Sonic #117 [Feb 2003]
     Spaz/Ribeiro/Ray cover: Sonic loses his hare as bogeys scope
him out.  Simple but effective.
     Axer/CTL(?)/Jensen frontispiece: Knuckles's eyes are
watering, maybe because of Mammoth Mogul's breath.  MM, BTW, has
his eyes blunked out.
     "Cyber Race!"
     Story Idea: Justin Gabrie; Story: Karl Bollers; Art: Steve
Butler; Inker: Nelson Ribeiro; Coloring: Jason Jensen; Letterer:
Jeff Powell; Editor: Justin Gabrie.
     Robotnik and Snively discover that, like its concrete
counterpart, the Information Superhighway is no place for
pedestrians.  Snively gets slammed by a barreling binomial and
almost gets zapped by an "anti-virus program" of the good
doctor's creation.  While Robotnik distracts the AVP, Snively
finds himself regenerated in a way better reincarnation than the
last time.  Unfortunately for him, before the paint can even dry
on his new look, Robotnik shows up and hits the Reset Button,
which cuts Snively back down to size.

     HEAD: And I'll bet you thought that the cliche about the
Information Superhighway was dead and buried.
     Let's define the term: "A cliche takes the place of
creativity.  Cliches are used by lazy and untalented artists to
finish off a work, rather than finding fresh uses for the
conventions that inform the work at its best." From: "Anime
Explosion" by Patrick Drazen, p. 18.  Pretty harsh words, I'll
admit; I don't know where he gets it from.
     As the Internet became well-known the Information
Superhighway worked as a metaphor; unfortunately it was also
subsequently overworked as a metaphor.  By 1999 the imagery was
as good as dead.  Why?  Not because people were sick of it; it
was a little late by then to be expressing THAT sentiment. 
Rather, something else had come along to challenge the cliche's
power to define cyberspace.  That something else was the motion
picture "The Matrix" which absolutely blew away the imagery of
the Internet as an electronic equivalent of the Santa Monica
Freeway.  To quote one of the characters in the film, "Whoa!"
     But leave it to Justin Gabrie (who insists on taking the
credit/blame for this piece) to dig up the dead dog and to try to
get him to hunt one more time.  At least he plays it for yucks,
which is about all that's left to do with the Information
Superhighway cliche.
     Still, it could have been worse: he COULD have tried taking
the story material seriously.
     As mentioned in the last review, the whole notion of
Robotnik being "reincarnated" goes way back to the introduction
of Robo-Robotnik in Sonic #19 and his subsequent reappearance in
Sonic #22.  Robotnik technically hasn't been himself since S21's
"Three Phases of E.V.E.", when he got zapped by his own creation. 
Instead of bringing in a new villain, he's simply been downloaded
into different bods by Robo-Robotnik.  But I can see where this
could all become very confusing for the kiddies, and even for
some of us old-timers.  So Justin basically said: "Forget it;
let's just have some fun with this thing."
     And to a certain extent it works.  The focus here is on the
long-nosed, long-suffering Snively, who gets downloaded into a
decent looking body for a change.  Unfortunately Robotnik proves
himself to be the alpha villain of this piece.
     It's too bad that, for a 5-pager, Justin and/or Karl
couldn't come up with an alternative vision for the Internet.  It
didn't even have to be Matrix-based, either.  The writers for
Digimon Tamers (the third season of the Digimon franchise) came
up with what I thought was a neat vision: a desert wasteland
where data packets roll by like tumbleweeds and where data
streams can suddenly snatch you away to another part of the
digital world entirely.  Definitely not a cliche.
     Still, the humor of this story redeems it.  After last
month's "Bat Fight" I think we all needed a break, and this did
quite nicely.  Head Score: 8.
     EYE: Steve Butler gives an amazing plasticity to the
characters, which is especially important in the beginning when
Robotnik and Snively are on the move.  Speaking of Snively, his
modeling in his new bod is totally believable.  I'm almost sorry
he had to give it up.  And who else caught the Transformers(tm)
in-joke at the bottom of page [4]?  Plus the observation as to
what happens when you drop the "t" from the word "paint" on page
[5].  Eye Score: 10.
