Sonic the Hedgehog #141 [December 2004] Pat Spaziante cover: back to front are Eggman (I'm going to keep calling him that so long as he's wearing those glasses or whatever; Robotnik is dead to this comic), Locke, Lien-Da, Kunckles, and Sonic the Not-Going-To-Make-That-Much-Of-A- Difference-In-This-Issue-Of-The-Comic Hedgehog. I had to go back in my collection of Knuckles comics to see how Locke used to dress; he used to affect a short white coat with a hood in the back, a garment with (to me) obvious Star Wars tailoring influences. He certainly didn't look like he was getting ready to indulge in some Ragnarok Online cosplay. Axer frontispiece: Why, Lien-Da, what a great dental plan you have! "All the better to chew up the scenery in this story with, my dear!" "Return to Angel Island Part 4: Ultimate Hero" Story: Karl Bollers; Art: Jon Gray; Ink: Michael Higgins, Jim Amash and Rich Koslowski; Color: Jason Jensen; Lettering: Michael Higgins, John E. Workman and Jeff Powell; Editor Of Record: Mike Pellerito; Managing Editor: Victor Gorelick; Editor- in-Chief: Richard Goldwater; Sega Employees Who Are Reading This Story and Wondering What the Farg Is Going On Here: Robert Lefler and Dyna Lopez. The Nameless Hunter Dude wastes no time getting down to business and doing ... well, whatever he's going with the spear. I got the initial impression that the spear zaps his prey while the flying EGG sphere locks them away. Sort of a two-step process like in Ghostbusters. The end result is almost the same, as you'll see. What, you think I'm not serious when I say that these reviews contain spoilers? While Eggman tells the NHD to focus, Locke and Knuckles feel the need to remind Sonic about last issue's cliff-hanger ending so he shouldn't feel so smug. Lien-Da puts her two cents in, which Sonic also rebuts by volunteering to deal with Eggman's op. Locke volunteers his son to accompany Sonic, and Sonic tells him to lose the Sonic Adventure gear. Note that the lettering clearly changes in the last panel on page [2]; ordinarily this would be attributed to the Phantom Letterer, implying a last- minute editorial change. However, since this story has no less than THREE credited letterers, it's up for grabs whose work this is. As Dr. Fin and the others take the brunt of the NHD's attack, Archimedes shows up in order to be no help at all. With a handy "No time for explanations," he orders everyone to defend the Master Emerald. Like they weren't going to do that anyway. The NHD's method of attack is to throw the spear, which then spins around like a boomerang, thus defeating the aerodynamic purpose of the thing. Remington's bravery gets him ZORCHed, while Dr. Fin's strategy appears to be intimidating the NHD by making a scary face. Or by showing him the cover art from Sabrina #62, whichever is creepier. Neither strategy works, but Archy passes out before he can definitively state what happened to Remington and the Doc. But just as the NHD shows up, so do Sonic and Knuckles. The NHD does the spinning spear thing again, Knux can't have a decent conversation with Archy because the ant is drawn kinda weird, and Sonic is being kept busy with the EGG transmitter/ball/whatever. Knuckles then gives a shout-out in pain for no apparent reason except that it's the bottom of the page. Julie-Su and the Chaotix arrive at the Hidden Palace along with Lien-Da and the Legionnaires to find the place shamblized and themselves surrounded by dingoes. So what does Lien-Da, in her wisdom as leader of the Dark Legion, do about it? She picks that moment to re-open an old family wound and bawls out Locke. Julie-Su, in turn, gets in her face and both of them start raving out at each other like Sally raving out at Sonic back in S134's "Say You Will." It finally takes Vector to refocus the plot and it takes Jon Gray to remove some of the silliness of Lien-Da's Freudian justification for the whole spat sequence. Charmy and Julie-Su, however, exit upstage to look for Saffron and Knuckles, respectively. OK, remember when Knuckles shouted out with pain for no apparent reason at the bottom of the page two or three pages ago? Turns out that was from the spear/boomerang/whatever. I think. Before the NHD can put Knuckles out of his misery, Knuckles takes a page and a half to morph into ... Super Knuckles With A Weird Looking Eyeball. Knux disposes of the spear and taking a shortcut through the dingo/Chaotix