Sonic #100 [Oct 2001] Sometimes, it's good to be wrong. There were times, during my years of Sonic fandom, when I could have sworn the comic was only an issue or two from cancellation. But here it is, issue #100, which does make it a pretty big deal. Let's see if it was worth the wait. Spaz-Harvo cover: The core, the franchise, the original six Freedom Fighters against a backdrop of past covers, some of which were even before my time. As a fan, anyway. "Reunion" Story: Karl Bollers; Art: Ron Lim; Ink: Andrew Pepoy and Pam Eklund; Lettering: Jeff Powell; Colorist: Stephanie Vozzo (debut); Editor/Art Director: Justin Fred Gabrie; Managing Editor: Victor Gorelick; Editor-in-Chief: Richard Goldwater. Robotnik steps out of a glowing tube to test the results of some self-experimentation. Walking over to a strapped-down Cheesehead, he does a laying on of hands and the redshirt suddenly goes gray. "I now have the power to roboticize with but the slightest touch," he declares, as the body count stands at 0 dead, 1 roboticized. Somewhere between the last issue and this one, Arachnis managed to tell Sally the location of the Sword of Acorns, only Sal has a more immediate problem. Kodos may be a little slow on the uptake, like many comic book villains, but he finally got around to remembering that his purpose in this saga is to be a homicidal maniac. "He's insane from toxic waste poisoning," Sally thinks, echoing the latest editorial party line. Personally, I think a brain tumor from radiation exposure would have served the plot just as well, but who am I to second-guess Archie's second-guessing? As Sally manages to dodge Kodos, Nate tells Mina that he's run out of Mobians to annoy with his expository dialogue so he's going to Robotropolis to annoy the hyoomons by telling them about the toxic sludge that they're living with. Just in case they're collectively too stupid to figure it out for themselves. You'd think that a species capable of space travel would also be able to answer the question: "What's that smell?" Sonic, Antoine and Bunnie arrive to find both Rotor and Tails none the worse for having been almost choked to death by Kodos. Arachnis, however, is not looking so good, but before Sonic can get around to using the D-word he's shouldered aside by an ad for the latest Pokemon game. And the body stands at 0 confirmed dead, 1 presumed dead, 1 roboticized. Amazingly, Sally is able to keep one step ahead of Kodos, but then she runs out of stepping room as she reaches the edge of a cliff. This presumably is "the Forest's deepest scar," and the Royal Shiv is down there someplace. But just as Sonic makes his way toward the scene, Kodos takes a swing at Sal, she loses her footing, and with a cry of "Not agaaaaaaaaain!" tumbles into the ravine. As Sonic arrives, looks over the cliff and shares the readers' sense of deja vu, Kodos tries sneaking up behind him but is blind-sided by Bunnie who delivers an unambiguous uppercut. As his contribution to the effort, Antoine pokes Kodos in the butt with his sword. Tails gets a shot in himself while Rotor ... excuse me, "Roter" ... commiserates with a straight-faced dry-eyed Sonic over Sally's presumed demise. Sega wouldn't have it any other way, a point brought home as I recently watched a videotape of the game play of Sonic Adventure 2 supplied by Andrew Sautter, especially Sonic's "Sayonara, Shadow" scene which was equally understated. The only emotion allowed Sonic is in on display in a red-and-gray silhouette panel. Bunnie gives Kodos a boot to the head to finish up the action, and the body count stands at 0 dead, 2 presumed dead, 1 roboticized. Just as Sonic suggests retrieving what we assume to be Sally's body there's a familiar FWAAASHH from the ravine ... And we cut away to Nate approaching Robotropolis, which is looking more like the background of the Carnival Night Zone all the time. He's intercepted by a couple security bots in hovering egg units, and is introduced to the Big Giant Floating Head of Robotnik. Buttnik addresses the new arrival as "bait er, I mean, Nate." Turns out that Robotnik will use Nate's capture as a means to lure Sonic to his doom. Nate thinks: "Dang! That kind of exposition is supposed to be MY job!" We then cut back to the ravine where Sally is not only in possession of the Sword, she's also possessed BY the Sword. "The Sword's vessel is unbreakable," she intones in distinctly