     HEART: Because this is a comedy and you're not supposed to
waste any sympathy on the villains, this isn't exactly an
exercise in Heart.  Still, probably without meaning to, Justin
and/or Karl raise an interesting issue.
     In order to justify what would otherwise have been yet one
more death cheat in this comic, we're presented with a bit of
cyber-theology.  Namely: the afterlife (for Robotnik and Snively,
at any rate) consists of becoming "nothing more than disembodied
electronic programs trying to hitch a ride back to the real
world."  They retain their respective personalities and their
consciousness.  Even though the word "karma" never comes up, this
is way closer to the Asian attitude toward the afterlife than the
Judeo-Christian.  Neither of the two baddies seem concerned as to
the possibility of their coming before a tribunal of some sort
for judgment (and there's only the faintest echo of that from
Dimitri later on in the comic).  It's going to be one download
after another for Buttnik and Robo-Sniv, unless they get stuck in
the limbo of the Information Superhighway and never manage to
find an off-ramp.
     This might surprise Archie Comic's management, which is as
conservative as they come.  But then again, the Judgment is a
topic that seldom comes up in "Touched By An Angel," either. 
Welcome to the postmodern era, where re-invention is the order of
the day and two thousand years of Christian theology doesn't seem
to count for as much as it used to.  Heart Score: 4.

     "The Tortoise and the Hedgehog"
     Story: Romy Chacon (debut); Art: Art Mawhinney; Ink: Jim
Amash; Color: Jason Jensen; Lettering: Jeff Powell; Editor: J. F.
Gabrie; Managing Editor: Victor Gorelick; Editor-in-Chief:
Richard Goldwater.
     We look across a blasted, desolate landscape to find a
factory being watched by a rabbit accompanied by several text
boxes.  "I've been on this dry and rocky land for so long I'm
starting to feel that doom and gloom are the highlight of this
trip."  Not bad for an opening sentence.  In response to ringing
the doorbell, we get a facefull of a group of villains who've
been AWOL from the comic since, I believe, "Saving Nate Morgan"
(S70).  From left to right: Sleuth Doggy Dog, aka "that Dirty
Dawg guy," Flying Frog, Drago, Sergeant Simian, Predator Hawk,
and hiding behind the story title, Lightning Lynx.  The nervous-
looking turtle in the background is apparently Tommy.
     After a seriously rude reception, Tommy intervenes and says
that the rabbit, who introduced himself as Juice, is a friend of
his.  He might as well have said that he was going to be the star
of next season's "The Bachelor" as far as the baddies are
concerned.  It falls to the rabbit to recap the old Aesop fable
of the tortoise and the hare, wherein the hare's speed was undone
by his hubris (that's Greek for pride).  Juice is then hustled
into a back room so everyone else can prepare for an impending
meeting.  This gives our hero, Sonic, a chance to shed his
disguise, one that was way more convincing than his Sneak persona
in "My Secret Identity" (S97).
     A quick flashback establishes that not only is Sonic here
after having received a message from Tommy, but that he'd been
there and done that when it came to the fabled contest of speed
versus patience.  This, as it turns out, was necessary for Sonic
to become a hero: having been bested by someone he'd bullied and
made fun of, he's gone on to champion those weaker than himself. 
That's why, at the risk of Sally's having a conniption, he's gone
on this mission solo.
     Sonic makes his way through the handy ventilation system
(the only way to travel) until he finds out that the meeting is
with Robotnik, Snively, and a couple SWATbots.  Buttnik seems to
be in a conciliatory mood, which puts the bad guys off-guard. 
