Sonic the Hedgehog #170 (Feb 2007) Yardley!/Amash/Jensen cover: like the cover of #169, this is one where the longer you look at it, the sillier it gets. You've got Sonic with his all-purpose smirk which isn't too bad, but then you have Tails. He's looking at the holographic representation of his parents emanating from his wristwatch. I think that the look on his face is supposed to convey wistful longing, but his expression looks more like that of someone who discovers a gang of cockroaches having a pool party in his oatmeal. And don't even get me started on Sally, who's either shrunk to Munchkin size, or is walking on the wall at the far end of the room. And taken as a whole, I have NO idea what's going on here. It just doesn't work. This is a strong last-minute contender for Worst Cover Art for 2006. "Coming and Goings" Story: Ian Flynn; Art: Tracy Yardley!; Ink: Jim Amash; Color: Jason Jensen; Lettering: John E. Workman; Editor: Mike Pellerito; Managing Editor: Victor Gorelick; Editor-in-Chief: Richard Goldwater "And where's King Max?" I hear nobody ask. Seems that ever since the Antiantoine tried bumping him off in the "Line of Succession" arc he's been camped out at death's door like a rock fan waiting for the stadium box office to open. We're told in a lumpy expository text box in the first panel that Sally has pinned her hopes on "a machine" developed by Dr. Quack and Sonic's Uncle Chuck that may bring the King out of his coma, but that the only source of power capable of making it work is a Chaos Emerald. Sonic and Tails reassure her that another "something" is in the works to retrieve an emerald. Tails then turns on the parental hologram again, and bites his lower lip so hard it's ready to start bleeding. The "something" in question turns out to be two "star posts" from one or another of the Sonic games used as a gateway to the Zone where all those emeralds were stashed during the previous story. Sonic and Tails enter the gateway and find themselves on one of those bonus round planetoids where they're supposed to run around like crazy collecting rings and avoiding the red balls. Only they don't find rings or balls here; what they DO find is Feist. When we met him for the first (and only) time, Feist was a giant badger-like bit player in S43's "The Dream Zone" who ZATed Kodos only to vanish himself when Sonic convinced King Max this was all just a bad dream accompanied by bad artwork from Manny Galan (back before he found his true calling drawing the Knuckles comic). Feist has undergone a species change since then: the badger-like face markings are gone and have been replaced by giant panda markings. He's also not the steroid case he used to be, and has a bit of a middle-age spread on him (which makes me feel right at home). But cutting through the two pages of exposition, we learn that Feist has consolidated the kajillion Chaos Emeralds from the previous story into the canonical seven, and because Sonic battled Ixis Naugus Feist is willing to cut loose with one of them. Sonic and Tails take the freebie and hightail it back to Mobius. A small crowd gathers at the King's bedside as Dr. Quack gives Uncle Chuck the order to throw the switch. After a fairly impressive panel where Max levitates off the bed, we get the King Regaining Consciousness scene. As Sonic and Tails make tracks and leave the family to bring Max up to speed on Ken Penders getting let go by the comic, Sally hands off the Chaos Emerald with instructions to pass it along to ... Merlin Prower. Act 2 (this story makes such an abrupt change it may as well be considered a 3-parter) takes place as Merlin takes possession of both the Chaos Emerald and Knuckles's Guiding Star Gem, a leftover from when he had his own title. Juicing up the Gem with the Emerald, Merlin transports the lot of them to Argentium, the Krispy Kreme(tm)-shaped planet where Sonic encountered Tails's parents at the shank end of the Tossed In Space arc. The place looks the worse for wear, but it turns out that the planet is only collateral damage in an ongoing feud between the Xorda (the brainazoid aliens who twice failed in their mission to trash Mobius) and the Black Arms (the "demonic alien race led by Black Doom" from the Shadow the Hedgehog game, according to Wikipedia). We, however, get this information from Tails's 'rents who are still hanging around what appears to be an otherwise-deserted planet (Sing along, you know the words: "what are the odds?"). After a brief reunion scene with Merlin followed by one between Tails and his folks, everyone beams off the planet. Act 3 begins as King Elias (apparently Dad will still need to recuperate if he wants to try taking the throne back) brings the Prowers up to speed. We then cut to Sonic and Knuckles paying their respects to the major heroes who have perished during the past year (both of them) and watch them do some low-level ego-wrestling. As the two repartee their way into the sunset.... We get a last-second set-up where Shadow requests that Eggman hand over Dr. Gerald Robotnik's diary; he does NOT ask nicely. HEAD: This story differs from the previous arcs Ian has written ("Order From Chaos" and "Darkest Storm") because he takes the opportunity to build rather than break down. This is harder work for a writer because anybody or anything can get killed off, usually in a pretty unconvincing manner where this comic book is concerned. Feist's reappearance (or is it reincarnation?) reminded me of Kodos's lame death scene in S100's "Reunion," where he was zapped by the Sword of Acorns which caused him to fall into a ravine. And the visit to the grave of Sir Connery is a reminder of that character's Obi- wan-style demise. Ian manages to pull off the Tails reunion scene well enough, confined as it is to a couple three panels. This could have been splashed over an entire page if this were a story in the classic shojo manga style, but that's something this comics will never be accused of being. In any event, now that Tails will be under parental supervision we probably won't hear so much about his love life as we will his complaints about his having a curfew (unless he can con his folks into hiring Fiona as a babysitter). The revival of King Max was equally truncated; more on these scenes in the HEART section. Still, it's no small accomplishment for Ian to pull together families that were torn apart thanks to the efforts of Karl Bollers (dba Benny Lee) and Ken Penders. The trick, of