Megathread Archie Sonic Main Discussion

[Kuzu]

Oh my fucking God, this is where the "Mighty Lips" meme started. Shard's expression in the second story of #238.

 

This was all over the Bumbleking forums when it dropped 

[The Tenth Doctor]

I seem to remember it was called the "Mighty lips" meme, taken from a Mighty picture from years ago.

The artist of the comics saw it and gave Shard the lips to work with it.

[SBR2]

Oh, man good times. I miss the Bumbleking forums. 

[Promethean0416]

It's been what, almost 6 years since the forums shut down?

 

[Rabbitearsblog]

3 hours ago, Promethean0416 said:

It's been what, almost 6 years since the forums shut down?

 

What happened to the Bumbleking forums?

[Kazhnuz]

Basically, they were too much work to maintain, so there where shut down. You can see more details here : https://web.archive.org/web/20160131055449/http://bumbleking.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=8615

[Rabbitearsblog]

2 hours ago, Kazhnuz said:

Basically, they were too much work to maintain, so there where shut down. You can see more details here : https://web.archive.org/web/20160131055449/http://bumbleking.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=8615

Thanks for the info!

[TheNerdyKMT]

On 3/7/2022 at 4:13 PM, Kuzu said:

Oh my fucking God, this is where the "Mighty Lips" meme started. Shard's expression in the second story of #238.

 

This was all over the Bumbleking forums when it dropped 

Ahhh, Good times. 

[Dr. Detective]

Archie Sonic the Hedgehog - Issue #239: Heroes, Part One: Team Building

There are instances where I suddenly get nostalgic for the old days. Back when I was a child and everything was so wondrous and cool. I do honestly crave that era where every new Sonic game that came out I was overcome with something that just immersed me within it and where I was a lot more naive about the art of storytelling and what not. Looking at this image just reminded me of the Sonic Heroes render and the little Nike smile he has. 

As plain as this cover is, I wouldn’t have minded having more of these so long as they ended up covering the spectrum of all the main cast from the games. Also, I probably would have preferred they be variants instead. We just get Team Freedom though and only one of them is a variant which means I don’t have the last one. I collected these comics before the time I bothered picking up variants. We’re in the thick of a huge section of the comics that I just plain don’t remember so let’s rediscover what the hell happened.

Spoiler

Writer: Ian Flynn
Pencils: Jamal Peppers
Inks: Terry Austin
Colors: Matt Herms
Letters: John Workman
Assistant Editor: Vincent Lovallo
Editor: Paul Kaminski
Editor-In-Chief: Victor Gorelick

So Team Fighters is still chasing after the Death Egg. The Death Egg drops little Egg Droppings of pods into a village in Feral Forrest. That’s actually a fairly strange name the more I think about it.

Sonic is annoyed that the Death Egg doesn’t stick around after it sends a force to attack a random village. It looks like it’s headed to New Mobotropolis and Tails wonders if he should follow it. However, Sonic says that Team Fighters is all about being in the field and Rotor’s team can handle things at home.

It’s… a little much to just accept but I guess he is right about what the purposes of the teams are. I just wonder if a little girl, a fisherman, two small robots, and a walrus with a bad back are enough to handle the Death Egg should it reach New Mobotropolis. Naugus can’t even be all that effective now that the voices in his head prevent him from taking action literally every time he tries.

They head to the village and notice that Mecha Sally is leading the charge. They question this a bit until Amy remembers that this is where Elias and Meg went. It’s odd that they all didn’t put that together as soon as they arrived but whatever.

Sonic goes after Mecha Sally and then Silver Sonic comes back to attack Sonic.

It’s amusing the way it happens but it does feel a bit off that we’re facing this guy yet again. Sonic even says in his very next line “Welcome to the “Robot Sonics Getting Rebuilt All the Time Club” I guess” which is just pointing out what the problem here is.

Silver Sonic worked really well for that climatic situation on the Death Egg but I don’t quite know if I need to see it popping up all the time. I don’t like that the “club” Sonic mentioned is a thing that exists either. The book could stand to pull more robots from the series into the fray, especially if we’re going to be retreading what feels like tired, old ground.

This all just feels like stuff we’ve just finished doing and we’re doing it all again for some reason. Silver Sonic is attacking again. Mecha Sally is trying to kill Elias again. Yada yada.

Hopefully this next scene with Elias provides some intrigue.

… Nah. Not really.

We get to see the bulldog guy, Colonel Sommersby again, so that’s neat, I guess.

The Secret Freedom Fighters, two of them, Agent Queen of Diamonds and unlucky Larry, show up to escort Elias away. Elias tries to say that he’s needed here but that gets vetoed quickly.

Man, this bulldog character would not be designed this way were he to be in the book nowadays. I can’t imagine that’d be the case at all.

It’s funny reading this again because I legit don’t think I knew what was going on or why back when I did. I’m pretty sure I was just reading the words but not absorbing any of them. I didn’t even realize that Elias was on the Secret Freedom Fighters until maybe the second issue of that arc. I think I was like “Who’s this cool looking guy that looks like a male Sally?” or something.

Considering how much I’ve grown to really love Elias’ character, that feels even more absurd to me. I barely knew who this guy was back in the day that it often took ages for me to recognize him. A part of that was probably due to me just blending a lot of the old designs in my head. It was an issue back then for sure. I still remember how astonishingly similar in design and color Elias and Amadeus were back in House of Cards. This definitely was not the book for someone like me who just cared about seeing the game characters do stuff at the time.

They escape through the window and Tails, hilariously enough, immediately spots the Secret Freedom gang. It’s funny how immediate it is too.

Elias is giving Tails those eyes that say “If you don’t keep quiet, I may have to kill you” or something. He’d never do that of course but Secret Agent stuff does kind of call for stuff like that sometimes. It’s funny to imagine… then again, isn’t the Archie Sonic Online thing doing something like that?

General Sommersby charges in to try and take out Sally. He gets destroyed immediately by getting his ass slammed into a wall. Then Amy hops in to deliver the one image I definitely do remember about this issue.

It’s not a very common thing for this comic to do so it’s definitely a dynamic image that stands out, for sure.

Mecha Sally brings up that she’d probably prefer destruction over being rescued for the sake of enticing drama. Mecha Sally points out that with her gone she’d be free to catch that rebound and court Sonic. 

That’s sort of true. It would never be shown but in some far off future where Sonic got to settle down finally, yeah, I can see it happening. Amy says that she isn’t so petty as to be happy that her friend died so that she can have Sonic. She wants to save her.

Mecha Sally is literally about to say that they were never friends when Tails bonks her on the head and tells Amy that was just Eggman’s programming talking.

Amy’s stuttering leads me to believe that she isn’t so sure…

That is very interesting to be honest. I can’t help but wonder how Mecha Sally truly works. She knows so much about everyone still and is constantly using their feelings for her against them. A part of me does wonder how much of it is her true feelings coming out without a filter and how much of it is just Eggman’s programming.

Even if it is just Eggman’s programming, it’s still interesting that Amy has enough fear about their relationship that hearing that would make her doubt whether or not Sally considers them friends.

These two are determined to save her so she sets about giving them distractions they absolutely can not ignore. She starts firing her lasers everywhere and burning down the extremely flammable houses they all live in.

They could use Sonic’s help but he’s busy being tossed around by Silver Sonic.

I remember this scene as well. Although, at first I thought it was Amy saying this to those kids but that was probably my memory blending some things together for me. 

Sonic uses Silver Sonic to bowl over some attacking Egg Pawns. Then T-Pup jumps in and uses some weird electric EMP thing, I guess, to keep Silver Sonic in status. Why it didn’t do that earlier, I’ve no clue. Then Sonic races off to help the others while Amy and Mecha Sally keep fighting as Mecha Sally keeps firing lasers at random houses.

Then some Egg Pawns attack Amy and Tails which gives Mecha Sally the opening she needs to enter the empty house and then when she sees that the house is indeed empty and looks out to the forest and sees no one there she realizes that her target is lost.

Yeah. The point in which her target was lost came about a couple of pages ago so all this extra fighting came about as a result of her just not realizing that yet. 

Mecha Sally escapes yet again and Sonic wants to chase her at first but then realizes that the village is fucking on fire so he stops and tells Amy and Tails to finish up the robots and get some buckets.

We cut to later where everything has been settled. Sonic says he wants to check in on Elias but Sommersby says that’s a no go. Sonic is annoyed by that but Tails tells Sonic to let it go.

I hope the narrow eyes, the way they’re drawn, is supposed to be funny because it totally fucking is. 

It just reminds me of Fry from Futurama way too much. I can’t help but giggle every time I see a character in this book make that face.

Anyway, as predicted, The Death Egg is now hovering over New Mobotropolis AGAIN right as Elias and his honterage are on their way there. Despite my doubts about how well Team Freedom can handle the Death Egg, it is severely weakened and they are the heroes of the book so I’m sure it’ll be fine.

It’s like if the Avengers had a B-Team or something. Can you imagine a group like this coming from behind to save you from Thanos the Purple Sizzurp Man? 

I want to say that there’s shockingly little to talk about with this issue but that would imply I was surprised that there would be. I honestly had more confidence in this being an issue that had very little going for it because we’re so late in the game and my memory surrounding these events has gone so far back, it’s astonishing. A lot of what happens in this issue is literally just retreading the same ground we’ve been through before. Sonic fights Silver Sonic except it’s not nearly as epic or as appropriate. It gets taken out by the fucking weird little fox puppy robot thing. Meanwhile, they come to some random location that Mecha Sally is attacking and say they’re going to rescue her, they fight for a bit, and then she just flies off and they snap their fingers like Swiper after he’s told to stop swiping. Rinse and repeat. 

I at least remembered one or two scenes from this issue but I’m not so sure about the next one at all. I’ve no clue what’s going to happen in it.

Archie Sonic the Hedgehog - Issue #240: Heroes, Part Two: For the People

I remember jack-shit about this upcoming issue. Try as I might, I'm drawing a complete blank. Not even looking at the first page is summoning anything from the dark corridors of my memory as is usually the case…

This cover is a picture of Amy… that’s it. Let’s get into it.

Spoiler

16-Bit Variant

This cover is really not good. I would have felt a bit weirded out to see this on the rack of a comic book store only to find out that this was Issue #240 of an ongoing Sonic the Hedgehog comic and not the cover to some scrawny Sonic game encyclopedia. Not a good one either. Just like… a tiny flip book that says really basic shit like, “This is Sonic. He am fast.”

Terrible. 

Writer: Ian Flynn
Pencils: Steven Butler
Inks: Terry Austin
Colors: Matt Herms
Letters: John Workman
Cover By: Greg Horn
Variant Cover Provided By SEGA (That explains it)
Editor: Paul Kaminski
Editor-In-Chief: Victor Gorelick

Steven Butler is at the helm again which means I’ll be treated to some really nice, detailed looking images juxtaposed with some really distracting anatomy for the characters. 

Once again, Tails should not be this tall and lanky.

“Just talk into T-Pup’s eyes” has got to be one of the weirdest out of context things I’ve heard Tails say.

Man, his height is extra distracting in that image though. He seriously looks like if he were to stand up he’d be taller than Sonic. 

Team Freedom is still in Feral Forest so they’re trying to send a message back home that the Death Egg is coming. Amy tries but it’s not working so she calls Tails down for help in unscrambling the signal. What comes through next is an amusing “Read me? Death KZZZZT coming!”

Instead of warning them that the Death Egg is coming they end up relaying to them that simple DEATH is coming. I guess it’s still technically true.

In the city, Heavy doesn’t want to reunite with his old boss, pointing up at the obvious Death Egg hovering over the city. Rotor activates the forcefield and it manages to scratch the bottom of the Death Egg, making it go on the fritz.

Eggman wonders about “Operation Deadly Cuddles” and why it hasn’t solved the issue of this forcefield thing. Orbot gets an immediate report from Tails Doll that it is indeed still on active duty but was slightly damaged in transit. Still, it manages to do what it needs to do and lowers the force field all so Team Freedom can go into action!

What follows is a few scenes of this team fighting against robots. Cream is a bit scared on her first big, BIG mission so Rotor tells her to help get people evacuated to safety. You also get to see Big punch a robot to bits, which is nice.

In the commotion, Elias manages to make it to Harvey Who’s den of randos and meets his new team. He isn’t too jazzed to meet them at first, saying some nonsense about them, aside from Larry, not having investment in the republic.

His exact words to Harvey are “Are you crazy?” once he runs down the list of who he’ll be joining. It’s kind of funny. 

Harvey has to seriously explain to him that none of what Elias is concerned about matters. Nevermind that the existence of this team is already super duper illegal. It should be MORE reassuring that people outside of the republic are jumping into the fray to help out the kingdom. Who would put their lives on the line for a place they otherwise don’t have a stake in the fight for aside from big damn heroes?

Elias does get his shit together and accepts rather quickly though. I knew my boy wouldn’t be like his papa. Go get em.

All that said, I’m not really a fan of how big and broad his chest is suddenly. Looking at him here versus the cover of Secret Freedom Part One is night and day. He looks way better on that SU cover to me, personally. 

Back with Team Freedom, Naugus shows up for round two of “Let me show off to Rotor Walrus specifically”.

He claims he’s here to help and save his life and demonstrates that by turning some robots to crystal. The voices in his head make fun of his grandstanding and start teasing him by terraforming his body… yeah, they can do that now.

Chaos Energy is a hell of a drug.

Naugus collapses, yet again, completely useless in battle thanks to these assholes. Rotor is actually concerned for the guy this time and Naugus, foaming at the mouth, lies and says Eggman must be using some sort of… energy wave… thing… to make him like this… yeah.

Good lie.

Rotor fends off the robots and protects him while saying “I guess not saving you would be treason…”

I mean, it’s not like you didn’t literally let him fall to his doom back in Babylon Rising though. It’s funny that in order to convince himself to save the guy here, he has to bring up the act of treason. It’s just not in Rotor’s nature to actively want to save the guy.

That’s not a complaint by the way. I like this little deviation from Sonic that Rotor has here. Everyone is different despite being on the same side.

Rotor orders Big to carry Naugus back while the others rally to keep the robots at bay. Heavy suggests that maybe they should retreat. He actually talks about the thing that I got so pissed off about back in the day about how he and Bomb were unceremoniously destroyed fighting on their side before. He says it’s happened twice before and fears that the third time might be the charm. Rotor says it won’t be on his watch.

Heavy says that's an illogical platitude but admits it made him feel better all the same and jumps into the fray again. 