Big mistake!  Granted it's been over a year since "Reunion"
(S100) introduced Robotnik's Midas touch, which Robotnik uses to
seal the deal and convert Drago.  The other baddies try to keep
their distance, but Robotnik has come up with what I think is a
great variation on what was originally a weird plot point: he's
developed the ability to grow tentacle-like coaxial cables that
can just as easily administer the roboticizer effect.  Unlike the
others, SDD or Dirty Dawg or whatever his current handle is uses
Tommy as a shield/bargaining chip.  With Tommy in peril, Sonic
has to make an entrance.  Sonic being Sonic, he's able to elude
Robotnik's techno-tentacles.  Sonic then grabs Tommy and used his
bud as a boogie board.  But just as Robotnik roboticizes SDD, the
hound performs one last redemptive act by pitching a grenade. 
Tommy only has enough time to demonstrate that he can do push-
ups; he launches Sonic out a window before the place goes up in
flames.  Robotnik and Snively are presumed uploaded to the
Highway (see previous story); the roboticized baddies are
presumed toasted; Sonic has no doubts as to Tommy's fate.
     HEAD: In her first at bat, Romy Chacon swings on the first
pitch with the bases loaded, and drives one out of the park for a
grand slam.
     THIS is the kind of storytelling the book has sorely needed
for most of its life!  Unlike the cliche Sneak, Sonic wears his
bunny costume well.  More importantly, Juice feels like a
character in his own right, neither like Sonic in a suit nor an
overworked stereotype.  He has to earn the trust of the gang and
he does, well aside from the Dawg who appears to know that it's
Sonic but plays that knowledge to his momentary advantage later
on.
     I thought that Robotnik's roboticize-at-a-touch gimmick was
unbelievable when it was unveiled.  I still do.  But Romy took
the implausible to another level and actually made it work for
me.  Somehow the image of Robotnik shooting out cables makes the
terror of being roboticized that much more inescapable.  And I
don't think that she got the idea from Spiderman's Dr. Octopus. 
Personally, I'm convinced that she got the idea from the
Urotsukidoji anime franchise ... about which I'll say no more in
this review, in case there are any li'l chilluns in the audience. 
     If there's ANY fault with this story, it's that it's too
short.  That is, it's too short and it didn't have to be.  I have
never read a Sonic story that felt so compact.  Several of the
sequences could have been played out more, could have gone on for
a few more panels and not hurt the story's pacing in any way. 
I'm convinced that this story could have filled more than eleven
pages, that it may have been written longer but was very
judiciously edited to fill the space allotted.  I wish I knew for
certain.
     There's a lot more, but I'll save it for the Heart section. 
This story is seriously in the running for best Cover Story for
2002, and I don't think this is a case of beginner's luck.  Romy
Chacon has done a terrific job.  Welcome aboard!  Head Score: 10.
     EYE: I've actually heard someone complain that Art
Mawhinney's artwork here doesn't make the villains look
villainous enough.  That's not the point.  As demonstrated in the
previous story, Robotnik is the big noise in this comic, and the
Mobian baddies are doomed to be roboticized.  They're entitled to
look noble, or at least halfway decent, before their time comes.
     And Jensen's coloring rises to the occasion as well.  I
especially noted his use of highlights on the characters; I don't
know that anyone else has ever taken it to that level before. 
This is nothing short of masterful.  Eye Score: 10.
     HEART: Doctor, we have signs of life!
     Romy Chacon could have quoted the Aesop fable and left it at
that.  Instead, she kicks it up a notch by Sonic's crediting his
being humiliated (and I mean that in a good way) as an event that
got him started down the path of heroism.  Behind the attitude,
behind the speed, there was someone who could just as easily have
been a bully and used the advantage to prey upon the slower and
weaker.  Instead, he took a different path.  In a word, Sonic had
learned compassion.
     I have been waiting SO LONG for someone in this comic to do
justice to Sonic, to give him some light behind the eyes.  Sally,
in "The Crush" (S109), told Mina that Sonic really cares, though
we're shown this in the context of Sonic's relationship with
Tails.  But Romy Chacon really nails it with the back story.
