Sonic the Hedgehog #166 (Nov 2006)
     Sanford Greene cover: M:25YL 2.0 cover, with Knuckles,
Shadow, Sally and Sonic demonstrating that the future isn't a
fun place.  Why else would they all be wearing the EXACT SAME
EXPRESSION?

     "Mobius 25 Years Later: Part 1: Tempus Fugit"
     Story: Ian Flynn; Att: Tracy Yardley; Ink: Jim Amash,
Color: Jason Jensen; Lettering: John E. Workman; Editor: Mike
Pellerito; Managing Editor: Victor Gorelick; Editor-In-Chief:
Richard Goldwater.

     We drop in the middle of this retcon in the city of
Portal on Angel Island.  And who put the "angel" in Angel
Island?  Maria, as we see a number of Islanders in the mid-
ground paying homage to her memory.  "This isn't right," Tails
tells himself and us.
     Cut to Knuckles and Lara-Su, who vanished along with
everybody else at the end of the original M:25YL arc.  Here,
she's either doing some practice earth-bending (after all,
Knuckles was called "Avatar" in the Return To Angel Island
arc, and there are THREE pages of Avatar-related ads in this
comic) or else she's auditioning to play Terra in "Teen
Titans: The Musical."  Anyone who remembers the original story
arc will remember that Knuckles was initially reluctant to
have his daughter learn the ways of the Guardian.  Whole
different story here, as well as a different father-daughter
dynamic.  The appearance of Tails shifts the emotional gears,
though, and launches another page-load of exposition.  "I know
everything," Tails declares, which is almost always the cue
for a flashback or a speech.
     Tails, it will be recalled in what had appeared to be a
throwaway panel in the original, had gotten out of town with
Mina and the kids before the not-very-evident bad weather
started happening.  He thus kept them safe from the changes in
space-time wrought at the end of the first story arc.  I'm not
sure that's how it works, even on "Code Lyoko," but it keeps
the plot moving.  However, as soon as Tails says the S-word
(Sonic), the interview is over.
     Outside "Guardian Tower," Tails runs into Lara-Su, who
brings some of her own hazy recollections to the party. 
"Things aren't quite right," she agrees, and throws her lot in
with Tails.
     Cut to Shadow who's in the process of torturing Rotor,
who had himself been ratted out to Shadow by Lien-Da.  If
Shadow ever gets tired of being King, he can always find work
at the CIA.  The two then get word that Lara-Su and Tails are
on the move, so they outsource the task of trailing her to her
dad.
     Tails and Lara-Su, meanwhile, have arrived at Portal's
version of Skid Row where they encounter Sonic, seriously down
on his luck and sounding like Buzz Lightyear after discovering
his toyness: "One minute you're defending the whole galaxy,
and suddenly, you find yourself sucking down Darjeeling with
Marie Antoinette."  In the page that follows, Sonic and Tails
FINALLY managed to get over the feud that Ken Penders forced
upon them in the course of "Line of Succession" and about
time, too.  But time is something they may not have a lot of
as Knuckles arrives with tons of backup.