rumble and a couple layers of Mobian soil, deposits the NHD in the drink. Which means, unfortunately, that we haven't seen the last of the derivative little nebbish. Sonic, who hasn't been seen for the last seven or so pages, can only watch as the sphere that had been harassing him just konks. Knuckles's sudden appearance in Super mode is the signal to reconvene AvatarCon, much to Lien-Da's displeasure. We then learn that Knuckles has got his glide back and that, like Dorothy in the "Wizard of Oz, his abilities never really left him: "You hadn't been in contact with the Master Emerald during [your dead] time. We suspect that contact with it was all that was necessary to reawaken them." Except that two issues back Knuckles's proximity to the Master Emerald seemed to affect him the way kryptonite affects Superman, but never mind. Eggman then interrupts to threaten to take the Master Emerald and to creep everybody out with his gross-looking eye condition; you'd think that with THREE inkers for this story one of them would have noticed to ink in and highlight BOTH of his pupils! So the M.E. has to be relocated yet again while we pay a short tribute to the memory of Remington. I don't see anybody getting teary-eyed over losing Dr. Fin, though. There's room for one more family drama before Knuckles says "There's my ride, gotta go!" as the Freedom Fighter Special shows up. Locke objects to Knuckles foisting the Guardian's job back on his shoulders while Knuckles returns to Knothole, thus ruining Locke's cozy retirement. Hey, it's better than being a greeter at Wal-Mart. Thus father and son become estranged, and we get set up for... The Big Dramatic Surprise Ending, brought to you by Matrix Wine Company. Seems the chaos spear doesn't really kill you; it transports you to the inside of a glass pod which is one of several in a grape bunch-like cluster. No longer in the business of roboticizing bunnies and birdies, Eggman seems content just to erase their memories. Or something. HEAD: The bottom left corner of the last page goes a long way toward explaining some of what's on display in this story: a farewell box from Justin Gabrie, whose leaving of the editor's job at this comic was "announced" 5 issues ago. This explains, in part, why this story was so labor-intensive with three letterers and three inkers: thanks to the change in editors, they had to make sure that they could still make deadline despite the inevitable chaos that happens when there's a job change like that. This must've been the last story J. Fred was working on when his relationship with Archie was severed. This story has the same feel as "Robodyne Systems," the last story in the Tommy Turtle arc (S137). There's a lot happening, almost too much, but Karl tries to get it all told no matter how loud the grinding sound when the gears don't exactly mesh. Did the story really NEED to have Lien-Da and Julie-Su spend something like a page threatening to bite each others' heads off? This couldn't have waited to be covered in a story later down the line, especially since there's no hint of such animosity between the two of them in the M25YL arc? Whatever their respective agendas, they seem to have declared a truce if not peace in the near future. Speaking of the Cat Fight That Wasn't, Jon Gray's art is not that out of place during the shouting match between Lien-Da and Julie-Su. For that matter, Lien-Da in this issue is no less restrained than Dr. Fin was two issues ago when confronted with fellow echidnas who actually had the audacity to believe in the Avatar (about whom more later). It's not enough that she disagrees with them; she has to take the Indignationometer and crank it up to eleven. Does she believe in technocracy that deeply, or is it possible that the supernatural is that threatening to her? Karl doesn't say; it's enough for him to drag in the sibling rivalry angle, which isn't QUITE in line with the Julie-Su back story as told in "Shadows" (SSS11). According to Simon (remember Simon?), he and Floren-Ca had to take over raising Julie-Su after the death of Luger's second wife, Mari-Su, because Luger wasn't up to single parenting and Julie-Su was getting the fuzzy end of the lollypop (to use Marilyn Monroe's famous phrase from "Some Like It Hot") from her half-sibs Kragok and Lien-Da. But I'm sure Lien-Da remembers it all differently. In all the action in this story the question of