Megathread Archie Sonic Main Discussion

[Dr. Detective]

50 minutes ago, CrownSlayer’s Shadow said:

Really kinda sucks how the Egg Bosses don't really get much of a showdown with the heroes.

I blame World's Unite for this--we probably could have had more intense pages had the pacing not been interrupted.

I don't know how much of this I can reasonably blame on World's Unite. I think the amount of stuff Ian is trying to juggle at once is insane, personally. Right now, my main issue is just us treading water until the climax. 

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

2 hours ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

I don't know how much of this I can reasonably blame on World's Unite. I think the amount of stuff Ian is trying to juggle at once is insane, personally. Right now, my main issue is just us treading water until the climax. 

I see it like this.

The four issues used in World’s Unite could have been a regular arc in the main series that was planned out, and that one change would lead to a larger chain reaction of changes to where, at best, these issues wouldn’t come off as rushed and bland.

At worst, we’d still have a smoother pacing than this. The part where Sally tries to coordinate with various other groups allied to her cause could have been set during the four-parter that made up Worlds Unite, but these parts can stay mostly the same which would then make these issues feel less like they’re trying to speed to the ending and more like a worldwide mission for all parties involved until the Kukkus attack.

It might even allow more room for the characters to shine and get some action by allowing each issue after Eggman’s Dozen to focus on a single Egg Boss before moving onto the next.

The reason I give Worlds Unite so much flack is because Ian likely had many ways he could have and would have done it up until WU was announced, which added up to the number of things he was juggling and the forced him to work something else out given how long the Shattered World Crisis was going. I’m not saying things would be perfect, but for all that Ian was handling, I know at the very least it would’ve been better had WU not gotten in the way. It’s was as if he was juggling glass vases decently enough to be interesting only for someone to throw pepper in his nose and make him sneeze, making him miss a few vases that shattered on the ground and now he has to juggle the ones he has remaining—that one sneeze still has a drastic effect.

[Dr. Detective]

7 hours ago, CrownSlayer’s Shadow said:

I see it like this.

The four issues used in World’s Unite could have been a regular arc in the main series that was planned out, and that one change would lead to a larger chain reaction of changes to where, at best, these issues wouldn’t come off as rushed and bland.

At worst, we’d still have a smoother pacing than this. The part where Sally tries to coordinate with various other groups allied to her cause could have been set during the four-parter that made up Worlds Unite, but these parts can stay mostly the same which would then make these issues feel less like they’re trying to speed to the ending and more like a worldwide mission for all parties involved until the Kukkus attack.

It would have only been three issues since Unite was spread across four series but I won't deny a substantial amount could have been done to at least spread this out a tad better even if we had gotten just that. I'm still not seeing too much those three issues could have done to fix what my personal issues with where we're at and what we're doing are though.

[Dr. Detective]

Sonic Universe - Issue #87: Shattered - Part 1 of 4: Closing In

Really nice looking cover. Art and colors are good. Get’s the point across well. I like it. I will say, however, that I’m not entirely looking forward to revisiting this arc. Not that I hated it really but I didn’t exactly like it either. I remember the central conflict being a big whatever to me and the story beats felt rather plodding. It almost felt like this was only happening because the part of the narrative where Knuckles restores the Master Emerald needed to be a whole story arc of some kind. 

Spoiler

&Knuckles Variant

This is depicting something amusing enough. I’m back to not really digging the Rafa Knight style for this one though. I guess Knuckles looks the best here but the other two look off to me. It’s probably just me though.

—

Writer: Ian Flynn
Pencils: Adam Bryce Thomas
Inks: Jim Amash
Colors: Matt Herms
Letters: Jack Morelli
Cover by Tracy Yardley & Herms
& Knuckles Variant by Rafa Knight

Knuckles is climbing down the sides of a volcano and claiming he’s going to save the “little guy” down there. One of the things we see is a shard of the Master Emerald. The other is a bird on its stomach with a stone on its wing.

Oh dear! I wonder what he could be talking ab–yeah, he saves the bird. I’m writing down “he saves the bird” before I’ve even turned the page.

He saves them both actually. Apparently the bird found it or something. They ride the updraft out of the volcano where Amy is waiting. She hugs the birdie cause that’s what she does. She also asks if that tiny shard was really the only one there and Knuckles has to reiterate to her that he knows what’s at stake if they don’t find the cluster of shards they came to this island to find.

Angel Island is gonna fall into the Earth’s mantle or into somewhere populated. That’s bad.

We’re off to Castle Acorn now, for some reason.

I mean, I guess Amy’s got a point but fuck man. I wish she didn’t because I’m kind of on Knuckles’ side anyway. 

I know the king is nicer now but I still kind of want to say fuck his royal authority regardless. 

When they get inside, Knuckles has a “Not THESE guys again” moment when he sees Team Dark there, standing beside the king who still looks awful.

They’re all happy to see each other.

There is indeed some tension in the air, of course. Knuckles doesn’t like any of these people.

Team Dark came here first to ask permission to walk around. Apparently Omega’s long range sensors indicate that there’s a bio-form signature of considerable power nearby that’s likely to belong to Eclipse. The likelihood of it being him is touted as 85%.

Spoiler alert, it’s the other 15%.

They decide to go and work together. Omega doesn’t want to share in the slaughter with them but when he’s told by Shadow that they just want the shards, he agrees.

So, everything’s all good.

Except, not really cause the king’s gotta be the king and shit.

The way the original plot for King Acorn has been reformed and reshuffled works really well though, admittedly.

Now that G.U.N is an existing force from the get go and not something that had to be grandfathered in, there's an avenue to look at where this man could have been in a position to trust the likes of Eggman and Snively and have it make sense. With the two of them having been said to have been connected with G.U.N in the early days it makes more sense that he’d give him such a heavy amount of trust during times of desperation.

I do also like the idea of the current Commander just being the kind of guy who cleaned up a lot of their shit considering what the old G.U.N did to him. It’s something that I always headcannoned myself and I’d really appreciate the games attempting to do a bit more clarification on this should he return. IF he returns. He probably won’t.

Chronicles doesn’t count. In more ways than one.

The next scene is a really good Rouge scene. It probably would have been better if Knuckles wasn’t such a spoilsport but alas–!

He tells Rouge to hand over the emerald shards she has since she knows he can sense them. And she just does while revealing she was intending to later.

Shadow says they may as well ride with them in the G.U.N shuttle since they’re all headed to the same place. Here, Amy actually teases Shadow a little bit and it kind of works. Especially when she tells him that Sonic’s off having adventures and shit. Shadow kind of huffs when he lays out all the stuff Sonic seems to be doing and Amy asks if he’s jealous.

She then asks about the rest of G.U.N and Shadow informs her that they’re helping people displaced by the crisis and finding shelter and food for those who need it. Meanwhile, the G.U.N Hunters seem to be dealing with the possessions that happen at night.

The one thought that crossed my mind was how this book is treating what’s happening here as a definite crisis. In Unleashed proper it definitely was still bad what was happening, especially during the end game, but the people never really acted like it. Most likely because it would disrupt the “World Adventure” aspect of experiencing these locations, their people, and their culture if all anyone ever did was talk about how big a crisis this was and how scared and sad they were by all the realistic repercussions something like this would have.

Neither way of going about it is really all that wrong in my opinion. 

Anyway, they reach a weird looking area and find a bunch of gems down there. All of them are green. Knuckles is surprised to see this. They come across large rocks that look like the Master Emerald but aren’t, which does more than a little to excite Rouge.

God, she’s just the best character though.

Certainly the best female character at the very least.

So they decide to split up. Rouge goes with Amy. Omega goes off on his own. Shadow and Knuckles are left to themselves. There’s a tiny amount of push back from Shadow but not enough for it to matter.

They leave.

Immediately Amy and Rouge cross some trouble. The gems around them start to erupt into spires of weird green… something. Energy? Bigger gems? I dunno.

Omega is weighing his options. It’s either cause a cave in and kill the target and his friends or… don’t do that and find some other way to murder his target.

Before he can, he spots someone and is accused of being an Eggman robot. With the Eggman button pressed, Omega gets really defensive and says he’s not affiliated with that asshole right before he gets frozen today.

We saw a certain troll spying on them from the shadows earlier and we already know who uses crystal magic.

Plus, we literally saw him here at the end of Eggman’s Dozen. There’s no point in hiding him but we need to for dramatic effect.

Then we cut back to Shadow and Knuckles who are arguing again. Knuckles doesn’t want Rouge to lecture them again so he tries to put a stop to it, rather sneakily at a point where he would have gotten the last word, but Shadow just keeps going. Or tries to.

They’re interrupted by Wally.

This is Wally. He’s obviously Wally.

There’s no reason to speculate.

This is Wally.

This cliffhanger was really weak to me back in the day. Now it’s just a thing the first issue ends on cause I already know where it’s going.

As starts to an arc go, it’s pretty good. It gets the point across rather fast and we’re in the thick of it immediately. It doesn’t need to really blow you away at the beginning so it’s cool. I will say, the premise behind this one still remains a bit too uninteresting to me for it to fully stand on its own. There are a few Sonic Universe arcs where the first issue just laying things out would work well enough and it’d be able to get away with that just because the story idea on its own was intriguing. This one doesn’t quite have that for me. Maybe if they start doing more with the fact that they’re on a time crunch. I can’t remember if they did. We’ll see.

--

Sonic Universe - Issue #88: Shattered - Part 2 of 4: Lies & Half-Truths

Could it BE…? Who?! WHO THE FUCKLES COULD IT POSSIBLY BE? KNUCKLES?!

Nice use of shadows and light on this cover though. Really well done. I really feel like these Universe covers would benefit from that bar on the side that shows space being back on the top again though. I really do.

Spoiler

&Knuckles Variant

Adorable. The colors on this one are really popping here. Perhaps a little too much in some places but it still looks really cute. I love Knuckles’ famous chuckle being depicted there. The famous chuckle that his rap song denies exists.

—

Writer: Ian Flynn
Pencils: Adam Bryce Thomas
Inks: Jim Amash
Colors: Matt Herms
Letters: Jack Morelli
Cover by Tracy Yardley & Matt Herms
& Knuckles Variant by Diana Skelly, Rick Bryant, & Elaina Unger
We’re in the Hidden Palace Zone on Westside Island still. Rouge and Amy are trapped inside some glowing green rocks. I don’t know if their emeralds or just glowing green rocks but they’re doing a good job of keeping the ladies in place.

Amy starts using her hammer to smash her way free while Rouge desperately doesn’t want her ankles smashed off.

Meanwhile, Knuckles and Wally circle each other. He makes up some bullshit story about how he was an echidna who somehow got lost from Angel Island and came here to gather the Master Emerald shards in hopes of them, somehow, being able to lead him back.

Knuckles asks Shadow for his opinion and when Shadow gives said opinion, Knuckles gets defensive. 

Yikes.

I mean, to be completely fair, there might still be an avenue of hope for Eclipse. Though, considering they’re probably still on a mission to kill him… ah man.

As for Knuckles, I get it. It seems as though he’s ready and willing to accept this a bit too quickly and I do wish we had a more bombastic and outwardly stunned showcase of Knuckles being shocked to see another one of his kind. It might make this disguise and Wally’s use of it feel more worth it.

As is, Knuckles’ reaction is a bit small and it’s going to be passed by rather quickly.

Shadow tries to contact the girls to update them on their situation but they’re in trouble themselves. Amy smashes her way out of the emerald shards on a bit of a time crunch because Rouge hears the tromping feet of something trying to kill them.

Rouge manages to inform Shadow that they’re under attack by something that looks like Omega and not Eclipse. They’re all about to run off together when Wally stops them with the apparently good excuse that it’s more important to restore the Master Emerald first and tuck it away safely before all of them come to the rescue.

Shadow agrees and leaves them. At this point, Wally then takes this chance as an excuse to give Knuckles a history lesson on trolls.

Odd how what this purple boy is saying about them isn’t totally matching up to what’s being depicted in these images.

STRANGE ISN’T IT?!

What’s so funny is that the phrase “prosperity and order to the world” would normally sound like something a good natured person would say but it’s only ever said by villains. Or politicians. 

Anyway, he continues and it’s here where we get him talking about Ixis… which is, yes, still a thing in this new continuity but decidedly different.

The design of this thing is very Time Eater-esque too… 

If my hunch that there’s a connection is true then the inspiration he got from the barren soil that was Sonic Generations’ plot is quite fascinating to me. You really can do pretty much anything with a good, talented writer under your belt.

Then again, it could just be a generic smoke monster looking thing. However, seeing as how the Time Eater and the Second Devourer are exactly that, can you blame me for the confusion?

Also funny how Knuckles tells him to go easy on praising this Ixis stuff. The guy isn’t making it sound like a bad thing. Knuckles can probably just tell though.

It should be more clear that this guy is playing you though.

I mean, he’s wearing pants.

That’s honestly the biggest clue right there.

But no, it’s too late. They reach a weird pipe organ and after playing some notes on it, they go to a lower chamber where Knuckles can finally reassemble the Master Emerald.

Knuckles asks Wally to give him the shards so he can restore it but then Wally does the inconceivably stupid thing of revealing himself and trapping Knuckles in crystal before the emerald can be restored.

He said he’d take it from here before he did this but can he restore it himself?

If he can, okay I guess. This is probably the part where he should just take the shards and immediately leave. I can’t help but wonder what’s going to prevent him from doing that seeing as how literally everyone else is fighting Crystal Pepsi Omega here.

Omega is attacking Rouge and Amy. Shadow shows up to help. Amy asks why Shadow came alone and Shadow explains that Knuckles stayed behind with another of his lost kind named Wally. I mean Nixus. 

Amy immediately puts it together that Nixus is Wally without having seen him.

Shadow rams a Chaos Spear into Omega to stun him while they run off. Amy figured this out in part due to seeing the crystallization of Omega, to be fair, but still. 

I guess we know the part about how the others can catch up but Wally should be long gone by n-oh wait, no. He’s still here.

Why? Well, he needs to gloat to Knuckles about his awesome plan to transform into an extinct species to trick him of course.

Then it turns out he actually does want to restore the Master Emerald and he tries to do it himself but he fucking can’t because he’s a dumbass and he sucks and he’s extremely fucking lame.

He’s laughing.

You have a prisoner encased in crystal and he’s laughing.

Then Wally gets an epic pouty face and, rather more elegantly than I did, admits to having fucked up. He uses the words “over-eager” and I’m just… man, whatever.

And then Knuckles bursts out of the crystal and attacks him!

Like, just does it!

“Ah yes, I know! I fucked up not letting you restore the emerald so that I could trap you, snatch it, and bolt out of here like I was Naruto running to Area 66 but I can make you TELL me how to do it. Knuckles the Echidna is nothing but notorious for being a massive coward who’d just tell me how to fuck with his emer–PISS! HE’S COMING RIGHT FOR ME!”

