Sonic the Hedgehog #196 (March 2009) Yardley!-Jensen cover: Super-Scourge about to pounce on Sonic, just before he runs out of gas. What? You want to avoid Spoilers, read some other review! "Hedgehog Havoc: Part 2" Story: Ian Flynn; Art: Tracy Yardley!; Ink: Jim Amash; Color: Jason Jensen; Lettering: Teresa Davidson; Editor: Mike Pellerito; Editor-in-Chief: Victor Gorelick; Sega Licensing reps: Kristin Parcell and Cindy Chau Meanwhile, back on Mobius, Sally is giving her counterpart Alicia a good talking-to for stranding Sonic along with Scourge on Moebius. Sally orders Tails to open the star post portal. When Alicia objects, Miles intervenes, confident that Sonic should have prevailed by now. But the crew of good and bad guys (and gals) is in for an "Aw crap" moment as they cross over and find the throne room looking like a scene from "CSI: Moebius." Or it could be just disappointment that they (and we) missed out on all the action. But to make up for that, we get one page of Super-Scourge beating up on the good guys and then a page of him beating up on the SS members. Trouble is, the action then starts spinning out of control. Silver comes to and tries to stop Scourge (whom I won't dignify with the "Super-" designation if I can help it). Sonic then comes to, only to have Metal Sonic get in his face, but Shadow makes the save. Shadow then Chaos Controls Metal out of the story and into ... well, we'll get to that next time. Anyway, Rosy starts love-tapping Scourge and gets thrown down for her trouble. Rob ties her up with one of his arrows and effectively writes her out of the story. Sonic and Miles then engage in some exposition on the availability on Moebius of Chaos Emeralds; I'm sorry but "Anarchy Beryls" just doesn't work for me so I'm not using it. FINALLY someone then decides that this dance number needs a choreographer. Sally's plan is for everybody to dog-pile (or maybe that should be hog-pile) on Scourge until the effect of the Chaos Emeralds wears off. Scourge shakes everybody off, but Sonic continues to dash into him so Scourge decides to take this outside where a convenient thunderstorm provides the appropriate atmosphere. It's while evading Scourge in the midst of the storm that Sonic realizes something and gets an idea. And that idea? Get Scourge to turn off his Super option, which causes him to do his imitation of what happens when a can of Red Bull wears off. Yeah, I know, kind of anticlimactic, but hey, I'm sparing you the 2 pages of exposition that go along with it. Anyway, we then get 2 pages of the SS getting ready to reopen the gateway to Mobius, Miles trying to re-recruit Buns, and Alicia darkly hinting at "who's in charge around here." Meanwhile, Silver takes off and Sonic slips in a candidate for Best Dialogue honors for the year by saying "Have fun with your dystopian future or whatever." He then lets everyone else go home while he hauls Scourge off to the slammer and stays behind to "[get] some answers." HEAD: Remember the review of the "Sonic Unleashed" back story in #193? In researching that one I read where one of the recommended ways of dealing with a werewolf was to cause him to exhaust himself through physical exertion. Who knew it worked that way with Scourge? I certainly didn't. Then again, I didn't know that after ending his super phase Sonic gets a residual bump-up from all that Chaos energy. That's what Sonic was betting on happening in reverse on Moebius. Fortunately for him, that's also the way Ian decided it should go. On one level, I don't mind it. After what seemed like an interminable number of fight stories in this arc, it required a bit of trickery to open up Scourge's weak spot. I always appreciate it when Sonic is shown to be as quick-witted as he is fleet-footed. And there's a certain poetic justice to Scourge's being undone by his own power source. However, Sonic is remaining on Moebius to mark time until issue #200. It's possible that during that time he'll run into the one of whom Alicia so darkly spoke. Is it Scourge's old man? I wouldn't rule it out. I'd hate to think that Ian isn't going to follow through on the plot point he threw down in the course of "Father and Son." But I also fear that he won't do anything serious with it. Look, for instance, at what happened to the Mobians during this story; they've gotten beaten up by Scourge both before and after his power-up, but NONE of them look the worse for wear by the time the story is almost over. This isn't the first time this has happened; I remember the "Sonic Riders" two-parter where the wounds inflicted by the Babylon Rogues on Sonic healed up practically before our eyes. It's the nature of the comic book beast, I suppose. This story doesn't feel completed in the least. OK, Sonic got the better of Scourge, but that's about it. Everything else is pretty much returned to the way it was before, except for some loose plot points. Is Rosy now residing in Dr. Kintobor's closed ward? How come we haven't seen anybody else from Moebius yet? And what about Fiona? Those are only a few of the dangling plot threads that occur to me. And of course Ian is under no obligation whatsoever to address any of them, thanks to the magic of loose continuity. If he doesn't deal with them in the upcoming issues, I won't be surprised. If he does, I only hope he does a good job. Head Score: 5. EYE: The highlight here is the fight in the storm, and Yardley! handles it well ... for a fight scene. Yet ANOTHER fight scene in a long line of ... sorry, but the whole Sonic- Scourge fight thing got old for me a couple issues back. There were a few small visual moments that got above the fight monotony (the head shot of Rob and Amy being one), but nothing that really stands up off the page. Eye Score: 6. HEART: Nothing but hints and teases this time around in a story where the prime focus (Sonic vs. Scourge) was also a foregone conclusion. Heart Score: n/a. Sonic-Grams: Lyra J. is told that Shadow will get a 4-issue arc in the upcoming Sonic Universe comic title. She also confesses that she only hopped on the bandwagon as of #189; that means she missed a number of other developments in the comic's history including the death cheat of Sally in Endgame (which is probably no big loss), though she DOES wonder why Sally isn't in any of the video games. Sal might have earned a shot at being in "Sonic Heroes" if, in addition to Speed, Power and Flight, there was a need for Brains. And while Mike is vague about the possibility of a Sonic movie, this is probably the worst climate imaginable to plan for one. Between the fact that last year's Speed Racer movie ended up losing $27 million and that Imagi Animation Studios needed to scrounge up bridge funding just to complete their Astroboy movie, I seriously doubt that a Sonic movie could get green-lighted. Also, keep in mind that Disney and Dreamworks have become the DC and Marvel of animation: if they don't make it, nobody will go to see it. Dennis W. is told that Blaze the Cat will appear with Shadow in Sonic Universe #1; here's hoping Ian or whoever the writer is has more of a grasp of Blaze's character than Tania del Rio did in the Blaze two-parter in S160-161. And Kalle N. is told that the Knuckles comics are being collected. Do yourself a favor: skip K30-32 and the wretched "King of the Hill" arc, I'll tell you what. Fan-Art: cut-outs or Shrinky-Dinks of Sonic, Tails, Knuckles and Amy by Lisa A. Cover art: S197 has Sonic and Sally behind bars (whose, it doesn't say); and there's a montage cover for Sonic Universe #1 featuring Shadow, but also Sonic, Metal Sonic, Blaze (as promised) and Marine. Blaze and Marine, now THERE'S an odd couple! And speaking of Shadow and Metal Sonic....