Sonic #23 [June 1995; Review date: August 2001] Manak/D'Agostino cover: Sonic and Robotnik sharing one of those Habitrail(tm) Hamster Balls, despite the fact that they have an occupancy limit of two small rodents or one big fat hyoomon. In the corner box, Tails is in a predicament that will require a peanut butter facial. "Ivo Robotnik, Freedom Fighter" Story: Angelo DeCesare; Art: Dave Manak; Ink: Rich Koslowski; Color: Barry Grossman; Lettering: Mindy Eisman; Editor: Scott Fulop; Managing Editor: Victor Gorelick; Editor-In- Chief: Richard Goldwater. Sonic, Sally and Tails are out gathering "medicinal berries" when Sonic is sidelined by ants in his ... no, Sonic doesn't wear pants. However, some "Mobian farmer ants," complete with wardrobe, ended up in Sonic's sneakers. Turns out they belong to Rotor, whose commitment to freedom from Robotnik doesn't stop him from keeping an ant farm. Robotnik and Snively crash the party with Robotnik packing a "portable roboticizer." Suddenly, the entire cast and their props are sucked up the kind of enormous tube that would be deployed in Death Egg #1. Turns out it's called an "umbilicus," which admittedly IS a step up from "enormous tube." The perpetrator is a giant metal-clad alien named Car-Heem and he's a "collector." In this case, he's collected himself some Mobian species. Robotnik ticks him off by trying to bargain his way out of captivity, and is threatened with destruction. Sonic and Sally, however, do some fast talking of their own, telling Car-Heem that Robotnik is one of the Freedom Fighters, hence the title, and that the different species are interdependent. That last point is a novelty to the solitary Car-Heem, who puts the whole group in a terrarium for observation. That's GOT to put a crimp in any kind of Public Displays of Affection Sonic and Sally may have had in mind, but it's better than being individually bagged and boarded. The walls of the terrarium, which has been set up to look something like Mobius, are so strong that Sonic can't spin his way to freedom. There's a one-page comic relief section where, after several days, Sonic convinces Robotnik to stop being such a slack and pull his rather considerable weight; otherwise, Car-Heem might get the idea that the species aren't so interdependent after all. That evening, Sonic, Rotor and Robotnik hatch an escape plot that goes something like this: with Sonic creating a diversion to get Car-Heem to open the terrarium, the others can fly out using a "vehicle" to be built by Robotnik, Then using the umbilicus, Robotnik can get them back down to Mobius. He says. Sonic's idea of a diversion is for the hedgehog to play possum. Car-Heem opens the lid to "dispose" of Sonic, possibly by flushing him down what passes for a toilet on his home world. That's when Sonic comes to life and slips between Car-Heem and his metal suit. As for Robotnik, he's invented ... an open box! It appears to be a helicopter of some sort, but the only motoring I can see is Tails pushing it from behind. The landing wheels fall off, but the crate still makes it to the ship's control panel. That's when Robotnik pulls a Sigourney Weaver on Car-Heem by opening an airlock so that the alien, along with Sonic inside the alien's suit, are sucked out into space. This turn of events doesn't sit well with Sally, Tails and Rotor. Sally and Tails manage to restrain Robotnik and Snively all by themselves; now THAT'S a stretch any way you look at it. Rotor, meanwhile, undoes the damage by shooting out the umbilicus and reeling Car-Heem in. He manages this by stomping on the right button on the unlabeled control panel; gee, what are the odds? The story ends with Car-Heem recognizing that his urge to collect hadn't been a Good Thing because of the way he treated other species. He thus returns everyone to Mobius, with Sonic requesting that Robotnik and Snively be dumped in "a nice, gooey pond of toxic slime." That would probably make Buttnik feel right at home. And Rotor releases the residents of his ant farm and we get a Warm and Fuzzy Ending with a sitcom twist. HEAD: This is what you could call a Golden Rule plot. The situation with Rotor's ant farm is pretty well mirrored in the plight of the Mobians, and just in case anyone is too dim to get the point at first it's hammered home again on page 10 and at the conclusion. Still, it's one of the few probable plots that would necessitate Robotnik working with the Freedom Fighters, though not very hard as it turns out. Actually, Angelo DeCesare gets points for not simply resorting to an Enemies Uniting Against a Common Foe plot. That was pretty much the plot of the motion picture "Independence Day." Instead, DeCesare introduces the notion of the Mobians, who are already a pretty diverse group, and the two hyoomons being interdependent species. This gives them a reason to engage in collaborative effort beyond merely saving their own butts. It's also the point where the ant farm metaphor breaks down, and I mean that in a good way. An