This was a BAD PLAN!

Wally rides his crystal away from Knuckles but the guy keeps clawing after him because he’s understandably pissed. Eventually, Wally’s insistence that he’s abandoning Amy and the others gets to him enough that he’s able to boot Knuckles out of the chamber and covers it up with mounds of crystal.

He then starts panicking like a child as he tries to clang the Master Emerald shards together to restore it because he sucks and this plan was awful.

Knuckles is worried though. He can’t break the wall down. Luckily, Amy and two-thirds of Team Dark arrive and calm him down slightly.

He asks for Omega’s help since he’s the only one strong enough to blow this crystal away. Thankfully, he’s always punctual, that loveable lug.

Everyone here is running out of time.

It would feel more urgent if the conflict here wasn’t being propped up by a massive goober though.

Yeah, it really wasn’t my imagination. Walter Naugus sucks. I have no idea why he was brought back to be so ineffectual and lame but here he is. He’s a long way off from being the guy who used his powers to trick a kingdom of idiots into handing him the keys to the nation. Now he’s just a less-fun, one-man Team Rocket. It’s embarrassing. If Omega weren’t here ready to kill a bitch, there’d be nothing to really worry that much about, sadly.

--

Sonic Universe - Issue #89: Shattered - Part 3 of 4: Lost & Found

This is another really cool looking cover. Here our heroes are seen facing off against the actual biggest threat of the arc, Crystal Pepsi Omega. I rather enjoyed Crystal Pepsi when it came back for that re-release. It was very good. Anyway, let’s see how this one resolves. Honestly, it already feels like the main conflict is close to being solved. I don’t know if this needs to be four issues but it’s going to be so strap in.

Spoiler

Shit Awful Unfunny Meme Variant

This is the shit awful unfunny meme variant inspired by the garbage person who did that one unfunny meme thing that sucks. It’s a great image, ruined by Espio calling his friend and co-worker “the bee” for the sake of memes.

—

Writer: Ian Flynn
Pencils: Adam Bryce Thomas
Inks: Jim Amash
Colors: Matt Herms
Letters: Jack Morelli
Cover by Tracy Yardley & Matt Herms
& Knuckles Variant by Ryan Jampole

We’re back to our regularly scheduled program.

Omega is trying to kill everyone and it looks awesome.

We get a few panels of them scrapping with one another, sort of, while Amy and Knuckles get into a pointless argument about who was coming to save who and do what.

There was a bit of a confusing moment where Knuckles and Amy decided they needed to stop Omega before breaking down Wally’s crystal wall. Then Shadow hits Omega with a Chaos Spear and Amy looks all sheepish and goes “Or that!” like she’s embarrassed.

I didn’t get why she reacted like this or even said that at first but after reading ahead, I realized doing that stalled Omega all over again. Which means Amy was agreeing that they needed to stop Omega and when Shadow hit him with the Chaos Spear and he stopped she said “Or that”.

Got it. It’s really confusing the way it’s drawn and paneled out though.

After taking time to confirm whether or not Omega is indeed Omega, Amy gets a call from Princess Sally. Apparently it’s urgent. Shadow volunteers to go eliminate Naugus but Omega breaks free and back hands the motherfucker like it ain’t no thang.

Omega proceeds to beat the ever loving shit out of everyone while Amy’s on the phone.

After Amy hammers Shadow into Omega to knock him back, she explains the situation. Over in the A-Plot that we’re not covering this week, Eggman has attacked Sally and the others and the time table for the planet’s restoration has been bumped up. 

Finally, the element I’ve been waiting for to give this arc a boost in pazzazz is here. The ticking clock element that I’ve wanted is finally within range. 

Naugus isn’t a threat but if he’s actually able to do what he’s planning on doing down there or if getting to him takes too long then Angel Island is at risk of crashing to either its doom or crushing some innocent civilians in a city somewhere.

One of these days, I’d actually like to see that island crash into a city once. 

Naugus realizes he’s cutting things close and makes another excuse for himself as to why he didn’t wait for Knuckles to restore the Master Emerald himself. He says he doesn’t know what power he would have wielded and that it was too risky. 

Man, I dunno. He trusted you because you were disguised as an echidna. You could have just not revealed yourself, waited for him to restore it, and while his back was turned shot the crystalization at him, nabbed it, and fucking ran away. I don’t… really see why he couldn’t have.

Then Naugus starts to talk about how he absolutely can’t fail again and starts to run down all the notorious failures he’s had up to this point. 

This is a very bad time to run down all the times this dude has fucking failed. The post-reboot hasn’t been going on for that long and yet his failure rapsheet is a mile high.

Not helping is that when I initially read this sequence all those years ago I was so intensely confused that I had to ask people on the boards if the Genesis Wave Naugus was referring to in the Eggman flashback he has here was at all connected to the pre-reboot.

Reading it is still slightly confusing to me.

I’m aware that everything pre-reboot is gone. Capoot. It should be easy but when he says “Eggman activated the Genesis Wave” and follows that up with him saying he was trapped within pocket dimensions and that he knew Sonic restored the world and that he’s aware that he was changed… it REALLY feels like he’s talking about events from the pre-reboot.

I know the Mega Man crossover doesn’t count but him recalling Eggman activating the Genesis Wave and recognizing that he was something else and was changed felt like pre-reboot stuff. People assured me this was all just Naugus’ new backstory for the post-reboot but laid out this way it’s really confusing. My brain almost exploded back in the day reading this part.

Naugus explains himself more and goes into how he ended up at Acorn Castle at the very start of the reboot. It’s here where the Pre-Reboot and Post-Reboot parts intersect a bit. Naugus here is recalling memories from his Post-Reboot self’s past and as he does, he talks about how something that happened in the Pre-Reboot’s then present circumstances drove him out of there, screaming like a child.

At least we have the full context for what was going on at the start of that story now some dozens of issues later.

We also learn why it is that he hates technology so much. Wendy explaining that it wasn’t the fault of the technology itself didn’t hit home, unfortunately. 

He’s unable to view what happened to him as dumb luck and the failings of his own misguided attempts at being a reputable antagonist.

At least he manages to get something right.

Hurray. He restored the Master Emerald for Knuckles. What a swell guy.

The best part is his little troll face when he does it.

It kills me that he’s SURPRISED he was able to do it. The fuck were you going to do if it didn’t work??? WHY ARE YOU SO BAD AT THIS NOW????

Knuckles doubles over like he got punched in the gut, realizing that the Master Emerald has been restored. Amy tries to talk him up again to give him hope. The amusing line of “plugging” the Master Emerald back into the island now that it’s restored gets Knuckles to get back to it.

Omega is still whipping everyone’s asses though. Rouge compliments Eggman for building him to be so fucking powerful. It tickles me that Eggman might have made a robot that could actually defeat Sonic and it won’t listen to him. That’s fucking beautiful.

Shadow can’t use his Chaos Spears anymore because Omega is adapting to them so that they have less and less effect and now he just absorbs them and gives himself more power. He can’t use Chaos Blast with his inhibitor rings off because that would risk a cave in.

Knuckles clashes with Omega again and realizes there’s a crack in the Crystal Pepsi coating. He shouts that if they land enough hits on it they’ll be able to break it.

He also says they only get one shot at this which… isn’t true. They’re running out of time, sure, but that doesn’t me–whatever.

They do the thing. They land several hits on the same spot on Omega’s body and burst him free.

Jesus Christ I love this robot.

Omega gives what he calls a “dubious apology” and says he’ll now spend his excess energy on blowing Naugus the fuck away.

Knuckles leads him to the crystal wall and says it’s too thick to break through and Omega blows it the fuck apart with a single blast.

They rush inside to see Wally sitting on the Master Emerald and using his superior might, just flashes his power to crystalize them all.

Alright! Now is the part where he grabs the emerald and runs. 

Right?

…Yeah. Of course he does. The story is over.

I was sitting here wondering what this third issue was going to be. I figured most of it was going to be the fight against Crystal Pepsi Omega but even I wasn’t sure that would be enough to fill out the issue. Luckily, we had scraps to fill in concerning Naugus’ backstory and what ailed him before reaching this point. It was nice getting the info-dump at least but the dump itself could have been a little less convoluted for my tastes. Not helping is just how much worse Naugus is looking issue to issue. I liked Naugus in the pre-reboot and I honestly still kind of do here but it’s incredible how terrible of a villain he’s been so far. Wendy, come get your brother.

 

[NegaMix]

Not really much I can say for this arc, so here's two fun facts about some of the little details shown in it:

- That Master Emerald shard that Knuckles grabs at the beginning along with the bird, is the same one that Sonic grabbed at the beginning of Worlds Unite, just before he was captured by the Deadly Si--er, Three. Since Xander Payne's timey-wimey paradox retconned everything, though, Sonic never grabbed it.

- The mention of a first Genesis Wave and the different events involving pocket dimensions is... a tad confusing. Essentially, the first wave in the rebooted continuity kicked off the events of Sonic Advance 3; since that game had a similar plot device of "Eggman uses a Chaos Emerald-powered device to alter reality", they decided to have that fill in the "gap" where Genesis (the event) once was. Though why they didn't even put a footnote saying "*Sonic Advance 3 - The Game" or something when Wally explains this, I'll never know.

[Dr. Detective]

 

Sonic Universe - Issue #90: Shattered - Part 4 of 4: Restoration

I’m not entirely sure why this cover feels so paint by numbers to me. It’s not badly done or anything. I dunno. It’s Knuckles and Naugus snarling at each other while the other characters are reflected in the emerald. Kind of feels a little expected I guess. Well, here’s the last issue of this arc though. Enjoy I suppose.

Spoiler

&Knuckles Variant

I don’t know why but this image is radiating Cuphead energy for me. It looks nice though. I always get a little intrigued whenever I see recreations of backgrounds from the Classic era games. A part of me wants to try my hand at drawing those environments but lord knows I don’t have any time.

—

Writer: Ian Flynn
Pencils: Adam Bryce Thomas
Inks: Jim Amash
Colors: Matt Herms
Letters: Jack Morelli
Cover by Tracy Yardley & Matt Herms
&Knuckles Variant by Evan Stanley, Gary Martin & Matt Herms

So Naugus thinks he’s won at this point. All the others are trapped in crystal and he’s got the Master Emerald. Grabbing it and leaving is the smart thing to do but he won’t because he sucks.

Instead he goes on about how the best thing about winning is gloating about it. He then contacts Wendy in a magic skype call and despite all his ultimate power, she still manages to own his ass.

Man, I dunno. Maybe there is reason for him to believe Knuckles can’t break out of this crystal easily. It did take quite a lot of force for them to shatter what was on Omega and it wasn’t anywhere near as collected on him as it is on them right now.

Plus, the Master Emerald should make it more powerful.

Thankfully, what happens next is pretty reasonable for the most part.

We get a nice flashback between Knuckles and Amy on their ride over to Westside Island. What Shadow said to Knuckles has clearly gotten to him and he’s wondering if keeping the Master Emerald locked in a vault somewhere under Government protection might be better.

I’m here to tell you, right now, it’s not.

Don’t let the Government near any gems of mystic all consuming power. All must duck when Obama activates Chaos Control.

Amy gives him a very heartfelt pep talk. She points out how he’s doing a thankless job and how he never gives up despite the shitty position he’s been put in all his life. She calls him a hero and he’s grateful… but he also doesn’t want her telling Sonic about this.

Amy, if Knuckles can’t tell the difference between what Sonic says to him and what he says to Eggman then maybe Sonic should just not do it. 

Like, yeah, Knuckles doesn’t really need to care if he cares if out in the open he feels all it boils down to is teasing. I like Sonic being playful with his friends and his dynamic with Knuckles is great, usually, but they have a back and forth that makes it work. If Sonic’s the only one who likes doing it then it’s not going to look or feel good when observing his behavior.

So yeah, I do ultimately agree with the sentiment of “Stop talking shit about me”. I probably wouldn’t find it charming in real life, honestly. That’s just me though. I’m a sensitive boy.

Back in the present, Knuckles’ fist radiates green emerald energy, I presume, and it grants him enough power to burst out of the crystal on his own.

Perhaps he channeled the Master Emerald’s power wherever it was to do it? Most likely. Either way, it wasn’t just a thing he did quickly. When he breaks out, Naugus is gone.

Hurray! He did a not stupid thing!

He also took Amy but it’s not like him taking the Master Emerald was something he’d be allowed to do even if he hadn’t so that’s fine.

Knuckles breaks Team Dark out, senses that they’re below them now, and Omega blows a hole through the floor to get them there quicker.

When this happens, Naugus immediately loses.

Wait, so he had the Master Emerald at his beck and call but after all that time, all he could do was literally push both it and Amy along the ground like he was moving furniture?

Man. This ultimate power of yours kind of sucks. Can’t even make things float with magic energy.

I don’t blame the guy for planning on taking them with him and trying to turn them into his vanguards. That’s a solid idea. The only issue is that it took too much time on his part. That and he didn’t know that Knuckles has magic green energy attracting fists.

Still probably should have cut his losses and just made off with the emerald but that’s fine. I can see both sides of the argument here. The opportunity to have these guys as your goons is tempting. Intriguing how he got it to happen with Omega before he got the Master Emerald. Does it not work the same way on flesh and blood people? Also, why not just do that to Omega again if he was planning on having them be his minions?

Oh! Speak of the devil he DOES try to do it again! 

Probably a bit too late to remember you could though.

Amy blocks it and her hammer turns all cool and crystalline. She charges at Naugus and because he doesn’t want to get hit by that, he does the Mr. 2 Bon Clay tactic of turning into Sonic.

Amy is so insulted by this move that she denies us the cool shot of seeing her demolish him with that awesome new crystal hammer.

BOOO!

Why give it to her if she’s not gonna–! Fuck! Nevermind. Whatever.

It is nice that Shadow and Knuckles got to punch “Sonic” as hard as they can without a shred of lingering doubt in this particular situation. What a magnificent stress punching-bag he’s making right now. I wouldn’t mind one honestly.

Omega asks why he isn’t doing the thing that took them all out earlier and Rouge says it’s because he isn’t near the Master Emerald.

So, apparently, that jazz about him restoring his powers was bunk? Like, maybe it’s just a temporary power-up from physically touching the Master Emerald? No way does he suck that much right? Right?

Knuckles REALLY wants to keep beating the shit out of Naugus but Rouge tells him to get the Master Emerald and plug it back into the island before it falls. When Rouge has to tell Knuckles that leaving the Master Emerald with her is the thing he shouldn’t be doing, you know Knuckles’ anger has gotten the best of him.

Knuckles sees reason and they take the teleportation thing that Naugus was about to use to reach THE SKY SANCTUARY!

