Sonic #110 [July 2002] Spaz/Penders cover, or Spaz/Ribiero/Ray/Pepitone cover, depending on whether you believe the cover or the info on the Sonic-Grams page. Watched by various anonymous O's and flanked by Robotnik, President Nameless, Sally, Tails and Robo-Sniv, Sonic appears to be asking the assembled hyoomons: "Forget the missiles, I wanna know how come I look like I was drawn by Ron Lim?!?" Nelson Ribiero splash page. "What does a talking blue hedgehog, a two-tailed fox and five nuclear armed missiles have in common?" It doesn't matter, since the following story only has THREE nuclear armed missiles. Looks like Editorial is maintaining their usual high standards. Get it together, will ya? "Station Square Attacks!" Story: Benny Lee; Art: Ron Lim; Ink: Pam Eklund and Andrew Pepoy; Coloring: Josh and Aimee Ray; Lettering: Jeff Powell; Editor/Art Director: Justin Gabrie; Managing Editor: Victor Gorelick; Editor-in-Chief: Richard Goldwater. Uncle Chuck bursts in on Sonic and Tails in mid-slumber to let them know that the Acorns want to see the two of them ASAP. Sally, using an OOC Nicole who's suddenly uploaded some Yiddish vocabulary, reports that she just got a call from President Nameless of Station Square. Seems that their automated defense system, OTIS, finished digesting the data about Robotnik provided by Knothole as part of the Overlander resettlement deal from "Crouching Hedgehog, Hidden Dragon: Part 1" (S106) and pulled a HAL 9000. I'm one of those who believe that Hal did NOT flip a chip in "2001" when he started bumping off crew members on the Jupiter mission. HAL simply decided that since he knew things about the Jupiter mission the hyoomons on the crew didn't, and since he didn't want human error gumming up the project, the only logical thing to do was to eliminate the human error factor by eliminating the humans. OTIS does the same thing: deciding that the best defense against Robotnik would be a good offense, it launched a pre-emptive strike against Buttnik (wouldn't you?). There's no indication in Sally's spiel that President Nameless expressed any regrets about what's going to happen to them, but being President apparently means never having to say you're sorry. Sally reports that the missiles will arrive in twenty minutes; Sonic decides to use the time to do something other than get his affairs in order as he and Tails take off. In Robotropolis, Robo-Sniv (and that's the name I'm using for the tin-plated twerp until further notice) observes Sonic and Tails's arrival. Sonic's report on what's going to happen isn't believed at first, but when it's confirmed it elicits a response of "Nyaa-nyaa-n-nyaa-nyaa!" because Robotnik has a force field and Knothole doesn't, so there! Time for Plan B, which in this case means Sonic announcing that they've got to "put the force field out of commission," presumably to force Robotnik to shoot down the incoming missiles. The blue blur does an impression of the Black Knight from "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" to keep Robotnik occupied until Tails has taken care of business. As Sonic and Tails catch sight of the incoming unfriendlies, Robo-Sniv reports all systems are Go with the force field. So Robotnik orders Robo-Sniv to deploy it ... just in time for Sonic and Tails to get outside the force field and for the missiles to detonate on the inside. THAT, apparently, was Plan B. HEAD: In plotting this story Benny Lee seems to have been inspired by the motion picture "Fail Safe" (1961), where Henry Fonda is the U.S. President who has to tell the Soviet Premier that one of our bombers is on its way to the USSR to blow something up and we can't stop it. In the film, Fonda reluctantly orders the nuclear bombing of New York City as atonement for the needless bombing of the Soviet Union. No such contrition here; aside from announcing the failure of their own fail safe system, President Nameless expresses no regrets that Knothole might have to change its name to Hole-In-The-Ground. And leave it to Ron Bauerle, Sonic fan and engineer, to point out some serious flaws in Plan B. Why, for example, didn't Sonic and Tails get turned into a couple orders of extra-crispy when they got near the missile's exhaust? What's up with the porthole in the force field, which should have deployed all at once? And how come, once the missiles detonated, they didn't melt down the force field controls so that the radiation would have escaped anyway? OK, Ron's seriously broken the IOACB Rule, but those are still darn good questions. That aside, this