course, is to make them act like family members rather than comic book characters who happen to bear some resemblance to each other. And I am heartened by Ian's climax of his rewrite of "Mobius 25 Years Later" in S167. His characterization of Sonic and Sally struck just the right note, and I hope he can bring something of the same touch to the Royals and the Prowers. As for the Sonic-Knuckles rivalry at the end, that seemed to be something of a no-brainer. I know that the Black Arms of Black Doom is thoroughly canonical, being based on the Shadow the Hedgehog game, but the names are also sort of politically incorrect. Here's hoping that Ian chooses to walk away from the Xorda-Black Arms combat and stay away for a good long time. It's not that I'm being overly PC, I just don't like the whole space aliens angle. Head Score: 9. EYE: It's taken the better part of a year for me to get a reading on the style of Tracy Yardley!, but it seems to me that he needs to work on subtlety. That may seem counterintuitive for the medium of comic books where everything tends to be broad: the gestures, the dialogue, the plots, the characters, the posing. But when you have to deal with family reunions and other Heart moments, subtle really has a way of driving the point across that being really obvious lacks. The expressions on Tails's face when consulting the hologram of his folks, as I've said, is just wrong. Otherwise, this is great stuff. Eye Score: 9. HEART: Ian means well, and he's given ample opportunity to really sell the Heart elements in this story: Tails meets his folks, King Max is revived, even Sonic and Knuckles exchanging pleasantries in the graveyard. But is it me or were these moments in the story ... restrained? These moments could have really busted the story wide open Heart-wise, but they didn't. I felt as if either Ian was holding himself back, or Mike Pellerito was doing the holding for him. Still, as I said, Heart has never been one of this title's selling points, and at least we've got some Heart in this story, however reserved the presentation. Heart Score: 6. You're Mike Pellerito. OK, you're not really Mike Pellerito, but work with me here. You're editing Sonic #170, and after the dust has settled you discover that you actually have TWO WHOLE PAGES at your disposal. So what do you do with them? Do you run some fan mail? Do you show some fan art? Do you announce the impending release of the SatAM Sonic series as a 4-disc DVD set? Or do you run 4, count 'em 4, really lame Gallagher-Manak "Off Panel" strips? C'mon, people, please don't make me tell you the answer to that one! "The Island of Misfit Badniks" Story: Mike Gallagher; Art: Dave Manak; Ink: Jim Amash; Color: Jason Jensen; Lettering: John E. Workman Sonic is jamming through the Great Forest (and I can't remember the last time they actually used THAT name in this book!) when he falls through the ground and into one of Robotnik's old "spy-der holes." He then reads on a convenient scrap of paper about a "hidden offshore island" where Robotnik's bots (aka "badniks") are supposed to go to be repaired. "Gee, I wonder if this island still exists?" Sonic asks himself, setting up the plot. Despite his non-swimmer status, he decides to find out. Grabbing a hunk of lumber as a flotation device, he hog-paddles out to the island where he gets a hostile reception from a number of the old robotic ... I always thought they were nuisances more than villains ... from the old games; I mainly remember Caterkiller, Batbrain and Orbinaut from "Sonic 3 and Knuckles." Though shackled to a table, Sonic frees himself and makes short work of the nuisances only to have a metallic "Pseudo-Sonic" punch him in the mouth, a detail Ian left out of the previous story. "You don't remember me because we never actually met!" Pseudo- Psonic psays, before launching into a 2/3-page recap of the fun and games from Sonic #9, which leads into about a page worth of inconclusive fighting. So what happens? The two buttheads decide to butt heads, literally. The island appears to fall apart and sink from the impact, which results in .. The Old Trick Ending. Seems the island only submerged and settled "forty fathoms from the ocean floor." Actually, they settled ON the ocean floor, presumably 40 fathoms (or 240 feet) from the SURFACE, but never mind. PS is taken into the shop and the real Sonic paddles away. HEAD: "Badnik Island" would have been a perfectly suitable title for this shortie. Gallagher, however, indulges in a little Baby Boomer nostalgia with "Island of Misfit Badniks." The name is taken from the 1964 stop-motion animation Christmas special "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer." Prior to the scene where Rudolph gets his liability turned into an asset, he and Hermey (an elf who aspires to be a dentist rather than spend his life as a functionary on the toy assembly line) arrive at the Island of Misfit Toys, sort of a quality control dumping ground for trains with square wheels, toy boats that sink, etc. Digression: one year when I was in college, "Rudolph" was screened along with several other toons as something of as holiday diversion during Autumn semester finals week. At the showing I attended, when Hermey announces his ambition to be a dentist, someone from the audience (it had to be a pre-dental student) yelled out "Right on!" While the idea of the island has its appeal, it's basically a plot device to bring in the Pseudo-Psonic from S9. Which is a pity because it sort of recalls those Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes where they encounter Borg whose behavior is so drone-like that they can't be bothered to be conscious of strangers, which is a pretty suspenseful set-up because you never know when they're going to wake up. But these Badniks aren't exactly serious threats, and Pseudo- Psonic is only good enough to match Sonic move for move. This 8-pager actually had some potential to it, and it never lets down on the basic action premise, but like so many stories that have appeared in the comic it never gets around to delivering. Head Score: 6. EYE: Dave Manak's art work accompanies this story as it has accompanied so many Mike Gallagher stories in the past. Jason Jensen, however, brings in a level of coloring nuance of which Barry Grossman was never capable back in the day. Eye Score: 9. HEART: Like most old school Sonic stories, Heart doesn't play all that big of a part here. Heart Score: N/A.