they’ll likely wish they had just gambled on a mere 15 minutes. It’s a bit flimsy but I guess these are dire straits so whatever.

So they all hold hands and sing a lovely campfire song together.

Using her powers they become a bit of a hive mind for a couple of seconds. I guess they’re just sharing brain power capacity and not actual thoughts? Or maybe they are? It’s not gone into too much depth whether or not they can see or hear what the others are thinking. I would guess not. Silver seems like the type to keep a lot of embarrassing things under the hood.

In the time they have before the link is severed, Silver dives through the machine after the Professor recalibrates it faster.

Then hedgehog get big!

The boss battle for this would be pretty sick, honestly.

The Time Eater might have been more fun if we had just been able to have a wrestling match with it as a giant hedgehog instead. 

Of course, upon seeing Silver, the creature just goes over and rams its entire being into him. No fucks given. 

Phew! Good thing it’s Sunday. Those buildings would have been filled up tomorrow.

Anyway, Silver tries to take this thing on with the power of being the protagonist of the arc.

He’s doing his best.

He looks over and sees that the creature is starting to white out the area where the Professor and Gold are. He gets teary eyed when Gold transmissions into his mind that they believe in him because he believed in them.

Good thing too because Silver was literally about to say “It’s no use” again. Not even joking. It gets cut off by her speech. Fuckin’ A.

With rage strength activated, he blasts the creature back, grabs it, and tosses it into the portal.

He then starts to try and close it but he starts to shrink at that exact moment. 

For a fleeting moment he looks back at the get bigger machine but decides (correctly) that taking the chance to use what he has left to close the portal now is the smarter move.

The portal then explodes and it bashes against Silver. Silver then crashes into the ground and looks all beat up and hurt.

The bruises on his body disappear on the next page so I guess he’s fine. Whatever.

Anyway, he won! Hurray!

They celebrate. Von Schlemmer gives him a hug again only Silver likes it this time. Then a funny moment happens where Von Schlemmer is about to congratulate Silver but then remembers that he never asked him his name.

That is actually pretty funny.

Anyway, also, for some reason, Gold says the Council will be back as she’s looking back to the top of the building. We don’t see any of the whited out people return to normal so I’m not entirely sure how she knows this. Maybe she used her mind powers to do it?

I ain’t too worried about the Council considering their pathetic showing in this story but a bad enough politician can wreck the world in pretty effective ways so maybe I shouldn’t underestimate them just because they’re no match for a monster… that they summoned.

Hmm. Self-destructive politicians eh? Maybe we could use more of those after all…

Anyway, Silver is about to head to sleep for two years and is about to call dibs on the professor’s arm chair. I guess Silver just lives in a junkyard or something?

Everyone’s happy and they got a happy ending and then suddenly the comic felt the need to cliffhanger it up the same way it did at the beginning.

These Genesis Portals, for some reason, keep appearing directly underneath Silver and it happens again!

That’s how the story ends. They all die.

When or where will they end up? Wanna find out? Well TOO DAMN BAD! We’re about to be CANCELED!

I do find it a little funny that it asks if they’ll survive the journey. Seeing as how Silver didn’t even know what a Genesis Portal was at the start of this story and we see Silver presently going around closing them with full knowledge of what they are, it seems likely that he at least survives fine. I don’t know about the rest of his gang or where they are or what they’re doing but I naturally would just assume they’re fine. Otherwise Silver would be a depressed wreck.

This may have been a story for another day but if that day never comes, does the story even exist?

No. The answer is no. Dumb question. Why’d I even ask that?

Rarely do I ever re-read a story for this re-read and come out of it thinking and feeling the exact same way I did back when I first read it but here we are. I recall this story feeling like a really simple, really quick tale that came and went and left me with an overwhelming feeling of “Yeah. S’alright”. That’s exactly what I got here. There’s shockingly little to talk about despite the initial setting.

Interestingly enough, I recalled there being a tidbit about this future world that just never came up so it was either a fan idea or something I heard through the grapevine. Or maybe my brain came up with it and I forgot it. However, I was certain that there was some sort of conversation where people talked about the reason Silver was named Silver and Gold was named Gold was because of a class structure thing in the future. Like, if you were a middle class citizen you’d just have the name “Silver” and possibly a number as an identifier. A low class citizen would be bronze. And if you were Gold you lived in the ivory tower with the Council or whatever. That’s what I thought it was at least. Seeing Silver help that other citizen wearing the same future cuffs as him and avoiding going to work in their supposedly terrible middle class (or lower class. Who knows?) job felt like that might be the case.

Either way, it was never brought up or talked about here. Instead we get virtually nothing. There’s nothing about this society that’s gone in depth about much at all. All we really know is that there’s an even Jedi Council obsessed with science that has robots forcing people to do jobs that we don’t see. Also they don’t like people with powers but they’re okay with summoning monsters from the Genesis Portals for science. 

Naturally we don’t have the big picture and maybe the big picture was intended to eventually come but it didn’t and as is this story is just here. It’s here and it’s okay.

This was also Evan’s first time writing for the Sonic books according to the editor on the back. Congrats.

--

Archie Sonic the Hedgehog - Issue #276: Cold Hearted

I keep forgetting this cover is a thing. Actually, it may not even be that. I probably barely register this cover as one that exists. It’s a fine enough cover though. It’s drawn really well. It works. There’s just not much that’s too memorable about covers where Sonic runs at the reader anymore though. 

Spoiler

Hero Variant

Still, those regularly drawn covers where Sonic runs at the reader are better than a lazy render of him doing the same thing. It’s even badly plastered on top of Green Hill because why not?

—

Writer: Ian Flynn
Pencils: Adam Bryce Thomas
Inks: Terry Austin
Colors: Gabriel Cassata
Letters: John Workman
Cover by Adam Bryce Thomas, Rick Bryant, and Steve Downer
Variant Cover art provided by SEGA
The way this issue begins is kind of amusing. 

Sonic makes quite possibly the lamest pun he’s ever made ever when he and Rotor are busy fighting some Egg Boss Army goons in the frozen tundra. They’re all wearing parkas so he yanks one of their hoods down and proclaims he’s giving them a Parka Ticket.

Makes no sense. Parka just sounds like parking but how it connects isn’t clear. 

Rotor is very upset with Sonic for that one and is about to revoke his awful pun privileges when Sonic decides that they should just surrender. 

So they do that. It’s all very casual.

Chip is like “Oh, fuck that! I’m out of here!” and zips off into the sky like Shaggy and/or Scooby Doo.

While the goons are left to think they (PFFT) actually defeated THE Sonic the Hedgehog, they bring the heroes into the enemy base where Rotor’s confident smirk disappears upon seeing the Egg Boss of this region, Tundra.

DAD?!

HU-BWUUUUUH?!

Yeah, of course I already knew this but I recall finding this out when I first read it leaving me… cold.

HAHAHAHAHA! No, but seriously, this is a nice little plot point.

It’s standing as something shocking can be debated. I wasn’t too surprised nor is this development particularly original but it’s standing as a plot point is incredible. The look on Rotor’s face tells the audience that he’s clearly surprised too. He did not know this about his dad.

Rotor immediately assumes his dad sold his village and family out to Eggman, which is hilarious to me considering Eggman is a world conqueror. It’s actually far more likely that he just took them over and Tundra tells him that’s what happened.

However, Tundra’s character makes it clear immediately that the conclusion Rotor jumped to isn’t one he made off the cuff.

His dad is a jerk and a long way off from throwing Eggman down the Death Egg’s shaft with all his electric coming out of his hands. 

Sonic is pissed but gets a bit better when he’s slammed on his face inside the cell. There, they meet two Unleashed NPCs named Jari-Thure and Sarianna. They’re the parents of Marketa. I remember her well; an adorable little thing that was way too young to be as professional a welcomer as she was.

These two fight like a married couple because they are one and while they do, Sonic goes to have a chat with Rotor.

Sonic’s pep talk is fairly standard but to be fair it’s only because it's pretty straightforward. What Rotor’s dad said about strength of character doesn’t register as something that makes sense to me. Sonic lays it out succinctly that Eggman took over his old village and Tundra rolled over while Eggman took over Mobotropolis and Rotor fought back. He’s a crony while Rotor is a Freedom Fighter.

Pretty simple. Granted, it doesn’t go into anything like the strategic nature of rolling over. Like, if he didn’t what would have happened to the village? Were they even in a position to resist? 

Sonic doesn’t bring that up but to be fair, neither does Tundra. Tundra just cares about who’s strongest, saying that Eggman won so he gets to rule like this was some sort of chariot race in Ben-Hur or some shit.

Rotor’s response to Sonic’s pep talk is basically–

They say a new line on the face adds more and more years to a character.

Anyway, it’s “revealed” that they let themselves get caught on purpose. Their plan to escape relied on our dear ol’ pal Chip.

He comes on in with a key card in hand and some snacks. Despite making mention of the place being cold and thus it being weird they have popsicles, he’s still got one in his mouth so… it must not be THAT weird.

Sonic then transforms into the werehog because it’s night. They have traction on the ice and make their escape.

The panels showcasing their escape are quite hilarious too.

Witness this four panel sequence where this one poor guy gets knocked out in one panel and the other three panels are dedicated to showing his tongue slowly slopping out of his mouth.

The hilarious way that bear dies must not go ignored either.

It just shows up and tries to scare them by making itself look big (or perhaps it might be getting ready to attack) and then just gets explosive diarrhea through the stomach. Yes, that’s right. Sonic punched it so hard that it didn’t even have time to explode out the backend.

They then escape with a ton of really bad dialogue to lead them out. They find a sleigh with a robo-reindeer and just leave.

Easy.

So then, that’s it. 

Back at the village, Marketa is hugging against the werehog because he’s so fluffy. She gives them the Sun and Moon keys for the Gaia Temple. They just look like regular keys. I don’t even think that for the purposes of this story they need to be Sun and Moon themed but thematically it’s all the same I suppose.

Then it ends with Rotor contemplating the obvious.

That was the Holoska adventure.

It wasn’t very long and I was taken aback by the end marker there. 

Turning the page granted me a wonderful look at Eggman’s brilliant face though so I can get over it.

I will say that for the purposes of this story, the set-up here being something that wasn’t resolved hits only a little bit compared to the others that’ll crop up. Like I said, it’s not a wholly original idea and Rotor, while I like him, doesn’t carry the same weight for me as a character than some of the others do. Him figuring out his daddy issues is something I would have liked to see but it’s also something I’m not fretting over not getting.

Tundra’s development, however, I recall being really interested in seeing more of if only because of Eggman’s Dozen but we’ll get to that later. I love villain groups so fucking much.

Archie Sonic the Hedgehog - Issue #276: Back in Business

Writer: Ian Flynn
Pencils: Evan Stanley
Inks: Terry Austin
Colors: Gabriel Cassata
Letters: John Workman

Pack it in boys, it’s here.

The greatest and most aesthetically pleasing of all the locations in Sonic, it’s Eggmanland!

Even in hologram form it looks funderful!

Of course, Orbot asks the age old question of why he installed rides into the theme park. Uh duh. Of course a theme park needs rides. What the fuck kind of theme park doesn’t have rides? A regular park, that’s what. Stupid Orbot.

Eggman says they’re dangerous too, which helps. Also, because it makes him happy.

One day, we’ll get an Egg Memo on why he loves theme parks so much. It might be connected to the happiest memory he’s ever had when someone in his family decided to pay attention to him for once. Or it could just be his longing for a normal childhood manifesting in a desire to create theme parks to compensate for the lack of having spent time in a proper one…

…Or he’s just crazy. 

Either way, Orbot sasses him to the point of making him wonder why he made him this way.

Apparently, that incredibly successful mission where the capsule with the Chaos Emerald inside flew away and made Sally look like a chump with her planning tactics ended up failing anyway. He’s lost the emerald.

Most likely because of the weirdness that happened with World’s Unite. Cubot asks if they should invade Lost Hex and Eggman vetoes the idea since whatever info he had on it is gone right now thanks to whatever happened that he can’t remember properly.

He says that he shouldn’t mess with space time anymore because it only causes him problems. Seeing as how a third crossover was planned, I’m guessing it wouldn’t have been your fault that time. Perhaps it would have been the fault of the Villain whose name isn’t Shirley.

He’s also about to cut his losses when it comes to finding Metal Sonic right before Orbot pokes his head up from his mini holo-screen and says “We found him”.

Yeah, Eggman was doing research on the Genesis Portals which would make giving up on doing stuff with space time mean that he’d have to give up on finding Metal Sonic through those portals. 

But FUCK THAT! Now that he knows there’s a signal to Metal Sonic he’s going right for it. He ignores every last concern Orbot hurls at him, including the one where he could just send in a Badnik (or an Egg Soldier, JESUS Orbot!) into the portal instead since there’s no telling if he’d ever come back.

Eggman says he’s been sitting back and directing for too long (agreed) and wants to get his hands dirty.

So it’s time for an Eggman Adventure!

Oh God. Eggman Adventure sounds like the name of a game that totally would have come out during the 2000s on the Gamecube. I’m reminded of the Wario World box art.

Eggman goes into the portal and immediately gets into a fight with a big fish eel thing. His BIG ARMS aren’t enough to deal with it either.

It’s not going so well.

He keeps calling out for Metal Sonic and his poor, cold and alone son is hugging his knees on a floating rock somewhere where Sonic left him. 

That mean ol’ bully.

Thankfully, Eggman was close enough to reach him.

Metal Sonic uses the last of whatever power he had left to charge in and ram into the beast.

Eggman then grabs him with his remaining arm and they shuffle on into the portal back from whence they came.

Eggman tells them to close the portal behind them and they do.

Success!

He immediately takes it upon himself to gloat as fucking hard as he can about this and laughs his way on out of there.

Of course, danger is over the horizon for the Good Doctor. 

I can hardly believe it myself but we’re finally here. 

Eggman’s Dozen, my favorite Sonic the Hedgehog story before the Metal Virus Arc happened, is the next Sonic Universe arc. 

I’m beyond excited. I can’t fucking wait to re-read this thing!

This issue was really good. I think both stories were well-done. The first story wasn’t anything super special but it got the job done. The mission was quick and easy and the plan went off without a hitch. Tundra didn’t come off as incompetent due to lacking critical information and really, the story managed to succeed at getting across what it needed to about him. Meanwhile, the Eggman Adventure in the second story was just a really fun tale about a dad trying to find his scared, lost little boy. An Imperial Tale: Eggman Goes West. 

--

Archie Sonic the Hedgehog - Issue #277: Thunder, Rain, and Lightning

Another good looking cover, if not a little generic. Pointing and rushing in to fight something is the go-to for your typical action stories I guess. It also features Lupe in her re-design for the new continuity. Instead of looking like a wolf from Secret of Nym she looks more like a Sonic character.

Spoiler

Battle Variant

I like this cover more though. The art, the expressions, the style, and the colors are all more my speed. I’ve seen this cover at a comic shop before and thought about picking it up. I didn’t because I already have the issue and my variant cover collecting is something I’ve only been interested in for IDW but I may not care the next time I see it. It looks really good.

—

Writer: Ian Flynn
Pencils: Adam Bryce Thomas
Inks: Terry Austin
Colors: Gabriel Cassata
Letters: John Workman
Cover by Jamal Peppers, Rick Bryant, and Ben Hunzeker
Battle Variant Cover by Tyson Hesse

We start in the middle of the action like usual for one of Ian’s stories. We’re just in the thick of it so try and be receptive to what’s going on without any lead in like usual. I’m sure it’s just as easy to understand as ever really.

Sonic is running forward with the ring from Knuckles’ Chaotix attached to Lupe. Sonic is worried for her but Lupe tells him not to slow down. Chip seems a little bothered by the speed to which Sonic tells him he could have stayed aboard the Sky Patrol.

Chip's response is “And miss all the excitement?”

I can’t tell if that was sarcasm or not but it does seem like he’s pretty gung-ho for being on this adventure at least. I gotta say, now that he’s with Sonic there’s been significantly less of him though. That’s partly World’s Unite’s fault but even with him here and considering what Sonic just said to him it doesn’t feel like they’re relationship is all too grand.

That’s going to make selling his eventual goodbye an even harder pill to swallow.

We then have this… illuminating conversation between Sally and Bunnie about how Sonic always ignores Sally’s plans and still comes out on top anyway.

It’s once again, almost as if this book doesn’t really need a tactical planner and is struggling to find a way to make one fit. Plans and planning is fine… but Sonic seems to always have one of his own and it always works out for him so…?

The end result of him destroying the robot with a well-timed lightning strike is played off as having been the more reckless and dangerous way to handle this. But, you know, that’s more exciting. It’s what I come to Sonic for. 

Then Nicole one ups that by pointing out that Sally recklessly jumping into the Digital World alone to fight Phage was reckless too. The counter to that is that she doesn’t risk anyone else’s life but Bunnie has a pretty poignant comment about how Sally needs to add her own self to that equation. 

Yeah. I’m feeling more and more sure of myself as to why I still haven’t fully come around to Sally here because even during this reboot (ignoring how her plans just have not worked) she still feels like Sonic’s authority figure. Even though he doesn’t listen to her, it feels more like an act of defiance rather than him just doing his own thing without a watchful eye or a leader hovering over him.

The part of me that can’t let that go keeps clashing with this book so scenes where they point out that Sonic ignores her plans and wins anyway just make me wonder why the set up is even like this.

When the battle is won, Chip asks Lupe about her past so she tells the story.