For some reason it’s got this really funky font here. It looks like the “The” could easily double as a trademark symbol or something.

Anyway, the rest of what they need to do is just solved with a two-page spread with no dialogue on it. 

Literally, Amy and Knuckles are shown putting the emerald back while Team Dark just beats up Naugus in the small panels on the bottom, again, because he sucks.

What’s happening in those panels with Team Dark looks like they could’ve been awesome to see in a bigger spread. It’s a nice little action sequence. There’s not enough room though and Wally is clearly not being deemed worthy of a dignified final battle.

When the island is plugged back in and fixed, we see Relic and Fixit walking up to Knuckles and Amy, looking exhausted for some reason. 

Amy introduces herself to Relic and Fixit and they do so back. Amy then checks up on Rouge and we see Wally unconscious with his rump in the air. 

Then we get a wholesome scene between Knuckles and Amy. 

It’s very sweet.

We also see that whatever adventure was happening on Sonic’s end has finally fixed the planet! Huzzah!

But how did THAT happen?! Guess we’re going to find out next!

Before that, we cut to the aftermath of both those stories and see everyone fine, sitting around a table and having a tea party. 

I’m typically not one for showing that everything worked out fine for the other side in stories like this where what’s happening on the other end is directly affecting what’s happening here. It just feels off to me. 

They give Amy a chance to reflect on her part in the adventure. Naugus is in some kind of prison thing and Amy laments not getting to say goodbye to Chip. 

Sonic, who was there, tells her not to mope.

Sure, I guess. It’s not like this comic did a good job of setting up the relationship between Chip and anyone else. We got a cute single page spread out of it I suppose.

The king says he offered to reward Team Dark but Rouge was happy with the one giant emerald in the cavern. Shadow and Omega didn’t give a shit.

He also offered to give Knuckles some protection or induct him into his kingdom or something and Knuckles declined. Sonic says Knuckles is stubborn and stupid and Sally says he makes fun of him too much. Then Amy and Sonic say that he “teases” and that there’s a difference and then they do the TV sitcom laugh while Sally, for some reason, blushes at the table with a smile on her face. The king just sits there looking confused.

It’s a weird scene.

Our final scene is of Relic and Fixit examining the Master Emerald and being unable to determine if it’s real or not, which is exactly what Knuckles wants.

He’s got a bunch of decoys from the Hidden Palace and he’s not telling which one is currently out on the altar right now. If he’s smart, he’d never put the real one out on the altar though. Especially since he can sense where the real one is at all times.

Those last two panels are very pretty. I wish there were less words in those boxes on this page though. It really bothers me for some reason.

Nice to see that Knuckles finished his run on the book with a smile after all the crap Archie put him through.

We’re done. This was an arc that needed to happen and yup. It sure did happen. I don’t really have much to say about it. My feelings regarding it remain the same as when I initially read it. It’s nothing particularly special or interesting. The time table stuff could have pushed it into being something more blood pumping but it gets touched on in such a nebulous way that it feels very unsatisfactory. Naugus came back only to suck ass and look like absolute dog shit. He was terrible in this arc from top to bottom and I can’t even chalk that up to him having Knuckles, Amy, and all of Team Dark to contend with unfortunately. His decision-making, desperation, and uninteresting utilization of his powers were all just sad. Very unfortunate.

Archie Sonic the Hedgehog - Issue #283: The Mission

This is a very interesting cover. The style is crazy but what it's depicting is even more interesting. It’s all very scattershot. Like a nontraditional collage of the past adventures with the new Freedom Fighters groups up to this point. The dripping paint and the use of only red, yellow, and blue aside from Sonic’s eyes is a notable detail as well. 

Yeah, this is a very peculiar one indeed. I appreciate them going way outside the box for this one. It makes looking at it quite the puzzle.

Spoiler

Guardians Variant

Here’s a more straight-forward group shot of our heroes standing on some robots while the Sky Patrol flies in the background. Interesting that Knuckles is here since he’s currently having a fairly standard arc with Wally in Sonic Universe. I like the background too. I’m not a huge fan of the artstyle though. Especially with how it looks on Sonic. He looks off in multiple ways to me.

—

Writer: Ian Flynn
Pencils: Jamal Peppers
Inks: Terry Austin
Colors: Gabriel Cassata
Letters: John Workman
Cover by Diana Skelly
Guardians Variant by Adam Bryce Thomas, Gary Martin, and Cassata

First and foremost, I remember really enjoying this issue when it came out. However, I recall enjoying the one that follows this one probably the most out of any issue of the main book since the Post-Reboot began.

That’s quite a lot of praise but if I’m being honest, it really did stick with me when it happened. I recall the Anti-Archie/Anti-Ian Flynn hate group on Deviantart publishing posts talking about how much they hated it and wondering what the point of it was.

The point of it for me was fairly obvious. Perhaps a preamble to the final battle with a cohesive outline of what all the heroes accomplished followed by the villains hearing all of it and having the means to directly upend their entire shit was something they didn’t expect or want. However, for me, it just helps make the story feel more complete.

I know we’ve been at this for a really long time. There were some worthwhile tales being told in this saga, for sure, but I also can’t blame anyone for feeling extremely fatigued by all this. Ian’s tendency to keep shoving everything including the kitchen sink into his stories is something that’ll be hit or miss depending on the kind of story it is and the kind of person you are.

I was a huge fan of the continuing escalation in the Metal Virus arc, to the point where I honestly wished it had gone on for another issue or so, damming the consequences. However, I can’t say the same for this story.

The hook just isn’t as good. It’s a neat idea, utilizing Sonic Unleashed as an excuse to explore, develop, and introduce us to this new world we were supposed to be existing in but the general idea behind what’s happening isn’t as easy to mine for drama nor is it something that leaves room for much anticipation for how it’ll be resolved.

We know how it’ll be resolved. We’ve likely played the game by the time these books have come out or, at the very least, seen the cutscenes on Youtube. So when a massive shake-up happens like this, it really does well to kick start the excitement for me.

There’s also the fact that with how long this has been going, a recap of what the fuck we were even doing might be in order.

It begins with Sally getting stage fright, weirdly enough, before she and Sonic make a broadcast to the world about their plan to fix the planet and what doing so will entail.

The way they’ve chosen to do this is good, though, the structure of the panels and the placement of the word balloons probably could have been better.

Usually when you do something like this, you typically have Sonic or Sally speaking over the boxes showing the people reacting to the speech.

Here though, Sonic speaks and then there are just two silent panels of the people watching and reacting. It throws me off a bit.

It remains neat to see the Wolf Pack redesigned to look like actual Sonic characters, I must say. 

So yeah, they’ve got the Seven Chaos Emeralds. Sonic also tells them that they’ve got the Seven Gaia Keys.

Sally breaks down how the convoluted nature of what they were supposed to do was immediately rendered irrelevant for the sake of time.

Yet, despite that, it still took way too long for them to do what they needed to do. 

Because they didn’t already have the Seven Chaos Emeralds with them like they did in the game, they had two sets of seven things to look for. However, he couldn’t exactly say that there was only one temple to place the seven Chaos Emeralds in with only one key to activate it. That wouldn’t really make sense for what needed to be done considering the structure of the game itself.

So his hands were kind of tied on that front. It still feels messy to invent the solution to this by having a super special location where you can access all seven temples at once so long as you have the keys but at least they’re all being utilized for something.

That bottom panel is quite something. Big sipping tea with that look on his face and his pinky out is amazing. Not so amazing is Surfer Bro Gemerl coming back. His design and facial structure do not match the Shard 2.0 thing being attempted here. It’s also just unnecessary. It really doesn’t work.

Like, it’s strange seeing him speaking with Cream as they head to Castle Acorn with their gigantic black box. Cream sounds like Cream as she excitedly explains what happened on her adventure in Chun-nan and says she missed Gemerl. Gemerl says “Right back atcha kiddo!”

Blugh. 

Sally explains that Eggman doesn’t know about any of this and that his dumbass forces think that they need to access all the Gaia Temples. She plans to use this to her advantage by contacting everyone listening in right now so they can plan a coordinated assault. The plan isn’t to take him down but to be a diversion so that they can fix the world.

We cut to more people. We see the people from Meropis again. We see the G.U.N Commander watching from his big commander chair. We see Honey in Empire City of Northamer. We see Uncle Chuck and Muttski in Mobotropolis on Westside Island (interesting that it’s on Westside Island…) and we see the Chaotix in Westopolis in Northamer. 

When I think Westopolis, I think guns, destroyed buildings, and fire.

That may not be Westopolis’ fault but it’s the image that comes to mind when I think of the place because of it’s one unfortunate showcase in the series. Maybe it’s a nice place to live but I feel like it was chosen for the Chaotix because it might not be.

Anyway, Cream and Big are shown presenting their big black box to the king. Inside it are all the Gaia Keys and the Chaos Emeralds. They’re shoved into a vault as Sally explains from where she’s at that Cream and Big are there under the pretense of a “family visit” so that they can keep them secure before the time is right.

Sonic and the Freedom Fighters plan on being the main targets while this happens.

Then we get an adorable little message from Chip here.

Sonic’s face there is so precious.

It’s rare but it’s nice when I can see the makings of a sap under that hard and cool exterior.

So, with all that explanation underway, they ask everyone listening in if they can count on their support. 

They all agree to do so in good faith.

The Chaotix bit is the best bit, of course. Vector needs to try harder to convince the people he works for that money exists. Maybe then he’ll be able to get a better living space.

The most interesting part is the bit with Sonar, Trevor Burrow, and Spike though. Sonar literally has tears in her eyes and she’s panicking as she’s calling Neph about Sally’s plan to incite a world war.

That’s not EXACTLY what she’s planning on doing but considering it’s Eggman he’d likely take it that way. 

Neph plans not to tell Eggman about it, which MIGHT just have him thinking it’s a bunch of people around the world being strangely rowdy at this one time… at random. Maybe?

It’s tough. I feel bad for Sonar here because the space they occupy is very pitiable and understandable. Spike’s a good actor at least.

With that, they’re done basically. They need to make sure they contact anyone not on the Skype call that they might have missed, coordinate this with Amy and Knuckles (which will amount to a single warning in the Sonic Universe arc) and then… plan a party.

Yeah, Sonic jumps in the air with a fistpump to excitedly state they’re planning a party before they’ve won. Cool.

If I had any faith left in the villains, it likely would have been teetering on the edge here had what happened next not happened.

We close out that story with Tails Doll having just heard ALL of that and is transmitting it to Dr. Eggman right now.

 

Archie Sonic the Hedgehog - Issue #283: Zero Hour

Writer: Ian Flynn
Pencils: Jennifer Hernandez
Inks: Terry Austin
Colors: Gabriel Cassata
Letters: John Workman

This side of the story is what propelled me into orbit as far as my excitement went.

We begin with Eggman playing a game of some sort. It’s point, I guess, was to get Phage to come to his server or something? I think? It’s not super clear.

He’s pissed off with them though. Phage doesn’t understand why since all they’ve done is invade and destroy systems but Eggman’s peeve is that they began with HIS systems.

Which… yeah. I can see why he’d be upset by that.

Phage then proceeds to run down how they’ve been trying to regain Eggman’s favor by searching for Emeralds and temples and fucking with G.U.N. All they’ve managed to do is send out a bunch of phony emails to G.U.N though, which is kind of hilarious to me.

All throughout this scene, Orbot is shown desperately trying to get Eggman’s attention. He’s been holding it off the entire time, underestimating its importance, before finally accepting the call.

At first, he doesn’t seem to take it seriously when Sonic says they’ve got a plan to fix the world in a single stroke. However, the more they speak, the angrier he gets until he demands they shut it the hell off.

Really bold of him to demand they shut it off before they’ve finished speaking. Thankfully, he heard literally all the important shit.

I have no idea why Orbot and Cubot took this to mean they’d lost. Like, they were literally just broadcasted the entire plan the heroes had cooking. I guess it was just a means for Orbot to be lazy.

Can you believe these two have been around for 13 years now? Crazy right?

Eggman sits and thinks for a bit. Then he gets an idea.

He gets an awful idea.

Dr. Eggman gets a wonderful, awful idea.

First, he tells Phage that if they want to make amends then do exactly what he says. He tells Cubot to put Phage in contact with Tails Doll and then to get Wendy on the line. He then tells Orbot to call the Battle Lord and the Hooligans. Eggman himself immediately calls Metal Sonic to where he is.

When reading the next page, I literally did something you only see in cartoons where I read Phage’s next line as “Data sync with Tails Boll complete, standing dy.” 

I literally replaced the “b” and the “d” in those words out loud. 

It’s true what they say. I am a cartoon character.

But no, Eggman contacts the Battle Lord. He’s, at first, super sassy but the instant Eggman tells him what he wants him to do he perks right up.

It always feels good to see the bad guys getting along. Spoiling a good thing is the one thing that can unite these wonderful goons.

Wendy is put on call and is about to ask for more time, unless it’s personal. Nack says it’s a conference call though and asks what the job is.

Eggman tells Wendy to keep looking for the conch but to send her Witchcarters over. Wendy, surprisingly, gets really bent out of shape about doing that and proclaims they’re hers. Eggman uses the logic of her working for him and thus them working for him too.

She complies but it’s interesting that she’s noticeably upset about having to do it.

Nack is told that he’s going to rob the vault under Castle Acorn with the Witchcarters help. Nack says just three extra mooks isn’t enough to do a job like that but it’s fine. He’s going to have a ton of extra support including our dear friend Metal Sonic!

With everyone gearing up to be in position and growing more and more gleeful and excited, Eggman can’t help but give his son a wonderful fatherly hug!

The look on Metal Sonic’s face and the way he scooches away from him after that is priceless.

I love the expression of surprise and content on Nack’s face when he realizes that Eggman is serious. Feels good to witness.

I do also like that Eggman plans to use Sonic’s trick against him concerning the Egg Bosses. Not telling them might be a bit much, maybe, but they’d probably react the same way regardless. 

Other things of interest include Eggman’s reserve of Dark Gaia energy almost being complete. He plans to head to Eggmanland and dump it into the Death Egg so that it can be at full power forever. Holy shit.

One last thing though. He doesn’t know the location of the singular point they’ll need to access all the Gaia Temples at once.

That’s when our sweet boy Metal Sonic bends down and brings up a video of him “interrogating” Gregorios from waaaay back.

He looks so scholarly as he does it too.

The Egg Family can be very cute sometimes.

Eggman remembers that they never actually followed up on that location because he called Metal Sonic away at that time. So they put two and two together after Orbot reveals that they have logs from Tails Doll showing the Sky Patrol leaving that area. 

They’ve now just figured out where the central chamber is.

With that, Eggman is on his way to fucking winning!

Chillin’ like a villain and it FEELS so good!

