Sonic the Hedgehog #186 (May 2008) Yardley!/Jensen cover: Mammoth Mogul has a grip on Sonic while also having Tails, Mina and Mighty strung up in violation of every rule in the Bill Baird book of puppetry. Very impressive, especially the hellish color scheme. "Mogul Rising: Part 2: Devil's Due" Story: Ian Flynn; Art layout: Tracy Yardley!; Pencil: Matt Herms; Ink: Jim Amash, Color: Josh Ray; Lettering: John E. Workman; Editor/Managing Editor: Mike Pellerito; Editor-In- Chief: Victor Gorelick; SEGA Licensing drones: Kristin Parcell, Dyna Lopez, Cindy Chau Sonic's trying not to get beat up by his friends. In case you're just joining us, last time Mammoth Mogul seized control of the minds of Tails, Mina and Mighty, and they've shown up to "recruit" Sonic. And the lot of them spend most all of page [2] making with the exposition. Sonic catches a break when, as I expected, Ash shows up and tackles Mina. This ever-so-slight evening of the odds calls for a change in plans, as the three zombies bust loose and race off in different directions (in the case of Tails, that would be "up"). With Ash on his side, Sonic heads back to the jail where Mogul tells him that he's programmed the three to pretty much self-destruct in different ways: Tails by flying so high that he'll pass out and crash, Mina by running out to the middle of the ocean where she'll drown when she puts on the brakes, and Mighty by walking into "Dr. Robotnik's city" (man, even HE can't keep the name straight) and not putting up a fight. Cutting through yet more dialogue and ignoring the flashback to "Immortality Is Infinite..." where Mogul showed up in a gladiator outfit, he demands Sonic hand over "the Chaos Emerald I have sensed" in the neighborhood. Finding himself over the proverbial barrel, Sonic gets Fuzz-butt to agree to return the others safely in return. We then get a decent two-page spread of Sonic retrieving the emerald with Ash in tow, a sequence NOT accompanied by dialogue. An empowered Mogul busts the other loser villains out of the jail and de-rezzes Nicole. And then ... nothing happens. Seriously! Mammoth explains, at great length, that he's tried twice to overcome Sonic and gotten skunked both times, so he's just going to go away and take the other villains with him. He promises some vague sort of retribution down the road, but Sonic heard THAT song before from Robotnik back in S175's "Eggman Empire." Exit the bad guys. HEAD: Well, I thought I knew what an anticlimax was until I read this story. Actually, it's about the best outcome that could have been hoped for under the circumstances. Since Mogul's acquisition of a Chaos emerald means, in the words of Sonic, that he's once again ridiculously powerful, if Mogul were to start anything against Sonic and his friends they'd make sure that he'd have to go all in. That would demand one heck of a story where either Mogul triumphs and wipes out everyone and everything, or where Mogul ends up a three-time loser despite his recharge. So, as in S175, the villain quits while he's ahead. At least Mogul is characteristic about it. He seems to think that just having Sonic know he has mass-destructive capabilities will be enough to keep the Blue Blur terrorized for the rest of his days.He has such a mammoth ego that he as much as tells Sonic: "Your life is going to be all about me." Somehow I don't think Sonic is going to comply. And props to Ian for putting Mina, Tails and Mighty in credible peril. He expands on the old You Can't Save Them Both At The Same Time villain's gambit, plus (as Mogul rather tediously explains) Sonic doesn't exactly know where to begin looking for any of them. Best of all Ian had the good sense, during the two-pages where Sonic rips off the Chaos emerald with an assist from Ash, to stand back and let Matt Herms's artwork do the talking. He realizes what few comic book writers through the ages have: that there is no way ANY dialogue would have helped the situation. So he simply doesn't supply any. Good call, Ian. The set-up for this arc may have been a little wobbly, but this is a very strong finish. Head Score: 10. EYE: Very good work by Herms, especially in the virtually silent two-page spread. Eye Score: 10. HEART: The fact is, Heart is itself the key to this whole story. Rather than have Sonic's buds drag him kicking and screaming over to the dark side, Mogul appeals to Sonic's heroic nature concerning each of them and their respective fates. This being an Archie comic, of course, nobody gets gooey over things, though I really liked the tucked-away-in- the-background drawing of Mina in Ash's arms after the ordeal. Heart Score: 10. "Honor Bound" Story: Ian Flynn; Art: Tracy Yardley!; Ink: Jim Amash; Color: Josh Ray; Lettering: Teresa Davidson We are now flying over what is left of Albion. Passengers will please keep their seat belts fastened while the EXPOSITION light is on. That means it's going to