Her home was being invaded and then Sally said “DO BETTER!” and so she did! 

Yeah. It is kind of tough to get around the fact that Sally’s dad did come back but at least the soul of what she’s trying to say rings true. This is the second time where she’s used losing her dad as an example and the clapback was that she got him back though. A lot of stuff surrounding her seems to be repeating a bit.

At least this time she had a good follow-up argument and reasoning. I feel like that’s a nice improvement.

Lupe, back in the present, reveals that the Eggman forces have been wasting their time with decoy temples. That’s right. Decoy temples. The ancient people who made them also had time to make decoys. Apparently, they foresaw evil people trying to do whatever it is these temples do now that they’re not used for simply restoring the Chaos Emeralds.

I honestly think I’ve forgotten what the temples do in the book at this point. It’s been so long.

Anyway, Chip discovers the crashed Egg Capsule that housed the Chaos Emerald inside it. You know, that one that was used as a decoy and flew away from them while they fought. That scene where Cream and Big had to save their asses and then Sally was like “I should have done better!” and then nothing came of it until the next time she failed and said “I REALLY should have done better!” and then nothing came of it again?

That Emerald.

Sorry for getting on Sally’s case so much. It’s not her. I’m just disappointed by how she’s been utilized.

After this discovery the team decides to split up to look for it. Sonic, Chip and Lupe are sticking together to guard the keys while Sally and Bunnie go off in search of it… somewhere else.

That’s where that half of the story ends.

The caption literally says “Sally and Bunnie’s adventure continues NOW” which I found amusing. I guess the team splitting up is enough of a reason to say the book has two different stories in it.

Archie Sonic the Hedgehog - Issue #277: Hidden Costs, Part One

Writer: Aleah Baker
Pencils: Evan Stanley
Inks: Terry Austin
Colors: Gabriel Cassata
Letters: John Workman

So Bunnie and Sally have found the Egg Army base. They set it up IN the fake Dark Gaia temple I guess. Kind of like how Eggmanland was built on top of the last temple in Unleashed proper?

I dunno. Either way, the plan is to sneak in and steal it. There’s a very funny scene involving them trying to get past the security gate that I love.

I love how serious they were but when it’s time to scramble across a gate as fast as possible they panic like Zoidberg being chased by Hermes.

I couldn’t help but imagine Scooby Doo scuttling sound effects playing during that part.

When they split up to do the mission we cut inside to the Egg Army base where my new favorite character is playing a video game instead of doing his job. He’s whining about having pressed the jump button so I guess he failed.

Must be that infamous “unresponsive jump button” that one infamous review of Sonic Unleashed was talking about.

We then cut around Best Video Games Boy to the base he’s stashed in where they’re talking about the destruction of Tau, the badnik that got lightning bolted to death after it veered off course to face off against Sonic.

Normally I’d consider it a bold move to be playing video games on the job while you’re working for Eggman at an Egg Army base but considering who they’re Egg Boss is I think this might honestly be the most lax and chill of the bases in the area.

He’s also eating a bag of Snail Chips…?

Yeah, this base is headed up by Cassia and Egg Boss Clove. Clove in particular doesn’t seem to want to go out and bust heads if she can help it, which is nice. Cassia, meanwhile, plays games on the job too.

She’s also a little reckless and naturally disobedient. In a fun way though. She asks her sister if she can go with her to “bust some heads” and Clove says no. Her plan will work better if she’s alone.

Cassia doesn’t quite believe that’s the reason and insists that she can watch her back and keep up with her now. Clove reiterates that she isn’t doubting her and that she just wishes for her to trust her. She says she does and Clove goes on her way. Though she makes sure to have the soldiers on standby just in case.

Then Cassia turns to Best Video Games Boy and points out a signal he didn’t seem to mention. 

Cassia takes this as an opportunity to leave and investigate things on her own. Meanwhile, Best Video Games Boy is left to stare in awe at his screen as the realization that the game goes up to Triple S washes over him.

Keep trying. Curve the bullet. I know you can do it.

Clove happens upon Sally wherever she is.

Meanwhile, Cassia actually does come across Bunnie about to steal the Chaos Emerald so it turns out it was a good move to go on out there.

You’d better not. Losing it twice would be really embarrassing.

You can already see the emotional conflict brewing under the surface when it comes to Clove and Cassia. It’s one of those set-ups that makes you want to root for the villains a bit. Especially when they have Best Video Games Boy working with them. I see why this was split up into two stories, though, I gotta say that the first story is nothing to write home about. It serves as a reintroduction to Lupe and nothing more. If you don’t care about that then that’s kind of it unfortunately. 

It’s not a bad issue. The problem with a lot of these ones hasn’t been that they’re bad. We’re just kind of circling the drain on a lot of these elements right now. Like, the Chaos Emerald they’re after is one they were already after before in a different story during a mission that failed, which I like, but in an arc this long with already a long list of things to retrieve, it just feels like a refusal to take things off the list so we can reach the end. I’m grateful it led to a good side-story though. Writing can be tough like that. Take stuff out and you can save time but you may miss out on something genuinely good. It’s hard.

 

[Ryannumber1gamer]

I don’t really have any specific thoughts, but I remember really disliking this shift in the layouts back when it happened. I think it was a mixture of the backups not being that great, plus interrupting and cutting short genuinely excellent stories like Control for pointless fluff (The Bunnie/Antoine one will always be the most infamous because they were hyping it as some major twist in their marriage, only to amount to ‘Aw, they love each other’).

So when we came back from Worlds Unite, and the new standard became the 11 page stories and two per issue, it just felt a little weak, like these concepts didn’t have enough to fill out whole issues on their own merit. And the fact the latter half of the Shattered World Crisis has a lot less memorable stories compared to the first half having the likes of Control, Waves of Change, and Champions really shows that to me.

[Dr. Detective]

 

Archie Sonic the Hedgehog - Issue #278: Face of the Enemy, Part One: Friends in Need

These next sets of covers are really good. I especially love the coloring on this one the most. The idea behind what’s happening here is really cool. Imagine having your face reflected off of a piece of the split planet? Man, what a gargantuan honor. It looks like the core of the Earth is just erupting too. Geez.

Spoiler

Maniacal Variant

Another really good one of these kinds of covers. I’m surprised. I think the act of making them look more brushed is giving off a really pleasing sense to me. There’s also the fact that what’s being depicted here is just great. It’s not only cute seeing Orbot try and do the maniacal laughter bit but witnessing Cubot trying and seemingly failing is great. 

—

Writer: Ian Flynn
Pencils: Adam Bryce Thomas
Inks: Terry Austin
Colors: Gabriel Cassata
Letters: John Workman
Cover by Jamal Peppers, Terry Austin, and Elaina Unger
Maniacal Variant by Rafa Knight

So by this point in time I think it’s fair to say that the Unleashed saga has been going on for far too long. As a way of introducing us to this new world of the Archie comics, it was a nice idea, but having that be the backdrop for this long might have been a bit of an overstatement.

Granted, a lot of good (in my eyes) has come from it but mostly due to the fact that it’s helped introduce us to all the Egg Bosses. Some of them had stories that went on longer than they needed to and others had stories that were half a book, like with Tundra. 

I recall what’s about to happen in this story concerning the Egg Boss of this region being one of the most interesting set ups in the book. It also led to the most interesting Freedom Fighter group I think they’ve managed to create.

That’s good because I literally can not remember anything else about what happens here. 

It begins with an ambush happening to our heroes from Eggman’s goons down in Arid Sands. 

It’s Sonic, Antoine, and Big fighting to save the day. However, they’re being overwhelmed. That is until the cavalry arrives.

It’s Orange Sonic, Green Female Tails, and Rotor with Kamina glasses and a ponytail.

That said, I think their designs are fine. 

It does seem as though they’re intentionally, somewhat, supposed to be reminiscent of our usual guys. The back of the book says they’re modeled after Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles. That said, the mole there is just a bit too much like Rotor for my tastes. Just a tad.

The Egg Army goons retreat and we get to see the personalities of these three on open display. 

Or at least the personalities they want you to see. 

Seeing Spike go from Sonic-light to fanboy was actually, genuinely adorable. Sonar being excited is fun too. Even Trevor Burrow there stuttered a bit and called him sir.

It’s like a fan club. 

That said, I do remember this scene and I also recall Sonic making all those extremely punchable faces. Part of me thinks that the reason Antoine’s my favorite of the Freedom Fighters might even be because of how at odds he is with Sonic. 

Yeah, I have no problem admitting that I don’t miss Sonic being written this way.

It’s also fun to note that Sonar is a Fennec. Kit wasn’t even our first Fennec. Shows how much I remember from the old days.

Anyway, they’re on the hunt for a guy named Ehsan. If he’s an NPC from Unleashed he’s one I don’t remember. We actually cut around town to see a bunch of the ones I definitely do recall though, including the Hot Dog Vendor, that really bratty girl with her made up SSSSSquad, and the guy who really likes Chai tea.

Man, thinking back on Unleashed is pretty bonkers. It really is STILL the most beautiful looking Sonic game with so much jam-packed into it. I feel like with the news about Frontiers, all that game would need to do to stand up to it would be to match its visual style and fix the way its Cyberspace levels worked. Even then, the environments of Unleashed are too varied and too pretty and well populated for it to fully match.

I do have hope that one day we’ll get there though. More time, more money, more inspiration; it all feels POSSIBLE again where it hasn’t in a long time. I just hope that their budget doesn’t decrease even more now. Lord knows if I see Green Hill and Chemical Plant in the next game I’m gonna flip out.

I wouldn’t even mind if they just up and reused the Unleashed assets. Maybe there’s some reason they can’t but man.

The images on that last page were amusing in other ways too. It was funny to see Chip prepared to shove a chili-dog bigger than his entire being down his gullet. I also saw the Princess from Meropis prancing on down the road with her umbrella that produces rain over her head.

I’m also glad they remembered that Professor Pickle has a university in Shamar too, though he doesn’t appear. I don’t think he has a role to play in this story anymore, sadly. 

Chip barely feels like he does.

Which will, again, come to haunt me a little when the ending of this finally hits. There’s too many characters and Chip’s not getting a chance to form a relationship with hardly any of them. It’s kind of a shame.

Sonar eventually informs the group that she’s found where Ehsan is. He’s been captured by the Egg Army and being forced to do repairs on an old temple, for some reason.

So they head off and stake it out at night.

Our mole friend is blind. Interesting.

This clash of personalities is most entertaining. Not a dull person among them here. I like it.

I will say that this does continue to add fuel to the fire about the whole tactical leader bit. Sonic’s done this before but I can’t help but zero in on this more often because the comic keeps pointing it out for some reason. It just keeps telling on itself and I don't know why. Sonic ignores Sally’s plans but still wins and on top of that can do what Sally does as well. Sally needs something other than just being the tactical leader at this point. She really does.

I don’t know if those laser wrist blades are enough either. 

They head off into the night and split up only to have danger crawl up on them from different spots. Antoine is surrounded by fire orbs. Big is being snuck up on by one of the Unleashed bosses, I believe, and Sonic gets ambushed by Nephthys the Vulture.

Incredible design by the way. 

I really do adore the way this character looks.

So that’s where this half of the story ends. Will Sonic prevail? Sure he will but the real question is always how? We shall see soon.

Archie Sonic the Hedgehog - Issue #278: Hidden Costs, Part Two

Writer: Aleah Baker
Pencils: Evan Stanley
Inks: Terry Austin
Colors: Gabriel Cassata
Letters: John Workman

So here’s the continuation of the conflict between Bunnie and Cass.

This story is going to dive a little more into the mentality behind not just the people who join up with the Egg Army but the mentality of those who judge them for it without considering the fact that Eggman is a tyrant and there are loads of reasons people could be working for him that don’t just begin and end with “Well obviously it’s because they’re assholes too”.

I touched upon this before and I’m more open to exploring sympathetic angles and desire to see people be helped and given second chances more than most of the people on here. At least that’s what it would seem. 

As such, I do tend to like it when topics like this are covered and we’re just presented with two people just talking about it.

Granted, it did kind of upset me a little when Bunnie assumed she knew everything about Cass–

–but then got upset when Cass made a similar assumption back. And not even one that was as straight forward or as judgmental. 

Man, Bunnie, I dunno. You started it.

They keep fighting with Cassia realizing she struck a nerve despite the conversation only starting because Bunnie decided to talk about it.

Anyway, when Bunnie slams her into the ground she realizes she made a whoopsie and tells her not to move. I don’t know if she does move or not but the ground bursts through and they fall down together.

Tragic.

We then cut back to Sally who has been discovered by Egg Boss Clove.

Clove approaches her and tells her that she knows who she is and tells her exactly who she is in return. Nicole flashes a sign on her Nintendo D.S that says that Clove doesn’t know about the Chaos Emerald, because when she approaches Sally she only mentions the Freedom Fighters wanting the temple.

I suppose that’s a smart enough assertion.

Clove offers a hypothetical scenario where the Freedom Fighters chase her and her men out and then Eggman orders them to take it back which would lead to more fighting. Sally takes this to mean that she’s suggesting she back down. Clove says yes.

Sally asks why she would do that when the world is at stake.

Clove says that Sally strikes her as a smart and compassionate person. One who when faced with a bad choice would look for a third option. Sally rightfully points out that she’s assuming a lot about her and wonders why she came here alone. Sally points out that she probably didn’t come here alone and could take her prisoner if she wanted.

Clove basically reiterates what she thought about Sally. She came here because she assumed she’d be willing to hear her out. Sally has no response to that, thus proving Clove correct.

Sally then agrees to leave the temple alone which surprised me. That is until it gets brought back up that the temple was fake so, of course, Sally doesn’t actually care about it.

However, in saying she’ll leave the temple alone, Clove snags a checkmate.

This character is too goddamn good.

It’s a fucking shame they’re gone.

Goddammit. 

Fuck you, Archie.

Sally just said she’s fighting to save the world so her backing down that easily would only make sense if she didn’t actually care about this temple which means the temple is likely fake.

Then after that powerplay she opts to be mum about the whole thing anyway. She doesn’t want her people to fight. Her clique just wants to chill and game in peace. I respect it.

If I had to work for Eggman, sign me up for Clove’s branch.

Sally can tell based on this conversation that Clove is likely not a bad person. She’s just a person stuck in a bad situation that requires her to do bad stuff. It’s tough and I appreciate this as a story beat a lot.

Villain groups are probably my favorite troupe in all of fiction. A line-up of interesting baddies with unique designs, goals, and personalities always gets me good. I’m a huge sucker for it. It’s probably at the top of my list of things I want to see in a story aside from one on one anime fights against said villain group.

The one thing this comic has over IDW in my opinion is the existence of the Dozen. I know that the IDW comics don’t have a reason to have a group like this in their books and they function fine without it but Eggman’s Dozen was my favorite Sonic the Hedgehog story before the Metal Virus and IDW Issue #50 usurped it for a reason. There’s too much to mine from a concept like this that’s just being left on the table and the circumstances behind why it’s not happening are frustratingly understandable but still viable for re-evaluation in the future.

We cut back to Bunnie and Cassia. They’re stuck in a location where, despite falling down, they have a rock wall above them now. I guess they must have fallen into a tunnel or a slide or something. I dunno.

Here’s where the other shoe drops on judging people you don’t know.

It’s a pretty clear and straightforward conversation and turn around. Imagine what so much of us could accomplish if we stopped to try and understand one another just a little bit more. 

I really adore this scene. It’s very good.

The two of them agree to help each other. Cassia knows the way out but her leg is busted. Bunnie has to help her walk as she leads them to the exit.

On their way there, Cassia asks about Bunnie’s treatment, specifically about whether or not she had to take medication or anything like that. Bunnie says no, which is a bit surprising to me. Cassia considers this another example of how bad her luck is.

They reach the exit and Bunnie apologetically says she’s going to leave her here, assuming that eventually one of her guys will come to get her. 

Imagine if she returned here one day and just saw a skeleton and some robot parts grafted to it on the floor.

They never came for her.

No, instead we get the literal exact opposite of that. 

They came immediately.

That’s what she said.

This issue follows in the footsteps of the ones before it, pretty much. At least it does structurally. Content wise, I think it’s a lot better. The selection of characters for the Egg Boss we’re dealing with in Shamar is just more endearing to me. The side story is really good and heartfelt too. It’s a showcase of what happens when we’ve gotta play heroes and villains because of less than desirable circumstances. Things could have been different but they aren’t and we’ve got to live with it.

--

Archie Sonic the Hedgehog - Issue #279: Face of the Enemy, Part Two: Friends in Deed

It’s the werehog version of the previous cover and it still looks good, although the coloring job for this one isn’t as impressive to me. It’s definitely more flat. Also, I’m not entirely sure why Eggman is the one in the final broken planet piece instead of Nephthys. I suppose considering what happens at the end of this issue it’s understandable but we’ll get to it.

Spoiler

Free Fall Variant

Everyone’s experiencing the end of DuckTales together. The art is really nice and the glare behind them is sufficiently blinding. My only issue is that perhaps that shade of blue for the sky could look better. 

—

Writer: Ian Flynn
Pencils: Adam Bryce Thomas
Inks: Terry Austin
Colors: Gabriel Cassata
Letters: John Workman
Cover by Jamal Peppers, Terry Austin, and Ben Hunzeker
Free Fall Variant by Jennifer Hernandez, Gary Martin, and Ben Hunzeker

Sonic is in the middle of demolishing a bunch of badniks, completely surrounded and being overlooked by Nephthys. He’s upset.