This issue was essential. It served as more than just a recap. It was a laid out battle plan that was done to showcase what the final operation for the heroes was going to be. Of course, because we know the plan that means it won’t succeed and afterward we’re treated to a scene detailing exactly why it won’t. With a set-up like this, how can I not be excited? 

We’re finally here and on our way to the finale of Sonic Unleashed!

Archie Sonic the Hedgehog - Issue #284: Panic in the Sky, Part One: The Best Laid Plans

Here is the start of an, admittedly pretty awesome, four part cover showcasing the end of the Sonic Unleashed arc and what it entails. There are a few iffy things about this art style that bother me but on the whole it looks great for what it’s depicting.

I don’t want to be hyperbolic here but I recall my reaction to this first issue being of extreme, visceral excitement. It might be my favorite issue of the Post-Reboot. I really am a sucker for just seeing the heroes get their shit pushed in.

Before they turn things around, of course. I’m not a complete monster.

Spoiler

Evil Win Variant

This cover is excellent. This would make for a really great regular cover of the book had this not been a four part cover picture. The colors and shading on Eggman, especially his face, are robust in a way I don’t feel confident in saying I’ve ever seen before. This might be a masterpiece of work right here.

—

Writer: Ian Flynn
Pencils: Diana Skelly
Inks: Terry Austin
Colors: Gabriel Cassata
Letters: John Workman
Cover by Don Schoening and Luis Delgado
Evil Win Variant by Rick Bryant, Lamar Wells, and Matt Herms

We begin this issue with Sonic the Freedom Fighters setting up a party and setting up an avenue for their hubris to come and bite them in the ass.

They’ve got… SO much fucking food here. Just a round table of chili-dogs, ice-cream sundaes, and a spread of fruit. Also a bowl of mushrooms in some water for… some reason?

I looked up mushrooms in a bowl and found nothing but a bunch of images showing how to prepare them for cooking some other meal. Nothing about them sitting in a tub with a ladle in it.

Well, anyway, Sally seems to be the only one wondering if maybe they’re celebrating too early. Sonic isn’t worried because they have everything and Eggman doesn’t know anything. Har har. Little does he know.

Nicole is in the systems of the Sky Patrol trying to find an anomaly that she detected and comes across a bunch of systems that were shut down. She then runs into the Tails Doll which, of course, turns into an unholy abomination that eats her.

I will say that I do like the way this looks more than the weird monster that it turned into at the end of the pre-reboot and the beginning of the post-reboot. It also helps that it’s Phage doing this and not the Tails Doll itself. 

Nicole gets vored before she can fully warn them and then the Sky Patrol gets rear ended.

God, that perch he’s standing on looks like fun.

The heroes immediately put it together, to they’re credit, that this happening means that the plan was leaked. Because Nicole managed to squeak out a warning about Tails Doll before her untimely demise they know what caused it and put together that the Chaos Emeralds and the Vault Keys are in danger.

Of course, it doesn’t matter because Nack and his group are already there. 

Team Hooligan goes out with a bang in this here Archie book.

Nack’s had a plethora of failures and setbacks in his time. When he was first introduced into the book he was extremely competent, knocking out Sonic pretty much every time he came across him. It was great. Somewhere along the line that stopped being the case as more and more people came to steal his thunder.

So I can’t help but be happy that his last act in the book turns out to be an unmitigated success. Regardless of what happens with Eggman afterward, he fulfilled his job and did what was asked of him. It’s a well and true example of why Eggman would continue to hire them.

His plan here is solid too. The Witchcarters are there to back his team up while Metal Sonic and the Badnik horde deal with the guards outside.

Metal Sonic is tasked with handling the Try-Hard Wannabe-Shard robot. He tries to stop Nack’s bike but gets grabbed by Metal Sonic and carted away so that the rest of the team can get inside.

Also, because we established that the guards of the Acorn Kingdom FUCKING SUCK while riding in Nack calls them the jobber squad and laughs at them as Bark nonchalantly punches one of them away without looking. Bearenger gets really upset at having to fight them and wants a real challenge, which prompts Nack to tell him to slow his roll.

He has a name so of course he’s able to take on these losers. Those guards oughta get names. Maybe then they’d stand a chance.

Meanwhile, an aerial battle is happening between Metal Sonic and the Alleged-Gemerl.

Oh my God. Shut up.

"tHiS iS gOnNa LeAvE a MaRk…!"

Maybe it would bother me less if the quippiness of his lines weren’t also painfully generic. 

Yeah, I’m sorry to anyone who preferred this Gemerl. I don’t see it.

Anyway, Nack was being all pristine and happy about how quaint the place seemed to be and how he’d never pulled off a job in Mobotropolis before. As he’s literally riding his bike across the floors of the castle, like a goddamn biker badass just strollin’ on in, they come across the king.

Ah shit! The king’s packin’!

The set up for this is honestly pretty great. Him having a more royal and advanced version of the thing that Sally has, complete with his own acorn symbol, is one thing. But to have him sitting there, sipping tea as Nack rolls up in his bike and points a gun at him is incredible.

However, what makes this better is what happens next.

He starts going to town on them. He rams into Bean, almost knocks him out, and disarms Nack with a CHING!

Then Bark, who has been ever quiet and looking none too happy about this while strolling up here, just decimates this dude with a single downward thrust.

The king has fallen. Face has meshed with his royal floor with his royal tail in the air.

Because Bark doesn’t talk, the character acting he does tells us what he’s usually thinking and feeling. He doesn’t seem to be jazzed about this and the look on his face both before and after he does what he does tells me that there’s reluctance to what he’s doing here.

The next page, we see Gemerl getting all pissy about Metal Sonic using badniks to fight him and junk. He’s obviously not interested in fighting him though and it’s made apparent when the Hooligans ride out with the stuff and tell Metal to get this shit to Eggman.

Gemerl’s last gambit should be to toss out a quip so hard that Metal short-circuits from pure cringe and plummets to the ground. Do it! It’s our only hope!

Kind of awesome that in one fell swoop, The Hooligans and Metal just got Eggman all Seven Chaos Emeralds. Just like that. 

Seriously, Team Hooligan. Good job. I give you guys one final salute for the book. What a win to go out on.

Back with the Sky Patrol, Sonic, Antoine, and Bunnie have been sent topside to deal with the Battle Bird Armada.

They are being overwhelmed and are very much not having a good time. However, they do deduce that it’s strange that Speedy isn’t leading this attack despite the fact that they haven’t tangled with the Battle Birds that often. This means that he’s off doing something more important.

And that something more important doesn’t have Sonic at it right now which means even more bad stuff is gonna happen!

Yeah, Speedy comes flying through the corridors of the ship all gussied up in his swanky new battle suit. It’s quite the intense upgrade from the weird diaper harness he had from before.

They need Chip so, of course, the one defending him is Sally.

Great idea Princess. 

I mean, geez, I know you’re short on men but maybe one of the actual fighters could have stayed with you since Chip is so much more important than what’s happening on the roof right now.

Well, whatever. Maybe she thought the cell was… secure? Somehow? I mean, it wasn’t going to do shit, let’s be real. Chip flying out of the cell next just saved Speedy some firepower.

He does that by the way. Chip flies out to try and punch at Speedy but gets grabbed immediately and they fly away with him.

Sally tells Speedy to stop.

Speedy does not stop.

Instead, he sends two Battle Bird Armada fighters at Sally and basically tells them to sacrifice themselves for the Armada. They do it and shout “FOR THE ARMADA” knowing they’re going to lose.

See these two don’t have names and Sally does so she can actually beat them this time. Speedy had a name so Sally, as a slightly above average fighter, didn’t stand a chance against him.

This is Name Math.

Meanwhile, the nerds are trying to purge Tails Doll from their ship. Tails has his dumb dog and all the stupid RC bullshit from the Lost World multiplayer that no one bothered with (I’ve literally never even SEEN footage of Lost World’s multiplayer) searching the vents for Tails Doll.

Eventually, they find it and, since it can’t transform into a monster this time, it just gets got. Tails gets grossed out seeing it again, wondering why he gets that while Sonic gets Metal Sonic once more.

Hey, you know, at least Eggman acknowledged you with something. Plus, to be honest, we don’t need any more robot doppelgangers. One is enough.

The Shadow Androids feel a bit different because they feel more like an army horde of mindless mooks. Tails Doll feels like a creepy infiltration thingy. Metal Sonic is the only special one, save Metal Knuckles I guess.

But yeah we don’t need a Metal Tails or a Metal Amy. No thanks.

With Tails Doll taken care of, they’re able to speak with Nicole again. Turns out she escaped being vored but is unable to handle Phage.

I don’t know how or why Phage hasn’t managed to kill her yet. Perhaps Nicole is just really good at hiding. It sort of looks that way.

She can’t face her without being Overclocked Nicole so Tails puts in a Red Star Ring to initiate the transformation.

“I don’t have time for this!”

“No. You really do not.”

Pfft! 

Phage is better at this than Gemerl and they aren’t even really trying.

Nicole gets some of their systems back online but Phage is blocking her from doing more. They can at least communicate to each other what all the bad news is now.

When Sonic hears it, he gets really panicked and tries to run after Chip.

Battle Lord Cuckoo For Cocoa Puffs is having the fucking GRANDEST TIME OF HIS LIFE! He shouts for team two to detonate the bombs on the Sky Patrol.

When asked about Speedy’s escort that has been left on it, he basically says that they knew what they were signing up for.

Damn.

Sad but true too. They shouted their allegiance as they dived in.

The one pressing the button on the bottom panel there looks so sad though. I wonder if he was friends with the people he’s sentencing to death.

The shading on the Battle Lord here really makes it look like he has a bit of an evil Snidely Whiplash mustache on his face.

Well, anyway, they blow up the top of the Sky Patrol and it begins to fall.

Phage realizes this is happening and says they’ve tangled long enough and leaves Nicole to die along with the ship. Tails’ hand heats up as the Red Star Ring and the Nintendo DS he’s holding start to do some weird funky shit. It’s smoking quite a lot.

Sonic is more concerned with getting Chip and asks Bunnie to throw him. 

She does.

He doesn’t make it.

This is incredible!

One of the dumbest complaints I remember reading from the Anti-Archie crowd on that Deviantart page was with regards to this issue. They asked what the point of the last issue was and then when this one came out to fully illustrate what the point was it was nothing but a bunch of complaints about how ineffectual the heroes were here, for one.

However, it was also backed up by the shockingly brain dead complaint about the Battle Birds being competent. They were wondering why the Battle Birds were being portrayed as competent and were insisting that they weren’t supposed to be… FOR SOME REASON.

I have no clue as to why. I’m trying to imagine complaining that the opposition to the heroes AREN’T sucking at their job. What a fucking riot that shit was.

This was awesome.

Yeah, I love this issue. The escalation from zero to one-hundred is incredible. As I was reading through it, I couldn’t help but feel like this was truly what a Sonic versus Eggman story written by Ian Flynn should be with regards to the games. I know the games have a certain structure and a certain formula that they need to adhere to. Even in the best case scenario where money is actually utilized to bring a more bombastic vision like this with tactical warfare to life, we probably still wouldn’t get something as amazing as this. I still can’t help but imagine what it would have been like had Forces been allowed to showcase a back and forth tactical smackdown like this.

Instead of Operation Big Wave just being a bunch of large Infinite worms everywhere, what if it was like this? The heroes had an actual plan and Eggman meticulously ripped it to shreds utilizing the different characters on all fronts in different ways to lead to a poignant moment of furious and intense failure. It sounds like a fantasy but it really did get illustrated perfectly here.

Wonderful issue. Definitely one of my all-time favorites.

 

[SanPolo4389]

 

7 hours ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

One of the dumbest complaints I remember reading from the Anti-Archie crowd on that Deviantart page was with regards to this issue. They asked what the point of the last issue was and then when this one came out to fully illustrate what the point was it was nothing but a bunch of complaints about how ineffectual the heroes were here, for one.

However, it was also backed up by the shockingly brain dead complaint about the Battle Birds being competent. They were wondering why the Battle Birds were being portrayed as competent and were insisting that they weren’t supposed to be… FOR SOME REASON.

I have no clue as to why. I’m trying to imagine complaining that the opposition to the heroes AREN’T sucking at their job. What a fucking riot that shit was.

I've probably said this alot but here's another moment where the guy I used to follow back in deviantart where even though after swearing off the Reboot Archie-verse after Spark of Life, he still looked at the books despite that, and here it's where he was just really pissed at how the heroes were flanked by the BBA. And thinking they were being Worfed because he thought they should've known this would happen as if they had future sight or something.

And also how he hated how the Bird Armada were the ones to do it since like Anti-Archie kept saying they should be incompetent, despite how they were like that because in their first appearance they were caught off guard because of Tails. And after that he just straight up did not care about the rest of the arc and be a sour puss about it.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

The sooner you realize most people want to complain for the sake of complaining, the better your sanity will be.

It's not really about making sense--you'd think the story showing everything playing out in a way to show that it was planned out by the antagonists would show that point. But complaining about the BBA being competent and insisting they're not supposed to be should be a giveaway that the problem wasn't the logic of the story.

It's basically complaining about being good at something...for some reason. You can't really make sense of it because they were just looking for whatever low hanging fruit to hate on just because.

Only goes to show that you can't please everyone, because some people aren't looking to be pleased to begin with and would rather be a drama queen. I'd almost say they just want attention.

[Rabbitearsblog]

33 minutes ago, CrownSlayer’s Shadow said:

The sooner you realize most people want to complain for the sake of complaining, the better your sanity will be.

It's not really about making sense--you'd think the story showing everything playing out in a way to show that it was planned out by the antagonists would show that point. But complaining about the BBA being competent and insisting they're not supposed to be should be a giveaway that the problem wasn't the logic of the story.

It's basically complaining about being good at something...for some reason. You can't really make sense of it because they were just looking for whatever low hanging fruit to hate on just because.

Only goes to show that you can't please everyone, because some people aren't looking to be pleased to begin with and would rather be a drama queen. I'd almost say they just want attention.

I tend to ignore the people who just complain about nothing and are not willing to make valid points with their arguments.  

[Kaotic Kanine]

Can't deny, I have very negative feelings about Issue 283 because the issue's solicits called Cream the "central hero" to this story, with Ian Flynn backing up in a BumbleKast by stating she would play a "key role" here. But in the issue proper, Sonic, Sally, and Eggman are the actual key figures while Cream plays the much more minor role of delivering the two sets of MacGuffins to King Acorn. This super important, absolutely crucial role for Cream that was presumably to make up for being insultingly snubbed from all the action the past 28 issues... Is being a fucking delivery girl Sure, the items in question were the 7 Chaos Emeralds and Gaia Keys, but still! Moving MacGuffins to a secure location is not the role of a "central hero", especially compared to what every other character had done in the Reboot thus far. And even then, Cream isn't the one who did the actual moving and delivery of the MacGuffins: that was Big, with Gemerl tagging along as the armed escort. So, what did Cream even accomplish for this minuscule role? What purpose did she fill for this task...? Far as I can tell, nothing. This issue made it seem that Cream was finally going to do something useful for once as a Freedom Fighter, but instead it pretty much solidified her as a pointless member of the main cast. And as someone who knows that Cream can be main character material and play important roles, I can never forgive that.