It’s a nice moment and it’s even nicer that how dirty they were done back then is being rectified. When I say they were unceremoniously killed off I mean it in the most blunt manner. They got mind controlled against their will, Sonic killed them without a question asked in a single move, and then no one cared; not even their former teammates. It was really fucked up.

Eggman is shocked that Team Freedom is actually managing to push their robots back. Big the Cat returns after putting Naugus back in the castle for his nap and bowls over the robots on his way back to. I imagine he’s about as fast as Ash’s Snorlax in this moment and it’s kind of incredible.

To Team Freedom’s credit, I’m kind of surprised they managed this too. Then again, so much talk of how little energy and resources Eggman and the Death Egg has makes this more viable.

Eggman says “Fuck it” and decides to just release Team Metal.

Send them in, coach. 

Still weird that there’s a Tails Doll and a Metal Tails though. I guess there’s also a Silver Sonic and a Metal Sonic but meh. I still prefer there only be one artificial doppleganger for them if there has to be one at all. 

This doesn’t mean much of anything though so I have no reason to complain. Why? Because the Secret Freedom Fighters come in to help Team Freedom defeat them… from the shadows.

Larry Lynx the Super Jynx helps destroy some Egg Pawns and helps Big fend off Metal Amy.

Shard has been taking robots out too fast to be spotted and eventually helps add to the long line of destroyed Metal Sonics by rubbing it in the other Metal Sonic’s face that he’s an actual character and thus gets to live.

Imagine Sonic killing another Sonic from another dimension or something and holding up his decapitated head and gloating at it.

That’s what Shard is doing from a robot’s point of view.

I know I joked about it before but I'm REALLY starting to regret not making a "Destroyed Metal Sonics" counter. It's happening SO often now it almost feels on purpose. Especially after Sonic's quip about it last issue.

The final two robots are finally taken care of when Silver uses his powers to hold Metal Amy still so Big can deliver the final blow and Elias can help stall Metal Tails with an arrow to the jet turbine so that Rotor can blow him away.

Everything's coming up “Secret Freedom”.

Granted, they best stop posing out in daylight and hurry back before they get spotted.

So yeah. Eggman’s forces were just decimated. Orbot relays the bad news to Eggman that the Metal series that he unveiled a couple issues back and wasn’t even planning to use for THIS occasion just up and got fucking destroyed. They never even came into contact with their proper dopplegangers.

Eggman loses whatever remained of his collective shit.

Eggman’s ability to collect himself after the fiasco from Issue #200 is to be envied. He momentarily slips back into that position but then just Egg-Logics his way back to a semi-calm and collected mental space soon after.

It’s a good thing too. The last thing I think he’d be able to handle is him seriously considering that maybe he should have listened to Snively. 

It’s true though. He had this won and now the Freedom Fighters have rallied together and put things back under control… partially because of Eggman’s own ignorance to his problems but still. Sonic isn’t even here which is great. The other characters can do good things without him for sure.

It’s nice to be reminded of that every now and again.

Elias, after having that one successful test run with his new team, says that he was wrong and thanks them for all they did. Everyone looks happy to hear that except the Twins. I suspect that there will be some beef with him later over this thing that he’s already apologized for but I hope not.

Meanwhile, Naugus is all curled up and angry in his bed with a very scary looking monster face.

BRING FORTH THE HOLY WATER!

Yeah, it doesn’t surprise me that I didn’t remember this issue. It was just one big fight. It wasn’t bad though. These two issues put together are just a showcase of what Team Fighters and Team Freedom can accomplish on their own. I suppose having an issue each dedicated to showing that off is a good idea in theory but I’d rather we had that showcased in a manner that just advanced the plot. Eggman came to New Mobotropolis for an easy quick victory and he didn’t get that so now he has to leave to restock and refuel yet again. It’s literally, exactly what he did last issue at Feral Forest. I can’t help but feel like we’ve hit a stopping point right now.  

 

Sonic Universe - Issue #41: Secret Freedom - Part 1 of 4: The Big Guns!

Ah! They look so cool. It reminds me of those unlockable onesies from Sonic Adventure 2: Battle. I wonder if these outfits would be allowed nowadays. After all, the male characters have their lower halves covered here. That’s a no-no.

Seriously though, the main book hasn’t been pulling me in a whole lot lately so I’m excited to get back to Sonic Universe. Oddly, the issue I used to have about Ian ending things too quickly absolutely hasn’t been a problem at all upon doing these revisits. I wonder if that’s just a side-effect of the way I’m consuming these stories now. Also, holy eyebrows Elias. Geez.

Spoiler

Sketch Variant

It’s a nice sketch but I’m having trouble fathoming getting a sketch variant in place of the colored cover. I can’t even imagine getting both to be honest. They probably should have just gone ahead and colored it. Perhaps that would have been too much though. Then again, their last variant cover was just some sprites plastered onto a Green Hill Zone background so maybe not.

Writer: Ian Flynn
Pencils: Tracy Yardley!
Inks: Jim Amash
Colors: Steve Downer
Letters: Jack Morelli
Cover: Yardley and Downer
Assistant Editor: Vincent Lovallo
Editor: Paul Kaminski
Editor-In-Chief: Victor Gorelick

Upon opening the book, I get hit with some really awesome looking Tracy Yardley art and some really well-done colors by Steve Downer.

It looks amazing. I really do prefer the Sonic comics just look this way all the time. No more super tall proportions or broad chests. 

The Secret Freedom Fighters are sitting around a roundtable discussing what it is they’re going to do for their mission. Silver (the Ace) and his team with Shard (Jack) and Larry (Joker) are being sent to tail Geoffrey St. John while he’s on a mission to Soumerica and put a tracker on him. Elias (King) is going off to investigate Naugus. 

Simple enough. After Silver, kind of rudely but kind of awkwardly aware of it, reminds the director of their deal they head off into the night to tail Geoffrey.

Since everyone in this universe seems to just have an Extreme Gear or an airboard, they find Geoffrey’s and Shard makes a bit of an ass of himself attaching the tracker to it.

I’m reminded of that one scene back in Shadow’s Sonic Universe story where he told the G.U.N soldier piloting the helicopter to stop being funny because he was failing. Such a strange moment. Usually fiction just lets people do their quips. Shadow pointing it out like that in such a real way will never not make me tilt my head.

Here, Silver just tries to tell the guy to take this seriously. Shard tells Silver that they’re here to stop one guy so they’ll be fine. They then have an argument on how to descend into the big hole in front of them… but then Larry jixes himself off the cliff and is about to get pierced by stalactites at the bottom before Silver… oh wait. No. SHARD catches him!

Silver was about to do the whole Spider-Man reaching out for Gwen Stacy thing but Shard just swooped in and stole the moment.

Silver does point out that between Larry’s screaming and Shard’s jet propulsion thing, Geoffrey most definitely knows they’re here now. Shard admonishes Silver a bit by calling him a glass half-empty guy.

Funnily enough, Silver isn’t that kind of guy and even if he was, he’d have every right to be considering what his future is like. I don’t think it’s asking much for you to take the mission a bit more seriously.

Shard took a bit to grow on me back in the day. By that I mean, I don’t think he did until SU Issue #50 and even then I had my reservations. I probably just wasn’t too keen on another character coming in to act like Sonic, probably. Not to say that there’s a lot of those but there is only one Sonic for a reason.

Larry also says that he doesn’t have the best control of his jinxes which is really sad. I don’t entirely know how this guy is still alive. I was about to inquire as to how his powers even work but Silver asks that question for me on the next page.

It’s a very scary existence. I don’t quite know how he has the moxy and the fortitude to continue pushing like he does. His team disbanded off-screen over some unforeseen events but the flashback there gives you a glimpse of what it probably had to have been like. Trying to run for office saw his ballot just… catching fire. 

Hmm.

But hey, he found himself in a nice spot of good luck soon after. Silver, of course, points out the obvious elephant in the room about Larry and how his uncontrollable jinxes don’t really make for a good fit for a sensitive spy mission.

Shard then comes to Larry’s defense and he comes to his defense hard.

I do wonder how many people took what Shard says here as the writer calling himself out for what he had Silver do rather than it being a thing the characters were noticing. There were a lot of people back then that simply just chalked Silver’s behavior up to being bad writing. Whether it was bad writing or not, the thing that feels obvious to me is that it was an intentional direction. At the very least, I feel confident enough to give him credit for seeing an avenue he wanted to go down and heading for it.

That said, I do actually really appreciate what Shard is saying here. This is another one of those cases where the good parts of the character have, for some reason, been blocked out of my head in service of only remembering the brash, cockiness I struggled to get on with. It’s negative bias and I have a strong case of it.

They’ve reached a hall of obvious traps of course. Shard scans the area for anything but nothing is being picked up, probably because it’s all super old.

So then Larry decides this is a job for him. He’s going to strut in there confidently and bash his fucking face against the rock wall to activate the traps!

Yeah! You show that trap what’s what Larry.

Now that your nose is busted and you’re seeing stars, the ancient traps won’t know what hit them as they all freak out and activate all at once. 

Like, ALL at once.

That would have turned them into confetti. 

… Hooray! Larry is a hero! Just another day on the job for Larry Lynx the Super Jynx!

I love him so much. I want him to be happy dammit.

Anyway, we cut deeper into these centuries old chambers where Geoffrey most assuredly is. As brought up, he heard the three of them because they’re all so damn loud. Those traps going off put him on high alert and he uses his powers to hide as they pass him by.

There’s a scene where a bunch of medieval spike balls are dangling from the top of the cave they’re stuck in and Silver is about to use his powers to hold them in place but, for some reason, Shard just pushes him to the side and blasts through them all instead. Silver rightfully chides him for making more noise but Shard says they blew that part of the mission awhile back.

I mean… I guess so but that’s a pretty poor excuse to keep doing it. As you get further into the cave he’s going to be able to hear you more and more clearly regardless if he knows he’s being followed or not. It’s not like there’s no longer any merit to keeping quiet.

Case in point, Geoffrey manages to use his powers to pass them by. They run right by him.

They make inside the area which happens to be a crypt for the four followers of Ixis Mogul.

Upon hearing that Silver gets punched in the heart with feelings.

Aww. Puppy dog eyes of worry always melt the heart something fierce.

Yeah, I remember this moment for sure. I was very intrigued by it. Silver is completely ignorant towards the origins of his master from the future. He doesn’t seem to have been told anything. There’s a long, awkward talk that awaits him and his master in the future that we’ll literally never get to see.

It’s unfortunate but Comic Book Superstar Mammoth Mogul just couldn’t make the jump to the next continuity or the next book I’m afraid. He’s just too popular for this inferior Sonic stuff.

They deduce where the remains of Ixis Vale should be and realize that it’s gone. They then realize even more that this means Geoffrey took it and is escaping.

Shard flies off to try and nab him before he can leave but Silver, in a moment where he finally gets to use his powers probably, manages to not only do that but stops Geoffrey using his ultimate weapon.

MATH!

Or Geography. Which… I guess is technically math sometimes.

No offense to Silver but there is a part of me that doubts he’d be able to do this. Deducing where Geoffrey was at that exact moment and breaking the floor apart from under him at that exact time feels a little… meh. I guess it’s a cool moment.

Then again, it doesn’t really work.

Geoffrey just jumps out of the mass of floating debris and rushes off. Silver has to concentrate on Geoffrey specifically to hold him so Geoffrey was basically just huddled in a mass of stones that Silver was manipulating. He wasn’t really caught.

Shard tries to go after Geoffrey but Geoffrey fires a dart at him that causes a rock slide explosion that crushes Shard. Doing so activates his PTSD.

As Silver tries to keep the rocks from crushing them, Shard reminds him twice that he REALLY doesn’t want to be buried alive again. You can tell by the look on his face that he’s scared. Vegeta was right. Robots do feel fear.

Geoffrey manages to get away though. He hops onto his Extreme Gear and rides off… with the tracker still on his board. Also, he makes mention of not knowing who any of them were, so that’s good.

This half of the team is left to deal with the fact that this ONE guy as Shard claimed earlier managed to get away while they’re stuck trapped under some collapsing rubble. 

Gosh. Poor Larry. I just want to offer him a nice tall glass of lemonade.

How are the others doing though?

Well Agent King is running away with the two ladies in a cave that keeps reshaping itself because their enemy ALSO already knows they’re here.

It’s even worse because this one is not just Naugus but a giant, burning effigy of him come to turn that jumpsuit Elias has on into a wetsuit.

Or maybe that’s just some really red looking energy.

It might be better if it’s the latter because if it’s just a fiery face then this man would still somehow be drooling up a storm while made of fire. Why can’t his mouth contain it’s goddamn drool. Seriously.

Pretty simple start to this arc. It didn’t do anything especially great but these are some nice characters so chilling with them on their mission was kind of fun. It offered a nice breath of fresh air from the back and forth going on in the main book and this spy stuff has the ability to be a bit fun. Granted, these guys are not very good spies at the moment. It’s issue one and they headed into this mission making a shit ton of noise and ended the issue being discovered on both ends of the spectrum with one of their targets getting away having completed his mission. That’s gotta sting for the new super team. 

If Fry is Captain Yesterday does that make Silver General Fast Forward?

[Sonictrainer]

Apparently, this was a draft cover for STH #239

....those proportions...

[NegaMix]

2 hours ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

Ah! They look so cool. It reminds me of those unlockable onesies from Sonic Adventure 2: Battle.

You're not actually too far off with that. The Secret Freedom Fighters' costumes are actually based on the unlockable outfits from Sonic Rivals, of all things. Silver's outfit is even taken straight from the game:

Even Shard's colour scheme is based on an alternate Metal Sonic in the second game:

[Zaysho]

6 hours ago, Sonictrainer said:

Apparently, this was a draft cover for STH #239

....those proportions...

Yeah it is. Honestly even as dumb as this looks, I still thought it was more visually interesting than the painted versions of renders that were clearly spit out while editorial was dealing with the fallout from the Penders case going south around this time.

[SBR2]

On 3/13/2022 at 5:28 PM, Dr. Detective Mike said:

Amy says that she isn’t so petty as to be happy that her friend died so that she can have Sonic. 

Tell that to shipping war people Ames.

 

On 3/13/2022 at 5:28 PM, Dr. Detective Mike said:

It’s like if the Avengers had a B-Team or something.

I mean...The West Coast Avengers. Though nobody really liked them.

 

On 3/13/2022 at 5:28 PM, Dr. Detective Mike said:

 

“Just talk into T-Pup’s eyes” has got to be one of the weirdest out of context things I’ve heard Tails say.

