Sonic the Hedgehog #136 [July 2004] Last things first: if you'll look at the Editorial Page, you'll note that the Freditorial is in fact Justin Gabrie's farewell address. We readers should have had our suspicions in the last issue, where Mike Pellerito got top billing and where the tone of the Freditorial was an uncomfortable blend of self- promotion and self-pity. And while I can't comment specifically on the circumstances surrounding J. Fred's departure, let's just say I have it on good authority that the final Off Panel panel is pretty much on the money: the departure of Justin Gabrie was, to a certain extent, self-inflicted. I mention this right off the bat because this suggests that the comic was in a transition period when it went to press, and may still be to a certain extent. That actually goes a long way toward explaining some of what's appeared in the comic, such as the Tommy Turtle story arc to date. After all, you can expect a certain amount of turbulence when the pilot of a plane decides to beta-test his parachute in mid-flight. Spaz/Ribeiro/Jensen cover: a tasteful, heartfelt rendition of the latest death cheat. Maybe. Frontispiece: Sonic, keenly aware of his non-swimmer status, practices the crawl while the readers are brought up to speed in case they missed last month's issue. "The Infiltrator" Story: Romy Chacon; Art: Art Mawhinney; Ink: Andrew Pepoy; Color: Jason Jensen; Lettering: Jeff Powell; Assistant Editor: Mike Pellerito; Outgoing Editor: J. F. Gabrie; Managing Editor: Victor Gorelick; Editor-in-Chief: Richard Goldwater. Morning in Knothole finds the Hedgehog household, expanded by the recent arrival of Tommy Turtle, up and about. Bernie offers Tommy eggs for breakfast, which I think is in pretty poor taste since turtles reproduce by laying eggs. Tommy declines the offer, and Tails doesn't have much of an appetite, either; seems he's taking his MSAT (Mobian Scholastic Aptitude Test) and he needs to practice filling in small circles with a #2 pencil. Sonic finally stumbles in after pulling an all-nighter for king and country. After wolfing down a couple chili dogs he drags his hedgehog heinie off to bed, at which point Tails makes himself scarce as well. We then digress to a possibly meaningless interlude where Robotnik is informed by A.D.A.M. that "Infiltrator #127" is in place and so are the other plot contrivances. As Jules and Bernie engage in some weird banter about Jules's inability to eat while lamely explaining the fact that he seems to have done so anyway, Tommy heads off for Sonic's room. Turning one hand into a drill, he intends to promote Sonic from being dead to the world to just plain dead. At this point, Jules intervenes, and Sonic comes to in time to see Tommy, presumably also known as Infiltrator #127, gut Jules before Sonic spin-dashes his way through the traitorous turtle-bot. Putting what's left of Jules in a hoggie bag, Sonic heads over to Uncle Chuck's who tells him that Jules is pretty much DOA. Sonic then gets to turn on the waterworks to an extent that he hardly could before; this may indeed be a sign that Editorial was in the process of changing hands. He then remembers that this comic used to use power rings as a plot device. Retrieving one from the pool, Sonic does his impersonation of a faith healer as the FWASHing ring does its impression of the Suh-wooooord of Acorns. Incredibly, that's the last we see of Jules in this story as we cut to the last page where we have to take Uncle Chuck's word for it that the power ring "brought back his very existence." If you're wondering whether Jules was revived, I'll take that as a Yes. As Uncle Chuck harvests spare parts from the Tommy bot, he reads the fine print on a microprocessor he pulled out of the trashed terrapin: the Tommy bot was apparently manufactured by Robodyne Systems (a division of Halliburton). However, upon hearing that this is a "Season 17" imprint, Sonic concludes that Tommy is alive after all. Here we go again! HEAD: There's a half-way decent story hidden in here somewhere, but it seems to be having a hard time getting out. You have some very compelling story elements: the threat on Sonic's life, Jules's self-sacrifice, and Sonic's attempt to bring him back. But something is missing here, though its absence is best left for discussion in the HEART section. The absence of editing is also apparent by a number of appalling grammatical errors. It's bad enough that Bernie refers to Tails as "Miles" but they can't even get the spelling right. "Myles"? Then there's the text box at the top