different lettering. Kodos tries to get one last murder in before he's written out of the story, but he's ZAMmed by a beam from the Sword and falls into the ravine himself. And the body count stands at 0 confirmed dead, 2 presumed dead, 1 roboticized, 1 resurrected. Now put yourself in Sonic's place. You were too late to keep Sally, someone you claimed to love in S48's "Sonic the Fugitive," from falling down a ravine to certain death. Then all of a sudden in one of the most blatant deus ex machina plot turns in the history of the comic, she arises from the ravine doing her impression of the Lady of the Lake wielding Excalibur and speaking with someone else's voice, then she zaps Kodos into apparent oblivion. The first words out of your hedgehog mouth are: A. "Holy chili dogs!" B. "Didn't I see you do that in 'The Secret of NIMH'?" C. "It's been a while, Princess..." (Hint: whichever one sounds like the lamest possible thing you could say on the occasion is the correct answer) Sally, who's so understated as to be positively blase' in light of what's just happened to her, uses the D-word with regard to Arachnis, bringing the body count to 1 declared dead, 1 presumed dead, 1 roboticized, 1 resurrected. She attributes Arachnis's demise to the toxins that drove Kodos over the edge, as it were. "Without medical treatment, she succumbed to the lethal effects," she says, as she appears to have had so much taken out of her by the ordeal that she can only speak in heavy- handed, wooden dialogue empty of any trace of personality. Just then, Mina dashes onto the scene to tell everyone that Nate has gone to Robotropolis to annoy the hyoomons. Robotnik, meanwhile, is showing off his trophies for Nate: Cheesehead, Uncle Chuck, and Muttski. Uncle Chuck decided that this is as good a time as any to blow his cover. Siccing Muttski on Robotnik, he hustles Nate out of the room as Sonic and the gang arrive in town; unlike Nate they're not spotted by any security bots. Sonic, Tails and Mina go after Nate while the others go ... somewhere or other ... Nate, Charles and Muttski run into a formidable wall of bots, but Sonic also arrives and plows through the bots. Sonic realizes that his Uncle Chuck has indeed regained his consciousness; sure, NOW he shows some emotion! Still, we cut away before there's any physical contact between uncle and nephew. Sally and her team arrive at a room that just happens to contain a group of roboticized Mobians. Sally then goes back into FWAAASHH mode and the Mobians regain their consciousness and are led outside. Sonic, Muttski and Nate, presumably followed by Tails and Mina, eventually hook up with the animal exodus. Nobody seems to notice when Nate peels away from the group while the Overlanders wonder if they've missed Halloween. Once the Mobians reach the energy dome the BGFH shows up to gloat, but the gloating is cut short when he realizes that Nate has pulled an Obi-Wan Kenobi and cut the power to the dome. By the time Sonic realizes that Nate isn't with the herd, we see that Nate's about to receive the Right Hand of Doom from Robotnik. Final score: 1 dead, 1 presumed dead, 1 resurrected, 1 roboticized, 1 on the verge of being roboticized. HEAD: If anyone thinks that Nate Morgan's fate is sealed by this cliffhanger ending, I have some oceanfront property in Colorado I can sell you real cheap. Remember, these are the creatives who've fixed it so that Tails isn't Tails, that Sally's initial fatal fall from Robotnik's HQ wasn't fatal at all, and even Tails and Rotor bounced back from the deadly grip of Kodos. So far, the only declared fatality was an underutilized ninja spider; I wonder what's going to happen to her egg sacs. I was somewhat surprised to read the initial reviews where the readers breathlessly reported that there were something like 4 fatalities in this story. Let's look at them individually: Arachnis: the only declared kill, and even then her demise was chalked up to toxic something-or-other rather than Kodos. As a character she'd never been developed in anything like a meaningful way. She was a villain, then she double-crossed Kodos by swiping the Sword, and now she's gone. Kodos: the more developed of the two, his own demise is unconfirmed but still pretty much welcome. After several flashback stories where he interacted with Robotnik, he was little more than a Central Casting maniac, a butt-ugly muthah who went nuts