I legit love that he doesn't seem to think putting a mic in T-Pup's eyes is in anyway weird. 

 

On 3/13/2022 at 5:28 PM, Dr. Detective Mike said:

 

Not to go super furry or anything but...Goddamn Butler drew Elias hot. Like...Holy crap.  

 

On 3/13/2022 at 5:28 PM, Dr. Detective Mike said:

All that said, I’m not really a fan of how big and broad his chest is suddenly

And as indicated by my last statement I'm completely on the opposite side there.

 

On 3/13/2022 at 5:28 PM, Dr. Detective Mike said:

yeah, they can do that now.

Chaos Energy is a hell of a drug.

Hate to be Mr. Well Ackshually again but in the panels there they straight up say they aren't doing it. Naugus is mutating as a result of the Genesis Wave.

 

On 3/13/2022 at 5:28 PM, Dr. Detective Mike said:

This doesn’t mean much of anything though so I have no reason to complain. Why? Because the Secret Freedom Fighters come in to help Team Freedom defeat them… from the shadows.

This is interesting. IIRC the original plan was for Heroes to be three issues and for part 3 to have been about the Secret Freedom Fighters and would have shown this fight from their perspective with just hints in this issue about their involvement. I assume that the plan was scrapped due to them getting their own Universe arc.

 

On 3/13/2022 at 5:28 PM, Dr. Detective Mike said:

Larry (Joker)

"I'm going to become the Joker" ~Larry Lynx apparently. 

 

On 3/13/2022 at 5:28 PM, Dr. Detective Mike said:

Shard admonishes Silver a bit by calling him a glass half-empty guy.

Man Ian really got into using that phrase. He uses it in a short Donatello story in TMNT Amazing Adventures too.

 

On 3/13/2022 at 5:28 PM, Dr. Detective Mike said:

Trying to run for office saw his ballot just… catching fire. 

I'm so glad that line is here. Ot was originally a gag that was supposed to be at the end of House of Cards but due to page length and probably because he hadn't appeared in years at that point it was cut.

 

On 3/13/2022 at 5:28 PM, Dr. Detective Mike said:

They make inside the area which happens to be a crypt for the four followers of Ixis Mogul.

Upon hearing that Silver gets punched in the heart with feelings.

Aww. Puppy dog eyes of worry always melt the heart something fierce.

Things like this do make me upset about the reboot (even if personally I think it's way better) because Silver learning about Mogul's past possibly even meeting him in this time period would have been amazing. Aw, well.

 

On 3/13/2022 at 5:28 PM, Dr. Detective Mike said:

They deduce where the remains of Ixis Vale

Fun fact Vale is actually a typo. Its supposed to be Ixis Vail and is pulled from Naugus saying "Vail's Bones" in his first appearance. Because Ian loves his minutiae.

[Dr. Detective]

18 hours ago, SBR2 said:

Hate to be Mr. Well Ackshually again but in the panels there they straight up say they aren't doing it. Naugus is mutating as a result of the Genesis Wave.

I know. The "Chaos energy is a hell of a drug" joke was in direct reference to that. It's not them causing it but it's still them mutating.

[SBR2]

On 3/16/2022 at 3:46 AM, Dr. Detective Mike said:

I know. The "Chaos energy is a hell of a drug" joke was in direct reference to that. It's not them causing it but it's still them mutating.

Aw, my bad for misreading then. Bet you missed this huh? XD

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Good lord…it’s really amazing looking back at how Ian really turned Elias into someone more interesting than he originally was.

Like, I know I’m probably a broken record, but we all know that had Flynn not joined on at the time he did, none of us would have given as much of a crap about these comic exclusive characters the way we did when Penders came along and forced a dilemma that ended up wiping them out of the comics.

Elias isn’t even among my favorites, and looking back…I kinda missed seeing what he was becoming.

[Dr. Detective]

Sonic Universe - Issue #42: Secret Freedom - Part 2 of 4: The Terror Below

This is a very nice, old timey film poster. The James Bond skunk that turned out to be a traitor isn’t starring in this 007 furry film, ironically enough. I wonder if the film’s title is Unsung Heroes. It looks like it. Also, glad to know the characters are playing themselves. I’m shocked they even got King Ixis Naugus. What a celebrity that guy is.

Spoiler

SEGA Variant

Man, the Archie variants, at least the early ones, really were some bullshit. Who would even want this? It’s just an old render of Silver that you can find on the internet, lazily plastered to what looks like a screenshot of Crisis City with some sort of filter over it.This would barely function as a cover for the Silver Saga. It sure as hell doesn’t work as a cover for Secret Freedom. Sheesh. I’m guessing this was yet another one provided by SEGA.

Writer: Ian Flynn
Pencils: Tracy Yardley!
Inks: Jim Amash
Letters: Jack Morelli
Colors: Steve Downer
Cover: Yardley and Downer
Variant Cover art provided by SEGA (I knew it)
Assistant Editor: Vincent Lovallo
Editor: Paul Kaminski
Editor-in-Chief: Victor Gorelick

We begin this issue on the one scene I know I remember from it. It’s just Rosy walking by Naugus and the two of them exchanging words. 

It’s such a strange image. How could I not recall it? This tiny old lady is just casually inquiring as to the machinations of a weird looking troll monster guy.

The commentary is being provided by the former king, Elias, as he talks about how Naugus has been visiting his favorite hole in the ground for several days now. The spot where Castle Acorn used to be is Naugus’ new hidey hole. There’s also some passive aggressive comments about how Nicole would have fixed the castle in about two hours. I wonder where Naugus is staying right now.

Either way, Agent King, Agent Queen of Hearts and Agent Queen of Diamonds follow Naugus down into the hole and break out some cool looking wing suits as they do it. I’ve never seen Elias look so suave.

Man, that scene of Leeta rattling on about how she hates heights as she dives into the hole feels like a troupe of some sort that I can’t recall the name of. It’s probably just me. Either way, it bothered me a little. 

Naugus makes it into his hidden space, turns when he realizes he’s being followed, and sees nothing because the three of them manage to contort their bodies behind the rock formations of the cave. They’re really lucky the cave was structured that way or they’d have been fucked. 

Naugus plays it off because Sonic is away and Rotor is too fucking fat to be stealthy. He then starts to blame it on the voices in his head and argues with them into the darkness. It’s really funny but I’d imagine if I were there it’d be pretty creepy.

The twins ponder what him talking to himself could mean and Elias tells them to stop the “stupid gossip” as he gets the explosive set on the exit.

Now, in Elias’ earlier monologue he also made mention that the team he was given wouldn’t have been his first choice, or second, OR third before going on about making due with what he’s got. Despite saying he changed his mind about them after their successful push back of the Death Egg from the main series, it would seem he didn’t actually mean it…?

Or maybe he did in the moment but changed his mind? I don’t know. Either way, it sounds pretty mean. Still, the hair trigger that causes the twins to blow up at Elias was him telling them to stop gossiping. It’s a pretty petty reason to begin arguing but I did make note of how the twins didn’t look too happy with him at the end of their first mission together despite Elias apologizing and saying he changed his mind. I guess the “stupid gossip” line was enough of an excuse for them to finally whine to him about it.

Granted, Elias didn’t actually seem to change his mind as it turns out so I guess all three of them are being a bit petty. Still, Leeta does echo my sentiments about how it is a tad ungrateful of Elias to act as though he’s been stuck with the dregs of society to help him out here. That may not be what he thinks but as I said before, the fact that these people don’t belong to your kingdom and are going out of their way to help you get it back should say, at the very least, a lot about their character. 

What initiated the anger here may have been a tad too silly but it’s not like the twins are wrong to be upset. They have to explain to Elias what their motivation for being here is to him.

They flashback to when they first arrived and approached the council. They complained about how their welcome wasn’t very warm from the people they first approached… or rather, from Naugus himself. Granted, they’re currently on a mission to kick Naugus off the throne so I’m not sure how this being a bad first welcome should stick in their craw this much. They know now that he’s not only an asshole that no one likes but is an evil tyrant that needs to be dealt with. Still, lingering feelings could be a factor. I guess it's the principal of the thing.

We see Uncle Chuck get up to lead them out but he actually leads them to Director Who, who tells them that he’s the one who sent for them and that their actual mission isn’t to be front line fighters but secret agent girls. They momentarily say that this isn’t what they thought they were signing up for before sharing a glance and agreeing. After all, a problem is a problem.

After they yell at Elias some more about not being good at teamwork they rush off on their own, splitting up as he sets the explosive, which is a very bad idea.

I’ll say again that I think what triggered this outburst from the twins still feels a little sudden and sloppy in the manner that it happened. It’s true that Elias was still thinking very little of his team but the one time he let on about that, he apologized for it and said he was wrong. The fact that he is still thinking that way was only being spelled out to us through dialogue boxes. That means they were continuing to be angry about it until this very moment where he snapped at them for telling “gossip”. 

It’s kind of funny because, again, Elias did actually think the things they were accusing him of. I just feel like he needed to outwardly express that a little more in order to fully sell me on the split that happens here.

It doesn’t last long though. The twins come across Naugus in his weird Death Chamber, that’s apparently directly under the place where the council is, and spot him letting loose with all his fire and rage when the ghosts being assholes to him taunt him into doing so. 

Back with Elias, he’s sulking… but he quickly shifts from being all ‘What’s their problem?!” to “Yeah, I was a bit of an asshole”. It’s the two stages of self-actualization… or something.

It’s cute that apologizing is occupying his mind as a considerable bullet point to address as well. I appreciate his wholesomeness. I also like that my boy still has things to learn. But of course he does. He was pushed into this position after all.

He narrowly avoids the huge fiery head of Naugus that passes him by. Naugus knows for sure that people are here now and tries to both go after them but begins using his magic to terraform the place so that they get lost.

Elias, for some reason, tried to leave a trail on the rock to help find his way out but… of course that doesn’t work. If the place is terraforming all the time then bits and pieces of his line are just going to be broken up and spread out everywhere. Come on, my king. Think better!

They split up again. The twins play a trick on Scary Monster Face Naugus. He catches one but sees another behind him and goes “BUT… HOW…?!”

While my guy’s brain struggles to recall the existing concept of twins to explain this otherwise fascinating phenomena, Elias tosses a flash-bang directly at Naugus and they bolt.

Scary Monster Face Naugus is on their trail though. He does literally whatever he can to try and stop them including almost spear Elias in the balls with a crystal spire.

By this point, Naugus has lost it.

He just plumes himself after them while shouting “NO ESCAPE!” over and over again. The heroes make it out of the hole after Elias’ bomb goes off and they jump out to deploy their wings suits.

Then Naugus emerges and fires a tornado at them while continuing to shout “NO ESCAPE!” with intense furiosity. 

That seems to have done the trick as they are seen plummeting into the darkness with the rocks falling after them. Naugus then heads back into the cave, no longer on fire but also no longer looking like anything even remotely close to a normal mobian.

Seriously. You thought this guy looked like a troll before. Now he’s taken a Mr. Plinkett “OH MY GOD, WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOUR FACE?!” meme to the knee.

What’s the deal with Ixis Naugus?! To be honest, it’s hard to remain completely sure. I know the ghosts inside of him are terraforming his physical body now but to see this happen to the man almost makes me feel sorry for him. Yeah, it was brought up that he might be using that chamber to destroy the council from below but I dunno. Maybe he could use a win. Just a measly little morsel of a win. Eh? 

The issue was fine. It was just the other team’s mission and a showcase of how that team’s actions led to their downfall. Yes, the movie poster was quite nice but our heroes ate shit. I love the concept of a derpy James Bond team though. Let’s keep it coming. 

 

Sonic Universe - Issue #43: Secret Freedom - Part 3 of 4: Occupational Hazards!

This cover is almost pure chaos. There’s not enough people on it for it to be 100% pure chaos but it’s almost there. Granted, it’s just people drawn in various sizes posing at the reader but, hey, it works. I like the red grid in the background. It looks neat. I also like that Shard is firing at something off-screen and Larry has to duck to not get his head blown off. 

Spoiler

Writer: Ian Flynn
Pencils: Tracy Yardley!
Inks: Jim Amash
Letters: Jack Morelli
Colors: Steve Downer
Cover: Yardley, Amash & Downer
Assistant Editor: Vincent Lovallo
Editor: Paul Kaminski
Editor-In-Chief: Victor Gorelick

I have no idea why but the credits for this issue were put on the very last page. Bit of an inconvenience for me but whatever.

We begin with a flashback to what had to have been eons ago. Ixis Mogul and Ixis Vale are overlooking a bunch of black dots on a page that are supposed to simulate a war happening, I guess, and talking about what they can do to stop the fighting. They’re not worried about the wizards dying, more so how the planet is going to take unnecessary damage from all this. Vale also reports in to talk about the Albonites committing crimes against nature. Hey, I know that word, sort of. 

We cut back to the present where Vale’s crypt is and see Loser Team #1 break out from underground. Shard is very gungho about getting out of here and going after Geoffrey, reiterating once again how much he hates being buried. Robot PTSD is a thing, yes.

Silver and Larry have to do a bit of convincing to get Shard to calm the fuck down so they can rest and recharge.

The jewel on his chest is interesting. Perhaps I missed an explanation on how it works or bypassed it but observing it, I’m guessing it’s like the difference between fight mode and rest-and-recharge mode. His eyes and the jewel were red and then when he touched it they both shifted to being green. 

Anyway, Larry is correct. They managed to get a tracker on Geoffrey’s board. Our skunk boy makes it through the chamber where Naugus just got done dealing with Loser Team #2 and makes it past all the stray shards of crystal and present his findings to his master as well as scream his head off at the scary monster face he now has.

Naugus tells him to shut the fuck up about his face and to give him the rolled up mound of Vale’s bones. He also uses the Chaos Emerald to fix his face and tries to say that’s proof he has it under control. Before Geoffrey can interject with the obvious issues with that, Naugus just continues on with talks about the next step of his plan.

Geoffrey not only doesn’t know the next step but he doesn’t know the plan either. Naugus explains that with Vale’s bones and the chamber of Ixis design he’s crafting here he’ll be able to cast an extremely potent spell underneath the Royal Military Headquarters that will basically replace his will with theirs and recreate the Order of Ixis. 

He’s not going to disband the council but he will take it over.

In other words, HE IS THE SENATE!

Upon hearing this, Geoffrey says “NOT YET!” and snatches the bones back, saying that Naugus is going too far. He’s almost as bad as King Max that one time he wanted to kill all the Robians or that other time he wanted to execute half the city for doing a peaceful protest. 