     HEAD: I'll be the first to admit that I didn't think much
of the idea of Ian Flynn revisiting M:25YL as part of his
general housecleaning of the comic.  I wasn't a fan of the
first story arc.  Like a lot of stories that pop up in this
comic, it had potential that was never realized as the writing
went for the easy way out.  I was particularly infuriated by
the lameness of the "Slumber Party" installment (S139) which
could have tied together the plotting and characterization but
instead was just draped over everything with no attempt to
tell a story.  It made me come to hate the entire arc.
     Ian surprises me, though, by actually adding a compelling
narrative element to the story through strong
characterization.  Tails (who, I'm sorry, does NOT look all
that grown up here) and Lara-Su have a good repartee together,
and their scene with the down-and-out Sonic is very well done.
     There is one element of this story that surprised me, and
fuels my interest in the story because I hope Ian fleshes it
out eventually.  I'm referring to the fact that Sonic, a
fugitive from another continuity, makes a couple passing
references to Maria, who seems to be the central figure of a
thriving little cult that Shadow's put in place.  In fact,
Sonic seems more devoted to her than does Shadow himself; I
believe the phrase is "more Catholic than the Pope."  I want
to know what's up with that!
     I'm also working hard at cutting Ian slack for the device
of whether characters remember or forget their alternate
history.  In the most classic example of this sort of thing,
Frank Capra's "It's A Wonderful Life," only George Bailey is
cursed with remembering the alternate timeline; everyone else
has troubles of their own.  But here Sonic knows it, which is
understandable because he was supposed to have done the actual
time-traveling.  Tails knows it as well, which is a stretch
and requires a comprehension of a lot of Treknobabble about
the "tachyon chamber."  
     But even Lara-Su has an inkling of the past that isn't
anymore, and while that's a convenient reason for her to side
with Tails it's also a little TOO convenient.  If she were a
total agnostic about time travel I could understand it.  If
she had a separate agenda she was pursuing behind her father's
back I could understand it.  This is just off enough to make
me suspicious.  Maybe this is part of some set-up and Ian's
getting ready to throw us a curve in the next installment or
two, but for the moment it reminds me of why I can never
believe in reincarnation or past lives: if you can't profit
from hindsight by learning from the past(s) you've had, what's
the point?  Head Score: 8.
     One final point unrelated to the story.  As I said, there
are something like three pages of ads related to the
Nickelodeon series "Avatar: The Last Airbender."  I have been
saying for years that the core audience for the comic (pre-ado
boys) is not as dense as comic book writers seem to think. 
This was brought glaringly to the surface some years back when
the Sonic comic took the liberty of reminding the readers what
the title of the story was every three pages or so.
     Well, I am now thoroughly convinced that anyone who wants
to write for this comic should start watching "Avatar" and
learning from it.  The characterizations are strong, the
continuity is complex enough to last for years yet simple
enough to support stand-alone eps, and it doesn't talk down to
the audience in the process.  It exemplifies what writing for
this comic should have been all along.
     EYE: Tracy's Tails, it pains me to say, is still way too
cute-looking for me to take him seriously as being grown up. 
"Grown up" is a relative term in his case; though he's six
years younger than Sonic and always has been, he's supposed to
be old enough to be a husband and father.  It just didn't work
for me.
     That's too bad, because everything else about the story
looked very nice.  Well, except for Lien-Da looking TOO
gleefully sadistic, or is that too sadistically gleeful? 
Either way, her look was a little over the top.  Eye Score: 9.
     HEART: I wasn't that impressed seeing Sonic on the skids,
and the reconciliation between him and Tails was just a little
too easy though still a welcome development.  But there was
one panel where Ian completely convinced me that he knows what
he's doing and his grip on the characters is solid: the panel
where Shadow says: "I cannot lose this world.  I have done too
much good for it to be stopped now."
     If anyone ever sat down and tried diagnosing the mental
health of comic book characters based on standard works such
as the American Psychiatric Association's "Diagnostic and
Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders," known by the
shorthand abbreviation DSM-IV because it's in its 4th edition,
they'd conclude that just about everybody in the comics has
got SOMETHING wrong with them, whether they're villains or
heroes.  Batman/Bruce Wayne may have been a successful
businessman (no way he could have fought crime while holding
down a day job or collecting unemployment), but his social
skills leave a lot to be desired.  As for the villains,
they're so off the wall it's ridiculous.  
     This is where writing for manga and anime take it a notch
above American popular culture.  They have villains, but there
are very few of them who are crazy just because the plot
demands it.  "Yu-Gi-Oh!" is a good example.  Seto Kaiba
started out as a villain and eventually turned into an ally. 
Turned out he was a victim of his own ego in thinking himself
the best gamer in the world; he was therefore threatened by
Yugi's skills.  And his devotion to his kid brother Mokuba
helped lift him out of the stereotypical villain role.
     Maximilian Pegasus is another example.  While at first
glance he's some kind of deranged gamer, it turns out he's
been trying to undo the death of his beloved Cecilia.  This
adds an unexpected air of poignancy to his character and saves
him from being a cardboard villain (though there are still
plenty of THEM in the series).
     Here, Ian has only just started to reinvent Shadow, but
the "I've done too much good" line speaks volumes.  For how
many evils have been perpetrated in the world by those who
thought they were doing the world a favor?  There's a
complexity here that goes beyond the cardboard conventions of
Heroes and Villains.  I really want to think that Ian is
finding his voice here and that instead of defaulting to one
fistfight after another, we'll see something more compelling
in the comic.  Heart Score: 10.


     "The Chaotix Connection"
     Story: Ian Flynn (from a story by Romy Chacon); Art: J.
Axer; Ink : Michael Higgins; Color: Jason Jensen; Lettering:
John E. Workman.

