Sonic the Hedgehog #191 (Oct 2008) Yardley!-Jensen cover: Scourge and Metal Sonic double- teaming the Blue Blur. Nice design, but it's going to get worse. "Metal and Mettle: Part 1" Story: Ian Flynn; Art: Tracy Yardley!; Ink: Jim Amash; Color: Josh Ray; Lettering: John E. Workman; (Managing) Editor: Mike Pellerito; Editor-in-Chief: Victor Gorelick; Sega Functionaries Who Green-Lighted The use Of Metal Sonic: Cindy Chau, Dyna Lopez and Kristin Parcell In honor of the forthcoming Wii game "Sonic and The Black Knight," Miles reprises the scene from "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" where Concorde, Sir Lancelot's ... whatever... intercepts an arrow with a message from Prince Herbert: "Message for you, sir." BTW, it's sort of appropriate that the portraits at the bottom of the page feature hexagonal bits of metal, because this story is going to get nuts. Metal Sonic appears to be the Welcome Wagon sent by Eggman to confront the Freedom Fighters. He finds Scourge and Miles instead; don't ask me where the rest of his posse is, and Ian is no help, either. We also only know that it's Eggman because here (and once more later on) we are told that Eggman is speaking through Metal Sonic. This surprises me since I thought M. S. had been operating on his own since, like, "Sonic Heroes." Still, Metal/Eggman decides that he may as well kick Scourge's butt instead of Sonic's. Remember WAY back in issue #179 when an advisory council of Mobians was put together in a power-sharing arrangement supposed to placate Amadeus Prower's constituency (the ones who staged a revolution that lasted all of one panel)? Well, the assembly meets to discuss the takeover of FFHQ and the threat level of Scourge. They don't see the urgency of it, however, and vote 4-2 to leave Scourge alone for the time being. It's outside of the council chamber that the REAL drama kicks in. Knuckles takes a pass on backing up Sonic and we realize that he's still having father issues dating back to Locke's self-whatever in S184's "Chaos Angel." I can't really call it a "self-sacrifice" because for the Guardians there is no death; there is only a death cheat and a move to another dimension (c.f. the fate of Tobor in Sonic #100's "Welcome To The Dark Side"), but Knuckles doesn't know that yet, or if he figured it out in the course of the infamously lame "Afterlife" arc (#121-124) he never internalized it. Sonic mulls over events on his way back to Knothole where he arrives in time to see Metal Sonic smacking Scourge around. Also watching is Miles, who after two panels of snarky remarks disappears from the story completely. Scourge is having a hard time as he discovers that Metal Sonic lacks what Mr. Miyagi, in "Karate Kid 2," primly referred to as a "primary target" when he tries kicking Metal in the crotch. Sonic, who's a paid-up member of the Heroes Union, makes the save, but that only gets both Scourge and Metal's attention. Meanwhile, Julie-Su is having her own problems as she goes looking for Sonic and encounters Knuckles in full-blown brood. Knuckles then makes the mistake of blowing up at Julie-Su. Take it from someone who's been married for over 30 years: guys can NEVER out-angst their wives (or girlfriend, in this case). Knuckles finally takes a quick warp ring out of there. "Blast it!" Julie-Su says, wishing she could say "Damn it!" instead, but the CCA and Archie Comics won't let her. Back at the three-way, Scourge gets a boot in on Sonic (we don't know where he connects) just before Scourge is smacked by Metal, who gets spun by Sonic. Rather than succumb to the temptation to go into Lather-Rinse-Repeat mode, Scourge beats up on Sonic some more while arguing that "It's good to be the King!" and the rest of us just have to take his word for it. Sonic never gets much of a chance to take up Scourge's offer to go over to the dark side as Scourge's surrogate before Metal re-enters the fray. Tired of sulking in New Mobitropolis, Knuckles has gone to sulk at the Master Emerald where Archimedes the fire ant and Charmy are hanging out. I don't know what kind of pollen Charmy is snorting, but it's got him seriously mellowed out: "Y'know, sometimes my thoughts get kinda mixed up, too. But if I get all angry about it, I'll just get distracted. So I just tell myself, There will always be more flowers.'" This actually makes sense to Knuckles, who warps back and sort of apologizes for yelling at Julie-Su and admits he still has to get therapy. Julie-Su's cool with that. But you probably want to see some character smacking the crap out of some other character. Even when he's double-teamed by Scourge and Metal, Sonic manages to let the latter zap the former before slamming Metal to the ground. But then, like a bad plot twist in a professional wrestling match, an illegal fighter enters the ring, something Eggman "threw together": Metal Scourge. And the critic raved: "Say it ain't so!" Ian Flynn. "You've got to be kidding me." Sonic the Hedgehog. "Oh, come ON!!!" Daniel J. Drazen HEAD: This story is a split decision. There were parts I liked and parts I didn't. Unfortunately, the parts I didn't mostly featured Sonic. What I DID like was the Knuckles sub-plot. Even though the Knuckles-with-father-issues plot was theoretically resolved when the Knuckles comic was in print (specifically in Knuckles #25, "Childhood's End," way back in 1999 when Knuckles and Locke were officially reunited), the "curing" of Knuckles's recent bout of Enerjak Syndrome has brought on a relapse. This at least gives Knuckles SOMETHING to do because, let's face it, it DOES get pretty boring watching over a large green rock 24/7. Either that, or Knuckles can start spending