Geoffrey explains that he supported Naugus all this time because he thought he could make a positive difference. He’s got insane eccentricities but he considers him a step up from the Acorns.

Maybe I’m just bitter but once again I have to agree. 

Naugus IS going too far though. He’s also right about that. Naugus also brings up that Geoffrey has no right to lecture him about morality since he’s spent his entire life stealing, lying, and betraying everyone to serve him. He leaves out the part about him manipulating the emotions of a small child grieving the loss of his father though. Can’t bring that up.

I do like how this argument basically boils down to Geoffrey being like “I’LL TELL!” and Naugus being like “TELL WHO?! YOU HAVE NO FRIENDS!”

Then Geoffrey pouts and gives the bones back, all sad that he’s got no friends. Also, his wife is dead (as far as he knows). 

I love the next page coming up though. It really does sell just how Geoffrey’s mind has just been assaulted by the whiplash of realizing the tremendous mistake he’s made.

Penders would feel like he’s been taking several arrows to the knee were he to actually be reading this. He didn’t and won’t ever read it but you know that’d be his reaction to this. His cool James Bond skunk being curled up on the ground, looking like a scared, lost child would just send him tumbling down the stairs.

Then he’d get up, dust himself off, and step on a rake.

However, it’s precisely this direction Ian’s taking with him that’s allowed Geoffrey to become an actually good fucking character. I reiterate this a lot but I didn’t care about him until this reveal happened. Before this he was just that weird skunk character that showed up randomly at times. I didn’t even know what his purpose was since I hadn’t read all that stuff before #142. 

You know, it’s far more endearing witnessing someone like him be this vulnerable and this scared. There’s something to be said about being “cool” but I’m far more likely to appreciate your character when I see them experiencing moments of weakness like this. 

It sucks too. The trajectory of his life, the good intentions that have gone awry, and the consequences of his actions are all very hard to just accept and not wish for a positive resolution.

Anyway, we cut back to the base where director Harvey Who is busy scolding the class for their bad grades.

SHAME!

They do tell Harvey that they managed to put a tracker on Geoffrey’s airboard before he left. When asked where it led, he’s told he went to the big hole that the Battle Bird Armada left in the ground. Harvey says that’s the same place Agent King’s group said they tailed Naugus and also lets on that they didn’t return. To make sure no one’s dead and brought back so that they can do more work, these three set off to go find them.

Upon returning to the cave they find them immediately. So, good job.

The group sits down to share their findings. They talk about the weird chamber and the bundle of Ixis remains and how Naugus is most likely setting something up to go after the council. That’s impressive enough but the real impressive deduction comes from Geoffrey.

Yeah, Geoffrey is here spying on them and he notices Shard’s gem. It’s the core of power he and his former team recovered from the remains of the Metal Sonic at the volcano. He took it with him and it was used by Charles to help create the Metal Sonic Troopers. He deduces that Charles has a hand in this from that, figuring out that he’s playing both sides AND he also deduces that all of this had to have been concocted by a certain bird in a robe.

He figured all that out just by spotting the gem on Shard’s chest. This boy has a lot of talent. I honestly thought in this moment that it really is a crying shame his talent is currently being wasted like this.

Elias figures that they need to interrogate Geoffrey to figure out what’s going on. Just hypothesizing that he may be targeting the council with whatever he’s planning isn’t enough. Elias talks about setting up some kind of ambush and Larry goes on about payback.

Silver just suggests something simpler.

I love this scene. It’s not just the way Silver just suggests the direct approach but Geoffrey’s reaction to witnessing Silver suggest it that gets me here.

Silver says he thinks he can appeal to his better senses and Elias just freaks the fuck out. He starts ranting and raving but Leeta calms him down, saying he’s letting it get personal. She doesn’t know the specifics but it’s obvious he was.

As someone who does know the specifics, it’s kind of cute seeing Elias be so pissed. The way Geoffrey manipulated his naive former self when he was new to being king is kind of fun to look back on. It makes so much more sense with the way the story’s direction has gone now that Ian is writing for them both too. I mostly just find Elias’ anger here adorable.

However, Silver’s pension for emotional intelligence is to be envied. Looking at things from the point of view of someone who, while having little interaction with the person he’s talking about, can see the writing on the wall with just the information he’s been given about him says a lot about the kind of person he is.

Awww. 

I just want everyone to be happy, okay?

Seriously, dude looks like he’s about to cry. It’s amazing how much hard work Ian put into making this character not awful only for Penders to turn around and rip that asunder with just a few twitter posts. That man’s ability to ruin everything is masterful.

The two of them, Silver and Geoffrey I mean, meet up to have a chat. Geoffrey lets on that he knows Silver is “Ace” which gets him flustered. Silver admits to being a bad spy but talks about how he did a lot of extensive research on Geoffrey and his past. The conclusion he came to is that he’d never intentionally hurt the city or its citizens. He even brings up the fact that his wife wouldn’t have been on board for any of this. That momentarily gets him a bit cranky but he does stop to recognize it as the truth.

One thing I like about this scene is how the lines that show up on Geoffrey’s face suddenly make him look a lot older and more tired.

Between these faces and the fact that he keeps calling Silver “kid” it serves as a reminder that Geoffrey is a bit older than most of the main cast. It’s sometimes hard to tell, of course, but what makes it feel kind of sad is just how messed up all of this feels regardless. You know, I can’t help but think of him as still stuck in that position he was in when he was a kid. Probably because he is.

Geoffrey tells Silver what he wants to know. Silver reaches out to ask him to help them but Geoffrey says it’s too late for him. He doesn’t have a future regardless of how this shakes out.

That’s not entirely true. If he were to directly help out the indisposed king he’d probably be a shoe in for some kind of leeway. 

Elias isn’t too keen on the guy but he does respect what happened enough to not attack.

Yeah, there’s the big twist. They were watching all along. 

I mean, of course they were.

As an aside, I know that Shard is advanced enough to handle it but it’s still kind of funny that they decided to put the robot in the water.

Anyway, we cut back to Harvey and Elias in their base. Mr. Who gives kudos to Silver for going for the direct approach as it’s not something he would have done. Appealing to emotion isn’t something that most people would do, honestly. Elias, of course, thinks of this only in terms of how they’ll be able to use Geoffrey and Naugus’ emotional situation to their advantage. Harvey likes how devious Elias is thinking and talks about how he’d likely be able to mold him into another version of him yet. Kind of scary but alright.

Elias does express a desire to tell the people but Harvey reiterates why that’d be a fucking terrible idea and then tells Elias to rest. They suit up a couple of hours later and then they go on their way to stop Naugus’ big evil plan.

It’s a neat final spread. It’d probably be a bit better if there weren’t so many boxes cluttering the bottom though. I’m still unsure of why they decided that people would only want to know who made the book at the end this time. 

This one was easily the best issue of the arc so far. The first two were fine as action set-pieces but they didn’t have enough driving them to be super interesting on their own as per the emotional weight of what was being accomplished. This issue was nothing but that though. It mostly just focused on the motivation behind Geoffrey’s actions and it offered what has to be, honestly, the first real attempt to understand and work with what’s been presented by his actions as opposed to just yelling, screaming, and threatening him. None of those things have worked so far but this approach did. I’m glad the book does like to, at times, address that sometimes a different approach can lead to positive results too. Not in all cases but everything ought to be considered.

Sonic Universe - Issue #44: Secret Freedom - Part 4 of 4: Fight the Power!

I remember being confused when I saw this cover a while back. I had no idea what I was looking at. How does being a fusion of a rhino, a bat, and a lobster thing lead to this monstrosity? I didn’t even wonder that back then because I had no idea what was happening to Naugus since I didn’t even read the story where he formed into Naugus nor did I absorb any of the information recapping what happened to him. It was all just noise to me back in the day but here, even though it makes more sense, it still feels so abstract and strange. Let’s see if Secret Freedom can navigate this scary monster man enough to pull off a second win.

Spoiler

Writer: Ian Flynn
Pencils: Tracy Yardley!
Inks: Jim Amash
Letters: Jack Morelli
Colors: Steve Downer
Cover: Yardley, Amash and Herms
Assistant Editor: Vincent Lovallo
Editor: Paul Kaminski
Editor-In-Chief: Victor Gorelick

Naugus is working his voodoo in the chamber to create the spell that’ll replace the council with Ixis wizards or whatever. Geoffrey isn’t really too happy about it.

Meanwhile, the council is having issues. They’ve been locked out of the building and it’s all thanks to Larry. He didn’t do anything to the door directly. He just stands there and as per the rules of bad luck… bad luck happens.

He does wish for his friends to hurry though. He doesn’t know how his own luck works just yet so there’s still a heavy chance that it’ll just randomly decide to work against him.

While Larry is doing his thing, Naugus is telling Geoffrey to be very astute about guarding the entrance. This spell is super duper complex and he needs full attention to it. Starting over is also a no-no right now.

This is going to take a lot of delicate–OH NO THEY’RE HERE!

Yeah, Naugus gets knocked off his perch mid-sentence as the heroes show up to stop him. Everyone is playing their part and doing so with immediate effect.

The action couldn’t have kicked off faster. It gets really intense, really quickly.

Back with the council, Rotor is called to unlock the door. He and Penelope share some witty, friendly banter as they make it inside and it’s kind of cute. I like that there’s no hard feelings between them all. As they sit down to discuss the new constitution they find that they’ve misplaced it. No one knows who delivered it to who or where it is.

Larry is outside, happy that this has happened and wants them to go home and find it. Considering some of them thought the other was bringing it, it makes me wonder if this bad luck thing affects memories too. Sounds scary.

Back with Naugus, he’s in mid-battle with everyone. He tries throwing sharp rocks at them but Shard cuts through those and Silver tosses them at Naugus instead. When Naugus swats them aside, Shard bursts ahead and hits Naugus in the face.

Naugus then tries to retaliate by sucking away the air around Shard so he can’t breathe but Shard blasts him, letting him in on the secret that he doesn’t need to breathe. That’s when Naugus figures out that he’s a robot so he asks for his wand from Geoffrey yet again. This time, Geoffrey tosses it but Silver uses his power to grab it. 

Things aren’t looking good for the ambushed villains. It seems Secret Freedom has finally learned how to pull off a successful ambush.

Geoffrey fights against the twins still but then fires an arrow at Elias, recognizing that he’s being distracted. He then charges in and the two of them have a little fight before his mask is punched off and they have a little chat.

Acknowledgement of Elias’ growth noted. 

Geoffrey’s been this kind of character for a while now and I always appreciate seeing it. He's the kind of guy who’d go against you but come to your hospital room to salute you as a fallen soldier or someone who’d give compliments to his opposition out of genuine affection for what they’ve managed to accomplish.

I like that Elias is sticking to his guns about him too of course. He’s giving Geoffrey a bit of leeway that he otherwise wouldn’t if Silver hadn’t spoken up but because he’s not like King Max you can totally see him acting more stern towards him in a way that actually seems fair and not JUST vindictive.

Back at the council, the people inside are getting restless since the king hasn’t shown up. Hamlin wants to get started without him but Dylan points out that this would be going against protocol and Hamlin is always the guy who gets upset whenever Sonic or whoever doesn’t do that. So Hamlin is about to agree but then the power goes out and he’s even more pissed off. Larry fist pumps from the bushes. It’s a great scene.

Silver is fighting Naugus and taunting him about how he totes gave Enerjak a run for his money. So then Naugus just turns the literal air that Silver is breathing into fire.

You guys know I love it whenever a hero’s smugness is followed by immediate comeuppance. It’s always great.

Shard saves Silver and when Silver moans about how they’re not making any headway here, Shard just blows up the thing Naugus was working so hard on.

Elias tells them they did a good job there but Geoffrey just says they should have done that from the start. Silver then uses his power to slam Geoffrey into a wall and tells him that he doesn’t get to judge them. 

Sure but… Geoffrey’s right. You really should have just destroyed the thing he was working on first. Oh well. It was a pretty good fight.

The agents all escape and Elias sets off all the bombs he planted to explode the cavern as they head out.

Then Naugus is left to reflect on his failures as his work crumbles all around him like it did for the allustrious Dr. M at the end of Sly 3. 

REEEEEJECTED!

Vuvuzela horns go off in the distance.

Naugus shifts into “NO ESCAPE” mode and his scary monster face comes back. He hurries ater them all. 

Shard sees the crystal come to block their way out and says he’s had it with these monkey fighting cave-ins on this Monday to Friday mission.

He bursts out of the crystal and relishes in the fresh air that he can’t enjoy as Silver uses his powers to get everyone to safety.

Naugus has caught Geoffrey in his crystal though. He calls him a traitor for leaving him behind but Geoffrey just says he was going after the enemy agents. Naugus seems to immediately buy that and goes on about how the council would have heard the tremors. Naugus hasn’t been too discreet about the fact that he’s been visiting this hole often after all. It probably doesn’t matter as much as he thinks it does but Geoffrey still gives him the idea to say that the tremors were him investigating the instability of the ground and how he was caught in a cave-in. It’ll be a story about how a heroic sacrifice almost happened to save the city from collapse.

Naugus uses the emerald to return to normal and gives Geoffrey kudos on his quick wit. Geoffrey just says he lives to serve while there’s a very “I'm so done with you” look on his face.

We then cut to a monologue about how the Secret Freedom Fighters must stand back and observe things in secret. They can’t offer comfort to their loved ones or share their stories. They can only look on, longingly. Two of these scenes I find a little sad and one I just found amusing. I wonder if you can guess which one.

If you guessed that the very first scene amused me then of course you’re correct.

How would I not find the scene with Frowny Granny unfunny?

“God. I sure do love my life. What a wonderful turn of events it was, marrying this man.”

Yeah, Elias is looking on because he wants to inform them of some good news with relation to his efforts to fight back against Naugus so that they can feel some sort of satisfaction or happiness about the state of the kingdom’s future… but he can’t.

It’s always really sad how much Elias cares for their well-being. I’m not saying he shouldn’t, of course. It’s only sad with the knowledge of how they’ve kind of been really shit parents. He wants to please his papa but he could only go with what he was saying so far before he had to make the decision to do what’s right by the people.

Or rather, he should have made that decision but that decision was kind of made for him when Sally showed up to his and Amadeus’ throwdown. I’m still not quite over that but we’ll move on. The important thing is Elias knows what he has to do and he’s definitely making the right decision. His mom’s assertion that valuing their safety was something that was breaking the family apart is hard for me to get over. She’s a lot more supportive of him then Max is but she’s still not a shining beacon of innocence either. 