at the end. No big loss. Cheesehead: C'mon! The guy had "Redshirt" written all over him from the moment he appeared on the scene in S92's "Wrath of Khan." And it's not like he's out of the picture yet. Nate: It really surprised me how much morbid GLEE there was when people announced that Nate Morgan, or as one contributor to Ken's message board called him, "Mr. Jell-O Pudding Pops," had bitten the big one. Kodos, Arachnis and Cheesehead were all eminently expendable, having put in only a relative handful of appearances since their introduction. But Nate! His presence has been well-nigh inescapable ever since he showed up during the Sonic-and-Tails-Around-The-World- Tour. He made a career of lurking in the shadows waiting to walk on-panel, supply necessary information via a bit or two of dialogue, then walk off-panel. That was his whole shtick. And in all that time, did ANY writer take the time and trouble to invest him with ANY kind of personality? Did ANY writer drop a hint as to his likes or dislikes, his aspirations, his feelings about the other residents of Knothole, his memories of Eddy the Yeti? Did he even LIKE his brief stint as a teacher at Knothole High? We never knew. And as a result we didn't care. And that made the reaction to his imminent departure at the end of this story all the more weird. He had managed to become one of the most HATED characters in the continuity. And it was not because he was black, not because he was a hyoomon, not because he was a dwarf. It was because he was useless and annoying. When I got word of Nate's death, by reading thinly-disguised spoilers for S100 on Ken's message board, I had wanted to write an eulogy for Nate Morgan in the classic Black preaching style, with all the cadences and imagery of the genre, punctuated by exclamations of "Yes, yes!" and "Ummm-hmmmm!" and "Somebody say 'Amen!'", and maybe finish up with the choir performing Dizzy Gillespie's "Swing Low, Sweet Cadillac." But how can you take the death of a character seriously if the creatives never bothered to give him life? Sonic, Tails, Bunnie, Sally, and everyone else have made an impact on the fans because the creatives of the comic as well as the SatAM series used their talents to breathe into their nostrils the breath of life. They were alive. They had personalities. Sonic's appetite for chili dogs wasn't just something tacked on at Sega's request; it's become very much a part of his personality. It gives him just that much more life, no matter how hard the creatives try to suck the life out of him by keeping him dead behind the eyes. And there have been attempts to bestow life on other characters: Tails in the "Growing Pains" arc, Rotor when he traveled north to see his family, Bunnie in SSS11's "Upgrade," Sally in "Ascension." No matter how wanting the treatment may ultimately have been, there was still something that resonated with the fans. It was real. It was life. It never happened to Nate Morgan. And remember, what we have here is a cliffhanger ending despite the big honkin' "The End" in the panel. It is still supremely possible that Nate will survive in one form or another, to bore us all another day. I especially believe this having learned that Nate owed his existence more to an editorial edict than to any act of imagination on the part of the creatives. I don't think management is eager to murder one of their little darlings. But that's not even my biggest gripe about this story. One of the elements in the SatAM continuity that I found endearing was the basic situation of a handful of under-equipped furries doing battle with a technological evil genius. Armed with courage, cunning, attitude in Sonic's case, and an occasional explosive device, the Knothole Freedom Fighters had to draw on their resourcefulness in order to make a dent in Robotnik's operation. They EARNED their victories; they weren't handed to them. The stories worked for me, in part, because there was nothing magic about what they were doing. Cancel that out. We have now arrived at the New Age of Mumbo Jumbo. That was my term for the dime store mysticism that made its way into the comic as far back as "Ring of Truth" (S35). It was inherent in the underused and ill-defined characters of the Ancient Walkers, it was embodied in the Day of Fury plot point in several Ken Penders story arcs in the Knuckles book, it was glaringly obvious in the Knuckles's Quest