be a tight flight. Knux scopes out the ruins of Albion, which is in the process of being rebuilt by those echidnas who are left under the direction of Remington. After also reminding us that Knuckles's mom, new hubby and stepbrother are among the survivors, he uses the Warp Ring to make the jump to an oasis in Sandopolis. There, the dingoes are likewise rebuilding, under the direction of General Von Stryker (seems I misspoke in my review of S181's "Rising Evil;" Knux disintegrated Von Stryker's son. Frankly, I didn't know Von Stryker even HAD a son). Knux checks in with the General and apologizes for offing his son while under the influence. Von Stryker accepts Knuckles's apology in a backhanded sort of way, and Knuckles departs to let the old man grieve. Back on Angel Island, the Master Emerald has been moved to an islet of its own anchored to the main island by a plank bridge. While Knuckles hides out in the foliage watching his friends do all the work, Rouge shows up. What she gives him is not some jungle love but rather some tough love. "Do you really plan on resuming your hermitage?" she asks, which sounds like Ian still thinks he's writing for Mammoth Mogul. She also points out that trying to be a one-echidna Brotherhood won't work either since they're all gone. At least we're led to believe as much; with this comic, you never know. Anyway, she manages to sweet-talk Knuckles into giving up the solitary guardian routine, with a last-panel hint that she's got an agenda of her own. HEAD: There's a good basic story her, but once more it's freighted down in the beginning with so much exposition that despite a generous 8 page budget it slows to a crawl. Still, it's hard to think of what could have been cut from this story though there were spots that could have been tightened up a bit. With a story like this, where the action is minimal and character interaction is everything, the dialogue can make or break the narrative. I'm not sure about the General Von Stryker dialogue, for openers. It feels right but stilted and overly-formal at the same time. Maybe I just don't remember enough of Gen. Steroid-Case's former appearances to get a feel for whether this was in-character or not. And then there's Rouge. Again, her use of the word "hermitage" sent up a red flag for me; that just seemed too out of character. And her speech balloon at the top of page [7] felt like it needed some editing as well. "Trying to go back to a time-tested failure in policy..." could have been changed to "Repeating their mistakes..." with no damage done to the story. And the tail end of her curtain line, "...it almost loses the fun," is awkward enough that it definitely needed a rewrite. I'm not saying that it's classic Ken Penders-style bad dialogue but when these speeches are at the heart of the story they become that much more important. But overall these were minor flaws in a major change of pace from what the book has been serving up lately. Head Score: 9. EYE: Yardley!, of course, could never match the over-the- top John Gray depiction of Knecapion, Knuckles's rugrat of a stepbrother, but that's not his job anyway. Everything works well here. I was especially impressed by Yardley!'s framing of Von Stryker at the bottom of page [4] and of the dialogue between Knuckles and Rouge. Eye Score: 10. HEART: As much as I liked the reunion of Knuckles and Julie-Su, as well as the conclusion of the Knuckles-Von Stryker scene, there was something about the Knuckles-Rouge scene that was right and wrong at the same time. While I appreciated her straight talk to him, and wasn't that surprised by her about-face in the final panel, it felt as if her well-defined personality that was on display in Sonic Adventure 2 and even in Sonic X was, well, flattened out somehow (a fate which should NEVER befall Rouge). What makes Rouge so formidable is her complexity, but this is tempered with a sense that there is something worthwhile and even decent about her despite her balancing act of shifting allegiances. I completely understand her having some plan for Knuckles in mind, but if this sort of thing is indulged in too often there's a very real danger of turning her into another one-dimensional character, which would do her a grave disservice. Heart Score: 8. SONIC-GRAMS: Yes, after WAY too long, they're back. Jennifer O. C. (aka Jenny) sends in a gush-letter. Alex C. wonders if Tommy Turtle will come back from the dead, why they don't promote Super Sonic to Hyper, if Enerjak 2.0 is really truly gone, who Archimedes is, if Locke survived, and where Scourge took his bad self off to. I'm most interested in the ambiguous and ungrammatical answer supplied by, I assume, Mike Pellerito: "The future is yet to be discovered." This may actually tie in with the point Rouge made in "Honor Bound" about the Brotherhood being gone; that sort of thing can change in a comic book continuity in a heartbeat.