Sonic the Hedgehog #194 (January 2009) Yardley!/Jensen cover: "Here's Rosy!" Ten points if you get the popcult reference. "Otherside: Part 2: Cross World Conflict" Sroty: Ian Flynn; Art: Tracy Yardley; Ink: Jim Amash; Color: Josh Ray; Lettering: Teresa Davidson; Editor/Managing Editor: Mike Pellerito; Editor-in-Chief: Victor Gorelick We start off with a splash page of Rosy wanting to hammer Sonic as I get a feeling of deja vu. Didn't we just recently go through like three issues of this comic which largely featured a blend of repartee and violence? After last month's breather for character development, Ian appears to be going back to his old game plan. Speaking of plans, it's only when Rosy announces that Amy Rose is just as suitable a target as Sonic that Buns remembers why she came along for the ride. Back on Mobius, Scourge, Fiona and the gang watch as Miles returns to the clubhouse with the other Freedom Fighters in "pursuit." It's only once he's back that Miles announces a change in plans: the name of the game now is "Let's beat up on Scourge." Back on Moebius (get used to the shift; it'll happen a lot), Buns tries slowing Rosy down with the anti-crowd foam, but Rosy hammers her way out. She then goes hammer-a-hammer with Amy Rose while Sonic and Buns head for the conveniently-located globe posts. Sonic passes through in time to catch the fight in full swing and Scourge on full boil. Say what you will about the SOB, he's got skills. After a quick bit of exposition from Nicole, Sonic tries to join the party but his ID gets checked by Fiona. In a burst of mid-fight exposition Fiona admits that she's gone over to the dark side ... well, the emerald green side, anyway ... because she has trust issues. Sonic suggests that her trusting Scourge isn't exactly trading up, but ... oh, I'm sorry, that's all the time we have for character development for this issue. Meanwhile, Rosy out-hammers Amy Rose who makes a run for the globe posts. Rosy figures she'll smash them as well, but is body-checked by Buns who keeps Rosy busy while Amy Rose checks in on Sonic. Back at the fight, Sonic finally connects with Scourge but they're BOTH konked by Boomer and thrown into Moebius in a classic double-cross. So here's how things stand: Sonic and Scourge have been tossed back to Moebius to join Amy Rose and a disabled Buns in the presence of Rosy. The SS is still back on Mobius with the rest of the gang. So of course now is a good time to ... Cut away from the action entirely and switch over to Mercia on Mobius where Rob-O-The-Hedge is joined by his main squeeze, the echidna maid Mari-An (get it?) as he draws a bead on a shining figure hovering over Never Lake. No, it's not the Lady Of The Lake presenting him with the sword Excalibur (that's Arthurian, and another Sonic game entirely). It's ... SILVER?!? HEAD: Somebody contact the Forty Fathom Freedom Fighters; this story has just jumped the shark. When I read S193 I was really hoping that Ian, after slogging through three fight-heavy installments, was going to settle in for some further character development and use it to propel the story toward its conclusion. No chance; he plunges back into the fight story with renewed ferocity, allowing Scourge to demonstrate exactly why the SS is so intimidated by him. And since Ian's dragged Rosy into the story, she gets a workout as well. Like Scourge, Ian presents her as a formidable fighting machine. And for an encore, we have the SS changing the game and ditching both Scourge and Sonic. All that is well and good, but when Ian jumped to Mercia and brought in Silver (with a promise that he'll be joined by Shadow and who knows who else), he pretty clearly signaled his intention not to let the story play itself out in any meaningful way. Rather, he's going to throw everything into a blender and mash the Liquefy button. It's my own fault, I suppose. After last issue's "Father and Son," I thought for sure that Ian would make SOME use of that gem-like 5-pager in the contest between Sonic and Scourge. I even entertained the hope that maybe, just maybe, Sonic would escape from Rosy long enough to find out what really happened to Scourge's father. How, I wondered, could Ian throw down a plot point that significant and then walk away as if it had never happened? Then I remembered. This is a comic book, and the doctrine of Loose Continuity practically REQUIRES that a writer throw down a significant plot point and then walk away as