Aside from that, 283 is very "meh" for me. It's just Sonic and Sally giving the whole world a mission briefing, which Eggman makes an effective counter-plan to. I guess I can agree that it's essential as a set-up story to make the next issue pay off big time, as well as a necessary recap story for this long-ass saga. But on its own, it's not a very interesting read, much like how "The Great Ace Attorney 1" isn't very interesting on its own. And after you play "The Great Ace Attorney 2", would you really want to play the first one again? I personally wouldn't, and I certainly wouldn't want to revisit 283 in favor of just reading 284. Which, speaking of, is truly freaking good. Just non-stop intense action that has both heroes and villains giving their all. Got not much else to say other than it's really freaking cool.

[Dr. Detective]

Archie Sonic the Hedgehog - Issue #285: Panic in the Sky, Part Two: Falling Into Place

The epicness continues as Sonic becomes the werehog and explosions happen all around the Sky Patrol. Inaccurate because that thing is made of explosions right now. Also, there’s that egg-shaped Death Egg again. Hard to believe it’s still the same from the pre-reboot but it really was the driving force behind most of this Genesis Wave stuff. Though, not the one that caused the post-reboot. Only other thing I can say is WOW Chip sure is tiny. I mean, he's always been tiny but it sticks out more when he's in Eggman's palm.

Spoiler

Gaia Colossus Variant

Really nice painting of a gigantic Transformer made of temples. When I want to paint a gigantic Transformer made of temples, I'd imagine this is what would spring to mind. Yes, very nice.

A nice art piece. I’d probably give this a heart on Twitter if I saw it there.

—

Writer: Ian Flynn
Pencils: Diana Skelly
Inks: Terry Austin
Colors: Gabriel Cassata
Letters: John Workman
Cover by Dan Schoening and Luis Antonio Delgado
Gaia Colossus Variant by Evan Stanley

Sonic is swishing his feet across the air in anger as he calls out for Chip while falling towards lava. He looks so frustrated and it’s kind of funny. 

Speedy asks his dad if they should go in for the kill and Battle Kukku XV, my beloved, says he’d love to but he can’t because of strict time tables.

Sonic, with little bobbles of noticeable tears in his eyes, is still falling with Antoine and Bunnie behind him but they land on the deck of the Sky Patrol because Tails and Rotor got it running again.

We then see him run past a demolished Sally and he makes a hilarious face. However, this is also the scene that reinforced my hatred of seeing these guys flying around with their own Hall of Justice. I remain not a fan of seeing my heroes violently tossing people into cells, regardless of who they are. I still say leave that to actual police and government characters. I’d really prefer Sonic not to be associated with or acting as a cop. 

Sonic reaches Rotor and everyone thinks Nicole is dead but she isn’t. She’s fine. 

Gemerl is, meanwhile, about to be demolished by Nack and his gang when who should save the day but the other two-thirds of Team Rose.

 

The original Team Rose. Not that weird revolving door shit that keeps happening every time they need to find a new way to split up the Chaotix or ignore Cream’s existence.

Your girl was out for blood though. To think she almost put taking down Nack’s crew over saving people, for just a split second. Crazy right? Of course, that technically wasn’t on her mind for an understandable reason. Shit’s kind of fucked right now.

We get more scenes of the Freedom Fighters scrambling to fix the ship. Sally explains that there is a small window of time they can use to get back on track, sort of, but they’re kind of stuck right now. So they’ve decided to strap Tails Doll to an interrogation table and play “Bad cop, bad cop” with it.

“What color is my underwear!” *SLAP*

Anyway, because Eggman is awesome he’s standing in Apotos, stroking his mustache, and waiting for his gifts to arrive.

Thankfully, this isn’t one of those instances where he was waiting for no reason. It took a few hours but they arrived on schedule. He has everything.

When Speedy delivers the really pissed off Chip to Eggman, Eggman tells him well done and says that their next assignment is to blow an inbound G.U.N carrier out of the sky which just sounds like fucking fun. That’s like a goddamn freebie assignment right there. 

Speedy is eager to show the Battle Birds superior might a second time.

Eggman waltzes into the temple. Apparently, Gregorius refused to tell Eggman where the temple was but he ended up finding it anyway.

Chip doesn’t want to help but apparently he can’t hold in his magic.

Geez, how embarrassing. I can hold in my magic better than that. 

After this happens, we’re treated to scenes of Eggman’s robots stomping inside, using the keys to open the chambers, taking each emerald to each temple, and then all those temples zooming across the planet towards a single location. 

Next to Apotos where the main interconnecting temple is, we get to see all our favorite locations with Mazuri, Shamar, Adabat, Chun-Nan, Spagonia, Holoska, and the Stone Storm Lands Zone…?

I know Empire City didn’t have a temple and in this book Eggmanland wasn’t built on top of the last one as a tactical maneuver because of the structure of the story being so different. It’s still weird just seeing a random location like that having a temple there. 

Also, I guess Cassia and Clove’s location really was still a place of interest.

I actually didn’t expect to see the Gaia Colossus already but I guess it makes sense. Eggman heard that it was going to be created when he did this but didn’t know the temples would form it. He delights in the idea of getting to punch Sonic with a temple.

Chip says he’s supposed to use it to take down Dark Gaia all while looking exhausted from spewing magic all over the place.

Eggman just gloats about how instead of that he’s going to have control over Light Gaia and Dark Gaia both. The fact that he’s literally anticipating having two gods serving the Eggman Empire is kind of wild. That's literally what he says.

I don’t want to say a bad job was done balancing the Dark Gaia stuff with the Eggman stuff. They did both get a lot of focus. However, it does feel like the resolution here is a bit loose when it comes to the Dark Gaia stuff because of all the shared focus he and his minions have had in this version of the story compared to the one in Unleashed.

Here it just kind of feels a bit disjointed. It’s still coming together well enough though. The next scene with the Freedom Fighters does an excellent job of efficiently selling the danger of the situation. Sally outlines the plan… well, she says “plan” but it’s more a list of objectives at first. 

She says they datamined info from Tails Doll and found out that Eggman is planning to recharge the Death Egg at a new base called Eggmanland.

Uhm, excuse me Sally, Eggmanland is a CITY thank you very much. It has its own flag and everything.

Anyway, she makes it clear that Eggman cannot be allowed to recharge the Death Egg. If he does it’ll be unstoppable with that Dark Gaia energy in it. He also is coming with the temples formed into the Gaia Colossus. She knows it’s coming but not exactly why the temples formed it.

G.U.N doesn’t have any carriers nearby to help. The closest one got tangled up with the armada, which leads to Tails giving this glorious reaction.

Rare moment of Tails reacting like a small child. Love to see it.

This is where Sally gives her impassioned speech about asking a lot from her mates here and how if they fail to stop Eggman from doing any of the three bullet points she outlined then he wins the world.

Rotor is jazzed to try and with the Sky Patrol only working on one engine and with only enough juice for one single trip, he uses the manual controls to fly towards Eggmanland and the Death Egg.

As we head towards the location, Sally does finally detail a plan of sorts in the narration boxes. Her, Antoine, Bunnie, and Tails are going to UNLEASH the Dark Gaia energy on the world again by destroying the tower. It’s currently better than letting Eggman keep it.

They all get immediately ambushed by all the E-100 series robots from the earlier parts of the arc and have to face off against them all again. 

Meanwhile, Sonic rides his Extreme Gear onto the giant temple robot and the two have their lovely banter. Eggman talks about knowing the Battle Birds wouldn’t finish him off, which is interesting since the Battle Lord and Speedy wanted to but it was Eggman’s time table that kept them from trying.

Sonic asks if Eggman is going to punch him with a temple but Eggman says “Nah. It sounded cool but I like playing with my own shit more!”

Imagine being the kind of kid who wasn’t interested in playing with the other kids toys because his were just so much cooler.

That’s right folks. It’s the fight from Generations… but in UNLEASHED!

WHAT A TWIST not really. I was actually a little disappointed by this at first when I saw this back in the day. That’s just me being a whiny baby though because it does eventually go where it's supposed to. 

Most of this issue was doom and gloom followed by a very quick shuffle towards the finish line. We’re here at Eggmanland, finally, and we’ve just skipped right to the part where he faces off against the Egg Dragoon. It’s… really a shame that we don’t get to see an assault on Eggmanland or even a proper spread or view of the city… like… AT ALL!

We just don’t get to see any of it and it’s a huge, crying shame. I wouldn’t say this story is being told too fast suddenly but in terms of Unleashed, I can’t help but feel some stuff is being sacrificed that we could have gotten some neat mileage out of. Still, this wasn’t a bad issue at all. The flow and pacing worked just fine and the stakes do feel appropriately high. We’re in the thick of the finale.

---

Archie Sonic the Hedgehog - Issue #286: Panic in the Sky, Part 3 of 4: Colossal Crash

No matter what happens in my life or how many times I have to spell out the word, I’ll always have trouble spelling out the words “colossal” or “colosseum”. It really feels like they should have two L’s in them. Anyway, this image is the part that has to be here to complete the image. On its own, it looks a little off. The werehog’s arm is just peeking into the page, trying to fondle the Egg Dragoon while Chip prays in the corner.

Spoiler

Duel with the Egg Dragoon Variant

Sonic the Werehog and the Egg Dragoon fight one another at the center of Eggmanland and then fall towards the core of the Earth to finish the battle. It’s one of the best sequences in any Sonic game simply because it’s a rare example of the narrative being pushed by the gameplay. We start at the top and after the battle we’re in the Earth’s core because that’s where we fell when we were battling. No random shit where Sonic is confronting the final boss of Lost World and the battle begins with Sonic being shot out of a cannon and on a stretch of road that wasn’t there before followed by an ending scene with both Sonic and Eggman just at the place they were when the cutscene started.

Too bad this isn’t exactly what’s happening in the comic. It's close.

—

Writer: Ian Flynn
Pencils: Diana Skelly (Pgs 1-10), Adam Bryce Thomas (Pgs 11-20)
Inks: Terry Austin
Colors: Gabriel Cassata
Letters: John Workman
Cover by Dan Schoening and Luis Antonio Delgado
Battle with the Egg Dragoon Variant by Tracy Yardley

The Egg Dragoon is firing on and trying to kill Sonic. It reminds me of the opening to Sonic Unleashed. The robot he’s piloting in that opening looks really close to it, to the point where I wonder if it straight up just was. My memory is so poor, you guys. 

The others are fighting the E-100s in the streets of Eggmanland. We still can’t see a proper look at the place because the panel is so squished and cluttered with silhouettes of Egg Fighters in the background though.

The fight Sonic and Eggman are having is interesting I suppose. I recall being a lot more annoyed with it back in the day due to how Sonic seemed like he was no selling this and seemingly unfazed by everything Eggman was doing. 

Eggman is claiming he’s already won and has everything under control but he isn’t acting like it. Him slamming his Egg Dragoon into the Gaia Colossus to illustrate the point of how totally in control he is wasn’t doing it for me back in the day.

Today, I’m a bit more forgiving of it. I am taking note of the specific areas where Sonic is caught off guard and making “close call” faces. Not to mention the fact that I have to keep in mind that he’s obviously not going to try and show weakness in front of the doctor. Getting him riled up so that he messes up and does things like slamming his robot into the Gaia Colossus is what he does.

Though, that can lead to Eggman flying off the handle and doing reckless shit like sending a missile into the middle of Station Square or blowing up the fabric of reality in a fit of petty rage. 

Plus, as we’ll see later, the fight is definitely tougher than the younger me gave it credit for.

We see the Freedom Fighters struggling in the streets. They take out Eta in a move that’s actually really hard to fully see. Tails takes out Iota in the sky. They’re not as tough as they used to be this time around. Either that or we’re at the finale so we just gotta move along from them. It was a neat idea to bring them back though. That control tower awaits.

Rotor is, meanwhile, trying to keep the Death Egg from reaching Eggmanland. Orbot and Cubot are the ones piloting it right now and Orbot manages to get himself a win by shooting out the particle beam cannon they have at the right time to make the Sky Patrol crash.

Proud of him. He did something useful. He should be allowed to pilot more of Eggman’s robots in the games like Bocoe and Decoe did a few times. 

Meanwhile, Sonic is falling because he basically took a mountain to the face. Chip is frustrated because he can’t get out of the prize capsule Eggman locked him inside of.

Sonic admits that Eggman keeps cutting him off and the fact that he can’t get to Chip isn’t helping either. 

Then he’s suddenly frozen!

He’s still got the ice attack from Unleashed and he successfully got Sonic with it. I love the expression on Sonic’s face here. He’s legitimately fucked.

He’s also lucky as hell.

Try to imagine being Eggman here. Imagine this is the equivalent to trying to defeat one of those extreme unfair and hard as shit Kingdom Hearts Data Battles against Organization XIII. You've finally got Sonic on the ropes and he's about to die. Your heart leaps to your chest in excitement at being able to land the killing blow and then, almost at random, you're just dead. From what? Well, it happened too fast for you to see. 

From here, it’s just a two-page spread of the Werehog ripping the Egg Dragoon a new one and sending Eggman on his way. It happens almost exactly the same way it did in the game once you’ve finally beaten the thing.

It’s decidedly less cool without actually playing it but the comic managed to render it well enough.

I’d say he tossed him into the stratosphere but it was only like maybe a mile or so away really. Which is actually farther than he actually threw him in the game.

Sonic manages to reach Chip and the Chaos Emeralds. He’s ready to fix this but then that Chili-dog he ate for lunch attacks his gut with a vengeance and he doubles over.

No, obviously the Dark Gaia magic… stuff is being ripped from his body.

It was always a sad moment, seeing the werehog go. Even when you may not technically be super attached to seeing it be a continuing thing, it’s always mildly hard saying goodbye to a thing you …recognize. 

Shit is fucked by the way.

Eggman tells Orbot to power up the Death Egg by the spire but Orbot suggests that’s a bad idea. Moving in now is going to see them turning to dust now that all the Dark Gaia energy is oozing away from the powered badniks, Sonic, and wherever else it is around the world.

Tails tells Sally and the rest to get the FUCK out of the city. Sally is about to protest because the job her group went down there to do hasn’t been accomplished yet but when the thing she’s speaking to Tails through explodes, Bunnie makes an executive decision and carries her and Antoine away towards the tornado.

It… LOOKS like the spire was destroyed by the random purple lightning bolts going off as the Dark Gaia energy pools together.