whether Knuckles really is the Avatar, and whether the daughter of Pollu and Meri-Ca will ever get her sight back, is pretty much waived. Which is a disappointment as far as I'm concerned. I was waiting to see what would become of the Avatar plot point, whether Knuckles would end up living up to the hype (he doesn't) or whether in a twist of the plot someone else would be revealed to be the Avatar (they don't). What we get instead is ... more loose continuity. The Avatar question is simply tabled until some more convenient time, oh, let's say, in another four or five years. I didn't care for the Nameless Hunter Dude five years ago when he closed down the Knuckles comic, and his return here finds him as one-dimensional as ever. And since absolutely nobody even got killed in this story (despite this comic having an impressive death rate during its history), the option of bringing him back is still open. Maybe in another five years, by which time they may have come up with a better name for him than "Hunter." Somewhere in the midst of all this Karl manages to tell a story where Eggman is thwarted from stealing the Master Emerald, but there's also some collateral damage to deal with: Remington and Dr. Fin and a bunch of other Angel Islanders have been whisked away to Eggman's winery. Not exactly a feel-good ending, but I'll have more to say about that in the HEART section. At least this is over with and Knuckles has been reset. I await the same fate to befall Sally, Bunnie and Antoine. Head Score: 7. EYE: Despite a busy script that fills up a lot of pages with a lot of word balloons, Jon Gray's artwork does the job. His overdone expressions manage to compliment Karl's script, where the lines appear to call for a good deal of overacting. BTW, Jon Gray himself let me know that his use of picture writing in Mace's word balloons was inspired by Mark Waid's tenure in the "Impulse" comic. Maybe Jon's next assignment will be with material that's a little ... saner. Eye Score: 10. HEART: OK, Alfred Hitchcock once said "A happy ending is a sellout to commercialism," but Karl Bollers seems to have taken this principle to the nth degree. Look at the stories he's authored within the last year or so, going back to "Hearts Held Hostage." Sure, Sonic and Sally are reunited, but at the cost of Mina's heart being broken and having her take a bullet meant for Sally. The salvation of Mobius from the Xorda yields the assumption that Sonic sacrificed his life to counteract the Quantum Dial, with much boo-hooing and distress amongst the surviving Mobians. During the Tossed In Space Arc which Karl wrote under the pen name Benny Lee (his being outed was one of a number of backstage maneuvers widely commented upon at the various message boards) the D'Novulan captain goes down with the ship, Sonic does battle with the Red Emerald Super Sonic who eventually just sort of disappears, Sonic ends up leaving Tails's parents behind on the Bem home world. And then he returns to Mobius and things REALLY start falling apart: Sally has emotionally regressed, Bunnie and Antoine have had a falling out because Antoine has acquired a dark disposition that would make Raven from "Teen Titans" look like a cockeyed optimist, and now the population of Angel Island has been decimated. And then there's the Lien-Da/Julie-Su fight, which made no difference whatever in the story; it wasn't even integral to the plot. So why did Karl put it in there? There's another moment in this story when Knuckles not only asks Locke to come out of retirement and do the Guardian thing again but also to "keep an eye on" his mom. Isn't that Wynmacher's responsibility now that she's remarried and they both have Mace to deal with? Wyn didn't get ZORCHed like Remington, and a reconciliation between Locke and Lara-Le was never in the cards, so is Knuckles adding insult to injury here or what? Recently, Garry Trudeau had one of the characters in his comic strip "Doonesbury," B.D., lose a leg in Iraq when his Hummer is hit by a rocker-propelled grenade. Trudeau explained in an interview in the August 5, 2004 issue of "Rolling Stone" magazine: "the terrible truth about writers is, they create characters and then they put them in harm's way. That's what drama is about." All well and good. Heaven knows I've put the characters through their share of misery in my fanfics; in my very first outing, "Bloodlines," I reunite Sally