story worked for me so long as I didn't have to think about it. The Plan B gambit, where Sonic and Tails pretend to jazz with the force field in order to trick Robotnik, depends way too much on split-second timing and Sonic (of course) pulls it off. It's a good example of fast thinking from a character more accustomed to fast footwork. Lee's attempts at comic relief yield mixed results, though. While the dialogue on page 2 panel 1 was simply confusing (the line "Now you're talking" could've been dropped altogether), the Black Knight quotation worked for me. Then again, I don't know how many times I've seen the film, while I rather doubt that a lot of the pre-ad boys who are allegedly the comic's core audience have seen it even once. Head Score: 7. EYE: Ron Lim is TRYING to think outside the panel, as demonstrated on pages 4 and 7. Still, his depiction of a nuclear explosion falls way short of the bar raised by Pat Spaziante in "Mecha Madness" (Mecha Madness Special). And, let's be honest about it, he still has a LONG way to go when it comes to drawing Sonic and Tails. That last panel on page [11] is painfully bad! Sonic's head has ballooned out of proportion, his arm looks like a pipe cleaner with a bend in it, and the eyes are wrong, wrong, WRONG! And don't even get me started on Tails's pear-shaped physique. We've got a strong contender for Worst Story Art for 2002 right here. Eye Score: 4. HEART: What went unnoticed, or at least un-commented upon in the story, is the fact that Robotropolis was NOT just the home of Robotnik, Robo-Sniv, and various and sundry SWAT- and Shadow- bots. Remember, the last we saw of Colin, Cheesehead, Grandma Agnes and Nate Morgan, they were all bots and all inside the city as well. So they were destroyed along with Buttnik and Robo- Sniv. Or not. C'mon, people, this is "Sonic the Hedgehog," a comic that's raised the death cheat to an art form! If you've skipped ahead to the Sonic-Grams page, Justin's already let it be known that Robotnik will resurface with a new bod at some point in the story (like Sega would have let him get away with killing off the villain of this franchise!). Whether Justin plans the same for Robo-Sniv and the other former hyoomons remains to be seen, but I wouldn't put it past him. This comic has a weird attitude when it comes to the subject of death. Ken Penders has racked up an impressive body count including but not limited to: Sally's teacher, Julayla (old age; "In The Still Of The Night", S18); Charmy's bud, Mello (drug overdose; "The Unsuspecting", K13); Prince Emerson (gunshot; "Shot Heard 'Round the World", S72); Edmund (gunshot; "Sins of the Father", K2). Karl Bollers has indulged in his share of bloodlust by killing off Eddy the Yeti (cave-in; "A Friend In Deed", S66), Uma Arachnis (beaten by Kodos; "Reunion", S100), and Kodos himself (fall from a great height; see previous entry). However, Ken has also pulled off more than his share of death cheats, the most infamous being Sally in "Endgame." And then there's this whole Afterlife angle he's been pushing, which is why I didn't include the "deaths" of Hawking and Tobor in the list above. In Kenspeak, they've simply "evolved" or "transcended their corporeal shells." I'm still betting that Ken will eventually revive Kragok and reinsert him into the story, since the depiction of his demise in "Welcome To The Dark Side" (S100) was ambiguous at best: no corpse on display, no spirit Kragok giving Hawking the finger, nothing! And as for Karl Bollers, he can still resurrect Kodos if he wants to, since the warlord's butt-ugly bod was never seen either. Some of this coyness about death, I'm convinced, has to do with something more than the Comic Code Authority. "Death," according to Antonia Levy, "is America's new obscenity, something you don't mention in public and especially something that must never be discussed in front of the young." Of course she wrote that in 1996, five years before the spectacle of death was brought home to Americans in the most forceful way imaginable. And it was the treatment of death in this comic that quite frankly drew me to read the comic, specifically S18's "In The Still Of The Night." That story, which depicts in a long shot and on the oblique the death of Julayla, told me that this was a comic with possibilities, something that could possibly be more than a funny animal book, that could be intelligent, complex, and emotionally honest. So much for THAT illusion! After "Endgame" I began to wonder if the comic would ever be emotionally honest again, and after