Antoine is still surrounded by floating fire billiard balls. He seems a bit put off by it at first but quickly dispatches them by slashing one and having them crash into the others.

Spike and Trevor Burrow show back up, worried because Antoine screamed because he’s Antoine, but he’s actually fine. He handled it because he is still Antoine and he gets stuff done.

Big meanwhile is just sending me.

That was very “No. Wait. Come back” Willy Wonka dialogue right there at the end. Just him screaming as he’s destroying these Dark Gaia creatures. 

At first I wondered if it was going to be the Dark Morlay boss that they skipped but no. Those were just regular worm creatures. Seeing as how we’re done with Holoska we’re not going to see that boss here. They skipped it. Oh well.

Chip is so happy to see Big. It’s really adorable seeing his incredibly tiny body hugging this large stuffed body pillow of a man.

Chip then kind of becomes a little awesome. 

It seems like whenever there isn’t a Sally around there’s just people who are ready and willing to take up the mantle of de facto leader no problem, which is nice. It’s good to have a team that reliable so that you don’t necessarily need to worry about people freaking the fuck out when they don’t have a designated tactical planner on hand. Especially in a series like this where Sonic can just win anyway with a plan he pulls out of his ass.

Chip just gets extremely brave and concocks this plan where he wants to use the three of them here to lure a bunch of the Dark Gaia monsters into the ruins and have them start fighting the Egg Army guys stationed there. When Sonar the First Ever Fennec worries about them getting caught in the crossfire, Chip no sells that worry by just saying they’ll sneak past them because Sonic needs them.

Meanwhile, Sonic himself is having a wickedly awesome looking fight against Nephthys. This whole bit looks like something that would make a very good video game.

I can see the set-up and the mechanics for the boss fight that would totally happen here just looking at the way she fights. Your girl is really giving this Werehog the business too. That winged lariat looks killer as shit.

This conversation they have is very Knuckles at the beginning of Sonic X. He was very much saying the same thing about Sonic antagonizing Eggman and not being a real big fan of the guy from the outset. 

You can also see a very clear hint of Nephthys’ actual personality and goal underneath what she’s doing on the outside here. At first glance it just looks like she rolled over and took it like Tundra did, although, for a very different reason, but it’s also not hard to feel sorry for someone who has this kind of outlook in my opinion.

Sonic doesn’t care though. He says his piece and dives right in to keep fighting. 

We see Antoine’s group finally locate Ehsan and by this point I absolutely had to look this guy up because I do NOT remember him, at all. I was starting to wonder if he was even an NPC after I saw him appear in the comic.

He definitely is an NPC but the way he looks in the comic is so different that there’s no way I would have picked up on it being him.

We also get a little clue as to the ‘secret’ behind these local Freedom Fighters in quite possibly one of the more amusing ways.

Of all things, the Egg Army’s bad curry is what drops as a tidbit to the bigger picture behind these new heroes. It’s clearly an offshoot of the bad sandwiches joke they made for Professor Pickle but the real thing to pay attention to is Spike going to bat for the Egg Army’s curry by saying it’s not that bad. Which is hilarious to me.

Obviously, something’s up. Even if this could be explained by Spike sneaking into the Egg Army base and… stealing their curry for whatever reason, why would he then go to bat for it? It’s a really good way to just slide some funny nuance in there.

Dark Gaia creatures roll around the corner, chasing Egg Army goons away. They attack Antoine but Spike takes care of them. Then Chip’s group shows up with the little guy claiming that his plan was a success. They break the cage down and save Ehsan. Chip then, taking charge once again, takes off to go inform Sonic.

He gets there super fast. He’s not there in one panel and then he’s just there after Sonic rips off Nephthys’ cloak. He takes that as his cue to get the fuck out of there while Nephthys just screams her philosophical debate at him once more. Sonic doesn’t give a fuck.

Just does not care. I probably would have preferred he care at least a little bit but I also do like him just being like “Pfft. Whatever. I’m doing me lady. Bye!”

And that’s it for that mission. 

Back at some random house in Shamar, Ehsan hands over the Gaia keys and he thanks them for saving him. Sonic doesn’t accept the thanks and points to everyone else behind him saying that all he did was get shot at and that they did all the work. Nice. Humble Sonic is very nice.

He and Spike even shake hands with Spike calling him sir one last time. Sonar asks Antoine how many more of these key guardians they need to find are. Antoine is about to do the, at first glance persnickety and overly cautious, thing where he tries to claim that’s sensitive, classified information but Big does what he’s been doing this whole arc and just says it. It’s four.

Antoine asks why he bothers and at this point I’m wondering that too.

They say their goodbyes. Everything seems all well and good and then, not even a page later, just a panel later, Spike’s mood shifts and we see what’s really going on under the hood.

When this happened, not only was I sufficiently caught off guard but it honestly kind of became one of the plot threads that I was most interested in seeing develop along the way. I know the set-up for all of what’s happening with this new continuity is taking a long while and some of it does feel like wheel spinning but a lot of it still registers are particularly fine and that’s mostly due to all the general focus these villains are getting.

These Egg Army Egg Bosses are so incredibly interesting. They’re already more interesting than the ones we had pre-reboot just by sheer virtue of all the attention they’ve been getting. I know Ian said that they’re really just here to make sure that every region Sonic and pals go to has a Freedom Fighter group and an Egg Boss all ready to go but the man severely underestimates himself because the way he differentiates them all is really impressive.

It kind of circles around to being a bit of a detriment because this story won’t continue and all the Archie Sonic continuations I’ve seen choose to go for the Pre-Reboot stuff. As such, all this genuinely really cool set-up we’re getting with the Egg Bosses is just going to the wayside and that’s the biggest shame about the comic’s cancellation to me.

We’re on the cusp of my literal favorite arc in all of Archie Sonic and my previously favorite Sonic story ever told before IDW came along and it’s really sinking in just how much of a shame it is that this is all defunct.

Like, these guys don’t even seem that bad. They’re not quite like Clove and Cassia but the merit behind why they seem open to operating this way feels like something someone who could have a heel turn to the good side could and would do. They’re kind of morally ambiguous in a similar way Jack’s Freedom Fighter group was in a sense. Only really as it pertains to being opposed to Sonic though because it’s clear they care a lot about one another.

Fanboy Spike seems the most convinced and upset about what he witnessed out of Sonic today too, which is the kind of whiplash that twists like these were made for.

Just as I was getting a sense for Nephthys and her clique, Eggman comes on the horn and scares the shit out of her with his scrambled face appearing on all of her TV monitors.

Why does she have so many monitors? I guess she games like crazy too. Either that or she needs to process so much information at once that one or two monitors just isn’t enough. 

So yeah. Eggman’s Dozen. It’s coming and I’m excited. Like it’s pretty much here right the fuck now.

Just have one last side story to finish and thankfully it’s a pretty good one too.

 

Archie Sonic the Hedgehog - Issue #279: Hidden Costs, Part Three

Writer: Aleah Baker
Pencils: Evan Stanley
Inks: Terry Austin
Colors: Gabriel Cassata
Letters: John Workman

Just in case you needed a reminder that Eggman is a FUCKING MONSTER… well we’ll get to it.

For now we’re checking in with Bunnie and Cassia the Pronghorn. Also the Best Video Games Boy is there too which I’m so grateful for. He’s the best.

Cassia has the Chaos Emerald and because villains gotta gloat she doesn’t immediately tell them to make off with it or anything. She says that she’s going to let Bunnie go as thanks for helping her out, which is sweet, but she’s still going to keep the emerald.

Bunnie acknowledges that’s genuinely kind of her but she still needs to save the world and just charges in with a shield up. 

She kicks these fools down and when the Emerald falls as they collapse, she grabs it and flies off. The other guy that's also there tries to shoot her down but Cassia stops him.

She just puts her hand on his gun and makes him lower it.

The family unit of Clove’s Egg Base is the most endearing thing ever. I genuinely love these guys and want the best for them. 

It’s clear as day that Cassia doesn’t… REALLY give a fuck about whatever Eggman’s doing. She’s doing it because she kind of has to. 

She needs to be helped back thanks to her busted leg but then… something even worse happens. She collapses in a way that feels very much like more is going on with her than just a busted leg.

We got hints of it earlier and when Clove shows up and is questioned by Video Games Boy about it, she just looks off in the distance with a concerned glare in her eye.

At first, I wondered if maybe she was mentally cursing the person who did this to her but no. It's clear by reading the page that she’s cursing their situation and also grimmacing more at a certain Egg shaped lunatic from where she stands. He’s not here but if looks could kill he’d… probably at least feel a tiny shiver of something crawling up his back, maybe.

It’s more of a concerned grimace rather than an angry glare after all. She’s a little upset but you can tell it’s mostly worry.

I also think it’s cute that Video Games Boy knows enough about their situation to be concerned by Cassia collapsing and directly bringing up the fact that she’s not supposed to be doing that. But yes, something is up.

Bunnie manages to catch up to Sally and she reflects on her experience in a very heartfelt way. 

I dunno. This story has really endeared me to Bunnie in a way the comics just haven’t before. I never hated her of course but I don’t recall ever really sharing much of an opinion about her before at all either. She’s always been fine. I like her well enough. This one was really good though. If we got to see her interact more with Cassia, I’d be all for it just to see where that development goes if it could go anywhere.

Bunnie returns to the Sky Patrol and is proud that she’s got the last Chaos Emerald. Yes, that’s right. That’s the last one. They have all Seven now which kind of surprised me. I clearly had stopped keeping count. I’m grateful the comic did so for me.

As they celebrate the gathering of one of their macguffins being complete, we see a shot of the Tails Doll in the vent, no doubt relaying all this information back to Eggman or storing it for prosperity so he can view it later.

We end the issue on a scene that’s… I mean it’s just… JUST the worst.

In a good way. Narrative wise this is an excellent scene but goddamn.

If there’s ever been a time I’ve come close to GENUINELY hating Eggman (and I can say with certainty that this has NEVER happened before) it’s gotta be what goes down in this scene.

Like… it’s not even the fact that he lied to her. It's that he’s so SMUG about it. It’s easily the most punchable this guy has ever been for me. Ever!

And when Clove asks why he didn’t just tell her that that her sister can’t get better and that he has no idea what’s wrong with her, he’s just like “Bitch please. I know you only saw me as a means to an end. How do you think I feel?”

Just…. FUCK!

It’s SO upsetting and messed up.

So from this point on I was unable to see Clove and Cassia as villains. It just wasn’t something I was able to register in my head as being truthful. It clearly is just an awful situation that they’re trapped in.

Cassia is undergoing a treatment that she needs to continue undergoing in order to quote-unquote “not degrade further” but for Eggman that likely just means “turn into a robot”. 

However, Clove can’t exactly back out of this because her sister will likely just die. I… don’t really know who else she could have turned to in this situation. Eggman isn’t that kind of doctor, as he says, so that means Tails wouldn’t have been much help either. Definitely less so since he’s not even on Eggman’s level in the field they specialize in.

I assume this was something they already tried to check in with a bunch of doctors about. I doubt their first ever attempt at getting help was to immediately seek out Robo-Hitler and ask for his benevolence. This all seems like a very “backed into a corner and the corner is somehow shrinking” situation and it ends with just the most gut-wrenching scene in a long time.

I don’t really have any words for this.

I’m kind of just upset now and that’s what the comic wanted so… good job.

Yeah, this one was even better. Really good issue all around. I think the Shamar story has probably been the best of these around-the-world short adventures we’ve had so far. Easily, it had the best and most interesting Freedom Fighters team. Meanwhile, the side story that had three parts was all parts good and ended in a way that just stomped all over my heart. These two issues were definitely great. This is the kind of thing that makes how long we’ve been at this feel worth it. All of the excellent stuff we’ve been getting out of the Egg Bosses is going to culminate into a really great thing here as we finally, FINALLY step into the realm of one of the greatest stories ever told coming right now.

--

Sonic Universe - Issue #83: Eggman’s Dozen - Part 1 of 4: Hostile Takeover

Here we are ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to, as I said previously, possibly one of the greatest stories ever told. Possibly one of the finest works of literature in the history of mankind. Since the dawn of time, when that caveman invented the wheel, he could not have fathomed that one day the exploits of early man would lead them to the masterpiece that is Eggman’s Dozen.

It’s my favorite Sonic Universe Arc. It’s my favorite Sonic story out of all of Archie Sonic. For the longest time, before the Metal Virus and IDW Issue #50 it was my favorite Sonic the Hedgehog story period. That included anything I’d experienced from the games. Things that scratch the itch that I love the most about the stories I consume tend to either deal with elimination, where you have a group of characters and over the course of the story whatever problem is happening is causing the available group of characters to shrink (this extends to tournaments as well) or climaxes involving villain groups. 

Any story involving focusing on a collection of villains with different designs, personalities, motivations, and such and seeing them HAVE to work together to achieve something is the biggest, tastiest treat to me. If you have a story that involves those two things I’m a sucker for it. This arc couldn’t have been more up my alley.

I am going to say a lot of things about it. 

Spoiler

Evil Genius Variant

Here’s the Evil Genius Variant. Again, it is very good. I really do like how the Rafa Knight covers just look a lot better now. You don’t really need much other than Eggman scheming to himself with that wonderful glare in his eye.

That’s kind of why I find it a little incredible that the first go at it was supposed to be this…

Yeah, this creepy, unholy abomination was supposed to be the original variant cover for this issue. One look at it and you can immediately understand why it was changed.

This is too much. Even for me, a guy who’s almost 30, I’m looking at this and I’m getting so creeped out that I debated whether or not to even show this. The eye looks too damn scary. 

Nevermind that the black eyes and the red pupils were never really canon and this Post-Reboot is going for something a little more close to game canon. Nevermind that for a moment. It just looks nightmarish in a sufficiently unfun way. I don’t think I’ve ever said they’ve gone too far in making Eggman look creepy and evil before but they have here. I’m glad it was changed, personally.

To the Edgelords that think this looks cool, I will not argue with you on that. I can totally understand why someone would find it cool.

—
Writer: Ian Flynn
Pencils: Tracy Yardley
Inks: Jim Amash
Colors: Matt Herms
Letters: Jack Morelli
Cover by Yardley, Amash & Herms
Evil Genius Variant by Rafa Knight

This issue begins with Eggman and Metal Sonic flying over Eggman’s Energy Refinery/Theme Park/Death Trap. That’s literally what it says in the book. If it’s Eggmanland I kind of wish they had just said that but they didn’t so I’ll assume it isn’t until it's confirmed.

Eggman is telling Metal Sonic that they’re on a seek and destroy mission. Someone fucked with his system so they’re seeking out whoever did and blowing them the fuck away. As Eggman is flying, he’s got these two shields strapped to the sides of his Egg Mobile that are shaped like seashells. They look really weird. I guess the pearl is the egg yoke of a seashell maybe?

Eggman can’t get a response from his badniks and laments the fact that he didn’t send a horde commander or an Egg Foreman but it doesn’t matter. Metal Sonic points ahead and they happen upon a bunch of the Egg Fighters with crystallized heads.

Seeing this prompts Eggman to say that the NAUGUS TWINS ARE HERE!

Back in the day, reading the flashback that follows actually confused me quite a whole lot. I recall the story jumping around a bit and instead of filling up the gaps I was more wondering when this could have taken place and how and why. It still hadn’t fully clicked with me that the past was just completely re-written in a way where when flashbacks happen it’s the book telling me for the first time what the established relationships are.

I’ve talked about how weird the comic is with stuff like this before and this was kind of the weirdest for me at the time.

The book says “many adventures ago” as we cut to Eggman from the past in the Egg Storm Chamber. He’s saying the same thing about the Naugus Twins being here. He feels he has no choice but to release Tails and fly off so that he can have himself a nice little distraction.

This was clearly an older adventure where our little buddy was a little less independent and more the cute little brother figure who runs in for a hug when his favorite hero comes to save him. It’s still very adorable. 

You can also tell that the characters are drawn in a way to where they look slightly younger here. Not so young as to upset the councilmen at SEGA but enough to where it’s noticeable.

Eggman tries to go off and deal with that but gets immediately zapped and trapped in crystal by the Naugus Twins. One of them is clearly a redesigned Naugus from the old continuity. The other is a redesigned Wendy Witchcart from Tails Sky Patrol.

It’s a very strange combination, even now, but I’ll say that it does indeed work. It’s interesting what you can come up with when you have a bunch of toys scattered about the floor and you want to find a way to make them all work well together.

If the Battle Kuku is available for use then I don’t see why Wendy wouldn’t be, after all. She shows up and after Eggman is crystallized makes a comment about how handsome he is which makes Eggman a little grossed out, which I love. 

Then Sonic shows up and gets chumped out. Tails at this point has to go save him which I guess is kind of how Tails Sky Patrol goes down in this continuity.

Wendy also called Naugus “Wally” which also really confused me back in the day.

I had very little knowledge of how Naugus was in the original SatAM series at the time so I didn’t know that the “Ixis” part was mostly a Pre-Reboot Archie thing. The order of Ixis thing was so nebulous to me at the time that it just soared over my head. So when they started calling him Wally here it really messed with my brain.

Not only that but his aesthetic has been completely changed to where he’s more of an offshoot of what Wendy is. It makes sense to put these two together despite it being weird on the outset because Wendy is kind of the only canonical example of a witch and you’ve got access to Naugus because he’s a SatAM character so what better way to make things more succinct by having him be another kind of warlock or some sort.

Also, they have that whole crystal thing.