with her mother (whom I named "Queen Alicia" years before the comic ever did) and a sibling in time to be present when her mother dies. Sally herself dies of old age in a Sonic/Star Trek crossover fanfic I wrote, "She Knew That the Hand Was Upon Her." Yet I didn't just write these as exercises in darkfic. By the end of the stories there was also a counterbalancing reconciliation, between Sally and her sib in the first story, between Sally and her estranged granddaughter in the second prior to Sally's dying. Just as Garry Trudeau was surprised at how intensely some people reacted when B. D. lost his leg in the strip ("It was so emotional ... like someone they knew had been harmed"), I couldn't just let bad stuff happen to any of the Sonic characters and walk off as if nothing was wrong. That's what Dan Slott did to Sonic in "Zone Wars: Giant Robotno" and I felt I had to write "Zone Wars: Intervention" to balance out the misery with a sense that no matter how shaken Sonic had been by committing patricide-by-proxy it wouldn't crush him. If I ever thought for a second that I or any of the fans had no real emotional stake in the Sonicverse, opening the Princess Sally Memorial Cybershrine during the "Endgame" arc cured me for good. Yet with the mention of "Endgame" I'm reminded that at times this book has gone out of its way in the past to make the characters miserable for no real reason. Despite Justin Gabrie's insistence that "Endgame" was supposed to be an "emotional roller coaster," which implies some rises as well as dips and the occasional pause at a summit before the next heart-stopping plunge, that story's pace was more like Disney's "Twilight Zone Tower of Terror"; a straight drop down until the end when things more or less just ended (this was especially true before the revised ending of the arc came out and all the readers had to go on was the serving of hash that was S50). Karl seems to have OD'ed on this technique; despite foiling Eggman's scheme we're left with the (false) impression that Remington bought the farm, we see Knuckles estranged from Locke, and we learn the real fate of Remington et al. As for Dr. Fin, we were never made to care about him anyway so no big loss. One of the ways in which "Endgame" went wrong was in the basic rhythm of the story. Usually it's a simple three-step progression: bad stuff happens to hero, hero pulls it together, hero overcomes bad stuff. "Return to Angel Island" resembles "Endgame" in that even after Knuckles gets his glide back Karl can't seem to stop bringing on the bad stuff, such as the estrangement of Knuckles and Locke. This comic has now stored up enough misery and bad stuff to last it for the next five years. I say it's time to shift gears and let Sonic, Sally, Bunnie, Tails and the rest of the gang start dealing with it in ways that'll have us cheering for them once again instead of making us wince because we feel their pain. Do I want a return to the comic's very beginning, its retread of the "Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog?" Not necessarily, but would it be such a crime for these characters to catch a break? Heart Score: 3. "Mobius 25 Years Later: Scenario" Story: Ken Penders: Art: Steven Butler; Ink: Jim Amash; Color: Jason Jensen; Lettering: John E. Workman. "Oh, this ISN'T good! This isn't good AT ALL!" With that as an opening line, you know you'd better not unbuckle your seat belt yet. It reminds me of the Ultraman movie where calamities are happening all over the world and a bespectacled science says, in bad dubbing, "Gentlemen, the situation is so bad it's the worst it's ever been." And you can't beat that. But anyway, Cobar and Rotor are going over their analysis of the recent freaky weather (which, more often than not, we've had to imagine) when Sonic and Knuckles drop in unannounced. Knuckles let's drop the fact that Cobar is in Lien-Da's pocket, though how she could fit anything into the pockets of those hip- hugger pants she wears I don't know. Sonic is cheesed that "Rotor may have concealed a detail or two from you," and now we know for SURE that this is a Ken Penders story, failure of one character to be completely candid with another being a hallmark of the Penders narrative style. After a quick cut-back to Julie-Su and Sally in which we are told Sonic hasn't been himself lately, we wander into a fog of full-blown Treknobabble that deserves to be