Then we have another little sad scene of Larry sitting in a tree overlooking the others as they leave the council building. He used to be Freedom Fighters with some of them so seeing how they’re in such different positions now is kind of gut wrenching in a way. He also wasn’t able to apply for the position that would have had him a bit closer to them with the whole Team Freedom thing. It’s a little somber but he seems to be content with things like this.

The last scene of Shard looking in through the window as Uncle Chuck has dinner with Sonic’s mom and dad at first felt like it came a little bit out of nowhere as there wasn’t much to hint at this being something Shard was concerned about before but it does help a lot that Chuck is there. It makes more sense when you consider Chuck rebuilt him on top of the fact that Shard got his personality and life from his former interaction with Sonic. It makes sense that he’d probably want to be more in-tune with his family. Not necessarily to take his place like some sort of body snatcher but to just be a part of it. I wouldn’t go so far as to say he thinks of Chuck as his sort of pseudo father now but you never know.

We end the issue on Silver confronting director Harvey Who alone to talk traitor. That’s when Harvey turns around with a gun and shoots Silver in the chest, claiming it was him all along!

No, instead, he whips out a piece of paper that has four separate images of the original Freedom Fighters on it and starts crossing them out with a red marker that bleeds SO badly that it oozes onto the backside of the paper clear as day. 

Also, this is quite the weird image he’s got in his hand. Did he go on the computer and drag and drop four separate images, splice them together, and print it out just so he could ruin it by dragging a red marker across it? I know it’s a visual aid for the audience but the idea of him doing that, in universe, just makes me chuckle. He could have just told him, you know? XD

I also love that Silver’s first question after asking if he found out who the traitor was is “Was it obvious?”. The poor boy wants desperately to be spared from anymore embarrassment that would be coming his way were he to fail so thoroughly at getting things wrong again.

Harvey makes some good points about what time does to facts and evidence. He compared the notes between Antoine’s journal from the future and the past as well and has narrowed it down to one person. 

Can you guess who?

I… vividly recall my reaction to seeing this image back in the day. It wasn’t a very… positive reaction. If I had to describe it I’d say I was “cautiously optimistically in denial”.

It’s a bit of a weird turn of phrase but it makes sense as a way to describe my emotions at the time. Like I said before, the instant Mecha Sally was born was the very instant the traitor subplot was solved. There was no longer any mystery. The trajectory of what I thought was going to be a very interesting subplot way back when Silver first arrived during Hedgehog Havoc had pretty much been all but ruined. The idea of Mecha Sally herself was still really great, though I've had clear and obvious misgivings about the unsatisfactory formula with which she’s been used thus far. However, as far as the mystery surrounding what Silver was doing, there wasn’t much to look forward to anymore.

So when the book continued to make us wait several arcs upon arcs without making the obvious reveal I got a little annoyed… and then I started to hope beyond hope that Sally being the traitor was a red herring. 

When I saw this image I was confused. If you look at the page and you look at where Harvey has crossed the images out, you’d be able to tell immediately who it is BUT the fact that it was still obscured on the last page made me wonder if I was looking at it wrong… even though, realistically, there was no possible way I could be unless Silver was holding the image upside down… but that wouldn’t make sense since that would put the uncrossed out area where Antoine is and that was literally the first person you see Harvey cross out.

So that’s what I mean by cautiously optimistically in denial. I was in denial that this was seriously all that it was after so long of already knowing the answer but cautiously optimistic that it could potentially mean more than just the fact that Sally was turned into a robot.

Setting aside that her becoming Mecha Sally so far hasn’t led to much that I would consider plausible proof that she directly leads to the world being ruined, I also was just hoping there’d be some sort of twist upon the “reveal” that it was her. Something that made things more interesting. Anything more than just what we already knew being the answer.

It turned out to not be the case. It was pretty much just the situation we were already in and that was it. I waited for a really long time just to find out that all the info Silver lacked was literally just stuff we all already knew but he hadn’t been told by anyone yet.

It was an insane disappointment.

Please, everyone, I implore you, if you desire to set up a mystery story do not construct it this way. It’s not satisfying.

The arc was good. The last two issues were definitely the best of these four, which is great. I’d rather the ending be great over the beginning of course. Still, compared to a lot of the previous Sonic Universe arcs, this one doesn’t quite measure up as much. More than half of it was a bunch of fights and sneaking around in some caves. Most of the character driven stuff was in Issue #3 and it was mostly centered around Geoffrey, whom I really like but is hard to not notice isn’t supposed to be the focus of the story. Still, having said that, it was indeed a fun little adventure. I like all the characters and I like what the existence of this team serves to do. It probably also goes without saying that it was better than what the main book is currently doing too given my attitude towards the chase that never ends that’s happening right now. 

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Random realization: but I’m not the only one who just now realized Naugus is essentially the Sonic equivalent of the the Avatar: the Last Airbender…except, you know, evil?

It’s one of those things that was in my face for years, but just now realized to point out. Water, Air, Earth, Fire, and the ability to mix them together into new forms like Combustion, Crystals, etc.

Actually makes me glad we got to keep him in the reboot.

[SBR2]

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Naugus plays it off because Sonic is away and Rotor is too fucking fat to be stealthy. 

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Despite saying he changed his mind about them after their successful push back of the Death Egg from the main series, it would seem he didn’t actually mean it…?

Or maybe he did in the moment but changed his mind? 

Or its that they're still all relatively new to this and aren't totally used to each other. Thats how I read it anyway. 

Quote

 

And outside of that single image of Classic Sonic (love the work around on Sega saying no to Classic Sonic by giving him his canonical brown eyes) this issue is like the only issue I can think of that has almost no Sega Characters at all. Maybe one of the Sally miniseries issues was exclusively SatAM and comics Characters but I do remember that Eggman eventually was a part of it.

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I have no idea why but the credits for this issue were put on the very last page. Bit of an inconvenience for me but whatever.

Yeah I don't really get why but Ian started doing that. It happens in Mega Man a couple times too. It makes sense when the title is a spoiler or something like "The Night Gwen Stacy Died" but there really no reason for it here.

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In other words, HE IS THE SENATE!

I mean if you've ever heard Naugus's cartoon voice he doesn't not sound like Palpatine.

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love the next page coming up though. It really does sell just how Geoffrey’s mind has just been assaulted by the whiplash of realizing the tremendous mistake he’s made.

Gotta love Ian said "What if Geoffrey...was interesting?" and then he gets wiped out of existence a few months in. *Deep Sigh*

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However, it’s precisely this direction Ian’s taking with him that’s allowed Geoffrey to become an actually good fucking character. I reiterate this a lot but I didn’t care about him until this reveal happened. Before this he was just that weird skunk character that showed up randomly at times. I didn’t even know what his purpose was since I hadn’t read all that stuff before #142

You would not believe how pissed people were about the heel turn. So many people thought this was a betrayal of his...*snerk* rich character.  There was a sprite comic I followed at the time called Power Rings that was super Archie specific and at the time were major Penders fans (not so much these days) and they stopped doing the comic once the "Hershey's dead" line dropped it pissed them off that much and they felt that the line about "It's your fault for not paying attention" was an insult to fans. The team behind it have cooled off since then but this change had an impact on people in a big not necessarily positive way. Personally I had only read the Death Egg Saga and the 1998-1999 issues I bought to prepare for Iron Dominion so I honestly had some knowledge of Geoffrey but not enough to really care.

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Yeah, Geoffrey is here spying on them and he notices Shard’s gem. It’s the core of power he and his former team recovered from the remains of the Metal Sonic at the volcano. He took it with him and it was used by Charles to help create the Metal Sonic Troopers. He deduces that Charles has a hand in this from that, figuring out that he’s playing both sides AND he also deduces that all of this had to have been concocted by a certain bird in a robe.

Small continuity hiccup (you mean the fact Valdez is there when he was dead at the time?) ...2 small continuity hiccups. The other being that Geoffrey says he took the core back from Robotropolis after Eggman came back...but the fight with Metal Sonic that left him incased in molten rock happens after the Adventure arc so it wouldn't have been in Robotropolis at all. 

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Seriously, dude looks like he’s about to cry. It’s amazing how much hard work Ian put into making this character not awful only for Penders to turn around and rip that asunder with just a few twitter posts. That man’s ability to ruin everything is masterful.

Yeah but wouldn't it be better if he treated Sally as nothing more than a sexual conquest and all the work Karl and Ian both put into his relationship with Hershey was written off as "maybe they had a one-night stand"? Wouldn't that be soooooooo much better?

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Mr. Who

My favorite British science fiction series. (Sometimes I see a joke opportunity and take even if I'm the only one who finds it funny...plus I missed out on a lot and this is my last chance to make any jokes about Harvey)

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Naugus is working his voodoo in the chamber to create the spell that’ll replace the council with Ixis wizards or whatever.

I think it's that they're going to become Ixis Wizards...somehow. 

I guess I should tag because for some reason it won't show the "Quote Section" thing so @Dr. Detective Mike

[SanPolo4389]

7 hours ago, SBR2 said:

You would not believe how pissed people were about the heel turn. So many people thought this was a betrayal of his...*snerk* rich character.  There was a sprite comic I followed at the time called Power Rings that was super Archie specific and at the time were major Penders fans (not so much these days) and they stopped doing the comic once the "Hershey's dead" line dropped it pissed them off that much and they felt that the line about "It's your fault for not paying attention" was an insult to fans. The team behind it have cooled off since then but this change had an impact on people in a big not necessarily positive way. Personally I had only read the Death Egg Saga and the 1998-1999 issues I bought to prepare for Iron Dominion so I honestly had some knowledge of Geoffrey but not enough to really care.

Man someone else remembers that sprite comic, I don't remember it much about it other than Sonic going out with other girls and Shadow having a twin sister or something? It was weird and I only remember the sprites it did but not the comics they did. 

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

2 hours ago, SanPolo4389 said:

Man someone else remembers that sprite comic, I don't remember it much about it other than Sonic going out with other girls and Shadow having a twin sister or something? It was weird and I only remember the sprites it did but not the comics they did. 

Dude, there were so many sprite comics back in the day that you’re gonna have to be a lot more specific than that.

For starters, what color was the twin sister?

[Dr. Detective]

33 minutes ago, CrownSlayer’s Shadow said:

Dude, there were so many sprite comics back in the day that you’re gonna have to be a lot more specific than that.

For starters, what color was the twin sister?

Hell, even I made a sprite comic back in the day. It's been lost to the sands of time which I regret. Yeah, I can actually draw now but I've learned that looking back on my old, primitive stuff feels kind of neat.

[SBR2]

12 hours ago, SanPolo4389 said:

Man someone else remembers that sprite comic, I don't remember it much about it other than Sonic going out with other girls and Shadow having a twin sister or something? It was weird and I only remember the sprites it did but not the comics they did. 

They re-uploaded them to Tumblr a couple years back as "Power Rings Infinity" so they're still up to read. 

Also I don't know what Mike's opinion on the "downward spiral" stuff is but I have kinda a unique connection to this era of the comics. 

In March of 2012 my mom died after a heart attack and having fallen into a coma. She'd been having them a lot since the previous year. Of course #234 came out after her death and that's the one where Antoine got blown up. The timing of this was ridiculous...but while a lot of people were hating that bad things kept happening to the heroes I'm here my moms death still fresh in my mind and there's this arc about how shit got them down but they came back and kept going. Its funny how people can have completely different perspectives on stories based on their own lived experiences. 

[Dr. Detective]

Archie Sonic the Hedgehog - Issue #241: Unraveling

Alright, so… we are literally on the cusp of some very, VERY heavy, controversial, wonky, weird… STUFF that’s about to happen in the Archie Sonic comics. I can literally feel the Operation Big Wave coming over the horizon. We’ve reached the part of the main book where things get very muddled and confused for me, especially as far as my memory of the events goes. The forums were starting to catch fire with controversy about what was starting to brew under the service (and in the courtroom) and as far as issues like this… I couldn’t tell you what happens in it. All I know for sure looking at this cover is that Krudzu thing comes back, which, for some reason, despite it showing up more than once, every time it does show up I struggle to remember what it is.

Spoiler

Tails Variant

Oh hey. Here’s the Tails cover. We finally have all of Team Fighters. It’s too bad this was a variant cover. Unfortunately, I couldn't collect them all. Looking at it now… it’s not a very good looking painting. I’m not really a fan of these character portrait covers. They feel really oddly placed despite the theme they were following here. You probably wouldn’t be able to pick up the theme with the Tails cover being a variant. 

Though, the normal cover isn’t much to speak of either. It’s just a character collage. 

Writer: Ian Flynn
Pencils: Steven Butler
Inks: Terry Austin
Colors: Matt Herms
Letterer: John Workman
Cover: Yardley, Austin, Herms, and Pera
Variant Cover: Greg Horn
Assistant Editor: Vincent Lovallo
Editor: Paul Kaminski
Editor-In-Chief: Victor Gorelick

Team Fighters are STILL chasing down the Death Egg, following it in Tails’ biplane as it exhausts some very gross looking brown smog.

Inside, Eggman is just as tired of this back and forth as I am, though he's not coming up with very unique solutions to the issue. “Just throw more robots at them until I can get a bigger one”, he says.

That is until Cubot finds a sprig of the Krudzu Hybrid Hydra just on the floor. This is where they had a fight back in the Free Comic Book Day issue, although, this book references back to Sonic Select Vol. 6. It doesn’t matter because neither of those books were in my possession upon reading this so I, for sure, had no fucking clue what Eggman was talking about.

Tails says he wants to do this fast because he doesn’t want to leave everyone back home with Naugus for too long. He only says this to serve as a segue to cut back home where Naugus is rolling around in bed, trying to get some shut eye, but the three spirits keep haunting and taunting him. Things are getting increasingly worse for him.

He wakes up screaming for him to be left alone right in front of Geoffrey who, like his secretary, gives him a spiel about the kingly duties he has to do.

It does come off as a very peculiar “be careful what you wish for” scenario, if only because the way the kingdom does its laws and its system isn’t something Naugus likes. Granted, he was trying to do something to fix that in the last SU arc but the Secret Freedom Fighters put the kibosh on that. Plus, he doesn’t seem to have much time to focus on petty control of the council when he can’t even figure out how to properly control his own body. 

So, as a result, he has to stand there and keep up pretenses while swearing in Isabella Mongoose, Mina’s mom, as a council member.

Seeing Naugus have to use the Sword of Acorns and recite an oath for a ceremony that he doesn’t believe in or care about is funny enough (the pause before he says the word “republic” speaks volumes) but the fact that he literally has to use a towel to hold the sword because it burns him due to him being made of pure evil is hilarious.