Naugus crystallized stuff back in the original Archie days. It was green crystal and not blue but it’s only blue now because Wendy does the same thing. She did it again in the Tails 30th Anniversary comic IDW put out.

Also worthy of note is Eggman saying that he thought he was on working terms with Wendy since then. We don’t know what happened but we at least have a little tidbits of info regarding the two of them possibly being able to team up well enough. She’s doing what Wally says even though she doesn’t even seem to know who Eggman is but also is kind of attracted to him so the stage has been set for something.

Eggman makes it to the entrance of his base and seeing the giant golden statue of himself clued me into the fact that this is indeed Eggmanland. Okay. Good to have that confirmed at least.

They land and Eggman wants to get inside to access the computer and regain control of everything but all the goddamn crystal is in the way. He has this great line where he says “It’s like they glaze-dipped the entire park”. 

Eggman starts mumbling about how Snively used to tell him wifi was more efficient than hardline stuff. He’s got access to a port and is using it to gain back control of what he’s lost now though since the crystals are blocking any signals. So if Snively were the one under attack here, he’d probably be fucked. 

Then Eggman looks like he’s kind of fucked anyway because the WitchCarters show up.

Only, instead of carts, it’s Extreme Gear.

Honestly, that’s a pretty solid upgrade that fits the modern aesthetic rather well. However, when it comes to these guys I remember finding their designs insanely generic. I don’t recall them having much in the way of personality either.

However, after reading the Tails 30th Anniversary IDW comic I really think the way they look and act here is quite the downgrade. 

Granted, they’re no pushovers. Eggman seems to think they are and it gets Bearenger fucking pissed off. His eyes glow a pretty red-violet and then he charges at Metal Sonic, punching him into the ground.

Since Tails DID in fact handle them during a time before he stepped out of Sonic’s shadow, Eggman had very little reason to be afraid. Granted, it’s been a long time and assuming people just remain stagnant is a tactical misfire but Eggman is so much better than Tails that clearly they couldn’t have been able to make up the difference.

That is until they start pulling a Deadly Six and fire energy blasts at him.

When he puts it together that they’re strong because they stole the Dark Gaia energy that he stole from Dark Gaia, he loses his shit and decides to just fucking blow them away. He tells Metal Sonic that being quiet is off the table and they’re just going to demolish them.

Witchcart shows up, in a new decked out ride, and blasts Eggman with some magic crystal. Eggman tells Metal to target only her and ignore Naugus, thinking he’s still drained from the Genesis Wave incident.

He is not.

Wally fires a blast at the other side of the Egg Mobile and it crashes, prompting Eggman to scream at them to stop getting new abilities.

Wally actually shows Eggman that he’s got Master Emerald shards around his neck which is the reason he’s so powerful now. He tries to blast Eggman but Metal Sonic gets in the way and uses his Black Shield to stop it.

He then charges at Wally but before he can get to him, Wendy zips around on her cart and crystallizes him while his attention is diverted.

Diverting Metal Sonic’s attention is a good tactic and one that will be ignored by idiots on Twitter some many years later.

Anyway, Bearinger wants to just demolish Metal Sonic but a slight of hand showcasing some clear magical control over him gets him to clam down. Naugus wants to use him as a really cool puppet, just like all the other badniks.

I also dig Wendy laughing at how scared Wally was of getting smoked by Metal Sonic before she saved him. Wendy is clearly the cooler of the two despite Wally being seemingly, slightly more serious. They both grin like massive trolls though and delight in gloating at Eggman, getting all up in his face about how they’ve totally wrecked his shit.

When Wally does this Eggman takes his chance to fuck off, blasting his way out of the crystal and into the sky.

He then laments the fact that what he did was essentially pretty sloppy. He should have withdrawn Metal Sonic the second he saw the crystallized badniks. That’s just Eggman putting more faith in his own, personal creations than the heathens he gathered to serve his Empire though.

Now he needs people with organic material. He needs a strike force who can resist the twin’s powers. He needs… THE DOZEN!

Well, the ALMOST Dozen. He only has Eleven right now. You can include Eggman in that but it doesn’t really make it Eggman’s Dozen now does it? It’s more Eggman in a Dozen really.

Eggman returns to base and Cubot asks him how it went. Eggman just glares at him and Cubot’s like “....Sooo… Good?” which is pretty funny.

Eggman then says to get every Egg Boss on the line. He needs Egg Rangers with attitude.

Nephthys the Egyptian Vulture, the Midesta Egg Boss centered around Shamar is the first one that Orbot manages to get on the que and we see the scene we saw at the end of the first story in #279 again.

She tells Spike that she’s been summoned by Eggman and that the region’s safety is in their hands while she’s gone.

Second, he contacts Clove the Pronghorn, the Northamer Egg Boss centered around… I don’t know. Yeah, I had to do some deep research here to figure out where the fuck Northamer was or what it was supposed to be based on. I dived several pages deep into the Sonic wiki following the Northamer Egg Army to the Storm plains that they fought Lupe and her Wolf Pack against to a page that just said Northamer. Reading it I was able to gleam that it’s based on North America and was originally supposed to be named Northamera which… is really on the nose. I understand why they didn’t go with that. The settlements listed there are Empire City and Westopolis so this is the Empire City area. Got it. Cool.

Third, he contacts Thunderbolt the Chinchilla who is the Soumerca Egg Boss centered around… uh. Apparently there just isn’t a Sonic Unleashed location tied to her area. The settlements and areas listed on the wiki for Soumerca are Emerald Coast, Final Egg, Mystic Ruins, Rocky Jungle Zone, Sand Hill Zone, Harbor Heights, Station Square, Casinopolis, and Twinkle Park. That was a bit weird to me but I guess it makes sense that not every major city we’ve seen in Sonic would be in the Northamer (North American equivalent) part of the world.

It is pretty interesting that all the Sonic Adventure stuff is in the South America equivalent though. I didn’t think it would be.

Also, all these continents are just not named what I thought they would be. Literally up until this exact point I thought Apotos, Shamar, and the rest were the names of the continents in Sonic Unleashed but looking at the wiki, apparently they’re all cities… which answers why Empire City was the only one named for a city. It would be pretty weird if one of their continents was just called Empire City. The idea that it would be kind of tickles me.

But no, they’re not the names of the continents or even the countries. They’re the name of the cities which does indeed track. I… kind of wish they were at least countries though, to be honest.

I suppose they are based on specific locations within these different countries though. Apotos bears a resemblance to an island in Greece called Santorini for instance. It’s probably not representative of ALL of Greece but at the same time I kind of just prefer these just be the names of the counties just to get a bigger picture of the planet. Plus, it was kind of cool thinking that Eggmanland might have been a country or continent long. That’s not the case, which is sad. 

Then again, I suppose them all just being cities does well to make the world feel way bigger. Plus, the impracticality of Eggman just turning a huge chunk of the planet into an Imperial city would probably be something that required more of a mention.

Anyway, that was a long way for me describing how I discovered what the Unleashed locations actually are and why I’m seeing all these names of locations I haven’t heard of before. They’re the actual names of the continents. Midesta, Northamer, Soumerca, etc.

Anyway, checkout Thunderbolt in her room surrounded by Eggman merch.

Everyone we’ve seen so far has their own thing going on and it’s all so different and cool. It’s genuinely really great. I’m like Thunderbolt in that bottom panel. This is really good stuff.

Fourth, he contacts the Battle Lord Kukku XV, Egg Boss of the Skies. Just THE SKIES which is… very concerning and very scary. You can’t even fly a plane without it being ruled over by some tyrant. What a terrible place to live.

The Battle Lord here looks pretty much the same. Speedy is wearing a completely different outfit which does look a lot more traditionally cooler than the one he wore in the pre-reboot. The weird diaper harness thing was a little silly looking, admittedly, and apparently it was hard to make out what his sprite looked like in Tails Adventure. The only other frame of reference they have is his weird looking official character art where he has these gross, super long fingers.

Yeah though, the Battle Lord in this continuity serves Eggman directly which is a change that I’m not against but I’m also able to recognize the significant loss in power and prestige that grants him compared to his predecessor. In the Tails Adventure arc of Archie, he mentioned being affiliated with the Eggman Empire and not working for him which was cool with me. Having villains out there that did their own thing was great and with Breezie, Team Hooligan, and the Naugus Twins in the mix that’s still true. Eclipse is still a thing as well, though, we’ll never see him again before this ends unfortunately.

The loss of one of those villains being just their own thing entirely isn’t going to hurt too much, plus, not only does he make it clear that he intends on betraying the shit out of him but he also has an interesting line about him not being one of Eggman’s regular conscripts. 

Apparently there’s something a little more ancillary and special about the Battle Kuku’s position compared to the rest of these Egg Bosses and that tracks as well.

Fifth, he contacts Akhlut the Orca, Egg Boss of the Northern Oceans. Still a weird name but also an awesome one. Yeah, this dude is back and he’s one of the few (the VERY few) Archie Sonic characters from the pre-reboot to survive the purge. 

The universe deleted a ton of people but said “this guy, this weird orca dude… yeah we can spare him” and here he is. He’s not just an orca with some machinery grafted to his head though. He’s got a Mobian design now.

I like his Mobian design BUT I will say that I do also miss the original orca design. If only because the idea of one of Eggman’s Egg Bosses just being a flat out orca was funny to me. Also, it was kind of a call back to the Sonic Adventure and Sonic 06 thing of orcas chasing Sonic.

Though, Iizuka said that the reason they chase Sonic is because they love him, which I also really like. Hearing that it’s because they just really want to give Sonic a hug and they destroy boardwalks to chase after him to do that is great.

So I could go either way on his design really. It works for what his role in this story is though and we’ll get to that eventually.

Sixth, he contacts Abyss the Squid, Egg Boss of the Southern Oceans. She’s sitting in a… creepy ass looking chair. I hope that’s not some kind of dead octopus carcass or something. She’s also surrounded by gold and is speaking to Eggman via a pearl inside of a shell. Lots of shells here.

Eggman’s dialogue with her is interesting because he just tells her that she’ll have to put her plundering on hold, like it’s some kind of concern that she might not be doing that for a while. Obviously, it’s likely the reason she joined up with Eggman. She’s got carte blanche to just do that. With Eggman backing her, who the fuck’s going to mess with her? 

All that gold around pretty much signals to me that she’s a pirate which is making me think back to Razor and his whole thing. The details surrounding who’s ship he was kicked off of and why and how are a little fuzzy at the moment. I don’t believe it’s been revealed yet.

The next page goes back to showing close up reactions to the people Eggman is contacting now.

Seventh, he contacts Tundra the Walrus, Egg Boss of Artika around Holoska. His words to Tundra are a little more cutting here and the look on Tundra’s face after he says them is that of a very worried man who has made some incorrect life decisions.

I almost felt a little bad for him here if only because of that look on his face but the idea that he believes wholeheartedly that Eggman being in charge because he beat him is how the world is supposed to work just gives off those Kaido vibes that kind of makes me back off from that a bit.

Eighth, he contacts another survivor of the Pre-Reboot purge, Mordred Hood, Egg Boss of Eurish centered around Apotos and Spagonia. That is an insanely weird renaming of Europe. It sounds like it’s supposed to be the language of the location, not the location itself.

Mordred’s thing seems to be more that he’s… kind of a coward? Basically, I guess. Unmotivated, for sure. He doesn’t want to be a part of this for reasons that I don’t quite know just yet. There are other people who don’t as well but what’s been pretty clear is that they all have reasons for not wanting to that are completely different from each other. Some DO though, which is also really great.

Ninth, he contacts Axel the Water Buffalo, Egg Boss of Efrika centered around Mazuri. It’s based on Africa, clearly, but man is Efrika also just a really fucking funny name. It sounds like someone saying “Eff this” but like… as a location or something. Man. 

Axel here was the first Egg Boss we met in this Post-Reboot. He’s the most outwardly efficient and the appearance he puts up is of someone who does his job and swallows his pride really, really well. Whenever Eggman isn’t looking he’s clearly not thrilled about the guy but he’s got a very respectable presence. Very professional for a big dude whose whole thing is burning rubber.

I really like Axel.

I was struggling to remember who the final Egg Boss was. I remembered Maw because he had such an interesting design and personality but I was struggling to recall who was left after him.

Then I remembered, oh yeah, probably one of the biggest surprises for fans of the original series was the return of Conquering Storm!

Yes indeed.

Tenth, he contacts Conquering Storm, Egg Boss of Yurashia centered around Chun-nan. This isn’t my Asia. It’s YOUR Asia.

Haha. God, these names are great.

Anyway, Eggman’s fucking sick of this rigamarole by this point. He can barely form sentences by this point but manages to get across to good ol’ Stormy that shit’s going down and he needs her to act on it.

Conquering Storm is different, of course. Her eyes are still black to showcase how she was after the legionization happened in the Pre-Reboot. Why they’re like this in the Post-Reboot isn’t explained. Either the same thing happened here like it did with Cassia or her eyes are just black and creepy. I think it’s probably the former though.

Her ninja pal has a slightly different design from what I recall of the Raiju Clan from Pre-Reboot but it’s mostly the same. The most notable difference is the red ninja turtle cloth around their heads has been replaced with a Naruto headband with no symbol on it.

Also, she’s no longer the Bride of the Conquering Storm. She’s just Conquering Storm now. That’s her name. Don’t wear it out.

Honestly, I like this change. It’s a bit weird considering the circumstances behind the initially confusing Bride shit but Sonic characters have weird names. The only hiccup here is what to call her in casual conversation I guess. I would just say the full name every time and Eggman called her Stormy here. I don’t want to refer to her as just Storm because we already have a character with that name. 

Allegedly. The Babylon Rogues never show up Post-Reboot which is something I’m realizing only just now. Holy shit.  

Eleventh, and our final point of contact here is Maw the Thylacine, Egg Boss of Tralius. Maw is by far the one Egg Boss shrouded in the most mystery and is so in a bit of an unsettling way.  He is easily the one who kind of gives me the creeps the most.

In one of the Bumblekasts, Ian was asked which of the Egg Bosses he found to be the most ruthless and he said Maw. The reasons he gave were based on things I feel we would have seen if we had gotten a chance to get more of his character but there’s already so many things about him that are interesting to me.

For one, and this might just be a matter of circumstance, the region he’s in charge of is the only region where there’s no information on it. There’s no listed settlements, areas, or corresponding Sonic Unleashed location. That doesn’t really mean much of anything on the surface because, aside from Abyss, he’s the one we’ve had the least amount of contact with and the book was canceled before that could happen. As such, we’re left with zero ways to look more into whatever his whole deal was. I'm sure where he was located was nothing too special.

Next is the robotic bits on him and the fact that he wondered if Eggman calling him up was to be considered a test of his modifications. It gave off the sense that he’s one of those self-improvement types and probably not in a way that’s outwardly healthy.

He probably should be more concerned about that because third, and this is the most interesting tidbit, Maw is a Thylacine.

You’ll be forgiven for not knowing what that is. There are a lot of animals people don’t know about but this one is especially forgiving in that regard because Thylacines aren’t around anymore.

The animal Maw is based on has gone extinct.

It’s been extinct since, recordedly, 1986. 

“Do or die, as they say” is quite the line for a species that’s gone extinct. That and the robot bits on him and the talk of him being the most ruthless is a recipe for one really interesting case here.

He’s shown up for a panel and a half and already I’m wondering just what the fuck was planned for this guy. Something is clearly up and we just never find out what. 

As sad as that is though, I remain jazzed to see all these Egg Bosses in action. 

Shit! The Eggman’s Dozen has assembled!

That was a lot of talking, as suspected, but I enjoyed my little rundown here. It was very much a fun time and I always relish in the desire to just go down the horn of a collection of villains and just talk about them. Sharing stats and all that is just a really fun thing to do. This set-up was perfect and these guys are all incredible. The sense of how different they all are had me thinking that more of them were secretly good than was the case but going down the line it’s probably just Clove and Nephthys that have motives that don’t desire Eggman to be a part of the picture for reasons that are more for the sake of doing some good, whether it be to the world or just someone they really care about. Axel doesn’t SEEM like that bad a guy and Mordred seems just kind of put upon. Like he doesn’t want to be there but he kind of has to be.

The rest are mostly just chancers and assholes. Abyss just wants to use Eggman’s influence as an excuse to plunder without his shit getting in the way of her fun. Thunderbolt is an Eggman fangirl who wants to please, nay, worship him. Tundra’s an asshole who thinks might makes right. Akhlut is an asshole who thinks might makes right but in a way that’s more fun than Tundra but we’ll get to that eventually. The Battle Bird Kukku is a sky tyrant who wants Eggman out so he can rule. Conquering Storm’s whole deal isn’t quite clear just yet but you get the sense that she’s largely the same regal, strict conqueror she was before. And Maw is just creepy.

This is a great collection of high class goons and I wish they were still around. I’ll try to make due with just reliving this wonderful tale of madness and mayhem though.

 

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

YAY! Conquering Storm!

That's my girl!

...shame we never got to see very much of her once the comic ended. But hey, at least Sega still owns her!

[Dr. Detective]

5 hours ago, CrownSlayer’s Shadow said:

YAY! Conquering Storm!

That's my girl!

...shame we never got to see very much of her once the comic ended. But hey, at least Sega still owns her!

Yeah. I'm sure that means... something. Maybe.

[Rabbitearsblog]

19 hours ago, CrownSlayer’s Shadow said:

YAY! Conquering Storm!

That's my girl!