     And even though Mawhinney adheres to the No Tears Formula,
you still get a sense through the writing that Sonic is affected
by the death of someone.  This comic has run up quite a list of
dead characters.  But very few of their deaths have been
affecting.  There was the death of Julayla in S18's "In The Still
Of The Night," which for me was the gold standard of Sonic
writing.  But what else?  The sacrifice of Eddy the Yeti in S66's
"A Friend Indeed" was moving, but coming at the very end of the
story the reaction was too little too late.  The reaction to
Sally's demise in "Endgame" was limited to a one-panel reaction
shot as Ken Penders hurried past that event to get to the Sonic-
as-fugitive plot.
     Face it, most of the times a character has died it's been
fairly inconsequential.  Either the character was a villain not
worth mourning (Kodos, Uma Arachnis) or there was the suspicion
(understandable since Endgame) that there was a death cheat in
the works.  By S100's "Welcome To The Dark Side" I was so
suspicious of death cheats that I expressed doubts on more than
one occasion that Kragok bought the farm along with Tobor; Ken
Penders has since assured me that Kragok died while Tobor was
accompanied by Hawking into Guardian Heaven.  This didn't really
help matters, since Hawking's presence made Tobor's fate still
feel like a death cheat, and "Cyber Race!" feels the same way. 
The deaths of some characters turn out to be just
inconsequential.  Not so with Tommy.
     And almost as a throwaway bit, there's the Dawg not only
wrapping up this story in a conclusive manner but committing one
last redemptive act before his own demise.  It's a very Japanese
gesture, as any anime otaku can attest.  It reminded me of Rika
in "Digimon Tamers" letting herself fall toward the D-Reaper in
its lava-like manifestation, as a way of trying to stop it.  She
doesn't die, of course.  In fact, she and Renamon are reborn as
the biomerged Sakuyamon in what has to be one of the most
impressive morphing sequences in the series.  If Tommy's saving
of Sonic at the cost of his own life was a demonstration of
friendship, the Dawg's last act was a last gasp demonstration of
heroism, no matter how doomed.  It's been a long time since a
story in this comic left me this impressed.  Heart Score: 10.

     Fan Art: The two standouts here are Kyle Huston's drawing of
Super Sonic versus Perfect Chaos, and Kyle Liburn's drawing which
frankly left me baffled at first.  Then I noticed Sonic and
Tails's sneakers.
     "What sneakers?"
     Exactly.  What we have here is a Lord of the Rings crossover
with Sonic as Frodo Baggins, Tails as Sam Gamgee, Robotnik as
Sauron, Snively perfectly cast as Gollum, and Dulcy as ... Smaug? 
No, that was in "The Hobbit."  Still, I have to wonder whether
anyone else has taken the idea ever farther: Rotor as Gimli the
dwarf, Antoine as Legolas perhaps, Elias as Aragorn, maybe Bunnie
as Eowyn.  You get the idea.

     "Ultimate Power: Part 3" [Well, Part 4, really, if you
include the Mid-Logue or flashback or whatever it was that ran
last month]
     Story: Ken Penders; Art: Dawn Best; Ink: Ken Penders;
Coloring: Jensen; Lettering: Vickie Williams; Editor: Justin
Gabrie.
     Knuckles, Julie-Su and the Chaotix arrive at Echidnaopolis
General Hospital where Constable Remington is waiting for them. 
He tells the group that the EST found a cabbie "very seriously
impaired," though that's the wrong euphemism in this case because
Harry the patient appears to be closer to being dead than dead
drunk which is my definition of "impaired."  The prognosis isn't
good, so Knuckles steps in and, in the first major display of
what kind of power he's packing since he brought everyone back
from the Vague Zone, brings Harry back from the brink.  That's
certainly more useful than that floral bouquet trick he did a few
issues back.
     There's a page of banter between Dimitri and Mammoth Mogul
which gets us absolutely nowhere plot-wise.  Unfortunately, while
we were listening to these two, we missed Harry's explanation of
what happened to him.  As a result, we have NO IDEA WHATSOEVER
what happened to Harry, what Mammoth Mogul did to him, or even
what was medically wrong with him.  He was just generically dying
and Knuckles generically brought him back.  Personally, I think
that gold nugget or whatever that Mammoth Mogul offered him
turned toxic on him, but my guess is as good as yours.  All we
know is that Knuckles saved him from it.  Exit Knuckles.
