Sonic #115 [Dec 2002] Spaz/Ribeiro/Ray cover: Muttski gives new meaning to the term "dog run" while Sonic tries desperately to keep up. Plus there's an on-cover blurb for the continuing Knuckles saga. Kudos on the violet sky, BTW. Very nice frontispiece by Axer and [I couldn't make it out] in an alleged Aladdin homage with Sally as Jasmine, Muttski in for Apu, Carpet as itself, and a rather doggy Genie. Don't get me wrong, I really appreciate Axer's placing Sally in the picture, and finally giving her a real reason to wear those Arabian Nights threads, but is it me or is there something off about where she's placed? She's either gotten way huge if that object just below her is supposed to be a door, or else objects on frontispiece are closed than they appear. "Meanie In A Bottle" Story: Benny Lee; Art: Art Mawhinney; Ink: Pam Eklund; Color: Jason Jensen; Lettering: Jeff Powell; Editor: J. F. Gabrie; Managing Editor: Victor Gorelick; Editor-in-Chief: Richard Goldwater. Tails is taking a well-deserved break from last issue's announcement that he's himself again; either that, or he's still back at school cleaning the erasers. That means that Sonic has to occupy his time until Robotnik is written back into the story by hanging with his other best bud, Muttski. In what can only be called Extreme Fetch, Muttski retrieves a stick by plowing through whatever happens to be in his way. It's gotta be the high octane puppy chow! An overthrow by Sonic, however, has Muttski turning into a water spaniel, for which I don't think he's programmed. Neither does Sonic who, despite his hesitancy about water, dives in after Muttski anyway. He apparently reaches bottom about the same time Muttski does, and manages to latch onto an old bottle of some sort before returning to the surface. Next time you want to go souvenir hunting, dude, remember your scuba gear and swim fins. It turns out that it was the bottle that got Sonic back topside in the first place; makes me wish the story had budgeted 12 pages instead of 11 so Mawhinney could have depicted that sequence instead of having Sonic resort to exposition. Anyway, Sonic finally pops the top on the bottle and with a K-ZAM the genie in this story makes his appearance. Whether or not he had phenomenally cosmic powers, he DOES have attitude to burn, and he proceeds to burn Sonic. Not only does it appear that he's not in the wish fulfillment business, but he takes off after zapping Sonic. The nature of said zap becomes obvious as Sonic and Muttski head back home: Sonic gets winded during a routine run. Back in Knothole, Dr. Quack deduces that Sonic's speed has been transferred from Sonic to Muttski. Sonic tries to adjust to the situation where his platinum pooch has become the hero he used to be. At least Muttski doesn't seem to have come equipped with an inflatable ego chip. But Sonic realizes that they're already up to Page 9 so something had better happen soon. Happy to oblige, the genie who caused all this hoo-ha reappears on the scene. On orders from Sonic, Muttski introduces the genie to a different kind of itty bitty living space: inside a robot dog. The genie wants out and Sonic obliges in trade for the trademark three wishes. Proving to the genie that he hadn't read too many fairy tales, but he has read enough to avoid getting snookered, Sonic uses his three to put everything back the way it was. That goes for the genie as well. HEAD: The Sonic-loses-his-speed plot point is familiar to SatAM loyalists, as it figured in the initial episode of the series. The agent of change in that case, though, was a wizard named Lazar who lived in the Forbidden Zone, a Robotropolis neighborhood where even Robotnik's SWATbots feared to tread. He also spoke as if grammar from Yoda he learned. Lazar's depriving Sonic of his greatest asset did have a point: it forced Sonic to quicken his wits instead of his feet. Benny Lee's variation has the genie giving Muttski Sonic's speed more or less on a whim since he doesn't even hang around to get a good laugh out of the situation. With the cover stories weighing in at 11 pages, it's a pity that one of the sacrifices made for the sake of this story has had to be motivation. Just as last month's "Twice Told Tails" never REALLY got around to explaining Mammoth Mogul's reason for kidnaping and replacement of Tails aside from one vague throwaway line of dialogue, so Lee has had to leave any kind of explanation as to why the genie did what he did on the cutting room floor. Lee makes it work in the sense that if you don't think about the story it doesn't matter, but I hate to think he's going to make a habit of it. The worst moment in this story: the genie's equally pointless wandering back into the plot in time for Lee to set things right. Again I blame Editorial for not giving Lee another page