...shame we never got to see very much of her once the comic ended. But hey, at least Sega still owns her!

Who created Conquering Storm?  Ian Flynn?  I don't know if SEGA does own her or not.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

5 hours ago, Rabbitearsblog said:

Who created Conquering Storm?  Ian Flynn?  I don't know if SEGA does own her or not.

Yep. Ian did.
Actually, my mistake. A quick look up turned out that Aleah Baker created the character.

And Sega owns her by virtue of the contract stating any characters made in the comic are under their ownership.

Conquering Storm would not be in the reboot if she was tied to any of the mess that got most of the old cast deleted. Meaning that, while not very likely, she has a better shot of reappearing in works like IDW than the likes of, say, Scourge or the Iron Queen for example. Not holding my breath on that happening, but I don’t have to worry about too many legal issues with her use.

[Rabbitearsblog]

3 minutes ago, CrownSlayer’s Shadow said:

Ian did.

And Sega owns her by virtue of the contract stating any characters made in the comic are under their ownership.

Conquering Storm would not be in the reboot if she was tied to any of the mess that got most of the old cast deleted. Meaning that, while not very likely, she has a better shot of reappearing in IDW than the likes of, say, Scourge or the Iron Queen for example. Not holding my breath on that, but I don’t have to worry about too many legal issues with her use.

That's cool!  Although, I wonder how they can get Conquering Storm into IDW?  They would have to change her backstory a lot to make her work into the more game centric IDW comics.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

On 12/6/2022 at 8:00 PM, Rabbitearsblog said:

That's cool!  Although, I wonder how they can get Conquering Storm into IDW?  They would have to change her backstory a lot to make her work into the more game centric IDW comics.

I care less about Conquering Storm’s backstory—which was changed anyway with the Reboot into something I think was a much better take—than I do Conquering Storm being one of Eggman’s most elite badasses serving his empire. I do not ever recall Eggman having a badass ninja at his beck and call (no Espio rescuing him with the Chaotix in Heroes doesn’t count).

And I’m just an absolute sucker for ninjas anyway. So anything can go with changing her backstory, and it would be fine with me.

Hell, I’ve actually wanted the Egg Bosses in general to be one of the things IDW would keep, because the concept is just too awesome and a waste for Sega just just disregard. Dump the Egg Army in general if you want (and I love the Egg Army), but let Eggman keep these 11 badass individuals for himself at the very least. Seriously, who doesn’t want to see these guys open a can of whoop-ass on the D6 or Surge and Kit? And Sage could serve as his 12th Egg Boss instead of Wendy!

 

[Rabbitearsblog]

36 minutes ago, CrownSlayer’s Shadow said:

I care less about Conquering Storm’s backstory—which was changed anyway with the Reboot into something I think was a much better take—than I do Conquering Storm being one of Eggman’s most elite badasses serving his empire. I do not ever recall Eggman having a badass ninja at his beck and call (no Espio rescuing him with the Chaotix in Heroes doesn’t count).

And I’m just an absolute sucker for ninjas anyway. So anything can go with changing her backstory, and it would be fine with me.

Hell, I’ve actually wanted the Egg Bosses in general to be one of the things IDW would keep, because the concept is just too awesome and a waste for Sega just just disregard. Dump the Egg Army in general if you want (and I love the Egg Army), but let Eggman keep these 11 badass individuals for himself at the very least. Seriously, who doesn’t want to see these guys open a can of whoop-ass on the D6 or Surge and Kit? And Sage could serve as his 12th Egg Boss instead of Wendy!

It would be interesting to see Conquering Storm fighting alongside Eggman in the IDW comics.

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

On 12/6/2022 at 9:10 PM, CrownSlayer’s Shadow said:

I do not ever recall Eggman having a badass ninja at his beck and call (no Espio rescuing him with the Chaotix in Heroes doesn’t count).

Well, there was Sonic X......

On 12/6/2022 at 9:47 PM, Rabbitearsblog said:

It would be interesting to see Conquering Storm fighting alongside Eggman in the IDW comics.

Yeah, I'm all for that as well.

[Dr. Detective]

Sonic Universe - Issue #84: Eggman’s Dozen - Part 2 of 4: Power Meeting

It’s a cover with all my favorite badasses on it. Unfortunately, it’s not a very good one. It’s probably the worst cover of the bunch to be honest. There’s no symmetry to this one and no rhyme or reason for almost any of the way the characters are drawn on here. Some of them are cut off by the white void yet others are full body in poses that don’t make any sense. Clove is calling out to someone, Thunderbolt looks like she’s about to run her over, and Abyss is diving at her like she’s a lost treasure. I’m also not sure why Nephthys is hanging way in the back with just her eyes like she’s the main villain or something. This is probably one of the most confusing covers in Archie Sonic past 160 for me. Before 160 it wouldn’t even make the Top 10 though.

Spoiler

Boss Attack Variant

The style for this Boss Attack Variant is a lot better than the other one. Unfortunately, it only has five of the Egg Bosses on here. I’m sure there was a way to make more of them fit but then you might risk leaving out some of Eggman’s glorious hulking frame. 

—

Writer: Ian Flynn
Pencils: Adam Bryce Thomas (Pg. 1-10) and Tracy Yardley (Pgs. 11-20)
Inks: Jim Amash
Colors: Matt Herms
Letters: Jack Morelli
Cover by Jamal Peppers, Jim Amash & Matt Herms
Boss Attack Variant by Lamar Wells, Jim Amash & Steve Downer

We begin with another flashback to Eggman’s first encounter with the Naugus Twins. Eggman is all bound up by Wally’s fat stacks of crystal and is extremely pissed off that Eggman reneged on their previous deal. The doctor actually said Naugus could rule over the islands while he just grabbed some resources.

Instead, he banished Wally to the Special Zone.

What an asshole.

Eggman keeps trying to propose a deal because that’s literally all he can do at this point and it’s a shame because it has zero chance of working since their first deal is the reason Wally hates him so much.

Fortunately for him, Wendy rolls in on her cart to tell Wally that Tails took out all her Witchcarters and is headed straight here, much to Sonic’s delight and Wally’s chagrin.

The two of them race off to go deal with the awesome threat of Miles “Tails” Prower while Eggman demands Sonic let him out of where he’s trapped. How Sonic is supposed to do that when he is trapped the exact same way isn’t shown.

Instead we cut back to the present where Eggman is muttering in his sleep about the dream he’s having which is just a flashback to something that happened in the past, apparently.

Ever have dreams like that? I honestly can’t recall a dream I’ve had where I just flashback perfectly to an event that happened in my past.

I’ve had plenty where I’ve dreamed, nay, nightmare’d being in school again. The horrible feeling of having a paper due only to wake up and remember you haven’t been in school for over a decade is quite the awesome feeling though.

Orbot and Cubot successfully wake up the doctor and we see him walk in and explain the situation to his gaggle of Egg Bosses.

I may be crazy but this room that they’re in looks exactly like the room the other Egg Bosses were in during the Pre-Reboot. There’s even the same fish tank in the background. Only this time, Akhlut’s not inside of it.

Everyone seems to be having different reactions to hearing this news and some I’m just making casual observations about. 

Conquering Storm looks interesting without her hat. 

Nephthys looks really goddamn worried, like ALREADY, and the horrific stuff hasn’t even started yet. 

Abyss looks like she’s fucking ready. Akhlut looks even more ready. So does Mordred for some reason.

Clove looks done. Like, she so doesn’t give a fuck. She’ll do it because she has to but I can’t help but worry Eggman is going to take a close look at her “I really wish I weren’t here right now” button. 

Thunderbolt is, of course, fucking fangirling to the goddamn max.

Then the ones you expect to back sass Eggman totally do. The Battle Kuku doesn’t have any respect for Eggman’s authority. Dude’s got a mouth on him and the pride of an entire armada at his beck and call too so of course he would. Meanwhile, Tundra only ended up joining this man because he proved himself stronger than him and his people. If the Naugus twins are stronger than maybe he should serve under them.

Thunderbolt fucking loses her shit.

Thunderbolt’s anger shifts back to instant swooning when she gets a head pat from Eggman. She really wants to be in his good graces and winning a head pat has got to be like the greatest achievement of her life. 

The scene that follows as Eggman decides he needs to give them a demonstration of what’ll befall them when or if they decide to object to his demands is one of the most haunting Eggman scenes ever put to paper. 

It’s also one of the cruelest fates a character in this series has ever been forced to suffer through and IT’S ALL BUNNIE’S FAULT! SHE DID THIS! POOR RANDOM EGG-GOON!

No, I’m not actually blaming Bunnie. It’s stupid to not blame the person who actually did the evil thing after all. 

Anyway, this dude who Eggman has renamed “Tassel Boy” is being given the worst fate imaginable for his failure back during the fourth issue of the reboot.

He was probably given that outfit with tassels as proof of his authority at the time but the indignity of not being spoken to by name, remembered by Eggman at all, and being filed away in the same area he probably holds all the people he’s done this to makes it clear he doesn’t REALLY care about the titles he’s granting these minions.

Yes, I did indeed say “file away” like their luggage. 

He made sure it was dark too.

To this day I can’t think of a thing Eggman has done that’s been THIS goddamn cruel.

Whenever people complain about villains not dying in media, I always tend to roll my eyes because there’s so many also-rans out there that seriously do not understand the concept of there being things worse than death. 

This is a fate worse than death. 

If I was given the choice between being paralyzed, yet aware of my surroundings, and forced to be locked in a tight, confined, DARK space for 50 years or just immediate death I would choose the second option because GOOD LORD!

Even worse is the fact that I don't know Tassel Boy’s story. Did he have a brother he was trying to save by joining the Eggman Empire or was he one of those greedy folk that Bunnie was talking about? Not knowing kind of drives me crazy but also I’m kind of glad I don’t. 

I can clear my mind and pretend he’s the worst kind of person so I don’t feel as bad. Like, maybe he’s a supporter of Diablo Immortal or something. Fuck if I know.

There’s also that wonderful detail of the Derp-Boys, Orbot and Cubot, looking menacing and scary as they push our tassel laden vegetable away for his horrific sentence. It’s a nice subtle way of indicating that despite how goofy they act, they call him boss and do his bidding in a way that these Egg Bosses do not and thus they’re on board with him and his monstrous deeds.

In the Pre-Reboot they were handing out tea to their guests. Here they're horrifying them with a demonstration of what Eggman can do to them if they step out of line.

I especially love the look on the Battle Lord’s face when Eggman sits down right next to him after that. It’s not even a “scared” look but more of a “Dude, what the actual fuck-?” look.

I also love how derpy Tundra looks when he’s put off by this. Those teeth do nothing for him.

One of the few who no-sells this is Maw. He doesn’t react at all to the demonstration and instead just asks a question about possible Dark Gaia monsters interrupting the operation.

Eggman, not missing a beat and seriously not giving a fuck about what he just did, just pivots to the mission again, instantly. He says that the Gaia creatures won’t be a problem because the tower is sucking in so much ambient energy that there’s not enough for them to spawn.

He decides to split them all into teams of two to carry out the missions he wants done to gain back his network and his base.

And the first team he picks is the literal worst possible team he could have picked… but on purpose.

He puts Tundra and Akhlut on the same team. 

The two of them react with a hefty “BRO, WHAT?!”

Eggman says he knows there’s bad blood between the two of them but they work for him now so they’ll have to set it aside and tells them to think of it as a team building exercise.

Considering the urgency with which he needs to get his base back, this is quite the risk he’s taking. 

The storytelling genius of having these two not only be Egg Bosses but having bad blood with one another is something I was unable to grasp having not read the Pre-Reboot before 142. Now that I have, the context for why this is the way that it is honestly astounds me. This is such a brilliant idea.

Ian really is the master of taking shit that didn’t work and molding it into something beautiful. 

Hey, so, remember those really annoying as shit stories back in the early Archie days where Rotor would just be gone because he had to go save his family from being hypnotized forever and ever? Then that conflict was solved when it was “revealed” that the reason they kept being put back under hypnosis was because of Akhlut the Orca’s powers?

Well, here’s the universe rewriting itself so that it’s a little more streamlined. Here, the roar of battle between the Orca people and the Walrus people is a clash of warring tribes. Now the leaders of both tribes work for Eggman! 

Both of them have an affinity for battle and war but Tundra’s belief that the stronger person deserves to lead is what drove him into this position in the first place. If Akhlut had won their squabbles he probably would have bent the knee to him as well then I guess?

Akhlut here doesn’t really seem like the type to do that though. I think he just loves being a war mongering bastard and it’s kind of delicious how he keeps egging Tundra on here while the Walrus is trying to stay focused on the objective.

Team Two is Clover and Thunderbolt. While Tundra and Akhlut are shutting down the access to the power that’s making the Witchcarters stronger, these two are going to switch off the normal defenses to Eggmanland.

Only Thunderbolt is having a bit of trouble.

Maybe this was intentional on the doctor’s part and maybe it wasn’t but he just put the most loyal of his Egg Bosses with the one who likely doesn’t want anything to do with him the most. I guess the Battle Lord might give her a run for her money but at the very least he and Eggman share an affinity for Wanton destruction and malicious conquest. Clove just wants her sister to not die. 

These are some great teams and Thunderbolt is already proving her worth as a show stealer, despite me honestly kind of liking these guys pretty much equally.

Well, I kind of like the Battle Lord the most I guess. Dude’s got too much swagger.

Team Three is Nephthys and Maw. Two like minded individuals with… what I feel can be easily hinted at as a differing way of viewing their similar outlook on life.

These two are his newest recruits, which is interesting. They’re off to take away the command signal to the badniks so that they’ll need to be directed individually if they want to be used at all.

The conversation these two have is intriguing. Maw clearly didn’t expect to have so much fun from the outset here and already he blurts out the incredible line of helping Eggman “save” the world.

Nephthys is confused by this since he’s clearly out to conquer it but Maw views that as Eggman being bold enough to make hard choices and take radical actions. 

Nephthys, as we know, is kind of… not entirely on the up and up with Eggman. The reveal with Spike and the others being a part of the empire does mean that they’re in deep with him but it’s not out of any pure loyalty. Nephthys made it clear to Sonic that she does not approve of Eggman’s ways and wished to stop him because he was making everyone’s situations worse. 

Their views on doing things for the greater good are both different but they’re different in ways that could still be construed as bad from a certain point of view.

Naturally I have more sympathy for Nephthys in this situation because what Maw said is inarguably pretty demented.

Team Four is Mordred and Conquering Storm. This one is an odd one and also the one with the least elaborated upon backstory for what’s being referenced here.

It’s, of course, natural to assume that Mordred’s talk of kings and bloodlines would have been delved into more had the book managed to continue but his standing in this whole situation has gotten more interesting to me.

Despite REALLY not wanting to be here, the idea that he’d sell his homeland to Eggman and then take the throne afterward to keep it from losing prestige is… a choice. 

It’s not a choice I would have made nor are the benefits of making that choice immediately obvious to me. Conquering Storm doesn’t seem to have much respect for his decision either, which is also fascinating to me because… she serves Eggman as well.

I don’t quite know what her motives are but what she’s saying here makes her register as someone who wouldn’t naturally just serve the doctor her clan on a plate and say “Do with it what you will”. No bartering and no bargaining means the opposite of that.

There’s a lot to explore here between these two that just… won’t be explored at all and it continues to rupture my heart because I want to KNOW!

Anyway, these two have been tasked with just taking out the Witchcarters.

The next team, Team Five, is Kukku and Abyss. He put them on the same team because they both have beaks. They’re to take out the back-up generator so that the other team’s missions aren’t a total waste of time, which is great.

Looks like that thing Eggman said about there being nothing to worry about when it came to facing Gaia Monsters was a load.

Again, this is a nice little pairing though. A proud man of high lineage who rules over the skies is working with a pirate. He’s disgusted by her just saying she steals stuff because she reminds him of the Babylon Rogues. 

She’s also clearly very young and spoiled. She sold her soul to Eggman for the Southern Hemisphere and a bunch of cool ass toys. To the regal Battle Lord, it’s like he’s been paired up with an unruly child. What a perfect union.

The last team is Eggman and Axel. Unfortunately, he doesn’t have an even number of Egg Bosses so he’s gonna have to ride with the best of ‘em. Tougher than leather, Axel.

With that set-up, they all head out… and things go wrong for every single team pretty much immediately.

For Akhlut and Tundra, it’s a situation brought upon by Akhlut’s own doing. He’s saying every fucking thing he can to get a reaction out of Tundra. The silent treatment is not working on him at all. Eventually, he crosses the point of no return and brings up his son and his wife, all for the sake of hopefully gaining an excuse to take the guy out.

Eventually, it works. Tundra literally backhanded him with the excellent line of “I WILL BREAK YOU IN HALF!”

Akhlut basically says “That’s good enough for me” and charges.

This is so insanely petty but it’s kind of awesome. I love how much of a schoolyard bully Akhlut is. 

The set-up for what happens with Team Two is pretty similar, though, it hits a little harder considering the person talking shit doesn’t actually know the depths of what she’s talking about.

Thunderbolt’s mind is a one-way street that only leads to loyalty towards Eggman. If you’re not wandering down the same road then where are you going? You might as well be wandering off into the fucking forest.

Clove… is not having any back talk about her sister though.

When I saw this I momentarily wondered if this was going to be the defining moment of Clove announcing her resignation from the Eggman Empire. At the same time, I couldn’t imagine Thunderbolt going out like that either. 

Oh the irony of being crushed by those laughing Eggman blocks from Unleashed though.