arc, it had SOMETHING to do with the climax of "Immortality Is Infinite..." (S56), and now that Sally has retrieved the Sword it's back with a vengeance! We have Sally rising from the dead, speaking in someone else's voice, dispatching Kodos. A heaping helping of Mumbo Jumbo! And what really ticks me off is that there's no room for any kind of reflection on what's just happened, none whatsoever. "It's been a while, Princess;" what the heck kind of dialogue is THAT?!? I know that the writers had to make some cuts to accommodate the Sonic Adventure 2 adaptation, but I mean this is ridiculous!! But not nearly as ridiculous as Robotnik's new Midas touch! C'mon, he can roboticize someone with a touch?!? That doesn't even make sense! I remember when there used to be long, involved, technically plausible discussions on the Sonic lists as to how the process was supposed to work. Now it's like "Screw it, it's magic, deal with it." Forgive me if I do NOT consider this a leap forward in the comic's development. Keep in mind, as someone else has pointed out, that this story is more like Sonic 99.5, and some of the material got jumbled around when S98 became the Sonic Adventure 2 adaptation. That's why I get the feeling that Sally's fall into the ravine was probably where this story was supposed to break. This also explains the forced pacing throughout. Sally cuts straight to the roboticized Mobians. Sonic knows exactly where to locate Nate. Way too easy, if you ask me. This story was as much an exercise in house-cleaning as anything else. They managed to tie up some loose ends by killing off one, maybe two, minor villains but coherency is still a long way off, especially with the addition of the Sally-as-the Sword's-vessel and the Robotic-touch plot points. The former could have consequences on the question of Mobian succession in one of two ways: the Sword could restore the use of Max's legs and he'd decide to take the throne back, or else Max would be convinced that Sally is indeed the Source-designated heir to the crown. There are probably other alternative scenarios, but I went with the most logical. Then again, the house-cleaning in this issue is NOTHING compared to what could happen when Knuckles starts horsing around with space-time. Since Nate's fate is still inconclusive, Knuckles's next move is uncertain, and we've now got two new plot points to work around, I'm not going to make any predictions as to where this comic is going. Because I'm still not sure that anyone at Archie knows with any certainty. Or if they know, they're fighting like crazy to keep us clueless. OK, I know that sounded totally paranoid. Hey, after what they pulled with Tails I no longer believe that the folks at Mamaroneck are playing straight with us. That's why until someone goes into that ravine and pulls a body count I fear that Kodos may not be TRULY dead. For that matter, what about Sally? What if the "vessel" isn't Sally at all, and her mangled corpse is still at the bottom of the ravine, the way Ken Penders planned it all along for "Endgame"? Think about THAT one, boys and girls! Head Score: 5. EYE: I'm still not fond of Ron Lim's artwork, especially his rendering of Sally. He's STILL trying to stretch her into having human proportions, and her muzzle has become too long and angular for my taste. Bunnie is looking equally anorexic on the bottom of page [7]. Of course, he does well by Sonic, Robotnik, Nate and the other hyoomons; his Overlander crowd scene on page 16 actually looks more convincing than his crowd of roboticized Mobians on the preceding page. I must again register my conviction that Ron still has a long way to go before he can do convincing furry art. Eye Score: 5. HEART: When in doubt, kill off Sally. That seems to be the operating principle at Archie Comics. So we're treated to another Fall From A Great Height only THIS time her "rescue" is so mumbo jumbo it renders her even more inaccessible to Sonic than when she was under house arrest in Castle Acorn. In the original Star Trek ep "Amok Time," Spock's bride-to- be, T'Pring, basically throws Spock over for another Vulcan named Stonn. Her reason was that Spock had already become a legend, and she had no wish to be consort to a legend. Same thing here: thanks to the "Sword's vessel" plot point, Sally is no longer just Sally. She's become an avatar, an embodiment of the kind of power the Sword packs. And