quality time with Julie-Su, and Archie isn't about to put up with THAT! So getting Locke out of the way accomplishes two things: it gives Ian a chance to reprise the Knuckles-with-father-issues plot and treat it his way instead of Ken Penders's (about which more in the HEART section), and it keeps Knuckles more in line with Sega orthodoxy. After all, in the games, there have been no other echidnas cluttering up the continuity, except for Tikal in the first Sonic Adventure game, and she was pretty much a ghost from the past echidna civilization that was destroyed by Chaos. Ian is handling this pretty well, and I have no idea where he's taking this, which I suppose is a good thing because he doesn't appear to be grasping at the obvious. But at some point he's got to stop being coy about the fate of Locke and the Brotherhood. They'll either have to be reunited with Knuckles or else they'll have to be definitively laid to rest. For the time being, Knuckles's reconciliation with Julie-Su strikes the right note. They haven't made peace, but they're back on speaking terms. Speaking of speaking, aside from a handful of lines, Miles has very little to do in this installment, but it's still an improvement over the rest of the crew. What the heck DID happen to Boomer, Fiona, Alicia, et al.? And to Tails, Bunnie, and Antoine? It's one thing for the focus to shift to Sonic, Scourge, and those immediately involved in the action, but to dismiss everyone else with nothing by way of explanation is a little on the cheap side. We don't know if they're recovering from their wounds after all that fighting in the two previous issues, which is not very likely since neither Sonic nor Scourge look all that beat up themselves, and even Rotor is shown without a cervical collar or even his arm in a sling. I want to give Ian the benefit of the doubt here, but this kind of thing can easily degenerate into sloppy continuity problems. Or maybe Scourge's crew went back home to mind the store in His Highness's absence. Think about it: if Scourge is indeed king of the whole shootin' match back home and he brought his whole posse with him to Mobius Prime to extend his reach, who's in charge back there? Ian doesn't say. For that matter, Ian has said so little about Scourge's alternate reality that if it weren't for his peeps's respectful-but-snide way of hanging royal forms of address on him, I'd be inclined to think he's a king only in his own mind. The establishing panels at the end of "Beating the House" (S189) told us pretty much nothing, though we HAVE had a lot of bold talk from Scourge, and that's gotten old. It makes me wonder whether, when this story arc finally winds up and Scourge and his crew head back home, they might find themselves greeted with a popular revolution, one that worked far better than the one staged by Amadeus Prower in "House of Cards." For that matter, I had the same problem with the appearance of Metal Sonic. We have to take Sonic's and Scourge's word for it that, since Metal speaks with Eggman's voice (which is what we're led to believe) that Eggman is manipulating Metal Sonic like some sort of marionette. Again, we don't get so much as one panel actually SHOWING Eggman doing this. Perhaps this is because Ian is teasing out Eggman's status since the upcoming Sonic Chronicles game begins with Eggman listed as MIA, I don't know (see below). Ian is keeping to his "action and more action" strategy, but it's starting to get boring and more boring. And you'll notice I haven't said anything about Metal Scourge. Head Score: 5. EYE: We get good work by Yardley!. The one complaint I have is that he collaborated in not showing Eggman throwing Metal Sonic's switches, or any scenes from Scourge's home world, which Ian is going to have to deal with sooner or later. His Knuckles and Julie-Su work, which probably needed more work than the fight scenes, was very well done. Eye Score: 9. HEART: Knuckles doesn't so much hijack the Heart factor in this story as it's his by default. There's no easy way to do a serious Heart story in the middle of a fight; the closest the comic has come has been the Sonic-Tails confrontation in "House of Cards." Both Knuckles and Julie-Su fall for the Pump Up The Volume strategy of communicating their feelings to the other, with predictable results. Julie-Su's reaction to how well that worked (not very) was absolutely perfect, as was Knuckles's quasi-apology afterward. You get the sense that these two have feelings for each other, but aren't very adapt at expressing them because of their respective up-bringing problems. Speaking of parenting, I've never been shy about saying that Locke's fathering skills left something to be desired. Having gained sole custody of Knux as a kid even if it meant trashing his marriage to Lara-Le, he then abandoned Knux at a young age so he could go hang out with the Brotherhood, and it was only circumstance and Ken Penders that outed him and reunited father and son. That relationship, however, hasn't gone smoothly of late, with Locke resenting having to resume his Guardian role while Knuckles hangs around with Sonic. So, in the wake of Sonic vetoing his suggestion that an ineffectual wonder weapon would be able to stop Enerjak (by possibly killing Knuckles, an angle Archie downplayed but didn't discourage entirely), Locke sacrifices himself in the course of the S184's "Chaos Angel." This time, it's for real. Maybe. After almost 200 issues of this comic, I've seen too many death cheats and possible death cheats (Sir Connery's Obi-Wan- like exit being the most blatant example) to share Knuckles's sorrow at the loss of Locke. Ian has yet to tip his hand as to