Meanwhile, Nephthys and Maw get ambushed by a bunch of the crystallized Egg Fighters and have to make an impromptu landing to handle the situation. So that’s also gone wrong for them.

What about the next team? 

Mordred has his eyes set on the Witchcarters and comes up with a solid sneak attack plan to take them out.

Conquering Storm says “Fuck that” and just rushes the hell in, guns blazing.

I don’t remember how this pans out so I don’t yet recall if this is an example of Conquering Storm being impulsive or if she’s got a genuinely efficient amount of confidence in her abilities versus these three people she’s never met.

Might be a character flaw that would have been worth exploring down the line too.

Ah yes. And here’s where I’d put the continuing development of the Post-Reboot Egg Bosses… IF I HAD ONE!

Sorry.

Lost the happy.

BUT THE HAPPY’S BACK!

Look, it’s the Battle Lord and he’s about to kick SO much ass!

The old man and the scrappy young girl are surrounded by Dark Gaia creatures. There’s just a shit ton of them crawling out of the woodwork now.

The Battle Lord gets attacked and snags one by the neck and then just crushes it in his fist! 

He’s SO cool! Come the fuck on! How has a guy this awesome not shown up in the IDW comics yet? I know it’d just be the classic stuff but I’ll take it goddammit.

I really wish he could be in the modern stuff too though. 

Boy howdy though, Eggman sure was wrong about those Dark Gaia creatures though. He’s riding off with excitement about how great his plan is and how things are going to pan out and OH NO I’M DYING–!

The reign of Dr. Eggman. It ends NOW!

I do really love this though.

They head out and it all just goes to shit on all fronts. Just instantly.

He was wrong about the Gaia creatures and pairing up people who are like oil and water to each other is seemingly not turning out all that well.

Or will it…?

This was another really fun issue. I honestly just love watching these villains be villains. I love watching Eggman debrief his group on the machinations they’re going to get up to. I love watching their personalities clash. I love witnessing the fallout or the mere sharing of opinions between them all and the intrigue behind who they are coming through because of it. I’m a massive sucker for stuff like this. I’m having so much fun.

--

Sonic Universe - Issue #85: Eggman’s Dozen - Part 3 of 4: Team Management

Figuring out what this image was supposed to be depicting was extremely hard. It’s clearly Axel overlooking Eggman as he’s about to plummet into lava below him but the way Eggman is drawn was hard to parse for me. It looked like that tube he’s hanging off of was impaling his stomach to me. I didn’t figure out until just yesterday that the pattern of white is clearly indicating that that’s his arm, not his stomach. The positioning makes more sense now that my eyes have finally adjusted to the drawing after 10+ years. That’s been happening a lot. I reach a cover that confused me back in the day and suddenly, after a hard enough look, I’ll finally get it.

Spoiler

Wicked Variant

This one looks really pretty though. Naugus has never looked as appealing or as fabulous before. Also, I must commend him on his lovely Santa Claus beard. It probably doesn’t fit his personality but it definitely adds to the style. The colors are just wonderful too.

—

Writer: Ian Flynn
Pencils: Adam Bryce Thomas
Inks: Jim Amash
Colors: Matt Herms
Letters: Jack Morelli
Cover by Diana Skelly, Jim Amash & Matt Herms
Wicked Variant by Dan Schoening & Luis Antonio Delgado

We start where we last left off… where Eggman was about to save the world by doing the only thing he could do aside from changing his ways.

Dying!

I recall really finding it interesting but also finding it kind of cool that Eggman as a character is so beloved that him almost dying by falling into a pool of lava can easily be seen as a gripping cliffhanger used in a similar manner that would normally be reserved for a more heroic protagonist.

I would never root for or want Eggman to die and I’m glad this comic knows that and is comfortable with it.

Axel, despite his sneering and displeasure dealing with the man, shocks everyone, including Eggman, by stretching out a chain and latching it onto the back of his drill machine to yank him back from the brink.

He almost looks upset when he sees it too. Like he’s expecting it to somehow get worse instead of a rescue.

But no, a rescue is what happens.

A pretty badass rescue it is too.

As soon as Eggman is pulled up, they’re both laser focused on handling the situation and deal with it together in a bad ass drill-chain-whip combo attack that demolishes this thing with gusto.

This dude got King Piccolo’d so hard. It’s almost a wonder it took so many of Bean’s bombs and Knuckles’ fists to take it out last time. Which is why I still say it should have been the Dark Moray or some other Unleashed boss the Hooligans and the Chaotix were fighting instead of the Dark Titan.

Apparently, or at least as Eggman has guessed, the Naugus Twins are using the access they have to the stolen Dark Gaia energy to conjure monsters.

Eggman then brings up the elephant in the room about Axel going out of his way to rescue a person he clearly hates.

I must say, I really love the look of this city. A part of me wouldn’t mind living there. I’m sure there’s a way to breathe easy here despite all the factories and smog. If they can do it…

Anyway, Axel here has positioned himself as a very interesting character in my eyes. The act of him saving Eggman and then explaining his reasoning has gone down as the most memorable part of this entire arc in my eyes.

The reasons he gives for why he did it intrigues me too. He doesn’t like Eggman but does hold shame for the idea that he would fail the Eggman Empire. I wonder if it’s because he’s now joined Eggman that his viewpoint has shifted to him considering him a part of his “crew” and thus he can’t compromise on his principles concerning him otherwise they wouldn’t be principles anymore. 

That certainly is true and commendable if that’s his outlook. I can’t see any other reason why he’d rescue a guy he hates. 

Eggman tries to get in touch with the other teams.

He tries contacting Team One. No response. Akhlut and Tundra are fighting.

He tries Team Two. No response. Thunderbolt is stuck between the closing Egg Walls and Clove looks about ready to kill her.

Team Three of Maw and Nephthys are busy fighting off crystallized Egg Fighters while Team Four of Conquering Storm and Mordred are facing off against the super powered Witchcarters.

He doesn’t get a response until he contacts Team Five. Abyss responds at the back up generator she’s trying to shut down but she and the Battle Lord have, of course, run into trouble.

Since their mission’s success means that all the other missions aren’t a waste of time it’s imperative that they get out of the jam they’re in.

The Battle Lord does this by reminding everyone that’s a fucking badass and the literal, actual best!

Second most iconic moment of the arc, right here.

“Handle it.” 

So GOOD!

My dude just tells her to leave so he can just bomb the second generator with a round of explosions. Job done.

I love how she realizes that what he did was both crazy and (considering he got those bombs from nowhere) impossible and asks him what the fuck he even is.

His response is “perfection”.

Beautiful.

This SHOULD get rid of the Witchcarters powers but we cut back to Conquering Storm and Mordred of Team Four and they’re still fighting/surviving against them without much giving. Mordred says that they’re still too powerful to engage and that Team One hasn’t completed their mission yet.

Eggman says that’s unacceptable and that they’d BETTER not be fighting.

They’re totally fighting though.

It’s a really cool looking fight too. 

Also, holy shit, Rotor’s dad can breathe ICE! 

Why can’t Rotor do that? His dad is literally and figuratively cooler than his son because of this.

Anyway, Eggman realizes that the two of them are indeed fighting so he puts the kibosh on it by utilizing Axel’s wonderful speech and giving it his own Eggman spin.

It’ll always be commendable witnessing Eggman take something and spin it to his advantage in ways they weren’t originally designed. I mean, goodness.

It’s great though. It gets them to work together. Using the honor they have as tools of leverage grants him the result that he wants. This gets Team One to finally finish the task they were sent there to do.

It’s funny because all they had to do was shut the generator down. There really was nothing standing in their way aside from themselves. It’s wonderful how cartoonishly petty that fight was.

Anyway, Conquering Storm did seemingly act with a little too much vim and vigor because she’s about to be taken out.

With the generator shut down completely, the power leaves the Witchcarters in the nick of time and Team Four snags a victory as well.

Conquering Storm beats the two facing her back while Mordred knocks out Falke Wolf with a single hit. 

He did the smart thing by standing back and waiting for the opportune moment. Now they’re just super weak and he’s mostly unscathed. We see a little more of his foresight come into play here when he then uses this opportunity to break Wendy’s control over the Witchcarters.

Man, that must feel good. 

In the Tails 30th Anniversary comic these three weren’t under Wendy’s control. They were just minions. However, here, the situation is far more messed up and pitiable. I don’t know who these three were before Wendy got to them but the idea that they are only serving her via mind control and have done so as far back as the events of Tails Sky Patrol is insane to me. She’s fun but she’s pretty fucked up for doing this.

Also worth noting is how Conquering Storm’s attitude seems to really be diving deep into the “hit first, ask questions never” category of people. She isn’t coming off as stupid but the brashness of her behavior is standing out in direct contrast to Mordred’s extreme cautious nature.

Their personalities being this way is, of course, on purpose to signify how they approached the handling of their clans. It’s really good writing in my opinion.

Next we see the fall out of Clove and Thunderbolt’s little scuffle.

Of course Clove wasn’t going to actually kill her.

And surprise, they work well together.

I love how when they’re all in immediate danger, they hold back on the personal vendettas and wait until the problem they have is solved before addressing whatever concerns they might have between one another. 

Well, some of them do that. Lord knows Team One certainly didn’t.

Clove is also very good at navigating the feelings of the partner she’s been paired up with. This is a wonderful scene.

Eggman chose wisely when he paired these two up. It’s got such buddy-cop energy to it.

It’s also nice that Clove recognizes that Thunderbolt’s judging of her sister is only really a front for her insecurities regarding who is worthy to stand by her boss’s side. Like, she clearly doesn’t ACTUALLY care all that much about what Clove and Cassia are doing.

Though, she’ll care a lot the instant she finds out that they’re prepared to totally jump ship.

With the defenses down, we cut back to Maw and Nephthys who still need to take down the broadcasting tower to the rogue Eggman robots. Maw tells Nephthys to take out the broadcasting tower and stay out of range of what he’s about to do.

It’s here where we get another memorable scene that just… again, this dude freaks me out?

It’s… extremely hard to find the right words to convey the amount of wonder my mind is cycling through right now. 

I really, really wish we had gotten a chance to figure out what this dude’s deal was going to be. It continues to be a massive shame we just never did. 

The instant I saw this I immediately wanted to know what the fuck happened.

When Nephthys takes out the tower, she lands and asks Maw the appropriate questions of “What?” and “The fuck?” for starters.

He doesn’t really give an answer. The big question of what he did goes unanswered but the arguably bigger question of where the badniks and the little animals inside them went is also something he avoids answering.

All he says is that the little animals inside the robots live forever and that’s all that matters.

I mean, sure, but that only means something if the badniks are around and they’re currently not so…? What does that mean? Are you saying they’re still alive? Are they still inside you? 

He doesn’t answer. He just says his modifications are “experimental” and “confidential” and rushes off leaving Nephthys with her jaw slack.

The next scene is interesting.

Wally and Wendy are standing in front of the tower gathering energy in the center of the city. Wally is psyched as hell to get his powers back and starts asking the dark god he feels is here to give it to him.

… And then he says the god he’s speaking to is Ixis.

Or rather, he thinks it’s Ixis.

Wendy continues to just be way cooler than Wally at every turn.

She’s a literal troll for reacting like this though.

When Wally asks “Ixis” for his powers back, Wendy says “Bitch you what?” and tells him that this is Dark Gaia.

She then runs down all the reasons why this is OBVIOUSLY Dark Gaia and starts laughing at him.

Now, ignoring the fact that if they both know of these two gods then Wally really is stupid for not realizing this was Dark Gaia, I’d like to turn my attention to him mentioning Ixis.

It’s very interesting because I’m still not fully sure what the Ixis thing means as far as this book is concerned. I figured it was just a thing that the old continuity made up and was thus being left out of the Reboot. Looking up Naugus on the Sonic wiki for his appearance in SatAM didn’t imbue him with the word Ixis either.

So it had to just be a comic origin thing right? So if that’s the case, and it’s okay to use the name Ixis, then it technically wasn’t necessary to change his name to Wally right? Or perhaps this moniker is in a very special zone where it’s fine to use but only in a specific way? Perhaps this was just a gamble?

It’s hard to say. Maybe the change was just made because the original way the Ixis stuff worked in the Pre-Reboot was too confusing. It could just be as simple as that. Plus, again, having Wally be tied to Wendy here does make a lot of sense considering the similarities.

Of course, I also love how this comic portrays their relationship.

One of the reasons why Wally keeps coming off so much lamer and dumber than Wendy is because of how old fashioned he is as exemplified by this scene.

The way these two argue is very much like family but the way they’re made into individuals by having separate viewpoints on how they choose to go about living their lives sets them apart pretty well.

Wendy views technology as a tool and sees them as no different from wands and totems. She’s gotten with the times and recognized the advancement of technology as what it is. Advancements.

Wally’s just like “Back in my day CRT TVs were the new hotness and we dern well liked it! There also was no color too and that was awesome! You kids and your fancy colored TVs are ruining the world!”

He would say this without a hint of any acknowledgement that television is kind of on death’s door too. Sort of. Well, cable is at least.

I also like how Wendy just doesn’t give a fuck about Wally’s revenge. Like, Eggman banished him to the special zone and she’s just like “Bitch. Got mine. Sucks to suck.”

Like yeah, she’s helping him because he’s family but familial loyalty only goes as far as helping a brother out and not shifting the way you decide to live your own life.

As it should, honestly. You go girl. You’re so much cooler than your bro, it hurts.

Anyway, they try to do everything to make the system work for them and it just isn’t working. Everything is done. They realize that this means they’re under attack. Wendy can’t even get in touch with the Witchcarters anymore!

Surprise! Eggman’s back and he’s got some new friends!

Everyone is here!

Eggman then delivers a marvelous speech, hyping up his Egg Bosses. He even gives them the credit they deserve for achieving their mission.

“I’ve cut off the power you’d need to summon more monsters! I’ve made controlling the badniks you crystallized all but impossible! And it’s all thanks to my Egg Bosses!”

It’s a team building exercise between Eggy and his minions… hopefully! I hope he doesn’t end up locking up their cybernetics and tossing them into a dark room because they’re all so wonderful.

“Some of them are eager to please me” he says, and we see a shot of Thunderbolt charging a round of electricity, ready to smoke a bitch.

“Some of them don’t want to be here,” he says as we get a shot of the Battle Lord grinning like a monster.

“But all of them are united with me in wanting to punish you for making it all come to this!” he says, pointing out that basically the ones who don’t want to be here have them to blame and if they’re frustrated and want to take it out on someone, these guys are the ones they’ll have to do it against. 

He also points out that he’s got new recruits in the Witchcarters, standing with anger at Wendy and wanting revenge. I do wonder how that would have shaken out. If they had gotten their revenge, would he have given them jobs in his empire? Perhaps.

We don’t get to find out because Wendy, being a boss, just lists off the reasons she can still triumph. 

She says she can still control the badniks manually, which she does. Two, the Witchcarters are hers so now that they’re within range she just immediately takes over their minds again. 

And three, she has a Crystal Sonic.

He looks really cool too.

I wonder what Eggman’s thinking right now. Perhaps he’s reacting like Seto Kaiba did when Pegasus turned his Blue Eyes into a toon.

I believe he said, “You’ve taken away it’s pride” or something delightfully dumb like that. 

Yu-Gi-Oh! is a trip.

So the second issue was the teams lining up and showing off who they all were before things immediately went wrong. This issue was a showcase of the other sides to who they were following their initial introduction. Not only was it used as a means of making them more interesting but it served as a neat way to show what makes them so efficient and strong. The mini victories they all had went a long way towards making them all look really good at what they do and it provides an excellent visual representation of why it is they’re all the ones Eggman chose to be his Egg Bosses and why they stand as the counterbalance to the Freedom Fighters. It’s all very well done stuff and I’m still loving it.

What’s even more impressive is that this was all done in the span of three issues and we have one more to go. The pacing of this arc has been really great and I recall this Universe story being one of the few that I didn’t lament having a rushed ending in anyway. 

--

Sonic Universe - Issue #86: Eggman’s Dozen - Part 4 of 4: Synergizing

Eggman is always ready to brawl, motherfucker. He’ll do it in any way he can even if he’s got no mech to ride in. Seeing Eggman throw hands isn’t something that’s been shown off only recently but it’s been in such a limited capacity and usually tied to something else backing him up that it’s been hard to pin down just how scrappy the man is truly willing and able to get. I guess I never doubted him but it does hit me differently when you just see him toss Sonic’s animal buddies around without a glowing power suit on. 

As for this cover, it’s… fine. Again, these covers have honestly not been that great over all. They’ve not been bad but their simplicity isn’t something I would have expected for an arc like this. Only one of the main covers even really showcases the titular Dozen and it does so in a really confusing way that makes it the worst cover of the bunch. 

Spoiler

The Baddie Bunch Variant

Solid idea. Hampered a little bit by the art. It’s quite clearly a style issue and not a talent issue (I assume) but it’s still not quite my cup of tea regardless. I also can’t help but fret that only two of the Eggman’s Dozen are on here if you don’t count the final one that doesn’t get recruited until the end of this issue.

—

Writer: Ian Flynn
Pencils: Adam Bryce Thomas
Inks: Jim Amash
Colors: Matt Herms
Letters: Jack Morelli
Cover by Yardley, Amash & Herms
Baddie Bunch Variant by Ryan Jampole

This issue just starts in the thick of it with everything going off with a bang. Everything is drawn magnificently. It looks fucking great and anyone who’s followed me on this journey knows how hyped I get for chaotic nonsense.