Geoffrey hasn’t been missing any chances to throw light taunts at the guy. Naugus has taken note of his uptick in being a bit standoffish and says he’s got to watch over him now.

That concern probably quickly left his head the instant Isabella opened her mouth here though. Naugus does not take this suggestion well.

Even worse, it doesn’t even matter that he doesn’t take it well because he can’t properly defend himself with his body acting up like this. He just leaves it to the council, which comes off as a kind gesture ironically enough but it just makes his situation worse.

We don’t really know how true it is about how good Naugus would be at protecting the city from threats were he in his regular state of mind. He hasn’t been for a really long time. 

This thing with the Genesis Wave really fucked Naugus over. He’s going to have even more reason to hate Eggman now that this has happened.

Speaking of Eggman, Team Fighters are still facing him down. Sonic begs for an actual challenge and once he gets one he seems almost regretful.

Yeah, this is totally something Eggman would do. It’s just like him to kill something for trying to kill Sonic and then scoop that thing up and use it again with the excuse of it being okay because he’s the one deciding to sick it on Sonic now. Goodness, the ego on this man.

We cut back to the Royal Military HQ in New Mobotropolis where Naugus has not gone back to bed. Instead he’s gone to visit the old, old king and queen, Alicia and Max.

Now, this is pretty messed up already. Despite my hatred of Max, at this point he’s a deteriorating old fool in a wheelchair who can barely string sentences together. So Naugus coming here to take advantage of that is already pretty fucky but it gets even worse when you recall the history between the two of them.

I know Sonic likes to call Naugus creepy but I’ve often just let it slide as the expected thing he’d say to a guy who looked and acted like this. However, this panel of him stroking the muzzle fur on a glassy-eyed, barely there old man while trying to get into his good graces with recollections of the past, all the way up to the time he first tricked him into making a pact with him in the Zone of Silence was genuinely unsettling.

Alicia doesn’t like him being here and demands he get to the point. Naugus says he’s offering to fix him with his crystalline magic. All he has to do is enter another pact with him. 

Of course, he plans to use his body until he can figure out a way to fix his own. He needs Max’s approval though because he’s Bill Cypher.

Max says “No.”

Now that we’re this deep into the issue, I can say with confidence that I do in fact remember this issue. I remember this issue BIG TIME as a matter of fact. I thought the events of this issue were going to happen later considering just how many issues we have left before the Pre-Reboot officially ends though. I didn’t think this was going to happen in #241. 

Looking back over the covers of what’s left, it makes sense though. I forgot the thing with Thrash was like a 4-part story arc. For some reason I had it in my head that it was only two. Probably because of how rushed it felt.

There’s also an issue of the book that I’m reviewing this week that’s (almost) literally a waste of time. This comic didn’t need less focus on the main story at this point so SEGA pushing for a dumb comic tie-in advertisement at THIS point couldn’t have been worse fucking timing.

But yeah, this is the part where Naugus just goes around trying to look for new bodies to take over and being rejected because he has no friends and everybody hates him.

The fact that he underestimated how lucid Max was is one thing. Of course Max himself was going to say no after everything this fucking guy put him through. Did Naugus read the early issues? Does he have any idea how fucking long Max was encased in crystal and how long it took for the heroes to locate all the magic MacGuffins necessary to keep this asshole stable? We’re not going through that shit again.

However, the big thing is how Alicia just threatened the current acting king. It’s kind of amazing how people are suddenly being a lot more open to just defying the king now. It’s great though. I love that it’s happening because it speaks volumes about how fucking stupid this system is. It almost feels like the characters themselves are starting to understand that.

So seeing her threaten to get the guards called on the king and seeing that actually working as a means of getting him to back off is neat. 

The ending part where Max squeaks out a thank you with tears in his eyes and they hug feels a little bittersweet. It did even back when I originally read this and didn’t know how horrid Max was before #142. I still recalled him being an asshole in House of Cards by that point, after all. So that moment stood out as more something that makes complete and total sense for the two characters to do and not necessarily as one that endears me to them. 

That said, as vindictive as I am, I would be remiss not to at least mention how messed up it is that Max is like this at all now. Part of the folly with him does stretch back to him just absorbing the ways of the days of old and being indoctrinated to think like the Acorns of the past. It’s the same with Locke. It doesn’t excuse his actions but there is a tiny puff of an air of sympathy there in some small manner. 

It’ll forever be hard to ever fully feel sorry for the man of course. Like Harvey Who pointed out, the man did almost everything wrong and never listened to anyone who had his actual best interest at heart. Regardless of his stubborn ways, a lot of what he wrought was indeed a by-product of his own decision making. I know Uncle Chuck pins a lot of the blame for Robotnik’s rise on himself but it feels obvious to me that it really does lie handedly at Max’s feet.

Naugus’ ghost bullies taunt him about how fucking stupid he was for trying to possess the body of a feeble, dying old man. They also taunt him about how his plans to do so were foiled by a feeble, not as dying yet, old woman.

As he talks to himself, we see Geoffrey peaking out to spy on him from behind the trees. Naugus has a plan and he thinks it’s solid. All he has to do is enter a pact with someone who’d take it.

That fucking dog looks like he just spotted a newbie to the prison yard.

It’s also really hilarious that this dude seriously tried to pull this shit on Sonic’s parents. Christ. With how slaughtered Sonic’s brain has been lately, he’s lucky the boy isn’t here to see this. Not that Naugus would ever do this with Sonic around but my God.

Also, hi Omochao. 

Thankfully, I don’t need to point out what’s wrong with this because Bernie and Jules do it pretty handedly themselves.

From the fact that Bunnie didn’t need to make a pact, to the time discrepancy from when that happened to him suddenly coming up to them here at random, to the fact that he’s not even properly explaining how he plans to fix him, to the fact that he’s asking them to put their trust in a guy who incited civil war and has not only tried to kill their son on numerous occasions but has shown no remorse for it.

It’s like Cinema Sins if they were actually good at their fucking job.

Jules’ finisher line was the absolute best. Legit got me to chuckle. 

“There’s the door. Please conjure your way through it.” Fucking smoked.

Back with the fight against the Krudzu, Team Fighters just wins.

Yeah, they say it’s weak to water. Amy smacks Sonic into it and it falls into the water and explodes.

Kay.

Moving on.

We cut to another one of Mina’s concerts. Naugus has to be here to keep up appearances again but he’s really pissed off because he’s had a bad day. However, he feels momentarily relaxed because the idea of sitting and listening to Mina’s fear mongering music sounds nice.

Then Mina starts going on about love and forgiveness and dedicating her next song to her best buddy Nicole.

Cream’s lost the Tails Doll again. At this point she must really like it because she keeps bringing it with her to places.

She’s certain she brought it with her though and true to form we cut to the Tails Doll under the stage where Mina is about to perform and it shoots off electric mayhem that fries some of her bandmates and causes the stage to collapse.

Rotor and Team Freedom jump in and rescue everyone from the stage collapsing. Ash runs to Mina to ask if she’s okay but Mina just uses this as an opportunity to talk about how wonderful Team Freedom is and how Nicole would have made sure that stage would have been fixed instantly before that even happened.

Again, they’re unaware of the actual issue being that of the Tails Doll but regardless, these events are continuing to make Naugus look bad and the heroes look good. It couldn’t be going any better if someone had planned to sabotage Naugus in this way. 

Naugus isn’t even being given a chance to enact any of the plans he wants to do. He’s just… completely indisposed. He literally can’t do anything right now.

It’s like a villain was just handed the keys to victory and before he could put them into the lock, he keels over from a heart attack.

Geoffrey turns to Naugus, really pissed off. He accuses him of having been the one to collapse the stage but when he sees Naugus looking like he’s fucking dying on the floor he realizes it wasn’t him.

That coupled with the chanting for heroes and love and friendship and understanding and for Nicole to come back, it’s a miracle Naugus didn’t burst into flames here. It’s almost a bit much even for me.

Geoffrey helps Naugus out of there and sits him down. Naugus seems genuinely thankful for his assistance… but things are just really bad right now. Like, REALLY bad.

Geoffrey just blows up at him.

God. I remember being legitimately freaked out and worried when I saw this image for the first time. It’s SO unsettling. I have no idea what one could possibly be going through with something like this happening to them. 

Just trying to imagine my body fighting to keep various body parts of three separate animals from mutating me gives me the creeps but imagining voices in my taunting me, even in my dreams, about it just sounds like a living nightmare. Of course, he’s using the Chaos Emerald to fix it but it’s not working for as long as he wants and needs it to, just as Geoffrey tried to warn him of earlier.

Geoffrey also goes on a pretty emotional spiel about the good of the city he lives in. He’s got far more faith in it then I do, that’s for sure.

There are… a lot of ways I could be snarky and vindictive about what’s being said here about this kingdom. It’s true that I don’t have the highest opinion of this place or its people.

I think the common folk, when portrayed as the masses that they are, often end up coming across as dumb, selfish, self-indulgent lemmings that march to the beat of whatever drum is pounding the loudest. 

All that stuff with the racism against the Robians and the civil war that went down as a result of the aftermath of the Iron Dominion just feels like common examples of that.

However, I do also see Geoffrey’s point, if only a little. It would definitely take A LOT of time, especially after what’s happened here, but the others would eventually forgive them.

I do truly believe that. I mean, they fucking allowed Snively to chill with them for who knows how long for Pete's sake. 

Yeah, right now Sonic’s headspace isn’t in a forgiving mood. He rammed Silver’s gut, dragged him across town, and smashed his nose against Antoine’s hospital bed. He also whooped and hollered with excitement at the trial where it was learned that Hershey might be dead just because he'd get to delight seeing someone punished under the law. However, when all's said and done, the guy can forgive.

It’s been shown to be in his nature probably more so than a couple of other characters. Thinking back on the way he felt about driving Eggman to insanity has me recalling Tails saying to Sonic that he didn’t understand his charitable feelings regarding it. It’s kind of amazing. 

I want to give Archie Sonic his props when they’re due. It was a lot easier to ignore what’s good about him back when I was bitter and upset that I only had a book focusing on all this stuff that wasn’t specifically tied to the main cast I grew up with from Heroes and X. 

So, there IS a point to be made here. What sells this page is the look on Naugus’ face at the end though.

I do like to think he might be contemplating it for once. The fact that he’s even bothering to ask Geoffrey if he really thinks they could be forgiven feels like some sort of acknowledgement that there probably could be something to this “kindness” thing people are talking about. What irony would it be that after he used his Ixis Magic to incite civil war that after spending time amongst these people in this city, their ability to forgive and forget rubbed off on him? Could he one day go back to being the royal wizard but an actually good one? 

As of now, fuck no.

Oh yeah. I manipulated an emotionally distraught child into entering a pact with me. How could I ever forget?

Man, this is such a great development for a comic that isn’t dying. 

It’d be a haunting, annoying assault on the brain that would continue to torment me for years to come at not seeing the resolution to this were this to happen in a comic that WAS dying but thankfully, that’s not the case here.

I guess I shouldn’t say that the “comic” is dying. The comic “as we know it” is. Geoffrey has now been fully taken over by Naugus and now that he’s got a new body, he approaches Nicole once she’s been allowed back into the city and tells them that he comes bearing news of Naugus’ untimely demise being close at hand.

All of a sudden, Naugus is good at manipulation and conjuring a good story again. 

I didn’t recall if we ever got to see a proper response to Geoffrey’s plea that they help discover a way to save Naugus’ life in the issues ahead. There’s only six left before the big crossover event and only five of those even matter. Same goes with Sonic Universe. Literally in the exact same manner too because that series also has an advert issue coming up that doesn’t matter. I also didn't remember when the exhile of Pender's characters was set to happen. Imagine my surprise when I found out that this was it...

I would have really loved seeing how this was to play out. Geoffrey’s speech about this place being open to forgiveness is interesting to ponder… though it is kind of funny that the Archie Sonic Online direction was to go “He’s dying. WE GOTTA FINISH THE JOB! FUCKING KILL HIM!” 

I’m not criticizing it though. It’s just kind of funny to me. To each his own, of course.

Then we cut back to Team Freedom where a bomb is dropped on us. 

That’s right folks. 

Kansas. ALL of Kansas… is on fire!

Back when I first read this, the significance of what this meant was 100% lost on me. I recall the upcoming story being a bit confusing as far as the background was for me due to being a bit lost on what the significance of Albion was. That’s partially due to my not paying a ton of attention to the tidbits that were discussed during the Enerjak: Reborn arc and mostly due to the fault of me not having read the earlier shit. It really was quite the boon to this comic as far as newcomers to have so much confusing lore established beforehand. In hindsight, it’s eventual demise seemed inevitable in some respects but I still have a feeling it died a bit sooner than it was supposed to.

Call it a hunch.

Uhm… but yeah. This is all rather sudden isn’t it? The last time we saw Albion, it was supposed to have already been destroyed and it was being fixed up as the small haven for what little remained of echidna kind. The echidnas have been thoroughly punished for how horrible of a species they’ve been already. It seemed like a nice enough place to leave the aftermath of their punishment behind. Especially since most of the people still around were people that I actually liked. Knuckles’ mom, Wyn, Remington, fucking Kneecaps…

Aside from whatever dark nonsense General Styker was foreshadowed to be up to (something I still think should have been an abandoned plot line) I didn’t foresee too much ahead for the echidnas here. 

It seemed like overkill to just attack and devastate Albion AGAIN after they were barely managing to live with what very little they had left. Who knows what the original intention was? I heard the original ending to what's supposed to happen next was meant to be a lot happier. Instead it's the most depressing note you could have ended off on for these characters.

… Jesus Christ, we’re REALLY on the cusp of all that shit aren’t we? It feels like it happened so fast. I don’t know if I’m prepared to talk about it yet. Hell, I’m sure you guys don’t need me to talk about it. You guys probably actually know more about the fine details then I ever would no matter how much clarification research I do to try and get everything as correct as I can. 

Aww… son of a bitch.

This issue was the best main series issue we’ve gotten in quite some time. All it took was something of actual consequence to happen and you’ve got yourself a good story again. Granted, what happens here will end up leading to a lot of psychological torment down the line. There will be a lot “What ifs” and “If onlys” happening from here on in as far as the plot point of Naugus taking over Geoffrey’s body is concerned. I can’t even get any closure through text notes because Lost Hedgehog Tales is being held up by the same force that led to –Kansas– Albion being destroyed.