the Tails-isn't-Tails plot point surfaced I've given up on the comic's ever being just plain honest. Nowadays, if I want intelligence in storytelling, complex characterizations and emotional honesty, I'll watch "Digimon." Or watch the videotape of the game play of Sonic Adventure 2, where death is very close to the heart of the story as embodied in Shadow's preoccupation with the memory of Maria, Grampa Gerald's raving about how GUN killed everyone around him, and Shadow's own samurai-like suicide. I suppose I could apologize on behalf of Benny Lee and acknowledge that, with only 11 pages at his disposal, he had to reduce his emotional content to one panel: page 4 panel 3. Plus, the pressure was on him to deliver an action story. Still, we who came into the fandom early remember how one of the prime goals of the Knothole Freedom Fighters was not to waste Robotropolis but to recapture it. Once upon a time that was one of the plot points of the comic, and one of my favorite two-page splashes shows the residents of a reclaimed Mobitropolis doing some urban renewal ("Surprise!", S68). Starting with "Brave New World," it appeared to be the intent of Editorial to have the Mobians whip their city back into shape, only to lose control of it in S75's "I Am The Eggman." Which wasn't so bad; it just meant we restart the clock on the Taking Back Mobius plot point. But then came S94's "New Order" and the accompanying new order from Editorial concerning the taking back of Robotropolis: "Screw it!" Granted it wasn't put that bluntly in the story, but having Queen Alicia say "Let that nasty Robotnik keep his awful city to himself!" was a slap in the face. I made that statement in my review of "New Order" and I'm standing by it. This action story is so relentless, so driven by the machinery of playing Dodge The Missiles, that there's only one panel's worth of room for any kind of emotional response to the destruction of Robotropolis, and even then it's more about the imminent destruction of Knothole. Lee has had to take a substantial premise and iron it as flat as a CD. Something this monumental, this huge, shouldn't simply be dismissed in a couple of badly-drawn Ron Lim panels. Heart Score: 4. Spaz covers: They do lose something without the coloring, don't they? Of the ones on display, I liked 36 and didn't like 78; go to the Archives on my Sonic site (www2.andrews.edu/~drazen/sonic.html) to find out why. I wish he'd have included the art for S52's film noir cover. That one would have looked great WITHOUT color. "One For All" Story: Karl Bollers; Art: J. Axer; Ink: Andrew Pepoy and Pam Eklund; Coloring: Uncredited but I'm guessing Ray & Ray; Lettering: Jeff Powell; Editor: Justin Gabrie. The missile attack, as we learn, evaporated the pool of goo which had been the Acorn monarchy's link to the Source of All, as spelled out in S60's "The Ultimatum" and as later developed in SSS11's "Ascension." Anyway, the Source now becomes homeless and Karl inflicts a horrible line on Sally: "There is a disturbance in the Source!" You think THAT was bad? Try this one: The Acorns couldn't keep up the payments on the pool of goo so Sally got repossessed. While under the spell of the Source, Sally and the readers learn that she can see the present (Sonic and Tails escaping from Robotropolis in the previous story), the past (Sally's resurrection in S100's "Reunion"), and the future (a weird scene from next issue's "Kids of the Spider Woman"). This only opens up the old Free Will vs. Determinism debate but before Sally can make her case, Queen Alicia snaps her out of her attack of mumbo jumbo. HEAD: In a taste of things to come, events in the cover story actually have an impact on another story in the same issue. This device is scheduled to repeat itself in S114, where both the cover story and the Sonic back story register the impact of Mammoth Mogul; sorry, the Knuckles story is on its own. I kind of like the idea of having the stories interconnected. It tells me that there's actually some kind of PLANNING going on behind the scenes and that the writers aren't just throwing in moldy old plot points because Editorial told them to. It's nice to get the impression that they're actually thinking about the stories; now they just need to work on WHAT they're thinking (see below). Not a whole lot goes on here, since we're only talking 5 pages: Sally interfaces with the Source, then snaps out of it. My main concern is that this keeps this sorry mumbo jumbo plot point alive. Not that the creatives have gotten any kind of mileage out of