quoted at length: SONIC: "Mobius is experiencing an entropic build-up...?" ROTOR: "That's the breaking down of the space/time continuum on the sub-quantum level." More to the point, Cobar lays the blame squarely on Sonic's shoulders, specifically citing Sonic's original traversing of the Cosmic Interstate in S11 (back when travel between alternate Mobiuses was taken way less seriously), the climax of "Endgame" (not the wake-up kiss between Sonic and Sally, but the annihilation of the ultimate by the "Ultimate Annihilator"), and most recently the jazzing with the Quantum Dial left behind by those intergalactic slackers, the Xorda. Apparently these three story lines taken together created the perfect storm of space/time disruption. Having nailed down the cause, Rotor and Cobar aren't very helpful with suggestions for a cure, asking for "all available resources and the cooperation of everyone." Sonic and Knuckles then promise to cosign the blank check Rotor and Cobar have just presented them, and they leave. Just as they do, however, who should arrive to get some more face time in this story than Lien- Da. She wants to know what's going on with Sonic and Knuckles, or maybe she wants them to figure out a way to get her hands unstuck from her hips, which is where they've been for most of this story arc. HEAD: Star Trek to the rescue! I finally surfed into the Next Generation ep "Force of Nature" which explains that all that tearing through the final frontier at warp whatever has threatened to reduce the Space-Time Continuum to a Space-Time Slice of Swiss Cheese. The eventual solution is to post a Speed Limit of Warp 5; reminds me of the Albert Einstein bumper sticker I saw once: "186,000 miles per second; it's not just a good idea, it's the LAW!". My copy of the "Star Trek Encyclopedia" by Okuda et al. (1994) cited the ep in its commentary under the article on warp drive but didn't have an article on the ep itself. I'm not surprised; the 1994 edition is horribly edited and I can only hope that they did a better job in subsequent editions. Anyway, the hauling out of the Treknobabble is the point of this story. We get a secondary plot point that Cobar is in the employ of Lien-Da, and Julie-Su and Sally essentially have walk- on (or in Sally's case, lie-in) parts in this story. As a way of advancing the action it all works, but something still seems to be missing. I'll wait until the Heart section to deal with that, though. Head Score: 8. EYE: Butler does his usual good work. Good, but ... well, not impressive. Perhaps because the story hasn't given him much to work with except a bunch of characters talking to each other. Julie-Su walking down the stairs is the extent of the action in this story. Butler proved his worth in S119's "Dust Bunnie" and S130's "The Blue Blur Returns." He can do action work with the best of them, and action has been a scarce commodity in this arc; we haven't even been served up very many helpings of the freaky weather everyone is talking about. Something better happen in this story, and fast, or I'm afraid Butler is going to lose his edge. And as satisfying as the composition is, I am officially sick and tired of seeing Lien-Da's hands resting on her hips. It says something about her character, sure, but after all this time, I'm sorry to say, it's gotten boring. And the story is having enough trouble trying to stay out of that territory without repetitive artwork. Art Score: 9. HEART: Whatever happened to Lara-Su and Rutan? When this story arc got started way back in S131, reading that initial installment gave me the impression that they'd be key players in the drama. Seemed to make sense; they were fresh characters through whose eyes the audience (ado and pre-ado, male and female) could see what was happening and who could be focus points for the readers' feelings about developments. The readers stood a chance of identifying with them and caring about the story as a result. Obviously, it didn't work out that way. Just as Ken Penders had two pages of material about Sonia and Manik land on the cutting-room floor, so these two seem to have been marginalized in this story or else reduced to inconsequential installments such as "Slumber Party" (S139). They may still come back into the story line big-time, I don't know, but it seems to me that the story started to slide when they were edged off-panel by Sonic and Knuckles. OK, S & K