The various scenes showcasing the Egg Bosses doing their thing are also really good. I love how, despite their varied personalities and reasons for doing what they do, the comradery on display here can still shine through and give me the warm fuzzies.

Like, it’s so strange to me how the heroes being comrades to each other just feels like an everyday expected thing but whenever the villains do it to one another I get all giddy in my chest. There’s something to be said about that.

How being in situations or times of crisis that demand comradery can bring out the best in people as well as the worst. So when personalities are strong enough within our villains to bring out their best in situations like that it’s just that much more commendable to me. 

It’s hard navigating why I love villain groups so much. Putting it into words is tough and even now I’m not even sure I’ve found the right words to use but it’s a gut feeling that exists for a reason.

The others are putting in work to do the best they can too. Maw, for as messed up as he seems, is even setting aside his previous trick because he’s too close to his comrades.

Meanwhile, Thunderbolt has literal tears in her eyes because she has no choice but to destroy Eggman’s creations.

It’s all hype as shit. It’s all excellent stuff. I love them all so much.

My boy Axel dives in to try and take care of Wendy but she breaks away with her magic and rides over to Wally, the useless sack of shit.

She says she can’t drive her cart, control the Witchcarters, and individually control the badniks all at the same time. She needs some goddamn help.

Wally says it’s all he can do to control Metal Sonic, which is a pretty lame excuse. I guess he hasn’t fully gotten his powers back but he has Master Emerald shards around his neck. Either Metal Sonic’s just that awesome or my dude’s been nerfed super bad to the point of just being a liability to his own operation.

These two were pretty much done by the end of the third issue but it really gets sealed in stone that their endeavors are all washed up by this point. 

Eggman manages to destroy Wendy’s cart. Wally returns the favor by sicking Crystal Sonic on Eggman and destroying the drill ride he was driving.

However, Eggman laughs it off and reveals that he’s got a suit of pure energy!

He apologizes to Metal Sonic as he swats him away, saying he’ll repair him later and then literally dives into the laser blasts the Naugus Twins are firing at him. Their magic can’t destroy pure energy and it leaves Eggman able to just deliver a fucking gut punch to Wally Wizard here.

If I were Wendy I’d be kind of pissed at her brother here.

Looks like Mordred’s powers have really laid it into the Witchcarters too. The comradery didn’t last long, unfortunately for them. 

The fighting is over but Eggman wants to obliterate Wally and he goes to blow this motherfucker away.

In his last act of defiance, he has Crystal Sonic zoom over to block the blast, making it so Eggman blasts him instead and provides a smokescreen for him to escape.

His last act was a pretty decent one and ironically, despite his position in this arc being of a depowered and unknowing bastard, he managed to make the escape.

That blast looked sick as hell too. Jesus Christ, look at the beauty on display there.

Again, if I were Wendy I’d be pissed.

With that done, all that’s left is clean-up.

Wally’s gone. He’s lost and he knows it, so confirms Eggman as he cradles his precious son Metal Sonic. He also confirms what was obvious throughout this arc, that being that Wendy was the real threat this entire time.

The amount of chaos she managed to induce here was pretty astounding and it truly would be a waste if she were off’d here. 

Wendy does put on the charm a bit. She’s worked with Eggman before and she brings up how she’s not the conquest type and that this was Wally’s idea. Eggman just points out that he lost a lot of badniks because of her and tells her to release the rest. 

She does and presumably removes his reason to keep her alive, which causes her to freak out and even worries Clove who’s got her at scythe point.

This is untrue of course. Even a tertiary glance at what she’s done should tell him that she’s definitely better off working under him than dead and thankfully he manages to be convinced.

Can you imagine if Eggman made Clove have to go through with that? Holy shit man.

This new path in life for Wendy is certainly better than the alternative but I do wonder if she would have preferred being a free agent who just did dealings with him on the side. Granted, she’s been against him before but with this new development that’s all over now.

Like, she didn’t have to worry about “the Injector” before this…

But now that the INJECTOR is a thing that she’s had to deal with there’s no going back.

We all know this Eggman by now so “of course” when he says it’s a thing to “keep you all in line” it means more than just that. 

I think Wendy will be fine though. She’s got a blase attitude about a lot of stuff and her job puts her in a much easier position to grant Eggman what he desires. She’s an Egg Boss but not of any particular region. She’s just in charge of finding magical relics and items that he can research or put to good use. It also helps to have them so that certain other people don’t have access to them.

She’s also blushing a lot which can be taken a few ways. I’m pretty sure she just has a little crush since she’s called him handsome a fair number of times. It’s this strange mixture of being infatuated and scared at the same time and I’m not entirely sure what to make of it. 

Wendy’s a strange one.

With that, we’ve now reached the wrap up as all the Egg Bosses return home.

The Battle Lord didn’t want to be there but he returns home with a glorious pep in his step. It turns out that it was a rather fun conquest and he enjoyed himself. 

That’s nice. I’m glad that despite his grumpiness at the start he managed to have fun.

Abyss also had fun. Quite a large amount of it too. 

Her feelings here are pretty relatable. It’s like the feeling you get when you’ve watched a good number of episodes of Dragon Ball and then you remember that you have a few Dragon Ball video games you haven’t touched in a while. I had that feeling once and recalled that you can play as some characters from the OG Dragon Ball in Budokai Tenkaichi 3 so I went and did that.

It’s like that. Abyss went on a conquest and she wants to do more so she’s like “NOPE! No talking! More raiding!”

I get it.

Mordred’s the fucking opposite though.

He didn’t want to do it and now that he’s done it he wants to lay back in his chair, forget about battles and shit, and just gorge on some mutton like he’s Patrick Star.

I get that too.

I also just realized why the name “Avalon” was so familiar to me. It’s in the story of King Arthur which was, of course, in Sonic and the Black Knight. Interesting choice.

Next we’ve got Conquering Storm and Nephthys’ return. 

I feel so bad for this bird lady.

This is the first time we’ve seen her without her mask on and it’s kind of sad to look at. Considering what she’s talking about here as her grounds for a successful mission, it feels safe to say that the reason her face looks like this might have something to do with the sacrifice she made to join the Eggman Empire as an infiltrator of sorts. You know, they all have robotic bits here and there I presume.

Spies having to do things like harm or change their own bodies or even take out their allies to keep up the ruse is something I’m always sympathetic towards. Her situation is a lot different from Clove’s but there is a part of me that wonders what could happen if they were made aware of one another.

Conquering Storm’s foray back home goes a little more normally. She’s still in a bit of a business mindset with her attention being focused solely on what changed while she was gone and we get a hint of what’s to come in #281 regarding that.

I recall it being a very boring and disappointing story but we shall see if that remains the case upon revisit.

Clove and Thunderbolt are next. Both scenes here are wonderful.

You’ve truly lucked out if you’ve managed to be a part of Clove’s Egg Base. Granted, I do sort of get the sense that a lot of the people in these bases are rather close with one another. I doubt the situation for all of them is that they used to be closely knit groups that just lived in the area and work together to keep the Egg Base strong thanks to Eggman taking them over but that is true for some of them.

Still, I can’t help but want the best for Clove and all her team members.

I feel a little less sure about that when it comes to Thunderbolt’s team. They all seem put off by her a little bit and it’s not really that surprising why. 

Then she does something that could maybe be considered a little fool-hardy by telling her minion to stash some emerald shards away as a surprise for when Eggman needs to be reminded of how great she is instead of just telling him immediately.

It could be seen as something else were he to find out before the intended surprise, is all I’m saying.

We cut back to the two rivals of the ice lands next.

This is SO interesting.

It’s so intriguing and worthy of further exploration that it hurts. It hurts my FUCKING SOUL knowing that I won’t get to see what this leads to.

Tundra and Akhlut are great characters on their own but this rivalry and their history and the way they think and feel and how they clash is just on another level for me. In some ways they’re the same but in others they’re not and those slight differences are what can cause the house of cards to crumble for one or both of them.

Tundra’s introspection on the way his life has shaken out has made him stand out. Lamenting all the tragedy that went into getting him and his clan where they are now and having to live with the fact that despite all he’s lost his rival still lives and thus he’ll have to keep fighting.

They work together on the same team but want each other dead. Tundra speaks of it in a manner that heralds it as a mission or an undertaking he has to see through to the end whereas Akhlut just wants to stir some shit up. He wants blood and glory and isn’t hiding the fact that he’s willing to openly exploit the fact that Eggman’s lax monitoring of their bases can lead to “accidents” happening.

The same principles are on display here, sort of, but in different ways. I wish I could have seen it through to its climax if there even was one in mind. Probably not, since this was all set up to be a continuous story but damn.

Next we’ve got the riders on the storm and the creepy self-enhancer.

Axel and his boys are chilling with one another, like good bros do. He’s recounting the story of his adventure with their boss, telling them about how he gave a speech and Eggman just repeated it word for word back to the others. It’s a funny story, for sure.

Eggman must have appreciated what Axel did for him a lot though because when it’s reported that Sonic is headed their way, he reveals that Eggman gave him a gift.

It’s the Egg Beetle from Unleashed!

That was nice of him.

The scene with Maw is REALLY interesting though. 

I remember this happening and wondering what this could possibly have been leading to. We never got to find out and I remember being bummed about that… however, considering all the context clues here and what we know about the origins of the Metal Virus in IDW, that being that it was originally supposed to happen in the Archie comics, I think it’s safe to say that that’s what this is.

The idea for the Metal Virus wasn’t super far in. Ian talked about how he, at most, had some notes on like a napkin or something. I’m sure it was actual paper but “napkin” is the word you use to get across how early in development the idea for this was. There likely wasn’t any plotting for any of what was originally going to happen here.

But the idea did exist and its origins feel firmly planted in the bottom of this page. 

Looking it over it feels astounding to me. Poor ol’ Tassel Boy is just a side project now. He likely would have been the first to fall victim to the virus had it been properly tested in the book.

I can see why Ian insists on Maw being just the fucking worst now too, knowing what the virus does and what it wrought.

With that, we close things out with Egg Boss Wendy and the good doctor himself.

The way this scene plays out is hilarious and perfectly written.

Eggman clearly wants the Cacophonic Conch from Sonic Lost World. They don’t show it but they don’t have to thanks to Wendy asking if he’s planning on going Zeti hunting.

Eggman doesn’t know what a Zeti is and he doesn’t even know what the thing he’s asking her to get is. All he knows is that he used to have it and he doesn’t anymore so he wants it back. That’s it and that’s all. Fair play.

She leaves with a lovey-dovey call out to him and he waves her off, looking a bit put off by the affection. He’s allergic to love.

After that, we end on a nice run down of all the protagonist of this story managed to accomplish with a slight dig at the fact that Eggman is still the villain and thus doesn’t have a ton of successes to his name when it comes to what Orbot says there. Granted, he’s definitely more successful than most Eggmen so, give the man credit.

There’s also a small little look-see into where Wally is and what he plans on doing next.

Seems he’s found the Master Emerald…

… the one that’s supposed to be shattered… wait…!

Whuh-oh! What on Earth could THIS mean?!

I already know, kind of, but I’ll pretend to be interested anyway. The second to last Sonic Universe arc of this book was one I wasn’t too entertained by, personally. All I recall it doing was making Wally out to be an even bigger loser but we’ll get to that.

Eggman’s Dozen is a tale that hasn’t lost an ounce of its charm since I first read it all those years ago. It remains my favorite Sonic Universe story even after this re-read. I had a lot of fun going back through it again. I loved revisiting what enticed me so much about these Egg Bosses and despite lamenting never being able to witness what their exploits would have eventually led to, it feels great knowing that the foundation for this exists at all considering the book very well could have died after the Penders fiasco. 

The book died anyway and a lot of this was left to rot. It’s a huge shame because it wasn’t deserved and all of these Egg Bosses, ALL OF THEM, have something to them that was worth being explored more. Tundra and Akhlut’s rivalry, Clove and Cassia’s unfortunate situation, Nephthys and her team’s sympathetic mission, the return of Conquering Storm and Mordred Hood, best boy Axel and his philosophy on teamwork, creepy ass Maw and the mystery behind what his deal is, all the pirate shit surrounding Abyss and the stuff we’ve developed concerning the oceans up to this point, my favorite big boss energy Battle Lord Kuku, and Thunderbolt just being her wonderful damn self. Throw in Wendy being a charming old so and so and you’ve got a recipe for perfection that was sadly lost to the winds of change.

I wouldn’t trade what we have with IDW for this back, not by a long shot, but I will always desire to see this part of the comics continue in some way shape or form. I can handle the loss of the other stuff, even if there were still things I wished to see continue, but my mind always travels back to this as a clear showcase of what I feel could have been a masterful, grand showcase of what the Eggman Empire can really be. 

[Dr. Detective]

 

Archie Sonic the Hedgehog - Issue #280: Keys to Victory

What this cover is depicting is fine but, I dunno, the colors seem a bit off to me. Perhaps it’s just me. Either that or I don’t like that shade of lemon-lime that Chip is getting blasted with.

Spoiler

Altered Beast Variant

I haven’t played Altered Beast so I’m not familiar with its style. Perhaps I would like this more if I was but as is it’s not my cup of tea.

—

Writer: Ian Flynn
Pencils: Jamal Peppers
Inks: Terry Austin
Colors: Gabriel Cassata
Letters: John Workman
Cover by Peppers, Austin, and Ben Hunzeker
Altered Beast Variant by Erik Ly

We open this issue on the Egg Beetle boss fight! Wow! Such good memories!

I remember fighting this thing in my room one day either before or after going to school back in 2008. I don’t recall the exact time but man was it awesome seeing Eggman go into that thing and just launch his stuff at Sonic. The day time boss battle music was great too.

Unleashed is a fucking beautiful game. I don’t think a Sonic game has depicted the allure of night time quite as well as that game before or since.

Anyway, instead of Eggman we’re fighting Axel here. 

Surprisingly enough, he and his crew are giving him a run for his money a bit.

Sonic is shown to be the distraction here. Axel says he thinks Sonic came alone but we see Tails and Chip watching this in the distance. Chip is a bit concerned but Tails isn’t. He knows Sonic will be fine.

Gwek told them where to find his keys. 

That’s the way Tails puts it which makes me laugh because it gave me the image of him searching for his car keys.

But no, we flashback and see the village just outside of Mazuri where the elder is informing our three heroes of what the dealio is.

The Egg Army stole the keys in a raid and are keeping them stashed in the temple. It’s momentarily assumed that means Eggman knows what to do with them but no. They’ve just been going around securing every temple they could. Apparently, nabbing the right one has just been a coincidence.

Either way, Sonic comes up with his usual plan of run in and let the fact that I’m Sonic the Hedgehog handle the rest.

That gives Tails and Chip ample time to sneak into the temple while Axels’ guys run out to go help since Sonic seems to be taking more of them out. Tails is laying out how much faith he has in Sonic as this happens too. He’s got nothing but respect for him and doesn’t afraid of anything when it comes to his safety.

I remember this scene. It’s a pretty cute one and exemplifies what I wanted out of Chip in this book.

Actually, it kind of exemplifies what I wanted out of the game too. With how terrified of Sonic’s friends SEGA was at the time, Tails being so subdued in the game left his interactions with Chip at like a single scene. Tails flew the plane to the continents and then hung back playing games on the Miles Electric while they were gone I guess. 

It’s still funny to me that they managed to fit in a scene of Tails’ plane getting shot out of the sky in that though. His plane crashing being a running joke never got old to me.

Of course, at this point, the book seems to be well aware of how little Chip has gotten a chance to shine here. He’s definitely in the story and he’s doing stuff but the character bits that matter the most as far as getting to know him as a person and seeing him making connections with everyone has gone to the wayside.

We get this, admittedly adorable, panel of him hanging with everyone. 

All these scenes look lovely and I wish there had been time to see them within the story. The trajectory of his character from being found by the Chaotix and named by Charmy, to hanging with Knuckles, to being passed off to Sonic, and now suddenly having bonded with all of the Freedom Fighters off screen feels like it could have used another pass in the writer’s room.

It’s unfortunate but also understandable because, again, the attempt to use Unleashed as a way to build up this new world is a good idea. The caveats to it are pretty explicitly clear though. There’s too much he’s trying to juggle within this story and it made it go on forever. Yet, despite that, there were still some things that suffered. 

Things are happening rather quickly now though. 

Tails and Chip discover a room where the parts of the Gaia Key have been assembled. This makes them rush off towards the chamber, worried that they managed to access it. They did… however, they have no idea what to do with this room now that they’re in.

A cute aside is Tails hacking into their computer and saying that their password is “Password1” and that they’re getting fancy here. Amazing.

Chip isn’t listening. He’s transfixed by the wall ahead of him and falls into the light.

Instead of Sonic being here to witness this, it’s Tails, and this is the part where Chip gets his memories back.

Yeah, it just kind of happens.

I remember this feeling odd back when I read it back in the day too.

There’s been really no build up to this at all. I didn’t even recall that Chip had forgotten what he was supposed to do since it hasn’t been mentioned at all lately.

Now that it has been brought back up I no longer have to worry about it because his memories are back now.

Those scenes in Unleashed where Chip was all sad and traveling with Sonic, asking around if people knew who he was, and wanting his memories back were pitiable and cute. The way their relationship grows over the course of the game is nice too. Then as a prelude to this scene, that took place in Adabat in the game, Chip is actually really scared of what they’ll find in the Penultimate temple they reach.