it; then again, you could say that about a number of other plot points that were raised and then abandoned, the Knothole Is Three Hours in the Future plot point being the most conspicuous. Still, for all Ken Penders's strengths as a writer, he's frankly no theologian, and you pretty much have to BE a theologian to do justice to some of his plot points, such as the echidna afterlife, the Soultouch, the Day of Fury, and the Source of All. Raising these issues and then letting them drop isn't really the best way to handle them. But in this case Ken no longer has an option; having raised the Source point, he's had to hand it off to Karl Bollers, and Karl does what he can with what he's got. He doesn't do a bad job, considering, but isn't showing his hand WRT whether Sally's free will has been fatally compromised. Judging from her immediate reaction, she's not too crazy about the idea. And it's REALLY nice to see Queen Alicia doing something positive in a story for once. Ever since Karl thawed her out (her being frozen was ANOTHER plot point he inherited from Ken Penders, in case anyone's keeping score), she's had some bits of dialogue but hasn't really said or done anything that would give us access to her mind and heart. In some stories, notably "Family Dysfunction" (S102), you have to wonder what Max saw in her ... oh, wait, the Source arranged that marriage, didn't it? Anyway, the Queen's breaking the connection between Sally and the Source is the most positive act she's done in the course of the comic, and gives me a slight hope that just maybe Karl, a writer from Mars, can do a story from Venus. Head Score: 7. EYE: Ron Lim's depiction of Sally's resurrection doesn't look nearly as great as J. Axer's one-panel quotation of the event. And Axer's giving Sally those big Little Orphan Annie blanked-out eyes as a way to tell the difference between Sally and her self-dialogue with the Source is a nice touch. This story needed some powerful visuals to keep up with the premise, and Axer delivers. Eye Score: 10. HEART: I'm not going to reheat the argument about Free Will vs. Determinism and how the latter can have a disastrous effect on freedom fighters; if you want, you can look it up in my review of "Ultimatum." But it would appear that Sally isn't that enthusiastic about the possibility of taking a peeky-boo into the future, which would put her in the Free Will camp. If we're lucky, maybe she'll hand the magical Acorn armament over to the ninja spiders next issue and let it be THEIR problem. Even though Sally's last line feels a bit overwritten, the ending is about as satisfying as a story with this much mumbo jumbo is going to get. I especially like the Queen's reaction: something's happening to Sally and she wants to do something about it. Why? Because Sally is HER DAUGHTER, something that just never rang true from the way the Queen acted and talked in previous stories. It's a small step toward convincing us that a character in this comic has some kind of internal life, but in this book small steps seem to be all they can afford and I'll take what I can get. Heart Score: 9. Fan Art: Chris Lloyd, neither the producer of "Frasier" nor the actor from the "Back to the Future" films, models a Sonic costume. Why do I think he's related to Jordan Lloyd, whose artwork also appears? As for the artwork by "Elaina Shadow Echidna," I have a feeling that the high collar and the jewel stuck on the forehead are trademarks of somebody, but I don't know who. Off-Panel: Joseph Anthony (Joe) Pepitone. Italian-American first baseman. Played between 1962 and 1973, mostly for the Yankees, but also for the Cubs, Astros, and Atlanta Braves. Career batting average: .258. You want to know anything else, look it up on the Internet. This Just In: Probably the one feature in this comic that sparked the most discussion is the laundry list Justin Gabrie provides of "things to look forward to," or things to dread, depending. Let's take a tally: ARTWORK BY MAWHINNEY AND BUTLER. As glad as I am to see these two talents coming back to do "some penciling," I'm sobered by the realization that it may be because they need the work. When Art Mawhinney left it was to do storyboarding full-time. Now that we're on the down side of the latest cycle of interest in animation, he may be back out of necessity. Like I said, though, it's good to see him back. THE RETURN OF AMY ROSE AND ROB O' THE HEDGE. Hello! Look across the page at the coming attractions. That's going to happen in the next issue! Actually, with a little imagination Amy