who wants to date an avatar? Either this is yet one more way to put distance between Sonic and Sally, or else the creatives didn't think this one through. These kind of deus ex machina turns of the plot can be extremely detrimental to the relationships of the characters. Sally now has a furry foot in each of two worlds: Mobius, and the Source of All. "Ascension" was about her choosing to belong to Mobius instead of the Source, but Karl doesn't seem to have gotten the message. It was a message I got, however, as far back as "Endgame." Before the Endgame story arc reached its confusing denouement, I found myself crafting a number of scenarios for what would happen if a) Ken really did go through with keeping Sally dead, and b) she ever needed to come back into the story in spite of her demise. So I noodled out a Resurrection Scenario where a mystical maiden from Mobius's past interferes with a spell of Merlin Prower's and causes Sally to be brought back to Mobius. As I saw it, it would only be temporary; she would retain her physical form until Robotnik was finally defeated, at which time she'd then be called home to the Source. She'd have to tell Sonic at some point, and the knowledge that success in defeating Robotnik would also mean eternally losing Sally would add a certain poignancy to what passes for the "relationship" that Archie Comics lets them have. This is what I mean by putting characters in compelling situations. There was one scene that I knew was absolutely essential to such a story, one that would have made the risen Sally less inaccessible while injecting some much-needed Heart into the story, and it could be told in just five panels of the comic: Panel 1: Sally, concerned, watches Tails back away from her in fright. SALLY: What's wrong, Tails? TAILS: Are you a ... a ... ghost? Panel 2: Sally kneels in front of Tails and kisses him on one cheek. Tails is still afraid. SALLY: Can a ghost do this? SFX for kiss. Panel 3: Sally kisses Tails's other cheek. Tails is now more surprised than afraid. Same SFX. Panel 4: Sally finished up by kissing the tip of Tails's nose. Recognizing it as their "funny kiss" from the SatAM ep "Sonic and Sally," Tails is now smiling broadly. Same SFX. Panel 5: Tails has thrown his arms around Sally's neck and is hugging her tight, a tear running down his cheek. Sally's arms are around Tails. TAILS: It IS you!! Oh, I've missed you so MUCH, Aunt Sally!! SALLY: I've missed you, too, honey. I have no idea whatsoever where Karl is going to take this "vessel" plot point; I only hope SOMEBODY has an idea! But it has the potential of REALLY pushing Sonic and Sally's relationship on the rocks, even moreso than the presence of Geoffrey Sinjin, who mercifully wasn't even in this month's story. Sally's demise, of course, adhered to the party line in its lack of emotional content, and the same was largely true of the reunion between Uncle Chuck and Sonic. I can blame these flaws on the editing of the story in light of the insertion of S98 into the continuity. As for Sally's new status, I can only hope that, like so many plot points in this comic, the attention-deficit disordered creatives will forget about it sooner rather than later. Heart Score: 5. "Welcome To The Dark Side" Story: Ken Penders; Art: Ken Penders; Ink: Presumably also Ken Penders; Color: Frank Gagliardo; Lettering: Vickie Williams; Editor: Justin Gabrie. A long, long time ago I can still remember When this comic used to make me smile. So artist/writer/inker Ken, He tried to fill the readers in 'Cause he hadn't told this story for a while. He told about Dimitri's vision, His tampering with Chaos fission, And afterward, for chuckles, How Locke abandoned Knuckles. Knux got himself a friend or two, Some insects also joined the crew, He had a girl named Julie-Su Before ... his comic ... died. So fly high, you're a green-glowing guy, You've got dreadlocks on your head, Locke's Gone and you can't say why. And those good ol' Chaotix didn't tell you good-bye. And you're thinkin' that somebody will fry... Thinkin' that somebody will fry. Do you think of Julie-Su? With those violet eyes, you know I do! Seems she's not so far away. 