We’re finally here though folks. After the two pointless game tie-in issues we’ve got one last four part story arc in the main book and a final issue to get to. For Sonic Universe, we’ve got one last SU arc and that series’ Issue #50. A milestone issue that’ll serve as the finale for its standing in the Pre-Reboot as a set-up for things that will never happen.

Sonic Universe - Issue #45: Racing for the Stars

It’s been a while since I’ve indulged in something that existed to just completely waste my time. Granted, there is SOME charm to this thing’s existence. Getting to see some of these SEGA characters show up in a comic was actually really cool… and uhm… All-Stars Transformed is a fucking fantastic game so it getting any spotlight at all is neat.

I can’t think of anything else positive to say about it though. Between these two issues, I recall disliking this one the most and it’s for a simple and, honestly, easily amenable reason; it doesn’t do a good job simulating what the point of the game is.

Yeah, it’s a racing game and they do in fact race in it but… they’re supposed to be racing against each other. Not ganging up against ONE dude. The chaotic nature of a race in comic form could easily have benefited a lot from seeing the antics of these racers actually going up against one another. Instead of that we get this lazy bones execution. I can’t blame Ian for not having any interest in writing this one but at the same time, that slight pivot in focus would have made it more fun, at the very least.

Spoiler

Writer: Ian Flynn
Pencils: Tracy Yardley!
Inks: Jim Amash
Colors: Steve Downer
Letters: Jack Morelli
Cover: Yardley and Downer
Editor: Paul Kaminski
Assistant Editor: Vincent Lovallo
Editor-In-Chief: Victor Gorelick

There will be other entire issues dedicated to kart racing in the future like the Sonic Boom two-parter or the TSR one from IDW. Both of those are much better than this one though.

It does seem strange to me that these were full-issue commissions to be honest. I guess it can be attributed to a change in the times. Before this, they would mostly leave the comic be and just have a back-up story advertising their latest game. However, after this, I only recall full-issue comics advertising their newest games being a thing. There’s another one with Sonic Lost World that people hoped would explain stuff about all the stuff that’s unexplained about that game. I own it and I read it exactly once. It explains nothing. Also, I recall the art being terrible.

So this is just the natural evolution of things. We went from the comics integrating story arcs into the main comic series, to pretending they were adventures happening off-screen with Rush and Riders, to just being back-of-the-book recreations of the first cutscene of a new game, to this.

Now, thankfully, in this story’s favor, this is a completely original story… but to also be fair, it would kind of have to be since Transformed had no story. The Olympics don’t either and that’s an entirely different kettle of fish. It honestly confuses me more that that got its own issue but that's why I'm not good at business. It sure didn't turn out to be a mistake for them. More on that later. 

Our line up of racers for this tie-in book is Sonic, Tails, Eggman, Danica Patrick, Vyse, Aiai, and Beat. 

Pretty solid choices. The number of Sonic characters fits with the games. There are more Sonic characters to represent the Sonic series than there will be for reps of any individual series BUT the number of Sonic characters isn’t a ridiculous amount either. Less than half still. 

Danica Patrick kind of has to be there since she was a big part of the promotion for that game. Vyse is from Skies of Arcadia so of course Ian put him in. AiAi is probably the one SEGA rep that people think of on a more constant basis than Sonic… well, I guess before Yakuza REALLY got huge over here. As for Beat, it’d be a literal war crime to not have a rep from Jet Set Radio.

Personally, I would have replaced AiAi with Amigo but that’s my own bias talking. I played a tiny bit of Super Monkey Ball but Samba de Amigo hits me right in the “Playing Wii games on Christmas morning with my younger brother and sister” nostalgia. 

Anyway, we begin with some pre-racing banter. Unsurprisingly, everyone gets along rather well, give or take some competition fueled competitiveness.

Racing since you were ten eh? Well, I’ve got you beat Danica. I’ve been drawing and writing fan-fiction since that age as well. Well, the fan-fiction may have come a bit later but whatever.

Oh man. You should see that early stuff. It’s… uhm…

You know, it still shocks me looking back at my story on FanFiction.Net. It’s still one of the most viewed and most reviewed stories in the Sonic section on that site but it doesn’t deserve it I suspect. I wouldn’t know because the second hand embarrassment I’d probably have going back to re-read it would probably kill me.

It’s so weird. I wrote Homeless Two Tail when I was 12. It has a fucking TV Tropes page for God’s sake. It’s mostly just spelling errors and try-hard, edgelord nonsense that cribs a lot of ideas from the various anime I was watching at the time. I’m grateful people liked it but damn. The world is so strange.

I often wonder how successful a new Sonic fan-fiction from me would be today. I bet the cruel irony would be that no one would read it despite me, now at 28, having a useless writing degree. 

Sorry. I just trailed off and flashed back to the past there. The race hasn’t even started yet.

Anyway, Eggman shows up and everyone instantly hates him.

So the way that this “in another time, another place” story is choosing to frame things is that in this “world” the races between these SEGA franchise guests are being inducted as a yearly thing. It’s pretty clear from AiAi asking Beat why he’s got a different car this time that “last year” is code for the first All-Stars Racing game. I wonder if the year before that it was Tennis.

Tails’ line about having to invite everyone from last year back does kind of make me a tad sad though. Why couldn’t Billy Hatcher return then? What about Zombio and Zombiko? Jacky and Akira? Opa-Opa? The Bananza Bros.? Were the Chu Chus busy? Somebody help me!

No, of course, the actual reason is because development time was tight. The roster was evened out by including a few clone characters to lighten the workload which is why we get Nights with Reala, AiAi with MeeMee, Beat with Gum, and Ulala with Pudding. 

“Ulala with Pudding” sounds like an exotic dessert actually…

Anyway, it’s understandable. A lot of fucking work had to go into making cars that transform along with levels that could accommodate that by transforming themselves too. While the first All-Stars racer has a better roster and way cooler and more fun All-Star moves, Transformed has much better tracks and variety as far as play-styles. It still impresses me how Transformed managed to have every single track not only be a completely different location rather than that set-up where there was a three-way variation on the same location like in the first game or, sadly, Team Sonic Racing, but to also have the transformed gimmick there too.

The amount of work that must have taken boggles the mind. Of course, the All-Star moves suffered a bit but I understand the nerfing of them was due to balancing issues as well as trying to get them to function online. I don’t play games online so this only hurt me as far as my enjoyment of them was concerned but the music tracks that play when you get one off still excite me to this day. Ralph and Metal Sonic have some of the best All-Star music. Danica's is fucking stellar too actually.

Sorry. I went on about something other than the comic again. It’s real easy to get distracted trying to review this thing for some reason.

Anyway, Eggman says he’s going to have his prize by the conquest of all their worlds when he wins and proceeds to do a run down of all the things he’s going to do that’ll make each and every one of them hate him even more.

Of course, after Nixon here gives his miraculous speech, Sonic shows up and bashes into him like the precocious scamp he is.

The main conflict behind the race is delivered by Tails to Sonic here in a panel that, honestly, illustrates how extra ridiculous this all is.

Yeah. He’s just gonna… DO that after he wins the race…!

Kay. What? How? Huh?

How the fuck does Eggman winning the race make him any more or even less likely to take over all your worlds? I don’t get it. It’s like Tails is saying “Bad news Sonic. Eggman is gonna do what Eggman always does some more”. Sonic’s reply should be “Okay… but we’re here to race right now so let’s put a pin in that” or something. There’s no actual way to tie the race into Eggman conquering these worlds so the attempt to do so is nonsensical and a half.

The other thing to make note of is Sonic’s line about whether he should run or drive. This line is obviously here to appease the weirdos that still aren’t able to use critical thinking to understand that Sonic would naturally be driving a car in a car racing competition. 

Also, his liking to run doesn’t mean he can’t also like driving. Is that how it works for people in real life? Do people assume marathon runners hate driving? 

Why doesn’t Tails just fly over the sand pit in the long jump from the Olympics? He can fly!

So the race starts. Eggman does what he does best. He acts like a bit of an asshole and starts knocking cars off the road but, of course, it doesn’t work because the name of the game is transforming vehicles. When he knocks Tails and AiAi off the road they just shift into their planes and go back.

It’s funny because the game has special gates where this happens. It’d be kind of hilarious if they were unable to transform because they hadn’t passed through one and then they just crashed at the bottom. Granted, I don’t think those gates in Transformed ACTUALLY exist. I think they’re just a visual representation to show that the character you’re playing as is choosing in that moment in the race to transform their vehicle. 

Or maybe they do exist. Who knows? Transformed didn’t have a story so there’s no explanation and there doesn’t really need to be.

Eggman honks at Sonic and Beat and the two of them ignore him so he fires off missiles at them and gets ahead. At present he’s currently the only one to have used his All-Star move.

They then get to the water and Eggman catches up with Vyse so that he can taunt him about being new to the game and slams into him. I guess that doubles as another reason to include Vyse in this comic. He is a new rep that wasn’t in the old game. 

Tails catches up with Sonic and says he’s really worried about Eggman winning now. Sonic starts to gloat about being the obvious winner but Tails just pushes him to be serious. 

So, Sonic gives a little speech to rally everyone together. He says that the doc is full of dirty tricks but he can’t take them all at once. He says that they need to race hard, race fast, and race together!

First of all, his "dirty tricks" seem to mostly just be comprised of bashing into people and using his All-Star move. The reason I don’t find this particularly egregious is because THAT’S WHAT HE’S SUPPOSED TO DO!

It really threw me off reading this back when this came out and seeing the main point of the game being dressed up as some sort of bad thing. Like, no. The spirit of the competition isn’t just to race like normal. You’re supposed to use items and All-Star moves to attack your fellow racers and shit. That’s just typical, goofy kart racer stuff.

Sonic going on about racing together doesn’t make any sense. Not for THIS game at least. It’ll make sense for a racing game that won’t come out for another six years but even then it’s only supposed to be for teams of three. You can attack the other racers.

Like, that’s why I love Team Sonic Racing Overdrive so much. In that cartoon, they attack each other a lot. Sure, Eggman isn’t IN the race so they can’t gang up on him but the point still stands. It’s far more fun and far more interesting to just have them going at one another in a huge competitive clusterfuck. Attacking each other is perfectly fine because it’s treated as cartoon violence. 

But no, it’s bad that Eggman is playing the game the way you’re supposed to play it so everyone just gangs up on him. Tails blows a raspberry at him. Beat spray paints his car. AiAi is getting in his way by staying directly in front of him.

I don’t feel bad for him or anything. He’s Eggman. He IS a jerk but him getting special treatment like this isn’t satisfying in this context. 

There is a wonderful moment where Eggman uses his All-Star move again and Vyse and Sonic have to stop the missiles together. However, some hit the road and destroy it, leading the cars to basically just fall off the road as Eggman soars ahead laughing.

Then Eggman does what he does best and steals another of Sonic’s lines by pilfering his line from Brawl and using it against him.

He says “Sorry Sonic! You’re too slow!”

And Sonic narrows his eyes and goes “Oh, no he DIDN’T…”

Sonic’s probably, in this context, pissed that he was called slow rather than the fact that a line he said from a different game was stolen. Perhaps it could be one or the other. Or both. Doesn’t matter.

Man, I can’t help but wonder what the Brawl comic would have been like. 

Meh. On second thought, it probably wouldn’t even have Sonic in it. He’d show up at the very end to clip someone’s wings and wag his finger and then it just ends I’d imagine.

So, Sonic catches up pretty quickly… as does everyone else.

They just immediately catch up and just start attacking Eggman in sequential order.

I mean Jesus Christ. No one bullies a single racer like our heroes can.

I kid of course. Eggman basically dared them all to do this to him.

He flies off, shaking his fist at them about him coming back. Sonic congratulates everyone and says that they’re all “All-Stars” (get yet game on!) and then they go YEAH like the end of a cheesy sports movie or something.

Then it gets pointed out that all of them crossed the finish line but no one knows who crossed it first. This is definitely because they were all too preoccupied with making sure Eggman didn’t cross it first which, I must reiterate, isn’t the point of the game. It’s kind of funny how this ended up being the result because of their focus not being on individually winning.

So, Sonic just hops back into the car and says he knows another cool racing spot… and we end on them racing through fucking space!

Yeah. I know a new racing spot. It’s in SPACE. Let’s just go to space. It’s just something we can all do, including Danica Patrick. She can ride her Nascar into space.

Eggman’s back too. I like to imagine he heard they were going to race at his amusement park and was unamused by that idea so he decided to join them out of spite. Otherwise, he just came back to join the race again like the last one didn’t even happen.

Yeah, you know… it’s a thing that exists. It has a very obvious reason to exist. The game it’s advertising came out about a decade ago at this point. It’s nice to have this be a cute little time capsule reminder of what things were like back in the day of course. That’s mostly what these tie-in issues are destined to just be if you don’t try your very best to get SOMETHING fun out of them sadly. 

That’s why you should always go for broke. Do something as fun and as weird as you can possibly get away with. The novelty of what this issue exists to do has long since expired but it could have still been enjoyed more as its own thing if a better attempt to make it stand out was taken. There’s a reason I still go back and re-watch TSR Overdrive so often. Animation is more fun to look at and it’s a lot longer than something like this, sure, but I feel like it would have garnered a similar feeling had it just been wild and crazy nonsense from start to finish rather than your typical story of heroes taking down a villain and fist-pumping to friendship. We have more than enough of those. 

 

Archie Sonic the Hedgehog - Issue #242: Olympic Trials

Okay, so I lied a bit. This entire issue actually isn’t pointless if only because they stuck a side story at the back of it that cuts back to the main plot. That ironically ends up making this issue a mandatory get if you want the full story. Still, it exists to advertise the Olympics so the cover depicts that first and foremost. Although, it's funny how only the USA is represented here. Also, my mind tends to view these as Sonic games so when I see the cover just depicting Sonic characters at the Olympics I tend to not find it strange, only to remember that Mario is a part of the games they make for these too. 

This book isn't necessarily an ad for London 2012, the game that was to come out at the time. There are no specific references to London or anything like that. It supposedly just exists to promote the Olympics in general since SEGA has a license with them. I suppose nowadays, if that doesn't do it for you, one could just imagine it serves as an ad for Sonic at the Olympic Games, the mobile game with shockingly awesome remixes in it instead.

Spoiler

Writer: Ian Flynn
Pencils: Jamal Peppers
Inks: Terry Austin
Colors: Matt Herms
Letters: John Workman
Cover by: Tracy Yardley and Matt Herms
Assistant Editor: Vincent Lovallo
Editor: Paul Kaminski
Editor-In-Chief: Victor Gorelick

The issue begins with Sonic arriving late, again, because he’s always late to everything I guess. Tails was busy setting up banners with their faces on them when Sonic arrives, happy that he didn’t miss the Olympics.