of Page [4]: "...we see a very familiar figure doing what is very familiar to them...." The subject of the sentence changes from singular to plural with no warning. But the weirdest thing is the whole Jules-Bernie dialogue just below that. If Bernie has set a plate of food in front of Jules out of either force of habit or wishful thinking, she should have been a little more up-front as to why. It was an interesting set-up that unfortunately was totally trashed by the fact that Jules somehow ate a part of the chili dog anyway, which he wasn't supposed to be able to do. The business with Tails is the same; his having to be at school is plausible, and a reason to kick him out of the house so he won't interfere with the plot or play the hero himself. Trouble is, you end up wondering why he bothered showing up in this story in the first place. This gave me the feeling that overall this story isn't a story, it's a string of events with some narrative sense but ultimately it feels like they're going through the motions. Head Score: 5. EYE: Art Mawhinney does great work here, and really gets a chance to strut his stuff in the layout on pages [5] and [8] and the top of page [9]. Bernie's tears look a little overdone, but I attribute that to the fact that this comic hasn't know from emotional honesty for so long any attempt is going to look a little rusty. Eye Score: 9. HEART: The same emotional weirdness that affected last issue's "Agent of K.N.O.T.H.O.L.E." comes into play here as well. The entire story last time took place with no reference whatsoever to what had come before: specifically, the Sally-Sonic confrontation in S134's "Say You Will." And it happens here, in what's supposed to be the emotional climax of this story. After Sonic FWASHes his dad with the power ring, we never see Jules again. We only have the dialogue between Sonic and Uncle Chuck to let us know that he got jump- started after all. OK, I can appreciate the need to pare down a story. Had "Patience" not appeared later in this issue, I suppose that this story would have been a few pages longer and (perhaps) better- paced and possibly more effective. But I get the distinct impression that Editorial is not clear on the concept of "closure." "Say You Will" ended on one of the most eye-opening moments in the entire history of the comic, but that dramatic development seems to have been immediately dropped down the memory hole. Same with Jules's "resurrection;" was there any real reason for Jules NOT to have put in even a token appearance on the final page? The comic, as I said, is in a transition phase, moreso than if they were breaking in a new artist or writer. There have been assurances from those close to the scene that the post-Gabrie era will witness an up-tick in the quality of the comic. I can only hope so, and maybe it's a good thing that this story tries so hard to inject a megadose of Heart into a Sonic story. Now they just need to get better at it. Heart Score: 5. "Mobius 25 Years Later: Girl Talk" Story: Ken Penders; Art: Stephen Butler; Ink: Jim Amash; Color: Jason Jensen; Lettering: Vickie Williams. Turns out that just before Lien-Da gets through to Julie-Su in the last installment, Julie-Su was herself on the phone to Queen Sally on Mobius concerning the planning of the dinner where Sonic and Knuckles and their respective broods are supposed to get together in a couple issues. Julie-Su may be wearing the "Chef" apron, but she's getting an assist from a soux chef: her domestic koala, Abby. Most of the dialogue this time around sets up the characterizations: the kids are picky eaters, the men folk don't do social gatherings if they can help it, and Abby recycles an old joke from the Knuckles comic to freshen up her sass credentials. Lara-Su walks in on this domestic summit to remind everyone of the possible-end-of-the-world plot point, but that only lasts about half a page. HEAD: It's interesting that some of the readers can't seem to understand why Abby appears in this story. Her presence is important for two reasons. First, she represents the first time an ACTUAL KOALA has appeared in the comic. Aside from the oversized ears, there's very little modeling in common between Steve Butler's Abby Koala and Dave Manak's Barbie Koala of the Downunda Freedom Fighters. Barbie looks as I've said all along like a lab rat. And no, I won't accept it as an excuse that she's been the victim of an extreme makeover. More interesting is the failure to understand the role Abby plays in this story. I never thought I'd be saying this, but