if it had never happened. And after revisiting the Knothole Village Forum at Sonic HQ and checking out the cover art for S196, I came down with the sinking feeling that Ian is in no hurry to bring this gradually spreading mess to anything like a conclusion before issue #200. I've seen enough e-comics hitting milestones over the years, whether in terms of year(s) in existence or number of strips. Some look forward to it and plan accordingly, while others mark the anniversary at the last minute by posting something rushed into production with an overall feeling of "Good grief, we've been around HOW long?". But in this case the whole Sonic vs. Scourge plot is not over yet, not even close. This is beginning to feel like the Sonic equivalent of "Crisis on Infinite Earths," Marv Wolfman's famous 1985 12-parter which was intended to bring order out of the chaotic DC comic continuity. I get the feeling that this is exactly where this interminable clash of the hedgehogs is heading. Head Score: 4. EYE: The word that comes to mind WRT the Yardley! artwork is "settled." He's settled into a rut with his characters, which is easy to do when half of them look like the other half. Saves a lot of time and trouble with character modeling. Aside from Fiona's one moment of self-introspection (see below), there are no real surprises here (not the good kind, anyway), and even in his cameo at the end of the story Silver looks bored, as if wishing he were somewhere else. Eye Score: 6. HEART: So, does anybody else think Fiona stands a good chance of dying before this story arc ends half a year from now? Under normal circumstances, her impending demise would be a sure thing. Created by popular demand after Tails fell head over tails for the Fiona-bot in the celebrated "Growing Pains" arc (S28-29), Fiona herself entered the comic in Ken Penders's useless "Friend In Need" in Knuckles #26. During the story, she somehow is abandoned by Sonic and Mighty to the mercy of Robotnik in a lame plot angle that was supposed to explain the provenance of the Fiona-bot many years in the future. She eventually got out of captivity and began running with the wrong crowd (including Rouge and Nac the Weasel's sister, Nic). Much later, in the aftermath of the Tossed In Space arc (S125-130), Fiona managed a face turn and came over to the Freedom Fighters where none of the writers could think of a good use for her or give her a believable personality; if you don't believe me, go back and check "Sonic's Angels" and the "Good, the Bad and the Unknown" story arc. But back when the anti-Sonic, in his pre-Scourge days, was acting more like a horndog than a hedgehog, Fiona took a liking to him. As a result, she flipped sides again, definitively linking up with Scourge. She pretty much declared her intentions by smacking the still-lovestruck Tails in the face. You can catch up on all the twists and turns in her character on the Internet (Wikipedia is a good place to start). But the fact is, she's been through too many changes to do yet another face turn and mean it. I honestly don't think that even Tails would be in a forgiving mood if she tried anything. Scourge is now pretty much her last chance. If she turns on him now, he could very well throw her under a bus the first chance he gets. Logically, all the signs point to Fiona going out like Tommy Turtle or Locke, in one final, melancholy act of self-sacrifice that wraps up this increasingly directionless story. It would be a nothing-left-to-lose act in atonement for a mis-spent life. Or it WOULD be in any other medium but a comic book where most deaths are death cheats. With the revelation that Fiona's trust issues are still haunting her, Ian adds a measure of depth to a character who was as badly mishandled by the writers as Hope Kintobor or Nate Morgan (about whom the less said, the better). But depth without direction doesn't amount to much. So the only real option for Fiona is to check out of the continuity on a permanent basis. Ian can't exactly go on with the story/continuity as if nothing has happened. OK, there I go again. Of COURSE Ian can go on as if nothing has happened. Comic book, remember? So I'm left with one of two depressing alternatives: either Fiona is on her way to keeping company with Sir Connery and Locke, or else Ian is going to squander a small but important plot point because, well, that's what comic book writers do. I've stopped hoping that I'll be proven wrong, but if I