the fate of the Brotherhood, but it's a sure bet that the fate of Locke is tied up with theirs. It's interesting to note, though, that when Ken Penders reunited father and son, Knuckles did not maintain his teenage composure but pretty much related to Locke as if he were the same age when the old man disappeared. Psychologically, that shows some insight. Knuckles's emotional development stopped dead when Locke departed even though time and his body didn't stop, so he picked up where he left off. I have no idea, however, what Ian will do when next the two meet again. And unless Ian gets blatant and publicly declares it so on the pages of the comic (his Web site doesn't count), I STILL cannot bring myself to believe that Locke is totally and completely gone this time, especially as the comic offered no physical evidence of it (such as, oh, I don't know, a DEAD BODY!). If Locke is indeed out of the picture, Ian will have to reinforce this when he finally gets around to clearing up the fate of the Brotherhood between rounds of whatever fight he's staging. Heart Score: 9 (because the stupid fight keeps interrupting things). "Invaders From Beyond" Story: Ian Flynn; Art: Tracy Yardley!; Ink: Jim Amash; Color: Josh Ray; Lettering: Stingray Grafik Wurks [sic] Since they're down to their last Chaos Emerald, Tails and Knuckles devise a trap to snare whoever's been stealing them. The thieves, who materialize out of nowhere, look sort of like rabbits without the cotton tails and encased in high-tech body armor. They blast their way out of the trap and even though Knuckles takes on a bunch of them, one of them, a female (I'll have to take their word for it) named Shade gives Knuckles a boot to the head and he passes out. "That went really, really bad," Tails says as he witnesses the whole thing. What it was, however, was really, really short. HEAD: Once more, we have Flynn and Yardley! engaged in the thankless job of setting up another Sonic game, in this case "Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood" for the Nintendo DS. It takes them 5 pages to do what Sega itself did in the "Sonic and Knuckles" game in a 5 second cut scene, where Knuckles scoops up the Emeralds that Sonic coughs up, giggles, then runs off to the right. The game itself isn't scheduled to ship until the end of September, but its Web site (http://www.sega.com/sonicchronicles/us/index.php) is up and gives some very juicy details. According to the back story, Eggman's armada was brought down by Sonic's friends and G.U.N. working together. Eggman is missing and presumed poached. There follows a year of peace until Shade and her Marauders steal all the Chaos Emeralds and kidnap Knuckles. Unlike the old Sega platform games, this is a Nintendo RPG which allows for both exploration and combat scenes, after the manner of the Zelda and Pokemon franchises. We also get a heaping helping of space aliens, and even a giant worm which in one scene looks like it's about to make a meal of Big the cat (yeah, good luck with THAT!). And of course we can no more count on the demise of Eggman than we can on the death of Locke. In fact, the back story as laid out on the Web site is so interesting, I don't know why Ian and Tracy simply didn't take this to its logical conclusion and do 5 pages of ad copy for the game. Then again, this was possibly written six months ago and parts of the game might have still been in development. Archie got burned already by trying to tease a game when the developers weren't willing to be open with them; this was back when they tried adapting the first Sonic Adventure game for the comic, only to have it fall apart as a narrative. Do yourselves a favor: skip the story and visit the Web site. Head Score: 2. EYE: Yardley! does a good job with the Shade and the Marauders with their head-to-toe body armor. Unfortunately, he can only go as far as Sega will let him in this set-up. At the Web site, the alt-realm where some of the action takes place looks interestingly creepy: a fog-shrouded wasteland lit by the kind of pinks and blues that would normally be associated with the 1980s. Eye Score: 9. HEART: n/a Fan-Art: We're still stuck with standing figure art: Sonic by Antoine H. and Shadow by Marcus A., both from New York. We also get a drawing of Sally by Kayona-Kim [original material at this point deleted] Sonic-Grams: Phil A. welcomes the return of the old school villains no matter how useless they proved to be, is told that Tails will grow up and marry Mina (in Ian's M:25YL reset), and cites the comic as the longest-running videogame-based title. Ryan H., however, writes about how he connected with the comic at a young age, especially the Knuckles-Locke relationship after his own father died. I have no trouble whatsoever believing this. The fans connect with the comic and the characters on various levels, from enjoyment of Sonic's antics to identification with their circumstances. True, there are fans that outgrow the comic and walk away for a time, but there are also those who wander back and pick up where they left off with ease. That's why I simply can't identify with the anxiety that the creatives felt for the longest time as they expected the ax to drop and the comic to be canceled at any time. Sonic has always had something more that's kept the fans coming back and kept the popularity of the character pumped up. How pumped? Over at fanfiction.net, there are over 12 thousand Sonic fanfics; only Zelda, Pokemon, Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts have inspired more works. The only question I have is: with the Sonic concept being SO inspiring, why do we have to have so many fight stories in the comic?