Rose, Tails and even Hope could get together and do a Junior Freedom Fighters sort of thing. That might not only resonate with the core audience, but also take the place of the Sonic Kids stories, which died with the Sonic Specials. UNCLE CHUCK DEALING WITH HIS GUILT. OK, this is the big problem I have with this laundry list approach: it's all What and no Why. I can only hope that, in a comic not noted for depicting their characters as having a whole lot of light behind the eyes, whoever writes that story manages to make it psychologically convincing. I don't need my intelligence insulted yet again. AN ADAPTATION OF A CLASSIC SONIC STORY ABOUT THE WOLFPACK. Actually, it's an adaptation of one of the better shows from the second season of SatAM Sonic, "Cry of the Wolf." That's the good news; the bad news is, the scheduled artist is "Many Hands," the same person(s) who committed the desolating abomination that was "Naugus Games." Be very afraid. MUTTSKI GAINING SONIC'S SPEED. I think someone's been playing too much "MegaMan." This is one Editorial edict I could do without. Someone seems to think that "When in doubt, make them as fast as Sonic" is a legitimate plot device. First Mina, now Muttski. Who next, Robo-Sniv? THE RETURN OF KNUCKLES' CHAOTICS. It would be more accurate to say "The Chaotix, who came back to the Floating Island along with everybody else in `Reunification: Part 1' (S106) may actually get to do something this time." TURBO TAILS. The Tails situation is such a jumble this doesn't do a thing for me. Besides, that will probably be dealt with in the same issue as... MAMMOTH MOGUL. One of my least favorite characters of all time. Maybe Lee actually knows how to write for someone with "limitless power" and not make it look stupid or boring. A VISIT TO MEGAPOLIS. I'm embarrassed to admit this, but I've forgotten what that is. BUNNIE vs. ROUGE THE BAT. That's not a plotline, that's the undercard at a wrestling match. What could those two possibly want to fight over, unless Antoine's dad has some jewelry that's caught Rouge's eye. Now if Rouge were to go head to head with Julie-Su for the affection of Knuckles, THAT I'd want to read! But again, this feels less like a legitimate tease and more like pointless spitballing by Editorial. DR. ROBOTNIK'S NEW BODY. Like I said, no way is Dr. Tons-O- Fun going to be written out of the series by anything so trivial as an atomic explosion or three. GEOFFREY ST. JOHN AND HERSHEY. Preferably together. In one more Ken Penders leftover, he intimated in "Solo" (SSS11), that they have a mutual interest in each other but are so clueless as to be unable to communicate their feelings to the other party. With any luck, their stint on the Disabled List has given them time to sort out their feelings, and enabled either Karl or Benny to make something edible out of yet one more hot potato that Ken let fall to the floor. PRINCE ELIAS. His departure from the story in "Family Dysfunction" only made sense within the less-than-satisfying context of the Acorn family dynamic. So after his character had been invented by Ken and mishandled by Karl, Elias may be handed off to Benny Lee for rehabilitation. Lotsa luck, brudda. I hesitate to think what will happen if Karl is going to do the honors. I have no interest in a second helping of what went before. SHADOW. This item REALLY got the message board at Ken's site lurching around like a live wire. Shadow is far and away the best thing to have happened to the Sonic continuity in years. As a villain he's several cuts above the black-leather-jacketed, sunglasses-wearing Antisonic. Let's face it, that kind of villain is now a cliche, one that's so old he's ready to apply for AARP membership. Pitting Sonic against Shadow could give the story some badly-needed intensity. Emphasis on "could." My concern is not with how Shadow will re-enter the story after having committed cosmic suicide by falling to Mobius from space and burning up in the atmosphere. It wouldn't be the first time Chaos energy has been used as a plot cheat. My concern is what the writers will do with him once he lands. He can't be a plain old villain because he's too much the loner to ever link up with Robotnik. He's no friend of GUN, either, so the same thing applies. He also has issues with Sonic because he's got to prove himself to be the Ultimate Lifeform. And then there's his preoccupation with the memory of Maria; no medieval Christian knight was ever more devoted to the Virgin Mary as Shadow is to HIS Maria. In fact, as much as Antoine has occasionally