'Cause Lien-Da took her from her room, To face a still-uncertain doom. Now you really shouldn't treat a girl that way. Well, Dmitri went and told his tale, And then Knuckles said, "Looks like you failed." He then saw Julie's face, And the two of them embraced. It was hard to keep their feelings hid, So they did what Sonic never did, But maybe Knuckles flipped his lid Because ... his comic ... died. And we were singin': Fly high, you're a green-glowing guy, You've got dreadlocks on your head, Locke's Gone and you can't say why. And those good ol' Chaotix didn't tell you good-bye. And you're thinkin' that somebody will fry... Thinkin' that somebody will fry. Now Dimitri's nerves are cold as steel As he says to Knux: "Let's make a deal; In or out, which will it be?" As Knuckles weighs his people's fate Ken Penders just can't seem to wait So we then go somewhere else entirely. Now to prove that he was not destroyed, Old Tobor slips out of the Void, But Kragok's close behind With murder on his mind. And while we wonder just what Knuckles knows About the fight, the book we close On Kragok; that's the way it goes 'Cause he ... and Tobor ... died. And they were singin': Fly high, you're a green-glowing guy, You've got dreadlocks on your head, Locke's Gone and you can't say why. And those good ol' Chaotix didn't tell you good-bye. And you're thinkin' that somebody will fry... Thinkin' that somebody will fry. We then get a strange interlude, 'Cause Tobor sees that Hawking dude, But they're both dead as dead can be. While Hawking quotes "2010" And we see the saints go marchin' in, We see Knuckles try to save his family. On the bridge the deal he's settled With the dude who's cloaked in metal. Julie-Su's aghast; he's Gone over to the nasties! Does Knux have something up his sleeve? Hey, I don't know, but I believe He does; but now we have to leave Before ... someone gets ... fried. And we'll be singin': Fly high, you're a green-glowing guy, You've got dreadlocks on your head, Locke's Gone and you can't say why. And those good ol' Chaotix didn't tell you good-bye. And you're thinkin' that somebody will fry... Thinkin' that somebody will fry. And we'll be singin': Fly high, you're a green-glowing guy, You've got dreadlocks on your head, Locke's Gone and you can't say why. And those good ol' Chaotix didn't tell you good-bye. And you're thinkin' that somebody will fry. HEAD: Next time, Ken, don't lead with the opening line from a popular song. Once I got started I couldn't stop! It's hard to say how many stories are in this one installment. There's the main story, of course, featuring Knuckles and Dimitri, but then there's also the strange little digression to Tobor and Kragok. It's hard to see just what the point was to that exercise, though Knuckles's "There's nothing to worry about" on page [8] suggests he's playing his cards close to his chest band. There are possibilities: 1. Ken was cleaning house in the same way that Karl was in the previous story. He needed to start tidying up the loose ends, and this one has been left unresolved since, what, K18's "Deep Cover"? Yeah, I'd say it's about time to pull it out of the stack and do something with it. 2. It was Knuckles himself who opened the portal. As I pointed out already, he's no stranger to fiddling with space- time. That would make a handy ace in the hole when dealing with Dimitri. 3. Ken needed filler for something like three pages. Short of any direct input from Ken, I can't say. I DID get direct input from Ken, however, on his message board when I responded to an anti-Julie-Su post. Unfortunately, on my way to defending the former Dark Legionnaire, I ended up pointing out that based on her appearances in SSS14's "Best of Times..." and S99's "What Goes Around Comes Around" she's been downgraded to Damsel in Distress. Ken protested that he hadn't planned it that way, and that as envisioned in the Knuckles book she put up more of a fight but was eventually overwhelmed by superior numbers, but ever since Knuckles became a back story he's had to make some cuts. But he assured the fans that she WILL be back in form ... when the story resumes in Sonic #106 after a three-month hiatus. Bottom line: she's STILL a Damsel in Distress at the moment, and we'll just have to wait another half a year before Ken can start making it right. Don't you just love loose continuity? I've tried avoiding theological discussions of these stories because I didn't think they'd serve any purpose other than to possibly ignite a flame war. But the interlude with Tobor and Hawking is SO blatant that I have to step in. Having brought Tobor and Kragok back into the