are the franchise and the book wouldn't exist without them. But as this story has gone along it's gotten harder and harder to care about a story where everybody talks about the weather and nothing happens to justify all that talk. Even in the misbegotten "Slumber Party" Ken tried to generate interest in the younger characters as characters and even to have Julie-Su and Sally act as counterpoints to the youngsters. But the dialogue was so lame and self-absorbed that nobody ever managed to let the readers inside their souls. Then again, as with the keeping of secrets, lack of emotional candor is another hallmark of the Ken Penders style. The bottom line, at this point in the arc, is that we readers are perfectly clear on what's happening, but Ken just doesn't have the tools to make us know what his characters are feeling about what's happening. Like the infamous arm's-length hug at the end of "Endgame," there's a failure to connect with the characters that drags down the story. Sure, Sally says something about Sonic not being himself, but it feels gratuitous, inserted for the sake of giving Sally something to worry about. There's something essential, crucial really, missing from this story. I'm afraid that it's not for lack of plotting, though that could be tweaked. My diagnosis is: Heart disease. Heart Score: 4. Off-Panel: Mike Pellerito screws with Kunckles's head, thus demonstrating what the writers and editors do to the fans whenever they want to amuse themselves. Or have we forgotten "Battle Royal"? S142 blurb: the start of a two-parter about Sonic talking to Hope. It's not a story ABOUT Sonic but one told BY Sonic. That means the writer will have to work harder than usual to hold the interest of the readers while violating the Please, Guys, No More New Characters Rule. Something big is supposed to happen in the M25YL arc. I predict the biggest buzz will be about the Amy Rose story. She hasn't gotten nearly enough face time in this comic, considering that she's been an integral part of the games. Editorial: "I could answer [readers' questions about plot holes left over from the Return To Angel Island arc] but surprises are much more fun." And good writing in this comic would be an even bigger surprise. Mike does some heavy-handed foreSHADOWing of the re-appearance of Shadow in the comic. I hope someone's figured out that he can do a lot more than just bitch slap Eggman, which was his entire contribution to the Home story arc. Sonic-Grams: Rogelio Hernandez does NOT like manga influence, and Mike commits the kind of cheap shot over a missing comma that is best left to us critics. Jonathan Lee doesn't like the eye treatment the characters have been getting, and doesn't like the current Eggman model, but thinks that Spaz rocks. Austin Watterson also complains about the artwork and the borrowing of character names from Sonic Underground. Chris London softens up Mike a little before asking why Tails isn't getting his props, when Knuckles will get his glide back, why the stories aren't littered with Chao, what the heck happened to Sally in "Say You Will," and why Bunnie and Antoine broke up. Mike gives non-answers except for Knuckles (see cover story) and yet another promise about what's up with B and A. Robert Rodriguez explains how he returned to the fanhood and is given advice on how to learn to draw. Which brings us to... Fan Art: Kate Reagan (a contributor on the Sonic HQ Forum), contributes a cute drawing of Mina, Christy Kanada of Tokyo gives us a drawing of Shadow wearing a scarf and listening to a CD, Bryan Sanders does a VERY well-executed drawing of old school Robotnik, and Marcus Williams contributes a nice action drawing of Sonic. And Bryson Knaps checks in with "Reptiles Rule," a drawing that got past Editorial which features TWO, count 'em two, fan charas: Ricky Rattlesnake and Friller the Frilled Lizard. Heaven knows I've created my share of non-canonical characters in my fanfic, but it usually happens because there are no characters in the present mix that can do the job I needed done. For "Space Case," for instance, I needed a flying squirrel with a certain neurological condition which I didn't want to burden Ray with (to be honest, I wasn't even aware of Ray's existence when I wrote the fanfic) so I had to create Jay (named after the "J." in Rocket J. Squirrel, aka Rocky). Now, let's hope that S142 is something we'll REALLY like.