If so then that would kind of render what Sally’s group was down there to do a bit pointless, which is sad but… oh well. I guess I can give them points for trying.

Anyway, you know the drill.

Eggman has gathered up all the pieces of Dark Gaia together and it’s reconstructing itself, including the bit that he took from Sonic. The werehog has been yoinked out of Sonic’s body. 

Chip is like “We’re boned! We’re fucked! It’s over!”

Sonic’s like, “YO! We’re still alive so let’s fight! Remember all the people you met?”

And Chip does. We see a spider-web of all the people Chip has met, including Charmy right above him, the one who named him in this continuity which is still wild to me.

Chip wipes his face and then talks about how he usually does this dance with Dark Gaia. He rides in his Transformer of Temples and beats the shit out of him… apparently for centuries?!

Yeah, this fight goes on for centuries normally… or so he says. Wow.

I guess without Super Sonic’s help it would have been a much slower burn. 

With him though, it can appropriately be much faster.

The transformation isn’t as cool here but, again, it would be kind of hard to match what Unleashed did here.

It’s still awesome though.

Also, look at Chip’s faces. He’s legitimately the best in these panels. They’re excellent. 

“Sonic-! I-! You were-WOW!” is what he’s probably saying right there in the bottom panel.

The light is shining off of him so brightly, he looks like an Ed, Edd n Eddy character with that squiggle vision.

I can’t help but hear the music going off in my head as the two of them fly into battle. The instruments that play during the cutscene where Super Sonic transforms and flies with Chip towards Perfect Dark Gaia will always give me a semblance of chills.

It’s easy for me to imagine a comic version coming out of a lot of games and selling moments like these better than some of its contemporaries. I can easily see a comic version of Colors, Lost World, or Generations’ endings being much better in a comic form then they were in their original incarnations. 

I can’t imagine that for Unleashed though. This game oozes presentation more than any game before or since. As far as an epic feel, the only game to come close since this one has been Frontiers. 

A part of me feels happy that the last big arc these comics are going out on would be the events of this game, even if it took forever to get here.

So that’s where we’re at. Super Sonic and the Gaia Colossus are about to face off against Perfect Dark Gaia and it’s such a tortuous way to end the issue because my brain is desperately trying to start the Super Sonic Vs. Perfect Dark Gaia music in my head but I keep having to stop it because I’m not at the next issue yet. As such, the music of the cutscene as they head towards it keeps replaying and the boss music keeps trying to start and I’m just like “NO! NOT YET! I’ll let you feel the sweet release in a bit!”

As for this issue, twas the fight against the Egg Dragoon and it was good. Better than I gave it credit for in the past, at least. Maybe the werehog ending the fight immediately as soon as it became dark does bother me a tiny bit but only really because of the limitations of it being a comic and with there being so few pages to work with. That crops up every now and again but on the whole it’s fine. I am efficiently excited though.

---

Archie Sonic the Hedgehog - Issue #287: Panic in the Sky, Part 4 of 4: Finale - As Was Foretold

Oh my God, we’re finally here. It’s happening and I’m so exhausted. Like, this has drained the ever loving shit out of me. I’m happy I’ve done this but I can’t do it anymore so I’m glad we’re almost finished. Thanks for sticking with me for so long. We’ve got a couple more issues after this, of course, but it feels really good to say that the big long thing I was doing before we finish is… finished. Here we go.

It’s a wonderful image, to be certain. It could probably work as a nice piece of art just depicting Sonic Unleashed proper but I have a feeling people would have a lot of questions about some of these people on here. 

“Are those the Freedom Fighters and the enemies from the two obscure Tails video games? Were they in Sonic Unleashed???”

Spoiler

Super Variant

Ah man. I don’t want to be mean but I uh… kind of don’t like this one. I don’t know why either. It’s not a bad drawing. It’s not bad coloring either. Weird that I’m not fond of it. Maybe it's the shading?

—

Writer: Ian Flynn
Pencils: Tracy Yardley
Inks: Terry Austin
Colors: Gabriel Cassata
Letters: John Workman
Cover by Dan Schoening and Luis Antonio Delgado
Editor/Super Variant by Vincent Lovallo

Holy Hera, the editor did the variant cover. I think that’s a first.

Anyway, we begin on Super Sonic and Chip rushing forward to fight the evil might of Perfect Dark Gaia. 

The atmosphere of this scene is interesting because it’s pretty wildly different from the game. Instead of the center of the Earth, they’re still on the surface with the ocean surrounding them. Dark Gaia is just kind of sitting in a pool of magma. I don’t know where the magma came from though.

It’s basically just a big ol’ fight. It’s simulating the game to a T, mostly. Not much in lue of grandstanding choreography or anything. Some shots are just what you remember from the game.

Remember fighting those snake things with the eyes in the game? Remember Chip ripping open the shield and going inside it so he can punch Dark Gaia in the face? 

Well, it’s all here.

Then we’ve got Based Rotor over by the ocean.

Sally was about to do that thing where she grew upset and started to blame herself again. Thank goodness Bunnie spoke up when she did. It’s not like I’m totally unsympathetic but I can’t handle another scene where she says “I fucked up” followed by nothing happening with her as a result of it. 

More stuff you remember from the game happens, like Dark Gaia grabbing the Colossus and causing Chip to make those endless struggling noises with his mouth. He charges his laser and is within firing range of the Freedom Fighters on the ocean. Sonic sees this and puts a stop to it in a way that causes the blast to split into sections as it collides into the Gaia Colossus.

Somehow.

As the blast gets split and shoots two beams beside the Sky Patrol instead of one beam that completely obliterates it, we get Eggman’s commentary as he floats by the depowered Death Egg.

He whines about being a hairs away from powering up the Death Egg but he also shares my sentiment that the theme park being gone sucks too.

Yeah, Eggmanland was allegedly in this book but we really didn’t get to see dick when it came to it. Just a bunch of silhouettes and sky boxes that were vaguely Eggmanland colored I guess. We got to see it in Eggman's Dozen, at least. That was a nice enough showcase of the area. I just wish more stuff with the theme park aspect was done to help push the aesthetic a little bit more. 

It sucks but whatever. At least Eggmanland got shown in some capacity. I don't think we ever got a proper look at Empire City as it was in Unleashed. We saw some city streets before going directly into Casino Park but that was it.

Eggman then goes on about how the raw power of the world is really impressive and starts wondering if he can find a remote location to suck it up that way. He’s basically describing the plot to Sonic Lost World of course which, again, is another hint towards a Lost World arc that never happened.

Seeing the obvious pieces being put into place and seeing none of it come to fruition will never not be a little amusing. Even funnier is how the Deadly Six still managed to have a prominent Archie showcase despite that. Slipped in right under that radar at the last second they did. What a close call.

So anyway, they win.

It’s weird how fights in Archie go sometimes. You’re reading a page where Eggman is talking to himself and then on the next page the fight decides that it’s just over now.

I know this isn’t a manga but when you read enough of those sometimes you kind of find yourself wishing that comics could construct themselves a little bit more like them when it came to stuff like this. I understand why they can’t most of the time which is why I’m always grateful whenever they manage to actually do it with stuff like the Sonic and Mega Man vs. Metal Sonic and Bass fight or a couple of the fights in IDW. 

Actually, IDW has been (almost) pretty consistently great when it comes to fights. Maybe this is just another personal Archie shortcoming?

Sonic depowers and Chip restores the world.

Everyone is happy except for the people who benefited from it being split. 

Love the little head pat from Cubot at the end there. Excellent.

Sonic is tired and wants to finally have that party… but Chip says he’s gotta go back to the core of the Earth with his darker half.

Sonic is not okay with that. He wants Chip to have a victory lap or one last chance for a fun time together. You know? A reward!

Chip says he’s losing power and he doesn’t want to risk Dark Gaia getting out again. He’s going back to sleep and says he doesn’t need a reward because the greatest reward was adventuring with him and all his friends.

This was the part where people kept saying that Chip “died” or something which… I could never figure out if it was supposed to be a joke or not. Either it’s a joke or a ton of people just ignored all the details of the story and the point behind Light and Dark Gaia. For my sanity I’ll assume it was just a really unfunny joke.

My emotions are flaring up a tiny bit here but only really because the music from Sonic Unleashed is playing in my head right now. It’s feeding me the emotions that game gave me, which is clear and obvious to me because the way this book handled Chip’s relationship with these people really does make this particular goodbye feel really unearned. 

I do love that his goodbye to Cream led to her making a “What the fuck?” face.

Wish I could have seen all the stuff he’s talking about in those speech bubbles. Maybe I saw snippets of it? I can’t remember if I did. I only recall a stand out conversation between him and Tails and nothing else really. 

This arc tried to achieve way too much and something was going to inevitabley suffer for it. A shame it had to be the emotional core of Sonic Unleashed. 

Yeah, it’s a huge shame. The idea to use this arc as a way to establish the world was solid but all the time it took to do it managed to stretch on for far too long while also, somehow, not being enough to make Chip’s goodbye work all that well.

Before he goes, he does magic the collar he has into Sonic’s hand. Sonic puts it on and shares a nice looking sunrise with the others.

It’s a nice enough moment.

Of course, what they aren’t aware of, is that this was Chip’s secret plot to absorb Dark Gaia’s energy for himself so he could grow big and squeeze the planet so hard it popped.

We’re doomed. The Earth is destroyed.

The next few issues of the Archie Sonic comic are all stories that took place in the past, meaning, this book has no future. 

Giant Chip destroyed the world and then it got canceled ya’ll.

Well, despite the bad end of Chip hugging the planet into extinction I would say that was a sufficient enough ending. As an issue all its own, it would have worked a lot better had all the stuff that Chip was talking about at the end felt more earned considering what happened during the lead up to this issue. If it had, this would have been a great way to see him off.

Most of the issue was just the fight with Perfect Dark Gaia and it was fine. It wasn’t really a well choreographed fight and the ending to it just sort of happens but that feels par for the course for some of these game centered fights regardless. It wasn’t a bad issue and despite my belly aching it wasn’t a bad arc.

This whole Unleashed saga had a lot of good in it. I did genuinely enjoy a lot of the world building elements to it. Some I could have done without and some were just okay but when it managed to spit out a "Champions" or an "Eggman’s Dozen" it was really firing on all cylinders. It wasn’t a bad idea but perhaps we didn’t need to take until James Cameron finished Avatar 4 to complete this whole thing.

It was a long road but now that we’ve reached a point to where everything has been sufficiently set up, we can finally move forward in a manner that utilizes the world Ian painstakingly set up for this new era of Sonic comics!

Onward, towards a bigger and brighter future for the Archie Sonic the Hedgehog comics!

 

[Ryannumber1gamer]

2 minutes ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

Onward, towards a bigger and brighter future for the Archie Sonic the Hedgehog comics!

Oh boy, the end times is upon us.

I cannot believe we're finally at this point. I guess if nothing else, you get to end on the Chaotix?

[SanPolo4389]

11 hours ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

It was a long road but now that we’ve reached a point to where everything has been sufficiently set up, we can finally move forward in a manner that utilizes the world Ian painstakingly set up for this new era of Sonic comics!

Onward, towards a bigger and brighter future for the Archie Sonic the Hedgehog comics!

 

[Promethean0416]

Well, at least the Unleashed storyline got a conclusion unlike the Naugus one.

[Fieryfurnace]

If anybody here wants to read a (mostly) completed, not-officially-released Sonic Universe issue, I've made an Imgur album of Sonic Universe #95 with Ian Flynn's original dialogue (not typo checked, though). These pages were released almost two and a half years ago (well, up to three years ago for the earlier pages) by Herms, so it should be okay to share now?

You can compare the dialogue and colouring here to the fan restoration of this issue - it's interesting to see the differences between the actual story that was told by Flynn and what a fan writer speculated the story would be like based purely on the artwork.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Ayo, a semi-official continuation!

I don't know why, but for some reason, this story hits hard after watching Puss in Boots: the Last Wish.

Either way, we get to see Antoine get an upgrade and complete his story!

[Kuzu]

Well, at least your...how long has it been since you started this?

[Ryannumber1gamer]

6 hours ago, Fieryfurnace said:

If anybody here wants to read a (mostly) completed, not-officially-released Sonic Universe issue, I've made an Imgur album of Sonic Universe #95 with Ian Flynn's original dialogue (not typo checked, though). These pages were released almost two and a half years ago (well, up to three years ago for the earlier pages) by Herms, so it should be okay to share now?

You can compare the dialogue and colouring here to the fan restoration of this issue - it's interesting to see the differences between the actual story that was told by Flynn and what a fan writer speculated the story would be like based purely on the artwork.

This is my first time ever seeing Issue 95 (Wasn't actually aware we had the entire thing, dialogue included). Makes me even sadder that we had really cool origin stuff incoming, including freaking Excalibur Sonic and some changed up 06 lore, and it got shitcanned and whimpered out with a meh Classic trilogy arc.

Antoine's redesign is also cool as hell, again, just another shame this got canned.

[Dr. Detective]

Sonic Mega Drive - Issue #1: Mega Drive - Act One

We’ve got a deluge of Classic Sonic stuff coming at you hot off the iron all of a sudden. Around this time I couldn’t have been less interested in the Classic Sonic side of things. Was obviously still very sour about the state of Modern Sonic and how either ignored or terrible everything about it felt. For the longest time I didn’t even know what the Mega Drive comic was. I never got it and never found out that it was even a thing until way later. I think there was probably even a time where I thought they were talking about the Genesis arc or the Classic Sonic arc in the main books that’s coming up. 

But no, Mega Drive is just an entirely separate Classic Sonic story for the 25th Anniversary. I don’t know if it’s canon to the Archie books or if it was just made for Archie to put their own spin on the game version Classic Sonic. I don’t recall there being any Freedom Fighters in these so it’s probably the second one but we’ll see.

The reason I chose to do this one first is because the Classic Sonic story in the main book feels disconnected enough for me to get away with doing it. Plus, these books came out first. On top of that, the final arc of the main books is unfinished... but as I found out after going through these two issues, so is this story. So... it really doesn't matter.

Spoiler

Convention Exclusive Variant 

This one is a lot less impressive of a cover than the other one, gotta say. I get the style they’re intentionally going for here but the first cover just looks cooler. Never really been a fan of these Brady Bunch style covers anyway.

—

Writer: Ian Flynn
Line-Art: Tyson Hesse
Colors: Matt Herms
Letters: Jack Morelli
Cover by Tyson Hesse
Convention Cover by SEGA

Right off the bat, Sonic Mega Drive makes a solid and awesome first impression by being incredibly well drawn and charming to boot.

Everytime I see something like this I’m immediately taken in by how obvious it is that Sonic works best when treated like a cartoon or an anime. The stiff nature of the 3D models in something like Boom or even the expressive live-action Sonic from the movies still pales in comparison to something like this.