have any interest left in this overlong arc by the time it reaches issue #200, I'll be waiting to see what becomes of Fiona. And maybe also Scourge's dear old dad. Heart Score: 7. "Sleepless in New Megaopolis" Story: Ian Flynn; Art: Jon Gray; Ink: Jim Amash; Color: Aimee and Josh Ray; Lettering: Teresa Davidson And now, here to do a chorus of "It Sucks To Be Me" from the musical "Avenue Q" is Snively! First he gets thrown out of Eggman's lab while the Doc, hunched over like some kind of enormous spider, takes out his frustrations because both Metal Sonic and Metal Scourge got destroyed in the previous issue. Then Lien-Da and some unnamed Legion flunky razz him. While ruminating on how bad his lot is, he can only think to do one thing: go on the Internet, here called the EggNetwork but let's call it the Eggnet for short. Anyway, he gets to chatting with "RF" from "D. Kingdom." They seem to be on the same wavelength but the story ends before either of them can ask "A/S/L." HEAD: The good news is, Snively is back. The bad news is, he's still a whiny twerp. The only difference is, he can hook up with other whiny twerps on the Internet because that's what the Internet is there for. Structurally, we get the usual exposition in the form of Snively's thought-boxes before shifting gears and reading over his shoulder as he IMs the mysterious (for the present) RF. That's just enough to lift the story out of the routine the back stories have fallen into lately. It's an interesting development, but also a cautionary one. Just as the running joke about Amy Rose's wet feet in S172's "Worth The Effort" had a very real, very serious RL counterpart in the facts about trenchfoot during the two World Wars, so Snively's getting sucked in almost immediately by RF's messages serves as a cautionary reminder about Internet predation. I'm not going to try to scare anyone with horror stories, and I assume most people reading this know the rules about safe computing. Still, the ease with which this all happens is a more than a little unsettling. Equally unsettling is the fact that no new ground is broken. This story is the rule to which last issue's "Father and Son" was the notable exception. Head Score: 6. EYE: This time, Jon Gray shows us the more humorous side of his artwork. The opening panel sets the tone in color and design, especially Eggman's posture; like I said, it reminds me of a spider with a huge abdomen. The shot of Snively surveying the works of Eggman through the round window is another visual gem. Eye Score: 8. HEART: At the end of the day, or the 5-pager, does the reader care about what Snively is going through? Probably not as much as they care about the identity of "RF," about whom I have no clue. And I'm going to let Ian play this out at his own pace. Heart Score: n/a. Sonic-Grams: Dylan G. of Illinois frets that Sega will stop production of Sonic games. I've been through this before, remembering when Sonic fans thought that the title of the last part of "Endgame," "The Big Goodbye," meant that the comic was folding after 50 issues. I'm with Mike on this one: no worries. Yue S. begs for Silver to be included in the comic. Wish granted, though I have to wonder whether he'll be handled any better than Blaze was in her measly 2-parter. Tracis C., a SonicxAmy fan, gets a non-answer to his query about the origin of Scourge and whether he's based on "Ashura, the glitch in Sonic 2," also known as "Green Sonic." I don't know; the Stupid Amount of Chaos Energy Theory works for me. Preview: Like I said, I've got a bad feeling about this gathering of the hogs, especially since by S196 Scourge learns how to power up, which means that nothing much appears to be on its way to being resolved. Fan Art: Brittany M. contributes an anti-Amy ("aka Darth Rose"), probably well before Rosy made her appearance. But the real stars are Sally and old school Robotnik. The latter was done by Brian Sanders and is in no way the Eggman of the games. This is the SatAM Robotnik in all his menacing glory. As for Sally, you can find her in full at http://bringonthethunder.deviantart.com/art/Snow-from-Heaven-7570 5670 . And while you're at it, check out the rest of Rachel's DA gallery at http://bringonthethunder.deviantart.com/ , where she's known as bringonthethunder (one word). She also does My Little Pony and general Sonic fan art, but her Sally art is truly breathtaking. If you're a Sally fan you owe it to yourselves to check it out.