ant farm is a one-species arrangement, because ants themselves are so socially complex they don't need to go multicultural. Of course, the "collaboration" between Robotnik and the furries was doomed from the start; that was dictated by Robotnik's nature. But again, DeCesare gets points for introducing the notion. About my only problem with the story was the ease with which Robotnik and Snively were subdued by Sally and Tails all by themselves. Head Score: 8. Eye: We never do get to see what Car-Heem looks like without his space suit, so I can't tell if that IS his face. Still, as aliens go, he looks impressive without looking gross. I mean, it's not as if Dave Manak is going for an "Alien" look here. The rest of the artwork is classic Manak. Eye Score: 7. HEART: Far too often, the plot of a Sonic story doesn't even begin to cover what might be called the Mobian-ness of the characters and situations. There appears to be the assumption that the characters don't really have to think about what they're doing, and so often the result is the feeling that they're just going through the motions. Once again, DeCesare gets points for trying to break out of that. The key is on page 13 when the Knothole crowd reacts negatively to Robotnik's dumping Car-Heem into space. Sally's line in the last panel on the page says it all: "A Freedom Fighter respects ALL LIFE, whether friend or enemy!" (Emphasis original). This actually says volumes about the way the fight against Robotnik has been conducted. In the SatAM continuity as well as in the comic (c.f., "Deadliest of the Species," the Princess Sally miniseries), the objective has NEVER been to assassinate Robotnik, as welcome as that might seem. The outlook of the Freedom Fighters, if not of Mobians in general, would seem to forbid it. That's why their way of fighting Robotnik consisted of guerrilla acts of sabotage against his capacity to dominate Mobius and the residents thereof. That kind of philosophy is hard to reconcile, of course, with the Great War plot point, which is probably one reason why it was left vague for the longest time. In fact, it wasn't until Ken Penders wrote "Endgame" that anyone got around to saying canonically what the war was about and whom the participants were. And frankly I was kind of let down when Ken reduced the war to furs vs. skins. I'd kind of wanted it to be about something bigger. But having taken the first step, there was no turning back. Thus in S77's "For Better Or Worse" we saw not only Sonic's father, Jules, getting hit by enemy fire during the Great War, but we saw Bernie retaliating in kind. Ken was equally ruthless during the run of the Knuckles comic, with several characters meeting violent ends while some who IMHO deserved to didn't, such as the hunter dude in the King of the Hill arc (K31-33); I'm still holding out the hope that his species didn't survive the zone transference during "Best of Times, Worst of Times" (SSS14) and that his skeletal remains are all that are left of him in that stasis bubble he was shown trapped in. But I digress. DeCesare's daring to plant the flag philosophically makes me wonder whether any other comic book creatives, Kirby or Lee for instance, ever had a philosophy that guided THEM in their view of the world and which came through, one way or another, in their work. At least one cartoonist I know of had such a philosophy and it permeated all his work. The philosophy: "Love everything that has life." The cartoonist: Osamu Tezuka. Tezuka, the artist who literally created manga as we know it today, came across his convictions naturally enough. He was a Buddhist who drew a life of the Buddha as one of his comic works, and even though his characters engaged in fights and characters died, there was never a sense that it was gratuitous or pointless. There was also an emotional point to death as well. The reaction to a character's death could be shock or sorrow or regret or relief, but it never happened just to move the plot along. DeCesare established in this story that Mobians had an ethic, something which made them far more than talking animals. Sadly, nobody else in the entire history of the comic has taken it upon themselves to run with the ball. Ken feinted in that direction in the Knuckles comic with the implication that Knuckles's mother, Lara-Le, was devoutly religious. Ken, however, never did get around to outlining her belief system or expanding upon whatever texts or rituals she considered sacred. These were elements that could have broadened the comic, elements which could have given future writers and present fans something to play with, to bring an even greater sense of reality to the continuity. Now that the Knuckles comic is dead and Knuckles himself has been reduced to back story actor, I'm afraid Ken's lost that chance forever. In such ways have the potential of the comic been squandered. Heart Score: 8. Do-It-Yourself Sonic Contest winners. I missed the issue that the blank pages first appeared in, but the