this is what happens when you Gen Xers don't watch enough television, or you only watch the stuff that was on the air in your lifetime. Abby, in fact, is one of a dying breed: the Television Domestic. The Television Domestic came in two varieties: they were either regular servants who were also available for comic relief (such as Mr. French on "Family Affair") or else they existed as sparring partners to sass back or otherwise play off their employers. The latter has been more in evidence: Florence on "The Jeffersons," Miles on "The Nanny," even Rosie on "The Jetsons" belong to this class. In a sense, the archetype was established not on TV but in literature several centuries before. In Miguel de Cervantes's "Don Quixote de la Mancha," the dysfunctionally chivalrous Don Quixote takes as his squire a fat slob of a barber, Sancho Panza. Whereas Quixote's brain has been fried with tales of medieval chivalry, Sancho Panza is the hard-headed realist who nevertheless becomes a better person for having to bail out the delusional Don. One wonders whether comic book sidekicks as we know them would even exist were it not for Cervantes's novel, though the Quixote/Sancho relationship is an inversion of a line by the Blue Falcon in an ep of "Dexter's Laboratory," something to the effect that "It takes a goofy idiot sidekick to make a superhero super." Sass-talking servants didn't begin on television; the character was present in radio and motion pictures as well. In the beginning and middle of the 20th century, there were any number of such servants, occasionally upstaging their "employers" and getting all the juicy punch lines. Such was the case with Eddie Anderson, who played Jack Benny's gravel-voiced butler Rochester on radio and television. There's a marvelous scene in Frank Capra's "It's A Wonderful Life" where George Bailey has just told his father how much he admires him (good timing, too, since the father would die from a stroke a few scenes later). George then calls back to the kitchen where Annie the cook has obviously been eavesdropping: GEORGE: Did you hear that, Annie? ANNIE: I heard it. About time one of you lunkheads said it. The character has even gone where no domestic has gone before. The final episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, "All Good Things," reveals that Data has acquired a sass-mouthed Cockney domestic as one of the perks of being a celebrated professor at Cambridge University in England. Jessel, his housekeeper, doesn't hesitate to tell Data that the shock of gray hair he has acquired, and which looks as if it was applied with all the subtlety of a Roads Department employee striping a length of blacktop, makes him look "like a bloody skunk." There was, however, a dark side to the history of the Domestic (pun intended). While domestics have been British (Miles, Mr. French) or Asian (Hop Sing on "Bonanza," the English- named Japanese housekeeper "Mrs. Livingston" on "The Courtship of Eddie's Father"), many motion picture Domestics in the beginning and middle of the 20th century were African American. And many of these were recycled racial stereotypes left over from the days of vaudeville and minstrel shows. As the civil rights movement began to take hold and as the American public's taste for ethnic humor in general waned after World War 2, there were fewer chances for Black actors and actresses to play Domestics. This wasn't a completely good thing, since this was the only work some Black actors and actresses could get. In the late 20th century, the problem was neatly addressed on television by having African American servants working for African American employers on shows such as "The Jeffersons" and "Fresh Prince of Bel Air." The Domestics could still sass their employers without appearing to be revolutionary and with none of the racial baggage of having African Americans working for whites. Abby Koala falls into this category. To keep the story from devolving into "A Coupla White Chicks Sitting Around Talking" (to borrow the name of a 1981 play by John Ford Noonan), Abby is there to spice things up a little. And it shows how much I've internalized my TV history that I hear Abby speaking not with an Australian accent but with an African American one. She sounded in my mind's ear like Esther Rolle who played the domestic Florida Evans on "Maude" before being spun off to be the matriarch of the Evans family in "Good Times," the show which unleashed Jimmie Walker on an unsuspecting world. Sally, Julie- Su and Lien-Da end up sounding like Mary Tyler