Then, for some reason, Sonic spots the USA logo with the multi-colored rings and, for another some reason, spaces the fuck out and holds his hand out to them like he just got mesmerized by the holy grail…

It’s weirder than weird. 

Tails has to tell Sonic to stop freaking him the fuck out and Sonic says he was just daydreaming about all the rings he was going to win. Tails has to remind him that you win medals at the Olympics.

We cut to Eggman in a referee outfit with Orbot and Cubot… also in referee outfits. They’re being about as inconspicuous as you’d imagine they’d be in an issue like this. However, because this is a chance to revel in being silly we get this glorious image of our local Team Rocket in their latest disguise.

You wish you could look this brilliant.

Anyway, they talk about how they’ve set traps for Sonic and all his friends and we’re treated to a montage of all of those traps activating. Eggman wants to check up on the Chaotix first and Cubot tells the tale, using very cryptic wording that’s usually unbecoming of his character.

So yeah, that scene ends with an adult lunging to go and beat the shit out of a toddler and then the three of them getting trapped in a cocoon that literally would suffocate them in a small matter of minutes. It’s very dark and strange. I don’t like it.

The reason I say the way Cubot is describing this is weird is because of the structure of the joke that happens at the end of the next two pages. Orbot takes over explaining what the traps for Knuckles, Silver, and Big are and he says it in just as cryptic a way as Cubot did earlier. Only, at the end of the second page, Cubot says he didn’t understand what Orbot was talking about. The joke being that Orbot didn’t really explain any of what was happening. We’re just shown it visually.

For example, there’s a trap set for Knuckles with the Hammer Throw that has a rope from off-screen wrap around his arms as he tosses it which carries him with the momentum of his throw and causes his chin to bash against it. Silver sticks out his hand in a hilariously dramatic fashion before the hammer through next to him that he’s picking up at the same time just fucking explodes. Then Big is knocked out with sleeping gas.

Maybe the joke here is actually that Cubot doesn’t understand what Orbot was going for with his lines because they make shockingly little sense. Like, I guess I get “the bigger they are, the harder they fall” since Big fell asleep but there’s a lot of leaps you’d need to take to understand that’s what he’s getting at. And I really don’t get what not letting power go to your head has to do with the fact that you shoved a bomb into the Olympic hammer. 

The only way that one makes sense is if he knew Silver would use his powers to lift it and make it float by his head at the exact moment it exploded which is impossible for him to know. I’m thinking too hard about this dumb joke. Moving on.

Eggman says their efforts are good but his are better. We’re shown a scene of Amy, Blaze, and Rouge running the hurdles and then they open up and the three of them run right into three portals that generate from them. 

He literally says “momentum based physics can be a bad thing after all”. That’s going to anger some of the fanbase that likes screaming about momentum and physics at one another. Eggman truly is the best troll.

Cream and, for some reason, Marine are watching this happen and decide to take action. I always found Marine’s presence here odd since she’s not really in any of the Olympic Games aside from as a costume for your mii. Granted, Marine isn’t in any of the games aside from a soft mention, a sticker, or a costume that acknowledges that she did in fact, at one point, exist so… I guess give her the spotlight when you can.

That said, I’m a bit bummed that Omega, who IS in a couple of the Olympics, isn’t here. 

As Cream and Marine go flying off to warn Sonic and the others, we cut to a scene of Tails doing the long jump and Sonic being a dick to Shadow for no reason.

It’s not even that well written as banter between the two of them. He just teases him until he gets annoyed and then insults him for no reason at the end. 

Of course, Marine and Cream arrive too late to deliver their warning and Tails gets ambushed by a trap. He gets zapped into the creature in a sequence that’s a tad confusing if only because it doesn’t actually show Tails being zapped by it. Not the way it’s drawn.

It looks like he’s running from it but it certainly doesn’t look like he’s in the light to me. When Shadow gets zapped into it, he’s awash with that blue light. Also, yeah, Sonic and Shadow fight these things and Shadow gets zapped away because I guess he was too slow.

Oh and also, Cream and Marine were captured by Orbot and Cubot. Marine is struggling to break free of Cubot’s clutches but she’s too weak. Cream isn’t even trying to break free of Orbot and also Cheese is just gone. I don’t see him anywhere. 

Since Metal Sonic shows up soon I guess it would have been inevitable that he’d be captured too but to not show Cheese when fucking Orbot and Cubot are the biggest threats around feels a bit weird. 

This is the part where Eggman reveals it was him in disguise all along. Sonic’s reaction is this.

I’m not entirely sure why Sonic says this as though Eggman being here and in disguise was obvious to him. Perhaps he means it was obvious after they were attacked by the giant robots or something. That’s a more charitable read since, if he knew Eggman was here at any other point before this, it’s odd that he didn’t warn the others like Marine and Cream were trying to do. 

Or perhaps it’s just a poorly executed joke. 

Sonic isn’t worried when Eggman gloats that he’s captured his friends. He challenges Eggman to a one on one and Eggman accepts before delivering the only funny line in the book so far and summoning Metal Sonic.

It’s really great how he can’t even really summon the energy to make up a good enough excuse that he just says “or something” out loud. They both knew he was going to sick Metal Sonic at him.

We then get a two-page spread of the two of them doing several Olympic events. They end up doing ALL of them but we’re, of course, only shown some to advertise the games as well as they can within the page space they’re given.

Yes, Metal Sonic. Twirl that ribbon in the name of defeating Sonic.

Or just punch him in the fucking face.

Hells yeah.

After this, we’re treated to one of the lamest power-ups that’s probably ever been put to page. It’s incredibly hooky and stupid and everyone knows it. Even Ian Flynn, as he wrote this, most definitely knew it was lame.

It’s not just the power of friendship but like four other things too because there are five rings. It imbues him with the ability to go Ultra Instinct; just looking at some colored rings on a banner.

Ah yes, hope and unity and peace…

… Hey, remember when they held the Olympics in Rio?

Anyway, Sonic wins.

For some reason, Metal Sonic starts running like he’s from an old Hanna-Barbera cartoon and then falls flat on his face for no reason. I don’t know why. Maybe he tripped over the smoke Sonic left in his wake.

Then this story ends.

I don’t know why Eggman decided to put the capsule with all of Sonic’s friends in it at the end of the track. Even if Metal Sonic had beaten him to it was he expecting Sonic to just… not hit the button on top anyway? Or was the idea that Metal Sonic would get to it first and make it blow up or something? If not then why didn’t Eggman just keep it hidden and toss it into a volcano later or… 

… I need to stop. This is just a silly Olympic Games issue. Logic leaves us.

I remember liking this one more than the Transformed comic back in the day, although, when coming up to these issues again I felt as though it would be possible for my opinion to shift since the reasons I likely preferred this one over that other one were a lot more rooted in my desire to just SEE the main game characters together again. 

As far as the main series comic, that’s not been something that’s happened in a bit. It’s mostly been Team Fighters and Team Freedom. Sonic Universe has a bit more variety but around this time there wasn’t TOO much of it. Secret Freedom is an arc centered mostly around comic exclusives and the arc before that was Scrambled, which was great, but it’s not like we were starved for Eggman content. 

Having gotten over that itch to just only see game characters now that I’m far older and breezing through these far quicker without the month long wait… I still think this one is slightly better than the Transformed one. 

It IS still nice to see so many of the Sonic cast represented here even if they’re all just here to look pretty and be damsels for Sonic to save in the end. Plus, that two page spread of Sonic and Metal Sonic doing all the Olympic stuff is cute. The Transformed one just kept making me constantly fret over the fact that they were all zeroing in on ONE racer the whole time. It really does kill the interest I could have had reading an issue focused on racing. 

The point of wacky races like that is to witness the huge clusterfuck and marvel at how Dracula pronounces Sha-Gee in anger.

All that said, there is something of heavy significance that I’d like to bring up. When I say this story was a waste of time, I mean from a narrative perspective. From a monetary perspective, it was a success.

At around this time, the Archie V. Penders lawsuit was in full swing. Specific changes had already been made and there was obviously some discussion happening about whether or not the SatAM cast and elements of the book were going to be needed moving forward. 

A while later when this discussion was happening the tidbit was dropped that Ian on the Bumbleking forums stated, quote “The Olympic tie-in sold at least four times what a regular issue did. That’s tens of thousands of new readers. That’s significantly worthwhile.”

Now, what this means to me kind of feels obvious in hindsight. Archie’s handling of the Sonic license was not great at the time and it would only continue to get worse as time moved on. However, the other factor to consider here is that this kind of goes towards the idea that making a comic that’s more in-line with the games continuity and has the focus on the games characters, even if it’s a shitty Olympic tie-in, is definitely the right move from a marketing standpoint.

All the convoluted stuff that Archie was still wading through at the time that confused me so much as I was reading it back in the day without the context of the earlier issues was alienating a lot of people. This issue isn’t the only thing out there that serves as proof of this but it sure does shine a huge spotlight on it.

I don’t necessarily know if that means the SatAM cast were contributing to that problem. I feel that’s a bit doubtful seeing as how they easily could be reworked into something that fits with the main games continuity without necessarily alienating people who just wanted to focus on the game’s cast. The way the reboot did it was not the way I would have gone about it either, personally. That’s a whole other kettle of fish for another time though.

 

Archie Sonic the Hedgehog - Issue #242: Unfriendly Skies

Writer: Ian Flynn
Pencils: Jamal Peppers
Inks: Terry Austin
Colors: Matt Herms
Letters: John Workman

Here’s the part where they inject a tiny sliver of the main comic back into the swing of things. This is a numbered issue of the book after all… for some reason.

Uh… I will say that, as far as being a completionist, this issue is mandatory but I guess for the sake of being kind to those who don’t give a fuck about the Olympics issue in the set, there’s actually not much here to talk about. There’s shockingly little to make mention of actually… story wise at least.

As far as its relation to the stuff happening in the real world, there were a lot of big red flags that people noticed.

The first three pages of this five page side-story is just MORE dog fighting in the air with Team Fighters.

It’s just MORE of it.

It’s well drawn. It’s exciting looking. It’s a nice battle scene and I love that Amy’s having fun but… it’s just more fighting in the sky against Eggman’s drones. By this point, we really were just stuck spinning in place. It’s no wonder I got so bored and annoyed with the comic before this upcoming arc shot my excitement and interest levels through the fucking roof because of how just… scorched EARTH the developments that happen next were.

I don’t recall experiencing anything quite like what happens in the next and final arc of the Pre-reboot before or since. It’s truly a majestic work of… something. It’s definitely something.

I don’t know how early the issues with Penders started affecting the book so it’s hard to say if the reason we were stagnating so hard (with the heroes constantly chasing the Death Egg everywhere, fighting Mecha Sally, saying they were going to save her, failing as Mecha Sally got away, rinse and repeat) is in part because of him or because the arc’s pacing was a bit too slow.

If it was the latter point then that’s highly unfortunate. 

A part of me initially had to imagine that the writing was on the wall for Penders’ characters before this point but if that’s the case then having Naugus take over Geoffrey’s body when he did would have been a VERY strange move to make since it would condemn him to a huge cliffhanger that they knew wasn’t going to be resolved.

However, the point where they had to change things might have actually been THIS issue instead. Which means, by sheer happenstance, the arc we were SUPPOSED to get actually was supposed to deal with Knuckles and Albion and the time that they HAD to get rid of the echidnas just coincidentally coincided with it. That really sucks if that’s true.

There are massive hints that this is where the real big changes were being drip fed in since, all of a sudden, the way the characters and the comic refers to these elements is a lot more wishy-washy then normal.

For example, people noticed that in this story Sonic doesn’t mention Albion by name like he did back in #241. As they approach it here, he instead refers to it as “the homeland of the echidnas”. 

During the last two pages we are shown Knuckles setting up a connection with Nicole in the old place on his island where the Brotherhood used to use monitors to spy on people. “Haven” isn’t mentioned by name here either. It’s called “hidden base of operations on Angel Island”. As an aside, I love that Nicole points out that using these monitors is something Knuckles didn’t like about his ancestors but Knuckles trusts Nicole and likely isn’t planning on using this to spy on people’s private lives.

He then gets a very distorted call from Remington in Albion, calling for help as the Death Egg has reached them and they’re under attack.

However, the weirdness continues.

Remington’s name is cut off during the S.O.S. Enough is left there so that you know who Knuckles is talking about but that’s all. Also, again, the part where he would say “Albion” is conveniently cut off too.

The strangest thing though is that Knuckles says he’ll “rally the girls”, specifically not mentioning Julie-Su or Saffron by name either. 

Seeing how using these names and these characters were fine last issue it stands to reason that Issue #241 truly WAS a victim of really bad timing. Most likely, the issue itself was already done and sent out before the call to be all hush-hush about the Penders stuff was given. That’s why Sonic says Albion by name in #241 and why the plot-point of Naugus possessing Geoffrey’s body was allowed to happen RIGHT at the moment where it would have been impossible to follow-up on it.

Again, that sucks major ass if it’s true. I may be wrong about the timing of things here though so I’ll let you guys inform me about that if not.

“Endangered Species” is next for the main book.

Now that’s a story arc that’ll go down in Sonic comic history.

At this point in the Archie Comics where time is absolutely of the essence it’s nice to get something like this where our limited time was thoroughly wasted for very little good reason that I can see. I reiterate that I don’t think the Olympic Games needed a book advertising it. Those practically sells themselves and the Olympics on TV have nothing to worry about (unlike the Oscars. Fuck the Oscars). It’s like, the only side series of games for Sonic that feel like they’re still going… which is really sad to think about. I don’t hate the Olympic Games but they’re not games I get excited over. A new Riders, a new All-Stars Racing game, a second Sonic the Fighters, or another game starring one of Sonic’s friends would be nice. We’re not in a position where they feel comfortable, AT ALL, trying a lot of those though. 

These issues would be negligible at best on their own but having them take up space in the line up of stories coming out is kind of annoying. They really learned too late that this is the kind of thing a specially sold issue is for. And if your game isn’t good enough or important enough to invest time in a special issue advertising it then just don’t do it. Also, make better games. Transformed is a great game though so it deserves one. 

We’re SO close to the end of the Pre-reboot. It feels like Doomsday is coming.

[Sonictrainer]

I never really understood how adding another body & soul to the equation was supposed to help Naugus cure himself.

I guess it's some kind of magic logic thing I don't know about.