     We then get a page of banter between Lien-Da and Gae-Na
which also gets us absolutely nowhere.  They're waiting for
something to happen like the rest of us.
     Knuckles drops in on Dimitri and MM.  Here's where we stand
at the end of the story: either Knuckles drains off his Chaos
energy for the benefit of Mammoth Mogul, or else MM takes Dimitri
off life support.  Tune in next month.

     HEAD: I was surprised at how careless the writing of this
story is.  Harry's illness is so vague and generic I really have
to work at caring about what happens to him.  It's not that I
have to have everything in a story spelled out for me, but we're
simply not given reason enough to hope that Knuckles can
resurrect him.
     The two pages of dialogue between Dimitri/Mammoth Mogul and
Lien-Da/Gae-Na felt like filler.  They added little or nothing to
the story.  Of the two, the Dimitri/Mogul dialogue was heavier in
characterization which made it slightly more than a talking heads
fest.  The Lien-Da/Gae-Na page, though, was totally unnecessary;
we already knew that they can't do anything until Knuckles gets
into the act.  The only question left is what Knuckles will do
next.  I just wish Ken had made the trip more worthwhile.  Head
Score: 4.
     EYE: It took me a while to get past what I found to be ...
off ... about the artwork.  Put simply: Ken's inking of Dawn
Best's drawings overwhelmed Dawn's designs and (whether
consciously or not) made the art look like a total Ken Penders
production.  Which isn't a bad thing, but go back to the first
two parts of "Ultimate Power" in S114 and 115.  The character
modeling especially looks different; they seem simpler and
cleaner than they do here.  It's the same team of Best and
Penders but this installment just feels different.  Eye Score: 8.
     HEART: I wanted the Dimitri/Mammoth dialogue on page [3] to
work better, but there's still something distant about it.  I
mean, it works well enough in making Dimitri into something more
than a cardboard villain by giving him a bit of introspection. 
And mercifully, Mammoth Mogul manages to keep his verbal diarrhea
in check, trading in his overblown vocabulary for some smug
superiority.  I'm not sure just what abyss he's talking about,
though, unless in some unspecified way his tour of duty inside
the Master Emerald left him as something less than omnipotent. 
In which case, this is our first hint at what is a SERIOUSLY
MAJOR plot point.  As for everybody else, they think this is an
action story.  Heart Score: 6.

     This Justin!: Justin, did you only just discover the
apostrophe key on your computer?  I can live with "comin'."  I
can even live with "atcha'" (excuse me, "atcha'!").  But
"Lot's"?!?  Lot's what?  Lot's wife?  I've let a good number of
the spelling and grammar slams slide, but this is the HEADLINE
we're talking (excuse me, "talkin'") about here!  I'll hold off
commenting on the "magazine style" cover design until next month. 
Of the three stories mentioned in the blurb, I'm most looking
forward to Karl Bollers's story about Geoff and Hershey possibly
becoming an item; I'm NOT looking forward to seeing what could be
a very heartfelt story illustrated by Ron Lim.  Justin gives us
our props for keeping the comic going all these years.
     Sonic-Grams: Wa'el Al-Abri is told that we will be catching
up with Lupe's familia at some point.  He also expresses some
distress at Lupe's revealing wardrobe.  This in a book where 
Sonic, Tails, and a good number of other cast members are 
practically butt-nekkid.  TuragaYakama2002 returns to the fan
fold, wondering when Knuckles will get out of nightlight mode; I
don't think he's the only one.  Knuckles has been this way since,
what, S90's "Between A Rock And A Hard Place."  That's over TWO
YEARS now.  Yeah, I'd say that look's gotten pretty ripe. 
Roimcakr_g2 waxes on about the physics of friction while Ken also
says yes, he colors the panels using PhotoShop.  Mark is another
former fan who hopes to get caught up in a hurry; hey, that's why
I keep archives.