Moore, Lucille Ball and Roseanne, respectively. I guess that makes Lara-Su Sara Gilbert. In fact, that's the vibe I got off this whole story: "sitcom." And since the story itself is nothing but set-up and exposition, it's good that Ken was able to package it so it wouldn't get boring. I know I've said that the writers should think of television writing rather than old-school comic book writing as their paradigm, but I was thinking more of ensemble shows such as "Hill Street Blues" or "E.R." Still, this story worked for me in a retro sort of way. Head Score: 9.5. EYE: We've seen the "all grown-up" versions of Julie-Su and Lien-Da, and now we get to see Sally, though mostly in head shots. It actually never occurred to me to compare the modeling of Sally+25 to that of Queen Alicia in the present continuity; she's recognizable enough as herself so that comparison is unnecessary. And Steve Butler has the tricky assignment of keeping conversation visually interesting, punctuated with occasional scenes of food prep. It's about as far removed from a slugfest such as S116's "Bat Fight!" as you can get, and for my money Steve pulls it off. Eye Score: 10. HEART: In this case, the emotional factor is the relationship between the all-female cast. The rapport between the moms seems a little too tight if anything; you get the impression that they're way more in touch with each other than Sonic and Knuckles ... which I suppose/hope is one of the issue that will emerge in the next script or two. Underscoring the familiarity is Lara-Su's dialogue with Sally and Lien-Da; she's also very much at home in this circle of women. I wonder, though, whether this works TOO well. I'd appreciate it if any female fanfic writers would surf over to the message board at http://kenpenders.com to say whether Ken got the words AND the feel of it right or not. There's a reason why some shows on Nickelodeon such as "As Told By Ginger" and "My Life As A Teenage Robot" have women writers and/or developers. They're able to tap into knowledge that males can only guess at. It's the same reason why Stephen King relied on his wife to fill in some of the blanks when it came to writing about teenaged girls when he was working on "Carrie." But, as with the art of this story, it feels right to me; I would appreciate a second opinion, though. Heart Score: 10. "Patience" Story: Romy Chacon; Art: Ron Lim; Ink: Nelson Ribeiro; Color: [Jason] Jansen; Lettering: Vickie Williams. Knuckles is Downunda, waiting for Angel Island to make its annual migration past certain mountain peaks which would bring it close enough for him to hitch a ride. He keeps up an internal dialogue with himself while processing King Max's cautioning him that the time isn't right. Despite the continuing absence of glide ability, he gets within striking distance, then decides to let the chance go by. This totally disappoints Robotnik, who had a nice little Surprise Ambush waiting for him. HEAD: We get a not-half-bad script of Knuckles not doing anything and doing a passable impression of having his glide back. Unlike the dialogue in the previous story, this monologue needed action to underscore the importance of what's happening. The script also has to hold our interest as to whether Knuckles will actually go through with it. I'm very much a victim of mixed emotions when it comes to the story's surprise ending: where the SWATbot horde was supposed to jump on Knuckles and yell "Surprise!" It raises the stakes that much higher to have Knuckles avoid an ambush. To make the plot point work, however, they would have had to be in position and know for a certainty where Knuckles would board Angel Island; I mean it's a large chunk of real estate and it's not like there was a ladder hanging over the edge or anything. This story's punchline depends on what Roger Ebert calls The Fallacy of the Predictable Tree, which he explains thus in his review of the 1992 film "Sneakers": "The [Fallacy of the] Predictable Tree is named after the first Rambo movie, in which the bad lawman paused under a tree, and Rambo dropped on him. Why did the lawman choose that tree? How did Rambo know he would? In 'Sneakers,' a bad guy stands directly beneath the place in the ceiling where one of [Robert] Redford's teammates is concealed. What a coincidence." I suppose this plot point could only work in a comic book. Head Score: 7. EYE: Ron Lim seems to have worked on his character modeling, and the improvement is obvious. Still, part of that may be due to working with only a handful of characters dominated by Knuckles, with