Then after this happens he has a heart to heart with Sonic that seals the deal about their friendship. It’s a really great scene that takes place with the sunset over the horizon as a nice dramatic backdrop.

That just isn’t here though. I understand things will be different but it’s not really even replaced with anything. The connections he’s made here are talked about literally in the scene before this one so there’s not much of a heart to heart with Tails or anyone else would do here. It would be nice but it wouldn’t feel as genuine, which is likely why they pack up and leave soon after like it ain’t no thang.

They lock up the place, alert Sonic that they’re done, and everyone leaves happy. Including Axel’s gang.

Making them think they drove off Sonic the Hedgehog. Now that’s the best gift of all right there.

Archie Sonic the Hedgehog - Issue #280: A Special Occasion

Writer: Ian Flynn
Pencils: Jennifer Hernandez
Inks: Terry Austin
Colors: Gabriel Cassata
Letters: John Workman

I remembered a story of two Freedom Fighters going to Adabat and helping out a family there with a problem. 

It stuck out in my mind to me because it was so unlike any of the other stories the book had been doing. I couldn’t help but remember it. I even thought about it when I mentioned Adabat earlier.

Well, I thought that might have been this issue when I saw these two but it’s a Spagonia mission actually.

Professor Dillon Pickle and Otto are having an old person falling out. Yeah, the Professor is back. Remember him?

Anyway, they argue for a bit because Otto had the relic of the thing he was researching for forty years and didn’t tell him. The excuse of “I was protecting it” seems a bit weak on the surface but seeing as how Professor Pickle insists it belongs in a museum, maybe not. It being on display like that would have made it easier to find, most likely.

Either way, they’ve almost got the keys and they’re pointed into the direction of the next key guardian, Lucia.

Aww geez. 

It’s Rotor and his “greater good” complex acting up again, is it?

He’s quite the interesting specimen, that Rotor. On the one hand, I get it. On the other, I find it hard to fault people for still wanting to live their lives to the best of their ability with the world split to pieces. You know?

The way this plays out is kind of amusing though.

Sally sees this girl with a problem and jumps to fix it while Rotor tries to slide in and is just cartoonishly shushed in a very funny set of panels.

What plays out is basically a series of tasks. The restaurant for Lucia’s mother’s birthday is booked but Honey happens to be there so Sally gets the table in exchange for her doing the wardrobe for her coronation whenever that happens. Rotor gets a ring set for the first time in his life.

He’s very proud of the ring he makes for her.

There’s a scene where Sally meets with a Captain Daniel Murer of the U.F.A.F. Sword of Michael. I have no idea what any of that means but basically he’s there to inform Sally that shit REALLY sucks at night. That’s basically it.

What’s said in that scene clues Rotor into what Sally’s intentions are. They’re a little selfish, sure, but not in a malicious way at all. 

She’s not wrong for this at all in my opinion. I love it when heroes take the time to check on the people of the world they’re saving and make sure they’re happy living their lives. I’m glad Rotor got to remember that’s important as well.

The flashes of backstory here are interesting. It feels like we know more about Rotor’s family and his situation then we do Sally’s at this point. The idea that she had a mother that she can’t remember is interesting. I don’t know if a mother figure existed in the original SatAM. Still haven’t seen it.

It can’t be the one from the Pre-Reboot for obvious reasons but Sally being here at all means someone birthed her alright. Then there’s Rotor who is recalling his own mom on her deathbed, just like Tundra recalled with shame once before.

I wish I could have found out the whole story but alas. It eludes me forever.

It ends on the note I remember it ending on, with me thinking it was that Adabat story. But no, my memory was scrambled. It was the Spagonia one.

I guess I should have known there was a chance I’d get them mixed up.

I did recall there being more than one of these kinds of stories.

The issue was fine. It entertained well enough. It was inoffensive. It exists. It’s whatever. There’s really not a whole lot to say despite this being the issue where Light Gaia gets restored. It’s just a thing that happens and we move on. We had some obligatory fun time in Mazuri and Spagonia because, hey, they were in Unleashed. The boxes have been checked. A bit weird it took this long but alright.

Archie Sonic the Hedgehog - Issue #281: Wings of Fire, Part One: Slow Burn

Very nice looking cover. We’re finally in Chun-nan for a little adventure with the Freedom Fighters on Dragon Road. I wish I could say I was more excited to re-experience this but I honestly recall this adventure being a little dull. I guess we’ll see.

Spoiler

Love Struck Variant

This is a wonderful cover though. Look at my boy, running as fast as possible from all the girls. That’s a jogger’s strut right there. Interesting choice, making Omega cupid. The only way to make this better would be to have some of those arrows hit some of the guys.

—

Writer: Ian Flynn
Pencils: Jamal Peppers
Inks: Terry Austin
Colors: Gabriel Cassata
Letters: John Workman
Cover by Tyson Hesse
Love-Struck Variant by Diana Skelly, Rick Bryant and Matt Herms

Starts with everyone running on Dragon Road to get to Silver Sonic who is currently hurting Big the Cat.

Sonic saves him and then goes on about how cool and tough Silver Sonic is. I swear I’m impressed, alright?

Cream is being allowed to participate in the battle this time, which is great. She’s seen flying Sally around and has to land when she gets tired. Sally gets surprisingly cross with Dulcy when she mentions that things wouldn’t be this hard if she were here with her team.

Dulcy the Dragon does eventually show up and just handles Silver Sonic.

Though, again, because he’s so cool it doesn’t mean anything to him I guess.

Anyway, here’s Dulcy the Dragon. She hasn’t been seen in the Archie Comics since… actually it’s been so long I don’t even remember. Was the last time she appeared that abusive boyfriend story? That’s the most recent thing I can recall from memory.

I could probably look it up but I don’t care all that much, honestly.

What I do recall from that time is not really jiving with this new design she had. It was probably me just thinking they took the regular Mobian proportions and stuck a weirdly sized dragon head on top of it. 

I can appreciate the style they’re going for better today, though, I’ll admit I still don’t fully like it. I wasn't a fan of the older Dulcy design either though. I could always take or leave this character to be honest. I don’t think she amounts to a whole lot other than something like this where she’ll be the leader of a far off Freedom Fighters team in a specific location. That’s kind of where she fits best.

Just noticed the ring in her nose is gone too. 

Sally keeps getting on her case about wanting to see her team and how sloppy she’s being. Dulcy claims to be very new at this and is also just clearly a little embarrassed by her team to the point where she hesitates to even call them that. But she also goes on about being in the wrong place and wanting to impress them and all this stuff. 

It’s amazing how nervous she is. 

She says “Let’s do lunch” and upon reaching their temple, meets up with her team.

They seem nice. 

I’m happy we’ve got the “Ex-Egg Soldier” troupe in there too, finally. 

So far I’m not seeing what she was so nervous about but I’m guessing the concern was that they just weren’t good enough maybe? She mentions that they were the only ones to answer the call but I dunno. That kind of puts them in a better light to me.

Anyway, they eat and talk about how they’re looking for Zonshen because he has the Gaia Keys they need. He goes to the temple to make offerings to the Phoenix that’s stationed there but it’s been acting all funny lately. We already know why.

It also guards something called the Golden Flame. No idea what that’s about.

From here there’s a lot of talking. Some amusing commentary is sprinkled in. Like, there’s a scene where Chip is looking for the fish sauce and it’s revealed that Big drank it all. He likes the taste of fish you see.

They also reminisce about when they first met Dulcy. This place is a very strict and the clans here agree that Eggman is a threat but can’t agree on how to handle him so they just don’t, I guess. Dulcy was tired of living here for a bit and escaped to Westside Island where she met the classic versions of our current day heroes and was shocked hearing them go on about doing things because you want to do them and saving people who aren’t within your clan for no other reason than being a nice dude and feeling like it.

They also go on about how strong, powerful, and the most organized this Egg Army clan is here. The people here value strength through unity so much that it even drew in our Ex-Egg Soldier girl here at first. They also outnumber them “a bajillion-to-one” and are super-special-awesome in every way imaginable compared to them.

It’s made explicitly clear that the Phoenix is the only reason the temple hasn’t been taken over yet.

So yeah, Dulcy’s team may be put together by duct-tape and Elmer’s glue but whatever. This situation seems pretty understandable when laid out like this.

The two kids, Cream and Cinder find out that the old man did indeed head to the temple which means that’s where our heroes are headed to.

Conquering Storm is informed of the arrival of said heroes and makes a play to let the Dark Gaia Phoenix handle them along with Zonshen.

I applaud the scroll at the bottom for trying its damndest to make this as exciting as possible but it does ultimately feel like business as usual. 

The one cool thing is getting to finally see the Phoenix but you know. 

 

Archie Sonic the Hedgehog - Issue #281: Homesick

Writer: Ian Flynn
Pencils: Jennifer Hernandez
Inks: Terry Austin
Colors: Gabriel Cassata
Letters: John Workman

The Unleashed arc has gone on too long and thus the rest of these locations are being marked off of a checklist right now. Here’s the story that takes place in Adabat.

It features Tails and Bunnie on an adventure together and one of the cutest Tails panels ever put to paper.

You’re going to lose that big sister forever in a couple of issues. Again.

The hugging with the one leg up thing is super cute though. It like dropping your guard so your inner fabulousness can come out.

They find Teanchi, the guardian of Adabat, sitting on a pile of wreckage and lamenting over his lost ancestral home. Bunnie asks for his keys so they can fix the world and he doesn’t see the point, drowning in depression. Tails offers to build him a new home and that just makes him mad. He tells them to leave.

We see them meet up with Kaeo, his oldest son who runs the shop in Adabat, and when they inform him of the situation, he jumps over the counter to gather his family so they can have an intervention.

It’s initially not enough. He’s apparently in REALLY bad shape. They talk about how all he does is sit on this wreckage all day, barely talks to them, and then cries all night.

That sounds like something that can’t be fixed by a single conversation with a literal stranger but it will be.

He says you can’t just rebuild a home that belonged to his father before him and his father before him. Bunnie sits down next to him and says “But family” and explains a bit of her past.

It was rough for her, certainly. She doesn’t really have anything but her name and her clothes at the start before she was found by Rosie. Then she ended up half roboticized and made fun of for it by what had to be devil spawn of the village because holy shit.

Tails and Ben made her feel better though.

Ben is very cute. 

“Yeah, I guess I’ll TRY to do that shit as well,” he says while pressing X to doubt in his mind.

This works.

Teanchi says he was so blind but now he SEES and hugs his family and then everything is all good.

Understandably, this isn’t the kind of story you want to spend too much time on but it’s still kind of amusing how fast that played out and how simple the solution to that dangerously self-destructive behavior of his was.

It’s like a badly written MLP episode where someone just says “The answer is friendship!” and then they sing a song or something.

It’s easy to make fun of but it’s not something I’m bothered by, honestly.

They say that with this they have all the Gaia Keys. Sort of. Sonic still needs to get the last ones from the Chun-Nan adventure happening right now.

They can restore the world but then remember that Angel Island is going to fall. Tails contacts Amy about it.

Amy is sitting next to Knuckles and we’re informed that they’ve only found three Master Emerald shards. The rest are grouped into clusters and there’s two in an Eggman base they’ve found that they’re going to need to raid that night.

Luckily, he’s got help.

I don’t remember them meeting and teaming up for anything so I’m not sure where this is going. Perhaps it’s just a side story in the next issue though. One that went by too quickly for me to commit it to memory? Perhaps.

Wheel spinning. Those wheels sure do be spinning. This comic has got some really fancy spinning rims on it’s tires my man. 

Yeah, I mean… it’s fine. You know… whatever. There’s only so many times I can say that things are fine. The story with Nephthys was really cool and interesting but other than that, the rest of these current around the world stories have just been blasé as hell. 

I’m not bored simply because we’re going to different places and seeing new things (for the most part) but when it’s the most basic of basic shit in the same general formula for this long I’m just kind of numb to it. Thankfully, we seem to have hit the end of the places we need to go in a wrap up that’s happening noticeably fast but still feels slow considering how long this has gone on.

Archie Sonic the Hedgehog - Issue #282: Wings of Fire, Part Two: Fighting Fire with Fire

This is an incredible looking cover though. Absolutely incredible. The righteous dark grin on the Phoenix’s face really sells the menace. It’s truly amazing. 

Spoiler

Horror Movie Variant

What is with the weird spots on their bodies? Is that supposed to be some kind of weird grainy texture or are they mud dolls falling apart? It’s kind of distracting. I do like how the werehog looks like it’s totally going to rip them apart and eat them though.

—

Writer: Ian Flynn
Pencils: Jamal Peppers
Inks: Terry Austin
Colors: Gabriel Cassata
Letters: John Workman
Cover by Tyson Hesse
Horror Movie Variant by T. Rex

This was a cute moment.

It’s night time so Sonic starts the issue off by transforming into a werehog. There are reactions to it.

Chip, Jian, and Cheese fly in to tell everyone that the spirit at the temple has been corrupted by Dark Gaia energy. It is now a very bad big bird from Sesame Street.

Sally asks if Chip can restore the Phoenix now that his powers have been restored, which is something I already forgot happened. Chip must have talked with them about it off-screen because it doesn’t seem to actually matter to them. 

I mean sure. Why not? We needed less for Chip to say I guess. It’s really going to sell that ending when it hits.

Sally figures that Conquering Storm either wants them to take care of the Phoenix for her or is planning on sending in her tropes to take them out while they try to handle it and decides she’ll set up an ambush of their own.

Werehog Sonic runs in to make sure the old man who came to give big birdie an offering is okay. The Dark Gaia Phoenix shows up and Sonic rushes in to do moves from the game on it. 

Conquering Storm and her group are all there to watch. She doesn’t buy that Sonic came alone and wonders where the rest are, briefly, before deciding it doesn’t matter when Sonic weakens it.

Conquering Storm sees Dulcy and kicks her in the face.

She’s really angry at her. I guess annoyed that she’s still fighting even though she sucks?

Dulcy tells her that Stormy’s problem is that fights aren’t everything. Sometimes they’re just distractions. She doesn’t see what she means but then Chip just immediately fixes the Phoenix.

Despite the cover being so awesome looking, the “fight” against the Phoenix was just as lame as I remember it being.

I seriously do remember being incredibly disappointed by the way it was handled back in the day but I wasn’t sure if the re-visit was going to clue me into something I wasn’t paying attention to at the time.

No. In fact it feels like this might be worse than what I recall. This fight is never really the focus of a single page here. It’s just sectioned off into panels that feel very much on the side and it doesn’t go on for long at all before it’s just instantly no longer a problem.

Zonshen gives them the Gaia Key and that’s it.

We end on a group shot of Dulcy’s group. Nothing introspective or interesting really comes from this Freedom Fighter group at the end like it did with Nephthys. This whole thing really did feel like a check-a-box story. I don’t think I’ve ever said this about Ian’s writing before, even with stories I didn’t like, but this one feels like he didn’t actually care about it. Perhaps he did but if so the minimal amount of effort on display is speaking volumes right now. 

I think even he was definitely feeling the fatigue of how long this was going by this point.

Archie Sonic the Hedgehog - Issue #282: Shards & Sparks

Writer: Ian Flynn
Pencils: Jennifer Hernandez
Inks: Terry Austin
Colors: Gabriel Cassata
Letters: John Workman

I was correct in my assumption last time. This story was about Knuckles and Mighty invading an Eggman base to get back some Master Emerald shards.

I had forgotten that Thunderbolt had them though.

She whips them out to show them off to Eggman right as she’s in the middle of being yelled at for her earlier failure. As soon as he retracts his earlier shouting (which is hilarious because it’s impossible to do) an alarm goes off and suddenly she’s about to have another failure on her hands.

Knuckles and Mighty fight their way through the Egg Army until they find the room with the shards in them.

Thunderbolt is pissed and comes out to confront them.

Then Mighty has a grand idea and decides to do the Vegeta-on-Planet-Namek move of tossing the emerald shards out to a secure, exact location.

He tries to use math to do it and it… sort of works?

It’s closer than I would have gotten literally standing directly in front of him.

Anyway, we also get a scene of the Egg Army soldiers rushing in and Amy pretending to be Dee Dee from Dexter’s Lab.

Perhaps I shouldn’t but I do tend to feel sorry for the Egg Army goons. It’s just in my nature to do so I guess. It doesn’t help that a peek onto the other side through Cassia has me wondering if some of these guys deserve it or not.

Either way, they win.

They leave. Knuckles puts the shards together. Amy uses the Mystic Melody to sense where more are and finds out that there’s a ton more in a cluster somewhere.

They decide to head after them by traveling light. It’s going to be a Knuckles and Amy adventure folks.

Featuring Team Dark, which I keep forgetting about somehow.

That issue would have been just straight up bad had that second story not happened. Even then, the second story isn’t much either. The general charm of Thunderbolt saves it from the Archie Sonic boneyard, I guess, but without that it’s fairly standard fare. The flare behind the way Mighty, Knuckles, and Amy were acting also helped quite a bit. I feel for Thunderbolt. She’s easily the most loyal to Eggman but is getting put through the ringer so badly. Ah well.

That first story was massively disappointing though. I’m just glad we’ve got all our shit together now. Despite being pretty done with this whole arc, I do recall the beginning to the finale being incredible. The finale itself I remember being pretty good overall too. We’re not quite there just yet though.

 

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Really kinda sucks how the Egg Bosses don't really get much of a showdown with the heroes.

I blame World's Unite for this--we probably could have had more intense pages had the pacing not been interrupted.