or two to justify bringing the genie back in a believable fashion. Once more, as has happened before when reading this comic, I'm reminded of the words of Steve Martin in "Planes, Trains and Automobiles": "When you tell a story, have a point; it makes it so much more interesting for the listener!" That goes for comic book writers, too. Head Score: 7. EYE: Art Mawhinney's work kept me going through this story simply by his charming depiction of a boy hedgehog and his robodog. In lesser hands, or Many Hands, I'd have given up on this story by page 6. Eye Score: 10. HEART: Once again, an element that would have given this story a little extra something had to be sacrificed for the sake of the page budget. While this story seemed to go out of its way to avoid having an emotional core, there's one just out of reach: Sonic and Muttski. You get the sense, even in these cramped quarters, that there's more to that relationship than Sonic's having a partner to play fetch with. Lee sold that point early on when Sonic was prepared to risk his own hide to save Muttski from what he was afraid would be a watery grave. Given that level of closeness, it's interesting that Lee chooses not to dwell on what the Old Switcheroo Plot is doing to Sonic on the inside. It appears, in fact, as if nothing happened. Sonic isn't allowed a microsecond of introspection, carrying on with Muttski as if losing his speed was no big. There's no questioning as to why it happened, no resentment, not even a hint of trying to track down the genie who "conveniently" reappears anyway. From this I can draw one of two conclusions: either Sonic is the most emotionally stable comic book character in the history of the medium, which isn't a stretch when you consider some of the angst-ridden steroid cases out there on the comic rack, or else having Sonic dim his lights is part of the price Lee had to pay for his eleven pages. He does a good job with what he has to work with, but this is no way for the comic to live up to its potential. Heart Score: 7. We interrupt our regularly-scheduled rating system to bring you: THE SPAZ SKETCHBOOK Art, More Art, and Still More Art: Pat Spaziante. For whatever reason, whether it was lack of a story to fill the pages, lack of time to get the job done, or whatever, we get seven, count 'em, SEVEN pages of Pat Spaziante artwork. Most of it is pretty self-explanatory, but allow me a few observations: The Egg Walker, which was "inspired by the Sonic Adventure game," looks impressive but I have to wonder how easy it would be to animate in the games. That may explain the predominance of bipeds in video games: less work for the animators. The "Ninja Science Team Gatchaman" character designs were eventually drawn by either James Fry or Nelson Ribeiro in "Zone Wars: Giant Robotno" in Special #12. I stated in my review of that story that writer Dan Slott matched the personalities of the characters and their sentai counterparts perfectly. I rather doubt, though, that Sally is as much of a gender-bender as the character she was supposed to represent. In that story, it ended up being a throwaway bit, useful only as a way for Zonic to get Sonic's attention. But I note with some interest that Justin Gabrie had a say in the crossover, if only with regard to the Salltar character, leaving me to wonder just how much influence he's had on the book in his tenure as editor and what specifically he brought to the table. Karl Bollers has as much as said already that we have J. Fred to thank for Nate Morgan. Spaz cited the artwork on the next-to-last page as having "more manga influence." Sorry, I have trouble seeing it. It still looks too much like Spaz on a good day, which says a lot about the extent to which manga and anime already influence his artwork. Then again, it's not as if there's such a thing as a manga house style. Manga drawn by Osamu Tezuka differed from that of Reiji Matsumoto, which differs from the work of Rumiko Takahashi, which differs from the work of the CLAMP collective, which ... hey, you don't need me to tell you. Watch the Saturday night anime block on Cartoon Network to get an idea of how different anime can be from one artist to the next. While we're on the subject of "different," Snively's "drastic redesign" is an understatement! He looks like he should be renamed Robo-Gollum! Of all the designs on display, the Type B female SWATbot is the one that intrigues the me most. And it's not for THAT reason, you hentai bakas out there! It's designed in the mecha tradition, but there are extremely few mecha or gundams which take on the female form. The only ones I can think of off the top of my head are the "hard suits" from "Bubblegum Crisis," the Goddesses in "Candidate For Goddess," and in its own way (because they technically don't have genders), Angewomon