guest appearances by King Max and Robotnik. I also likes Jensen's twilight sky. Eye Score: 9. HEART: It's a one-echidna show as we see Knuckles psyching himself up, then letting the air out of his resolve at the last moment. What we have, in fact, is Knuckles playing Hamlet. The older readers are probably aware that one of the themes of "Hamlet" is that the young Danish prince, convinced (rightly) that his late father was murdered by his uncle Claudius, spends a good deal of the play working himself up to do something about it. He passes on one opportunity, that of murdering his uncle while he's kneeling in the chapel, because he figures murdering him there would be a one-way ticket to Heaven for the dude. Finally, by the end of the play, during a rigged duel, after having been fatally wounded himself by a poisoned sword, he goes medieval (or rather, Elizabethan) on Claudius after his mother has taken poison meant for Hamlet and after Hamlet has wounded his best bud with the poisoned dueling sword which sealed his own doom. This was the kind of play humorist Richard Armour had in mind when he once wrote that a Shakespeare play is one where the stage is strewn with flowers in the first act and corpses in the fifth. Knuckles doesn't quite rise to Shakespearean heights here, because the reader doesn't get a sense of why Knuckles restrains himself except for the fact that King Max said "Trust me." And if ANYONE in the cast is trust-impaired, it's Knuckles. From his being irradiated by Locke as an egg to his upbringing and eventual abandonment by Locke to the way he took the news of Lara-Le's engagement to Wynmacher to his ordeal as a Chaos- energized night light (during Knuckles's green period), you've got to think this is someone with more than a few trust issues. Yet he gives in in the end, despite the fact that he's on the verge of doing it for Mom, Angel Island, and all that. When it's all over, this story is less like Hamlet and more like Seinfeld: a story about nothing. Heart Score: 6. Off Panel: Go with your first instinct, Sonic. Actually, now that Mike Pellerito is at the helm, maybe Off Panel will FINALLY achieve its true destiny by dropping all references to the Creatives and Editorial and becoming solely and completely about the characters. Over at www.teamartail.com, in the Fan Comic section, is a collection of Sonic Team comic strips by an artist known as Aoi (don't bother with the Aoi homepage link, it's broken). It's a collection of 1 to 4-panel gag strips playing off the characters of the games, and it's a pretty wild collection. In one, Amy Rose carrying a Chao baby and Big the Cat re-enact a scene from Hayao Miyazaki's "My Neighbor Totoro." The strip called "Amy's Valentine," where she ends up presenting Sonic with a chocolate-covered Chao, requires a little explanation: it's become a custom in contemporary Japan for girls to give boys they like homemade chocolates on February 14, and since in the beginning of the strip the Chao had gotten into the chocolate Amy Rose was making, she does the next best thing. Some strips are hard to figure out even in translation. But the point is, it's not that off the mark to do gag humor with the characters as a change of pace. I've never had a problem with that. I've ALWAYS had a problem with Off Panel turning into an ego stroke for Justin Gabrie and the crew, but if you're a long time reader you know that the situation was even worse when Scott Fulop was the editor. We'll see what happens to the feature. This Just Out: J Fred's Farewell address. Thumbnail cover for Sonic #137. Sonic-grams: Dione Kitane is "waiting anxiously for Shadow and Hope" to get more exposure in the comic, and Mike says such a story is "coming down the line." Honestly, I swear on a stack I did NOT see this letter when I publicly challenged myself on Ken Penders's message board to try my hand at writing a comic story, which turned out to be a Hope/Shadow story. Jeremy Corren gets over himself long enough to wonder where Shadow came from in S133's "Home: Finale"; I wonder why he wasn't allowed to do more than smack Robotnik upside the head only once. Mike tells ShadowFan24 that a change in the look of the book (what, again!?) will be unveiled next issue. And Shray brings up the Off Panel subject (see above) Fan Art: Matt Colvin has Sally doing her impression of Green Knuckles, Ruman Randhawa gives us Sonic, Knuckles and a Chao, Joshua Lawrence makes us wonder why Shadow is smiling, and Chloe Schneider has Tails getting noogies from what appears to be a fan chara.