story and then having disposed of them by apparently slamming them into the ship, Ken could just as easily have left well enough alone. Instead, as if to console any Tobor fans out there as well as expand upon an issue he raised last month when Knuckles encountered Hawking, he has Tobor and Hawking walking off into the light toward the Netherhood or whatever Ken calls his Guardian heaven. Which is all well and good, except that Ken begs the very valid question: "And what happened to Kragok?" Assuming that Kragok also bought the harp farm and that Ken isn't screwing with our heads again by keeping him off to the side to be allied with Dimitri at some point, what DOES happen to one of Ken's villains when they die? The doctrine of Hell may not be a popular one, but even in popular culture it's hard to ignore. In the motion picture "Ghost" the yuppie scumbag who engineered Patrick Swayze's death gets dragged off-screen by animated shadows when he's killed himself at the end. In the made-for-cable Western/morality play "Purgatory" that aired on TNT, there is a clear division of fates as the evil gunslingers meet an appropriately volcanic end while the heroes ride off into the sunrise in a heavenly stagecoach. Despite the feeling that films such as "Field of Dreams" are more numerous, there's no use pretending that there's no interest in depicting Hell. It's there, whether it's the kind that pops through to this Earth on occasion, as in "Poltergeist," or the kind we make for ourselves one way or another; this latter category is probably the more numerous and includes films ranging from "Blade Runner" to the recently-re-released "Apocalypse Now." But Ken cut theological corners, providing an assurance about Tobor while ignoring what happened to Kragok. So what are the possibilities? Basically there are two: that there IS an echidna version of Hell and we just didn't see Kragok making the trip, or else only Guardians have souls. There is no third alternative. I know Ken has had this story line going in his mind for years now, so he's had a chance to examine the ramifications of his plot. I only hope he's considered ALL the ramifications and that Kragok's fate, like Julie-Su's better qualities, simply ended up on the cutting-room floor for lack of space. Again, if it turns out Ken's keeping Kragok in reserve, all bets are off; after all, this is the same writer who recently told us that Tails isn't Tails. And speaking for myself it's going to take some doing for him to earn my trust all over again. These things aside, the story itself moved well and was just ambiguous enough for me. Knuckles's conversion has been too easy. That's why I'm relieved that the term Ultimate Villain, which was being tossed around so freely by the creatives until Sega's insistence on a Sonic Adventure 2 issue jazzed the continuity, was nowhere to be seen in this issue. This state of affairs is scheduled to run for the next two issues, then there'll be a three issue breathing spell as the Downunda Freedom Fighters and the "Freedom Fighters of the Galaxy" work issues #103-105. Unless something really serious happens in the next two issues, it now appears that Knuckles being the UV may only amount to a courtesy title. It's already too soon to tell. Head Score: 7. EYE: Good, solid work by Ken, even if he's still leaning on Trek props such as the Klingon warbird that Dmitri's flying in. Dimitri himself looks more like a rat than an echidna, especially full face. Eye Score: 9. HEART: I'd like to see Ron Lim or any Sonic story artist try and get away with the hug on page [5]. But we know Sega, don't we? Given the content of this story, emoting is not high on anybody's agenda. Heart Score: 4. Sonic-Gram: Fred Gabrie shoulders Ken Penders aside to do the column for S100 himself. He goes on to list all of the creatives who have worked on the book. Well, ALMOST all. He forgot to mention Scott Shaw!, for one. And how come Ken Penders is listed neither as writer nor as illustrator nor even as a lowly inker? If Ken wrote this list himself and Justin took the credit, let me just say to Ken that this kind of false humility will get you nowhere. As a librarian, I prefer to consult COMPREHENSIVE sources. And if Justin DID draw up this list himself, why did he totally shine off Ken and include newbie colorist Stephanie Vozzo for whom "Reunion" is her debut story? Something's a little ... off here.