Sonic the freaking Hedgehog shouldn’t have limitations on what it can and can’t do and so often it feels like there are. There’s so much we can achieve with animation and it’s one of those things that makes me wish the Sonic movies hadn’t been in development for so long. It might have been possible for them to come around at the time of all this stuff happening with Arcane and the Super Mario Bros. Movie and gave animation a try.

I can’t stop thinking about the possibilities. Not after Puss in Boots rocked my world the way it did.

Sonic’s fighting a giant enemy crab in Green Seaside Zone and is attempting to save Tails who is trapped in its claw… in a manner that looks like he should be dead, honestly. He’s not though and utilizing his buddy’s advice, he sets him free.

Had to get the meme in there of course.

Even looking up the meme back in the day, I still didn’t fully understand it. 

Anyway, Sonic and Tails chat. Apparently, Eggman is after Ancient Gears that he plans to use and power his new weapon.

It’s always ANCIENT stuff eh? Nothing modern or from the future to steal from Silver’s time? Everything ancient is always so much better than the shit we have today. 

I love what happens when they confront Eggman, by the way. His dialogue starts off pretty generic and samey but then when Sonic speaks it turns into this festival of off the wall humor.

They fly up and in the span of a single page they destroy his machine and send him spinning. It’s a little funny because Eggman told them not to do it and then said please afterward.

He then flies off in a huff, saying that he’ll get his revenge ala Sonic Rush.

Tails finds the gear Eggman left behind though, which is bad for the doctor.

I really, REALLY love the expressions and faces these characters are making, by the way. The way Tyson Hesse draws these curved mouths is great but it really shines when he gets them to look like they’re laughing at Eggman or looking smug.

They head to a place called Flower Park Zone where the plants attack you relentlessly. They also come across Amy running away from a Gardner variant of the robot at the beginning of Sonic & Knuckles?

I think?

Pretty sure that's the one. Only played Sonic & Knuckles once in my life and still haven't beaten it.

Well, anyway, Sonic and Tails ran here due to hearing a voice in distress. Before they can get to her a bunch of vines show up to block their way but it doesn’t last too long.

They pretty handedly handle this robot with a swift strike. Its large hat falls on top of Tails and he looks positively gobsmacked to be eaten by this large hat. You can see it on his face how much it devastates him.

Then the upturned smirk when he tips the hat and actually teases Sonic about Amy being his girlfriend happens. It’s amazing.

I have these expressions saved to my phone. They’re just too good. Cocky Tails is adorable when put in the correct context. Absolutely.

Despite having come across her in the “Hands behind head, tuck and roll, Tails surrendering to Chaos 0” pose, Amy insists that she’s not the damsel in distress she was when Sonic first saved her in an even earlier adventure.

Sonic isn’t convinced, not just because of what happened with Amy the last time they met, but also likely because of what JUST happened.

Sonic does have a legitimate reason to believe Amy would just get in the way but then he takes a spiked plant to the fucking face and it gores his brain and he dies.

No, rings just shoot out of him. He probably would have died had they not been inside him though. 

Amy then gets to show off a bit which, thanks to Sonic embarrassing himself there, leaves him a position to both thank and acknowledge her.

Tails fanboying over Amy has got to be up there too. Ugh, these moments are almost too wholesome. I don’t know what to do with myself.

Sonic also mentions still making sure she doesn’t get kidnapped again, which is fair. The character descriptions of this book actually wrote that Amy was a “one-time damsel in distress” which I thought was an odd, hand-wavy way of describing her position in the classic series. However, it’s definitely being acknowledged with intention here as we’ve just been shown.

Eggman then shows up in a dragon looking mech and they make quick work of it.

Eggman drops another gear as he flies off and Sonic comments for me about how it’ll happen the same way again, lather, rinse, and repeat.

By this point it’s clear that they’re doing a typical Classic Sonic game structure thing. They go to a new zone, come across the first boss, go through a bit more, fight Eggman, he drops an Ancient Gear, and then they move on to the next one.

The banter and expressions are just too good though. 

Like, it’s kind of astonishing how good this all looks. It doesn’t even matter that they’re following a formula here because the dialogue and the art is making this work so well. It’s not even something I have an inkling within me to complain about.

If anything, it makes me wish Tyson Hesse could make a few IDW comics for the hell of it. I know he’s super, insanely busy, but still. 

The three of them end up getting trapped in a spiked door trap. Because she’s super strong, Amy manages to break the spikes with her hammer and Sonic yanks on the algae on the ceiling to see to its collapse.

There, we see the person behind setting the trap in the first place.

Holy fuckles, it’s chipmunk cheeked Knuckles!

Sonic is very understandably pissed off. He shouts at Knuckles for trying to gore him, a little boy, and a little girl with spikes and crush their remains with two closed in walls. Knuckles doesn’t care about that and just demands the Chaos Emeralds back?

Sonic doesn’t know what he’s talking about but Knuckles provides us a handy flashback, delicately shown to us in crayon for our viewing pleasure.

I can’t with these expressions guys. They’re… this is just too good. 

It’s TOO good. It’s a crime. It’s an actual crime for it to be this good. I mean, sweet Jesus. I know the money shot is the Knuckles faces here, especially the first one in the crayon drawing and the one in the bottom panel but the Tails one.

That fox is observing an idiot in its natural habitat and he is less than impressed.

They tell Knuckles how much of an idiot he’s been and then Knuckles gets immediately pissed off once he realizes he’s been tricked.

He breaks the door in front of them down and rushes in to the next boss fight of the area where Eggman decides he’s just going to drop a spiked wheel on them.

He’s having a great time too. He thinks it’s so funny.

Then he gets stuck and it’s not funny anymore.

With no choices left, he tries to appeal to their good nature and ability to be rational.

This was a pretty rational response so he shouldn’t be upset, really.

Sonic, with his ever forgiving nature, does the bro-fist exchange with Knuckles and they’re off to handle this situation together.

Now they’re four people strong.

What’s also funny is how when they were running into this room, Knuckles was worried Eggman was going to drop the Master Emerald and it was going to shatter. Sonic says it’s a pretty resilient rock and that he doesn’t think it can be shattered… which is hilarious.

Of course, it can only be shattered by those with ties to it like Knuckles and Chaos but that tends to put an image of it in your head that isn’t super flattering as far as you reliably thinking it can’t shatter. Them's the breaks.

They let the animals loose and then they run off towards new adventures, I suppose.

That’s the end of Mega Drive #1.

Very sweet and wholesome.

I would be remiss not to at least mention the off-panel for this issue where Tails rubs on a game cartridge to get it to work and out comes a Game Shark Genie. The reference there is already great but then the wishes it grants are funny. Especially since it says it’s power diminishes with each wish.

Sonic wishes to have at least one ring with him all the time. Tails wants to be able to keep up with Sonic so he poofs in a rope attached to the ring.

Knuckles wants his own game and we get…

And thus the quick fix solution of sticking “& Knuckles” at the end of everything was born. Probably.

Maybe this is how it happened. Maybe it just was.

That was a barrel of fun. It’s extremely rare to read a comic that can carry itself on just the dialogue and visuals like this but this one excelled at it. Literally, who cares about the story for this one? This stands as a shining example of how you could totally have done something like this for more light-hearted affairs with Sonic had you had someone with actual talent behind it. 

At the end of the day a light or dark tone isn’t the end all, be all. I have my preference for the more serious stories and always will but the disdain I have for the stuff that went all in on being goofy was rooted in not a hatred for the attempt but the execution. You need charm, you need great interactions, and you need great style and animation. Even in a two-dimensional space, this feels better animated than something like Colors or Boom to me. 

---

Sonic Mega Drive: The Next Level - Issue #1: Mega Drive - Act Two

“Titling a second issue as a #1 is just a cheap tactic to make weak comic sales stronger” is a line I recall being touted out with regards to this, the second Mega Drive issue. This is… well, there’s really no excuse for this title. It’s honestly quite ridiculous. The fact that Mega Drive only had one issue before they immediately decided to title this one as an entirely new series so they could stamp a cheap #1 on the cover kind of tells you all you need to know about the state of the Archie Sonic comics at this point in time.

Archie was fucking up a lot at around this point. The Mega Man comics were already on their “hiatus” and the trades of all the Sonic books were either taking forever to come out or just weren’t coming out at all. People were getting really upset with Archie’s bullshit, wondering what was taking so goddamn long. The other shoe would eventually drop but not quite yet. 

At least we got another chance to see Tyson Hesse do another issue of Mega Drive. Here it is. Issue #2.

I mean, Issue #1 of “Next Level”. 

Yeah, that’s it.

Spoiler

Writer: Ian Flynn
Line-Art: Tyson Hesse
Colors: Matt Herms
Letters: Jack Morelli
Cover by Tyson Hesse

The absurdity of titling this as another number one kind of smacks us right in the face immediately. It’s very obviously a continuation of the last issue complete with the same title cards introducing us to each zone and the same four guys rushing off to do what they said they were going to do last time.

This issue touches upon Sonic’s insecurities a bit. He tries to rush in and stop the danger ahead like always but because his friends are super competent they all take care of the robot before he can. 

He calls Knuckles a doofus and tricks him into saying he’s a doofus too before they move on to confront the Eggman boss at the end of the Glitter Peak Zone.

Frozen was three years old by the time this comic came out in 2016. Oh geez, we’re about two years away from IDW at this point. This really is the end of the line.

As you can see from the bottom panels, Sonic is having trouble dealing with being with these guys. He wants to do quips but then because Tails is too competent and efficient, he immediately interrupts and says what needs to be done to beat him.

They do it, get Eggman to float away, grab the gear and celebrate… except for Sonic.

All of a sudden, these victories are feeling very hollow and not fun. Why? Well, on the surface one could just say it’s because they’re stealing his fun and it’s no longer gratifying for him to be on these adventures now that they can be so easily handled by these tag-alongs.

On the other, you could look at this as a rare instance of Sonic feeling unnecessary. That would be quite the interesting swing of the pendulum as far as arcs I’ve seen done with his character.

It’s to the point where when they reach the Haunted Depths Zone, the instant the suggestion to split up the Scooby gang comes, Sonic just bolts.

Knuckles mentions the place IS a maze and Sonic’s like “WE SHOULD SPLIT UP TO COVER MORE GROUND IS WHAT YOU MEAN KAY SEE YA BYE!”

He’s having the time of his life being alone again, of course, and is sure the others are doing juuuust fine.

The bottom panel is hilarious. It’s probably one of the best panels in the history of Archie Sonic. It’s just the three of them yelling and screaming and flailing about while the badnik shoots fire randomly in the air. It’s like some kind of weird comedy smash cut from an old Adult Swim show or something.

I also like how Knuckles’ suggestion to Tails causes the poor fox to just get his face melted off.

It’s okay. He’s a cartoon basically. He’s fine.

Knuckles tries to punch it and gets shocked by its metal hide for his troubles. 

It doesn’t work.

Amy then has a plan. She waits for it to charge then bats its tail into its own mouth and makes it explode!

Jesus! Go get em girl!

With that done, Sonic is then shown to cross paths with Eggman. It’s here where I wondered if we were going to get a scene of Sonic struggling and him realizing he needed his friends.

Instead, something arguably funnier happens.

Eggman does himself in, rather hilariously, and then Sonic has a Squidward in SB-129 moment where he realizes that he’s all–!

As Sonic stands in contemplation, regretting his huge mistake, the others race ahead knowing Sonic is likely doing a-okay without them.

We get to the Eruption Ruins Zone where Sonic sees a pit of lava and a tower to climb that makes it so that he can’t exactly reach where he needs to go. He’s stuck… until the others show up and viola! Everything is fine!

They help Sonic get to where he wants to go, and hey, he learned a lesson.

I really appreciate this story breezing by without anyone once mentioning the superpower of teamwork. We can see it first hand with our eyes and it’s pretty cool alright.

The dialogue remains top tier here.

Then, of course, the traps get set off. Knuckles makes sure to let everyone know he’s not doing it this time. Then the spiked wall comes down, it gets destroyed, and wouldn’t you know it, then man behind the curtain is Eggman again.

Eggman runs off and Sonic chases him, not caring about how Eggman isn’t ready.

Then we get the best out of context panel of the book.

“YOU DROVE ME TO THIS SONIC!”

No, of course he’s diving in there to get inside a cooking robot.

Tails is dying from the heat by this point and as he and Amy take a breather, Sonic and Knuckles work together to stop Eggman from putting them on the Menu and turning them into one big S’more.

This has been one of those issues where trying not to show off all the dynamic panels and the great expressions has been a near impossible task. It’s incredibly hard to cover this one because of the temptation to just post every face the characters make and talk about how funny they look. 

Like, how could I not include that panel of Tails making that look as he spins his own tail into his face?

They make short work of the robot but then–!

There he is! 

I was wondering when he’d show up. He is on the cover after all.

He practically demolishes Tails’ gut. Knuckles is incensed and wants to do something about it immediately but Tails takes his time to recover and brings up a rather solid plan.

They basically head to the tornado and using his genius smarts he figures out where they’re likely headed.

Sonic gives him praise and we get another adorable Tails face.

Add in a purring sound effect and we’ve hit pay dirt.

They make it to Eggman’s latest flying fortress. It looks like a different version of the Wing Fortress or the Flying Battery. Sonic mentions them both but doesn’t ultimately find it TOO impressive. Gives it a six out of ten.

Anyway, they invade the base and, as usual, it looks fucking great.

It’s basically reminding me of the invasion of the Egg Carrier from Sonic X. Specifically that version because it showed the three of them landing on the ship and racing forward side by side as they took on it’s defenses.

Then Knuckles did his cool Knuckles thing and split up from the group.

Despite being okay with Knuckles being a friend nowadays, I do still think he was at his coolest when he would do things like let go of the ladder on the way to Chris’ house and glide off to be on his own.

When they get inside, they see Amy trapped in a casing that her hammer can’t burst through. Eggman is on a TV monitor, disgruntled that they showed up so early before he was finished with his list of demands.

Metal Sonic, the enforcer, is here too.

Eggman demands the last gear in exchange for Amy being set free. Tails mentions to Sonic that Metal Sonic only took five gears and there’s supposed to be seven. So, they think that Eggman miscounted and try to trick him.

Sonic hands it over to Metal but once he does, Metal ignites with power and begins to beat the shit out of Sonic.

Turns out Metal Sonic had the last gear inside him all along. Sonic gives Eggman his props for playing them this one time.

It’s looking to be mighty tough and Sonic doesn’t seem to got this… but then, with help from his friends, they basically gang up on him and beat the shit out of Metal in return.

I’m out of words to say for how good the art is.

Man, I dunno. 

It’s… talent like this makes me feel like I’ve reached nirvana.