     We open with a splash of Knuckles held prisoner and beat
up.  We've obviously wandered into the middle of the story, so
quicker than you can say "Abu Ghraib," we backtrack to the
beginning.
     Rouge learns that Renfield Rodent, lead villain first in
the Chaotix special and then in the three-part Chaotix Caper
(Knuckles #13-15; the text box on page [5] is wrong), is
opening a casino in Station Square called, with a crashing
lack of imagination, "Casinopolis."  Back in the "Caper,"
Renfield was running drugs.  Well, more like drug-laced chili
which killed one of Charmy's friends and almost bumped Charmy
off as well.  Rouge advises the President With No Personality
to contact Sonic and Sally; Sal then dispatches Knuckles and
the Chaotix to check things out.
     The scene changes as we watch the delivery of what proves
to be slot machines to Casinopolis, the delivery itself being
watched by guest villain Renfield Rodent, hamming it up like
crazy and thankful for his "early parol."  That's "parole,"
Ratso.  There IS a word "parol," a legal term referring to
word-of-mouth testimony, but again this is a case of sending a
spell checker to do an editor's job.
     The Chaotix arrive at Casinopolis and Knuckles has to
prevent a fight breaking out between Rouge and Julie-Su,
though that would have kept the customers amused until the
doors formally opened.  Knuckles gets the group inside before
opening and, on the theory that lightning will strike twice in
the same place, they split up and check out the food service. 
Knux gets into the back room, hears the foreman at the loading
dock drop the name of "Dr. Eggman," then decides that this
would be a good opportunity to give away his position.
     As a fight breaks out in the back room, customers are
starting to come through the front door.  Julie-Su guesses
that lightning WON'T strike twice in the same place, and
observes that Knuckles is late checking in.  As for Knuckles,
he realizes that the foreman is "one of Eggman's auto-
automatons!"  As opposed to one of the old-fashioned manual-
automatons, I guess.  Anyway, Knuckles is clocked ... excuse
me, KLOKed ... and Renfield is brought up to speed.
     Back in the casino, Rouge is wondering why the gamblers
are looking at the slot machines as if they were watching
television.  She, Espio and Vector then fall under their
spell, and we cut to Knux all tied up and realize this is
where we came in.
     Renfield now goes into Babbling Villain Mode: turns out
that the casino is a front for Eggman's latest scheme.  The
slot machines "scan" the "minds" of the players and the data
is then used to program Eggman's "mindless killer robot"
"Infiltrator" army being assembled in the factory in the
basement of the casino.  Got that?
     Well, don't work too hard remembering it, because Mighty
and Julie-Su dispense with that whole plot point in the space
of three panels by announcing they've trashed the factory. 
"Curse you Chaotix!" Renfield says in the kind of overacting
that reminds me of the dialogue in "Line of Succession,"
"You've ruined me for the last time!  I will have my revenge!" 
There follows a boatload of exposition, a ritual Thank You
from President Useless, and a final panel where Julie-Su is
almost completely crowded off.

     HEAD: They don't write 'em like this any more, thank the
deity of your choice.  Like President George W. Bush, Archie
Comics apparently has a policy of not admitting mistakes.  And
it was an obvious mistake for them to have bought this story. 
Once they DID buy it, they simply couldn't smack themselves on
the collective forehead, ask themselves "What were we
THINKING?" and then run it through the shredder.  The rule at
Archie seems to be "You buy it, you print it!"
     In this case, the story was handed off to Ian Flynn for a
rewrite.  The same thing happened with the infamous "Love and
Loss" (S144), which was doctored by artist Jon Gray (see my
review of S144 for the story behind the rewrite, based on
Jon's account on his Website).
     Which makes me wonder what "Chaotix Connection" looked
like before Ian was told to perform surgery on it.  I don't
know my way around Ian's MB "Bumbleking Comics" well enough to
see if he posted an account of rewriting this story the way
Jon Gray told the tale of "Love and Loss."  I'd dearly love to
see the first draft of this script and gauge what changes were
made.
     The scheme itself (scanning Mobians and Station Square
hyoomons to build mindless killer robots) is pretty lame,
though I have to wonder how much lamer the original might have
been.  And mercifully, the character of Downtown Ebony Hare
does NOT make a comeback in this story.  Otherwise, this is a
by-the-numbers exercise that goes nowhere.  Head Score: 4.
     EYE: J. Axer's work, marked by attention to detail and a
nice building of atmosphere in page layouts, has been absent
for too long from this book.  Unfortunately, it's pretty
ragged this time around.  The opening splash page is
impressive enough, and several other pages are well done (the
delivery of the slot machines ending with Renfield's close-up,
Knuckles's fight with the horse-faced robot).  Unfortunately,
much of the rest of the art is a mess!  Panels are crammed
together and give the page a cramped, overloaded feeling, a
situation made worse by Axer's attention to detail.  The last
page's layout isn't so bad, but I get the feeling that one
reason for Julie-Su's near-absence from the last panel was
that the last page got cut up to accommodate the fine print at
the bottom.  Again, this hints at the kind of nipping and
tucking that went into getting this thing into shape to be
printed.  Eye Score: 4.
     HEART: Ken Penders really opened up the emotional
throttle (to the extent that his talents would enable him) in
the "Chaotix Caper" depicting the death of Charmy's bud Mello. 
But nothing along those lines happens this time around. 
There's no melodrama, but then there's not much drama, period.
     There's the odd flash of Julie-Su threatening Rouge,
which looks like it's going to be a recurring theme in this
book (see last issue's "Leak"), but for the most part there's
no emotional involvement in this story.  It's a clockwork
caper where the villain gets foiled and everything ends on an
up note.  Heart Score: 3