the angelic ultimate form of Gatomon from the second season of Digimon. There is one other consideration. Robotnik, it seems to me, is probably the LAST villain who'd show any interest in making gender-specific robots. The clankers he produced in Sonic Adventure can barely be considered to be male. The bot version of Lightning Lynx on the last page reminds me, to some extent, of something out of David Hopkins' e-strip "Jack," one of the darkest gut-wrenchers of a comic strip I've ever seen. Yes, I find it impressive. "Ultimate Power: Part 2" Story: Ken Penders; Layouts: Ken Penders; Art: Dawn Best; Ink: Ken Penders; Color: Jason Jensen; Lettering: Vickie Williams; Editor: Justin Gabrie. Lien-Da sweeps out of the downtown office of Dark Legion HQ, working that cape in a way that would make Batman jealous. As she does, Harry and his fare pull up. Mammoth Mogul shows himself into Dimitri's presence. I'm not surprised that he's "hazy" on how he apparently lost a good deal of his Chaos energy; my guess is that it shriveled up and died of boredom in the course of S56's "Immortality Is Infinite..." which is when he was encased in the Master Emerald by Locke and Sabre somehow or other. As Mammoth Mogul makes Dimitri an offer he may not live long enough to refuse, we cut to Knuckles, Julie-Su and the Chaotix goofing off in the park, with Vector as the head goof. "Things get strange when I get mad," he explains to Julie-Su, and the last time that happened was ... when exactly? I'm having a hard time remembering when Knux did anything really dramatic like bringing everyone back from the Vague Zone. To compensate, he conjures up a bouquet of flowers for Julie-Su but resists the urge to pull a rabbit out of Vector's headphones. Instead, he makes himself scarce but invites the crew to tag along. Back at another DL hideaway, they're getting the place ready for their Grand Opening. We also meet another babe-ular Legionnaire: Gae-Na. She and Lien-Da exchange vague dialogue to take them to the bottom of the page. OK, here's where I got lost. Does Haven have a branch office in town, or is this the old Repository or whatever? Anyway, the Brotherhood has taken up residence. Before Thunderhawk can start complaining about all these meddlin' kids, Locke comes across a broadcast of Mammoth Mogul's alleged capture of Dimitri and MM's requesting of Knuckles' presence. All those who think this is an obvious set-up, raise your hand. HEAD: This being Part 2 of a Ken Penders Story, he concentrates on moving his characters into position before things start happening in the next installments. The Lien-Da/Gae-Na scene accomplished so little that the dialogue can be forgotten. The too-easy rapport between Dimitri and Mammoth Mogul telegraphs the news that the "capture" of Dimitri is a major league set-up. Knux, however, is clueless, once again demonstrating the limits of limitless power. Head Score: 5. EYE: Great work by Dawn Best, who again shines in her depiction of female characters. I haven't seen black body suits put to such good use since Diana Rigg played Emma Peele on "The Avengers." And MAJOR kudos to Jason Jensen's coloring, which in this story is even better than it was in "Meanie In A Bottle." I don't know what work he's done in the past or is doing in the present when he's not doing Sonic work, but I think Archie has found a colorist who can actually reach the bar set by Frank Gagliardo. Eye Score: 10. HEART: Aside from the nothing-up-my-lack-of-sleeves scene between Knuckles and Julie-Su, not a whole lot happens in this story. As I said, that's not surprising during the development phase of a Ken Penders story. Heart Score: 5. Sonic-Gram: Only one this time; no Off-Panel, no Fan Art. Jayson heaps praise on the comic in general and S108 in particular. And yes, it did this middle-aged heart good to know that I helped lead a wandering soul back into the fold of Sonic fandom. Justin allows that "it's not a bad thing for our characters to express a variety of emotions." Uh, Fred, I wouldn't exactly use the word "variety," though I like to think the comic is loosening up a bit. "As long as you guys let us know what works and just as important what doesn't, we'll be able to continue bringing you all the high-slammin' action you can handle." While I'm not really clear on the concept of "high slamming," I'll still take this as a mandate to keep writing these reviews. Thumbnail for Sonic 116: of interest here is the fact that the cover touts a back story. While the main story concerns the attempts of Robotnik and Robo-Sniv to re-integrate themselves into the story line, one of the back stories has Bunnie doing battle with an anti-robot agent: Rouge the Bat from Sonic Adventure 2, making a bid to become at least one of the semi- regulars in the cast. She's already got MY vote.