Metal Sonic is on bended knee and has the gear inside him knocked loose. Looking around he realizes that “Oh shit. They’re gonna beat me up like I’m in an alleyway at night” and then he bursts through the ceiling to leave.

Sonic takes that chance to burst through Amy’s cage and save her. 

We get yet another great scene! 

Man, it’s all just so charming and cool. This is what I think of when I think of light-hearted Sonic. Fun and adventurous but with shades of comedy that’s like this! There’s a lot of physical comedy. There’s a lot of range in the expressions to sell the bits better than they would through more stilted animation of unimpressive 3D models.

SEGA really underestimates just how much a good facial expression can do for a well delivered line of dialogue. We need to see this kind of stuff show up in the games. Just do this but have it be animated like this. It can be done. They won’t do it but I know it can be done, you fucks.

With that, she’s been freed but now Eggman has all the Ancient Gears. Oh no! Whatever shall we do?

Follow him? Well, Knuckles wants to but Sonic, for once, opts for actually coming up with a plan if you can believe it!

Yes, he wants to take precautions after that Metal Sonic fight. He was super powerful with only one of those gears inside him and now that he’s got all seven he can probably whoop them to next Sunday.

So they decide they need to gather the Chaos Emeralds to counter balance this!

That’s where we leave off! 

The book tells us to tune in for the Final Chapter of Sonic Mega Drive: Overdrive!

Holy shit! Overdrive?! Let me guess, was it going to be titled “Sonic Mega Drive: Overdrive - Issue #1 Comma Mega Drive - The Next Level #2 Colon Mega Drive #3” or something?

Three parts of the same story and yet all of them would have been #1’s. THAT would have been fucking hilarious. Lining those issues up in a row would have been confusing as shit at first glance.

Unfortunately, the dream of getting three #1’s out of Mega Drive died along with this book.

That’s it. No more.

That bottom caption is a lie.

They lied!

THEY LIED TO MEEEEE!

I WANT MORE! MORE! MOOOOORE!

But I can’t have more can I? No, of course I can’t. I shan’t have anymore because the big dumb doofuses at Archie fucking suck ass and treated the book so badly after the Penders suit that they lost the rights to the book anyway. Sales were down and nothing good was done to mitigate that except for sticking a number 1 on the front of these Mega Drive issues. It’s all gone. All hope is lost. No more Mega Drive.

It was an amazing set of two issues though. This was incredible from top to bottom. I dare say the second one was somehow even better than the first. The restraint I had to give myself not to just post the entire comic and call it a day was tough and even now I’m wondering if I could have shown more. It’s truly a marvel and it clearly showcases what can be achieved when everything that makes for a good Sonic product comes together.

It remains taxing and hard to parse when Sonic has the makings for something great but can’t QUITE get there because of other factors. Ian Flynn writing for Frontiers is excellent but we can’t quite get full use out of what he can bring to the table because of a lot of other factors that don’t line up as well as they do with his writing for this book here. If he were writing for something Tyson Hesse helped animate, like those Youtube shorts or the stuff he worked to help design on the movies, just imagine what could happen?

I know animation is tough work but it’s a crying shame we don’t have a 2D animated cartoon that looks like that Knuckles Prologue or a CGI movie that takes how good Prime looks and kicks it up to the next level for a film that would get as much attention (and probably more praise) then the Sonic films we have now.

Being in this inbetween zone where I’m enjoying the new stuff we’re getting but also feeling like we could do better is frustrating. Not as frustrating as the sheer hopelessness from the last decade. More of a “We’re almost there but I need you to do it like THIS” kind of way. In a way it’s sort of a little more frustrating, kinda.

---

Archie Sonic the Hedgehog - Issue #288: Genesis of a Hero, Part One: Where it All Began

So, even though Mega Drive could act as a sequel of sorts to this, it feels more appropriate to separate the two seeing as how these next three issues of the main book were supposed to detail the origin of how Sonic got his start in the proper new continuity of the comics. Do I really care to see that? No, not really. I feel like, no matter what, there was no way to stop this from feeling like yet another retelling of the same Classic Sonic origins stories these books have already done but with the Freedom Fighters sprinkled in, yet again.

Spoiler

Best Buds Variant

Yeah, this don’t look good. Not good at all actually. The proportions are all off but not in a way that I find charming. It just looks wrong. The background just being a boring aqua-green space just kind of radiates an energy of “We’re getting canceled so who cares?” to me. Maybe they tried their best though. So sorry if you did.

—

Writer: Ian Flynn
Pencils: Tracy Yardley
Inks: Terry Austin
Colors: Gabriel Cassata
Letters: John Workman
Cover by Patrick Spaziante
Best Buds Variant by Genevieve FT

We begin in Scrap Brain zone, at the end of Sonic 1, for some reason, where we see Sonic trying to confront Ivo and Julian on their bid to try and take over the world. Or the Acorn Kingdom?

Sonic gets punked.

Julian is surprised that Ivo’s plan worked and Robotnik gets upset with him. It’s a master and lackey relationship for the books. Sonic even says they’re funny.

Here’s where the slight disconnect between Mega Drive and this comes in. Sonic gives his speech about saving the Acorn Kingdom, all while doing his traditional pose with the finger wag.

Then Eggman opens up the floor below him and he falls in which kind of takes the fire out of his speech.

I’ll admit, it does bother me that Sonic “in the past” is just his classic design. I do sort of wish it were something more crossed with his modern look.  It's most bothersome when it comes to his eyelids suddenly being tan, which never looked right to me, even in Adventure 2. Especially in Adventure 2 actually. It’s a little less distracting with Eggman, despite the completely different shape of his body, for reasons I can’t personally explain.

Sonic makes his way through the rest of the base and we get some amusing reactions.

I’m recalling the look on my dad’s face when I once quoted Futurama to him and said that there are things out there that taste purple.

Eggman sees Sonic barely surviving everything and gets a little upset when they realize he’s about to reach them. So they decide to spring the Sonic 1 Final Boss on him.

Poor guy looks genuinely put upon here.

Then it gets worse when the lasers come out.

Man, I know the feeling Sonic.

That reaction in the top panel just sums up my experience with this boss to a T.

I’m so not good at these Classic games. Just watching them, even in comic form, feels like I’m experiencing PTSD all over again.

Granted, it’s not as bad to think about nowadays. Probably because I had so much fun with Mania and I heard about how user friendly Sonic Origins is. Maybe things could ease upon me there? Probably.

The pistons are making Julian here nauseous and he doesn’t like them at all. Sonic does eventually manage to beat them, which includes a moment where he homing attack’s Eggman’s butt-!

CRACK!

After this, Eggman and Julian escape and Sonic returns home by going backwards through Sonic 1.

Pretty fun way of doing it, I suppose.

Back home, a discussion is had with Sonic and all the Freedom Fighters. They’re all here as younglings. The Acorn Kingdom’s leader Maximillion is here too, making faces that remind me of the way he was portrayed in the old book.

At first I wondered if old Maxy here was supposed to be more like an asshole in the past but the more I read the more clear and obvious it became that he’s just not Max at all. 

Then I remembered Naugus exists.

The way he flinches and recoils like he’s being burned by the love and affection given unto him by his own daughter gives it away. Though, imagining that as what Max was actually like to his daughter is also quite funny to think about.

His concern for gathering all the Chaos Emeralds and reclaiming his kingdom is all he asks Sonic about here which is why Sonic is unhappy to report that he only has six.

Six is the number of emeralds that was in the first game too so that’s a neat detail. We’re on our way to Sonic 2 so the talk shifts to being about taking back Westside Island where Mobotropolis rests in this continuity. It’s also where Eggman said he was heading back to once he was done with Sonic.

The comic is… basically over now.

The rest of it is just the Freedom Fighters psyching themselves up to join Sonic on his quest to take back Westside Island. We even get a shot of Bunnie standing up from her wheelchair and saying that she’s gonna fight to win her new home back.

Everyone rushes off to go do that and… that’s it.

The swooning Tails is doing here is quite funny. Also took notice of Antoine and Bunnie in the background. It’s very sweet.

Again, the slight disconnect my brain has with seeing the Classic versions of Sonic and Tails being beside Classically designed versions of the Freedom Fighters is a bit strange. It probably shouldn’t be because I don’t have an issue with them being designed for the modern era and standing beside the Modern incarnations of Sonic and Tails though.

Something about the way the Classic Era’s designs are utilized just feels off to me though. It’s not clicking the way it should and it’s really hard to explain what’s making my brain register this as something that feels off.

I’m really not surprised that I didn’t remember any of what happens in this issue. There’s really nothing to it at all and it’s fairly uninteresting. It’s kind of amazing how little happens here that’s of any real interest. The decision to start at the ending of Sonic 1 and tell us through dialogue that Sonic started the fight was probably the right move. Especially if all we were going to be shown was him rushing through those old zones again. Whatever. I don’t need to see them if they’re not going to be a backdrop to an actually interesting adventure.

This set-up works fine for the story that’s about to kick off, I guess, but something tells me it’s more just going to be a greatest hits of the Classic Era with some Archie Sonic salt and pepper sprinkled in. It doesn't feel necessary and, to be honest, makes for a huge whimper for the main books to go out on. I'd have definitely been a lot less hostile to the Classic Sonic stuff had its interrogation not interrupted the Modern Sonic stuff so often. The IDW comics era where they remain separate and don't take the place of an issue of a regular book helps the trips into Classic Sonic's world feel like a nice, charming, special little treat as a result.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

55 minutes ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

Archie Sonic the Hedgehog - Issue #288: Genesis of a Hero, Part One: Where it All Began

I’m really not surprised that I didn’t remember any of what happens in this issue. There’s really nothing to it at all and it’s fairly uninteresting. It’s kind of amazing how little happens here that’s of any real interest. The decision to start at the ending of Sonic 1 and tell us through dialogue that Sonic started the fight was probably the right move. Especially if all we were going to be shown was him rushing through those old zones again. Whatever. I don’t need to see them if they’re not going to be a backdrop to an actually interesting adventure.

This set-up works fine for the story that’s about to kick off, I guess, but something tells me it’s more just going to be a greatest hits of the Classic Era with some Archie Sonic salt and pepper sprinkled in. It doesn't feel necessary and, to be honest, makes for a huge whimper for the main books to go out on. I'd have definitely been a lot less hostile to the Classic Sonic stuff had its interrogation not interrupted the Modern Sonic stuff so often. The IDW comics era where they remain separate and don't take the place of an issue of a regular book helps the trips into Classic Sonic's world feel like a nice, charming, special little treat as a result.

I'm sure this'll come off as overly hated for a relatively nothing story, but I hated Genesis of a Hero when it first came out for a magnitude of reasons, and I honestly think I hate it even more now.

It came right after one of the longest arcs in the entire comic, where we were being promised bigger and better things to come, where we did have a Freedom Fighters arc incoming, along with more fun side stuff slated where it was just about Sonic going on different adventures and the FF going their separate ways. 

We already had Mega Drive acting as the Classic-styled comic, and more over - we also had them do it better with a more unique style, so Genesis of a Hero not only felt like a complete waste of time, acting as a bad filler tie-in to the anniversary at the time, with the most exciting thing being that they were even allowed to do Classic, since they had to tiptoe around it before in the Breezie flashback by giving Modern Sonic shorter proportions. 

But the storylines were just completely nothing. They're bare basic classic era adaptions with some very minor Archie details thrown in to make it cohesive (I'm guessing that Acorn was Naugus, and that's why he's both obsessed with the Chaos Emeralds, and dismissive of Sally here).

But now, so many years later, they're now worse because this is the final 'hurrah' for Archie Sonic. This was how this series ended. With some salt in the wound, and with injury to insult - not doing bigger and better things with the stuff that made Archie stand out, but doing some shit SEGA mandated classic adaptions that are no-thrills fluff about one specific point of Classic Sonic games (IIRC - Scrap Brain, Stardust Speedway, and Death Egg, retrospectively). That's what Archie ended on. Not on a strong last finale, but on a whimper. It's pathetic. And knowing we ended on this when we had stuff like Freedom Fighters about to establish a new direction for the cast, with characters like Antoine about to get cool as hell redesigns is even more depressing.

Edit: apparently this story left me so bored that I also completely looked over Naugus' shadow under Max, lol.

[Michael Takagawa]

23 hours ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

I'm sure this'll come off as overly hated for a relatively nothing story, but I hated Genesis of a Hero when it first came out for a magnitude of reasons, and I honestly think I hate it even more now.

It came right after one of the longest arcs in the entire comic, where we were being promised bigger and better things to come, where we did have a Freedom Fighters arc incoming, along with more fun side stuff slated where it was just about Sonic going on different adventures and the FF going their separate ways. 

We already had Mega Drive acting as the Classic-styled comic, and more over - we also had them do it better with a more unique style, so Genesis of a Hero not only felt like a complete waste of time, acting as a bad filler tie-in to the anniversary at the time, with the most exciting thing being that they were even allowed to do Classic, since they had to tiptoe around it before in the Breezie flashback by giving Modern Sonic shorter proportions. 

But the storylines were just completely nothing. They're bare basic classic era adaptions with some very minor Archie details thrown in to make it cohesive (I'm guessing that Acorn was Naugus, and that's why he's both obsessed with the Chaos Emeralds, and dismissive of Sally here).

But now, so many years later, they're now worse because this is the final 'hurrah' for Archie Sonic. This was how this series ended. With some salt in the wound, and with injury to insult - not doing bigger and better things with the stuff that made Archie stand out, but doing some shit SEGA mandated classic adaptions that are no-thrills fluff about one specific point of Classic Sonic games (IIRC - Scrap Brain, Stardust Speedway, and Death Egg, retrospectively). That's what Archie ended on. Not on a strong last finale, but on a whimper. It's pathetic. And knowing we ended on this when we had stuff like Freedom Fighters about to establish a new direction for the cast, with characters like Antoine about to get cool as hell redesigns is even more depressing.

Edit: apparently this story left me so bored that I also completely looked over Naugus' shadow under Max, lol.

What’s done is done. We only have the future to look forward to now.

[Michael Takagawa]

By the way, has anyone read Archie Sonic Online and/or Sonic Retold?

[Promethean0416]

19 minutes ago, Michael Takagawa said:

By the way, has anyone read Archie Sonic Online and/or Sonic Retold?

Both of them, yes. Definitely engaging and has some dark moments to where I don't think Archie/Sega would have ever taken the series.

[Rabbitearsblog]

56 minutes ago, Michael Takagawa said:

By the way, has anyone read Archie Sonic Online and/or Sonic Retold?

Would they even be considered apart of the Archie canon, despite the fact that they were fan made projects?

[Michael Takagawa]

44 minutes ago, Rabbitearsblog said:

Would they even be considered apart of the Archie canon, despite the fact that they were fan made projects?

Whichever is canon to you.