first three winning entries are reprinted. I don't know what the significance is, but 4 of the finalists, including the first- and second-place winners, were Canadian. I do NOT think that Archie will ever try this stunt again, if only because times have changed. Sure, the prize-winning entries are all innocuous enough, but you can just bet that not all of the entries would be as squeaky-clean if the contest was repeated today. I say this after having read some fan comics that were most definitely rated R and were produced by using game sprites [images of the characters trapped from the games], specifically "Sonic ARGH" and the work of "psyguy". "Vol-Ant-Teer" Story: Angelo DeCesare; Art: Dave Manak; Ink: Jon D'Agostino; Lettering: Bill Yoshida; Color: n/a. The story starts out with Antoine in full raw nerve mode, literally scared of a shadow. Turns out the shadow belongs to Tails. He tells Antoine that he left his backpack in Robotropolis, a backpack that contains a power ring. Antoine grandiosely tells Tails that he will go and retrieve it: "Do you think Sonic is ze only one who can do ze one-man mission?" As Antoine prepares to do so, the level of conversation attracts the attention of Bunnie, who shows up actually wearing a skirt. Given the time of night, however, that may be a baby doll nightie instead. Since this IS an Archie comic, however, don't count on it being very revealing. Tails no sooner fills her in on the plot up to that point than she makes herself scarce. We then follow Antoine into the city and note several brushes with disaster averted by providential happenings: a vehicle that almost runs him over hits an I-beam girder thrown in its path, several SWATbots scaling a ladder after Antoine find the ladder being pulled away from the building with them on it, and a drainage pipe Antoine is crawling through is moved aside just before Robotnik's hover craft can slam into it. Once back in Knothole, Tails and Bunnie congratulate Antoine on his mission accomplished. And, in the final panel, Antoine demonstrates to Bunnie that he has manners, charm, and a clue. HEAD: A basic little back story: Antoine as unlikely hero with Bunnie acting as his backup. And it works very well. The ending is especially appreciated. Just as the reader goes through the story thinking that Antoine would have to be super- dense not to realize what's happening to him, we come to the very end and learn that Ant wasn't so thick after all. Otherwise, Angelo DeCesare would have run the risk of insulting the reader's intelligence. Nice to see that he didn't go there. Head Score: 10. EYE: Manak strikes again. Nothing out of the ordinary here, with the exception of Bunnie in her "nightgown." Eye Score: 8. HEART: What Ken Penders and Kent Taylor took to the next level in S46's "Countdown to Armageddon" and what Robert Brown and Francis Tolbert made an important part of their epic fanfic work began here: namely, Bunnie and Antoine being an item. This could have been just another story with a relentless action plot, with Antoine's narrow misses as the main point. Instead, DeCesare redeems the whole thing in the last panel by virtue of Ant giving Bunnie a peck on the cheek. It's a small moment, but an important one. For all the talk of the Freedom Fighters being a team, in some respects they have lives of their own. They can also operate in subunits, in ways not defined by their war against Robotnik: Sonic and Sally relate to each other, and Sonic relates far differently to Tails. Unfortunately, the creatives haven't always seen the potential of such moments or, if they did, Editorial and/or Management has been quick to pour cold water on anything remotely resembling a positive development. The last writer to TRULY discern the potential of the Sonic-Tails relationship was an outsider, Danny Fingeroth, in his "Heart of the Hedgehog" arc. But art, like life, has to develop in order to prevent stagnation. Had this story not taken place, or had it ended with Antoine still clueless, there's some question as to whether there would have been ANY further development of Bunnie and Antoine. These, after all, are two supporting characters borrowed from the SatAM continuity. The kiss at the end of the story may not look like much, certainly nothing like Art Mawhinney's contribution to "Endgame: The Director's Cut," but what are the odds that Bunnie and Antoine would be together at all if it had not happened and the fans hadn't pretty much demanded that it not be negated? Thus even back stories have their place, just as the small choices of life sometimes turn out to be the most monumental. Heart Score: 10. Sonic-Grams: No editorial comments, no water-cooler-humor comic strip featuring Scott Fulop, a quick reminder of "Deadliest of the Species" #3, and two letters: Steven Wise admits to sleeping with a Sonic plushie; I think I'd better not make any comments about that. And Nathan Harson admits to being a Nack fan which provides an excuse to tease the Triple Trouble issue.