been a cartoon representative of the ideals of chivalry, Shadow takes them with dead seriousness. So I have to wonder if, at some point, Shadow will encounter Hope and, thinking she's the reincarnation of Maria, send reality off on a permanent vacation. All of this presupposes that the writers and editors take Shadow seriously as something more than a cardboard cut-out who gets to wear the Villain badge for an issue or two. Monkey Khan, Mammoth Mogul, even Duck "Bill" Platypus from the Downunda Freedom Fighters have filled those worn-out shoes over the years. Shadow deserves better; he deserves to be taken seriously as a credible one-of-a-kind villain who shouldn't lose an ounce of his complexity when he makes the transition to the comic. And if he does, I'll be sure to remind the creatives and editorial. KNUCKLES VISITING THE ECHIDNA AFTERLIFE. I have to give Ken credit; having thrown down that plot point on more than one occasion, the most recent being Hawking escorting Tobor through the pearly echidna gates in "Welcome To The Dark Side" (S100), and having stated that the point of Lara-Su's experience with time travel was to make sure her old man didn't buy the harp farm himself, it appears that Ken is going to pull the two plots together. That's good, because his depiction of echidna cosmology has been sketchy at best. We know that dead members of the Brotherhood pass on to another level which I've been calling the Netherhood, but that's about all we know. We don't know, for instance, what happened to Kragok in the abovementioned story, which gives me the sinking feeling that he's still alive and just waiting in the wings. For that matter, we still don't know what happened to the residents of the Floating Island between the time they were zapped away from there in "Best of Times..." (SSS14) and their return in "Reunification: Part 1" (S106). Were they in Echidna Heaven? Echidna Hell? Echidna Limbo? Or did they just languish in Justin Gabrie's in-box? I'll be curious to see what kind of theology Ken serves up in that one. "WE'LL ALSO SEE THE SONIC/SALLY/MINA LOVE TRIANGLE COME TO A HEAD." Speaking of things coming to a head, I thought Karl Bollers drained the pus from THAT infected boil in the last issue! Leave it alone already, Editorial; the longer you pick at it, the longer it'll take to get better. Sonic-Grams: Austin Simpson wonders why Sonic was shown as "dead" on the cover of S105. Ken's reply: "Like movie posters, covers generally feature symbolic representations of the story inside, as opposed to an actual scene taking place." Translation: "If you can lie while keeping a straight face, you have a future in Marketing!" Jayme and bro think the comic's art features too much anime influence; of course, my biggest gripe is Ron Lim's work, anime or not. Personally, I would like to see the SCRIPTS show more anime influence in the form of intelligent plotting and heavier emotional content. The Knuckle Joe pressures Ken into revealing the conversion table for converting Mobian weights and measures into American. Turns out the Mobian "stone" equals 12 pounds, as opposed to the English stone which equals 13 pounds. It also seems that the Mobian lunar year of 370 days is not divided into months; otherwise, you could spread out those extra quinquennial two dozen leap days a little more evenly. But it's all so cold, so official. Where's the poetry? Where that extra little something that sparks the imagination? I once had a notion for a story which included the idea that the Mobian New Year wasn't tied to the stars; instead; it always occurs some time in the Spring, on the day when a certain very ancient tree blooms. Now THAT'S poetry. It tells you that this is a society that lives close to Nature, that keeps time by it rather than inventing a time scheme to overrule it. But that's just me. Sonic #111: I've been holding my tongue ever since the premise for "Kids of the Spider Woman" was announced, but I have to say that at first blush it sounded, well, stupid! That's assuming, of course, that the ninja spiders in question are the same ones left behind by Uma Arachnis and forgotten about ever since "Enemy Mine" (S95); that's seventeen months of forgetting a plot point, which is par for this golf course. Now, if they were Uma's kids from a previous hatching, it would make more sense. Maybe Sonic and Sally can convince them to take the left-over egg sacs and just go away. And given what happened in this issue's "One For All," I don't think Sally would mind too much their retaking the Sword of Acorns.