Sonic Universe #21 (December 2010)
     Yardley!/Hunzeker cover: There's already been a "Girls
Rule!" cover for one of the Sonic specials (#11, to be precise). 
That issue featured stories about Sally, Bunnie, Hershey,
Julie-Su and Lupe.  Those were all strong female characters and,
except for Hershey and Lupe, primary characters.  So what do we
have here for Girls Rule 2.0?  Second-stringers: Amy Rose, Cream,
Blaze and Rouge.  That makes Sonic editorial comment more
understandable.


     "Treasure Team Tango: Part 1: the Salida"
     Story: Ian Flynn; Art: Tracy Yardley!; Ink: Jim Amash;
Color: Jason Jensen; Lettering: Phil Felix; Editor: Paul
Kaminski; Editor-in-Chief: Victor Gorelick; President: Mike
Pellerito; Sega Licensing reps: Cindy Chau and Jerry Chu

     OK, let's take a page and tee up this puppy: The Time Cops
have been chasing one "Dr. Nega" who manages to drop his stash as
he buzzes through Mobius.  This is the prelude to "a crazy
adventure," or so we're told.  I hate it already.
      Since she trashed their old digs in the course of S217's
"Welcome Back, Chao!", Amy Rose decides to put up Vanilla and
Cream in the old Freedom Fighter HQ.  Despite her rabbit genes,
Vanilla is less than enthusiastic about living underground.  They
can only spare one page of introductory chit-chat, however, as
Nicole (called "the computer-made lady" by Cream) informs Amy
Rose that she's been getting an erratic energy signature in their
neighborhood.  Amy volunteers to check it out, and Cream asks Mom
if she can go along.  Apparently Vanilla needs some me-time away
from the long-eared rugrat because she agrees.
      "How delightful!" Cream says, which seems like a very
unkid-like thing for her to say.  Amy then explains the desolate
locale to the kid, but leaves out the text box reference to S175
and S176, wherein Eggman trashed the old corner of the Great
Forest but then tried and failed to destroy New Mobitropolis.
      Cheese then moves the plot forward by seeing something in
the near distance.  Hopeful that this is going to be a short
adventure, Amy Rose heads for it but is blocked by the appearance
of Blaze.  Amy Rose, however, immediately wants to pick a fight,
and gets one for a page until she indulges in some deconstruction
by asking "How does Sonic keep up all this mid-battle banter?!" 
The Sonic connection finally gets Blaze's attention, as does the
fact that what was spotted earlier was just a broken bottle. 
Blaze is all for moving on at this point, but the other girls
talk her into some quick exposition and then Blaze goes on to
explain that she's looking for Sol Emeralds.  Formal
introductions are made, and Cream violates the Continuity
Crossover Act by bringing up the subject of Sally, someone Amy
Rose never had to worry about in Segaworld.  Anyway, Amy and
Cream decide to help Blaze so they head off for the Great Forest.
      They no sooner get there and get a second helping of
Blaze's antisocial ways than the party is joined by Rouge.  The
same deconstructionist spirit that got to Amy Rose has infected
her as well: "It doesn't take much spying when anyone within a
hundred feet can hear you" declaiming about the Sol Emerald. 
Then again, bats ARE known for their hearing so she comes by it
naturally.  Amy Rose and Rouge give each other an earful for half
a page until Blaze decides "I don't need this!" and gets back to
hunting, which brings the others into line.
      Cut to the ravine where Rouge and Nicole agree that the
Emerald is somewhere down there.  Concentrating on finding the
Sol Emerald temporarily cures Blaze of her fear of heights, which
was on display in the Sonic Rush game.  The girls pair off, and
when a branch breaks off it gets dealt with first by Blaze who
turns it into charcoal, then by Rouge executing one of her
signature game moves, the Drill Drive.  This not only pulverizes
the wood, it also demonstrates the fact that some video game
moves simply don't look that good in two dimensions, even with a
generous page layout.
      At the bottom of the ravine, the Sol Emerald is located
inside what appears to be a root ball of some kind; that, and/or
the contained that Dr. Nega placed it in has been responsible for
the jazzed readings.  After some pleasantries Rouge announces
that, surprise, she wants the bauble all to herself.  It's now
three against one, but Rouge is well-able to hold her own against
the others, giving a second demonstration of why the Drill Drive
looks absolutely ridiculous in a comic book.  Blaze then decides
"No more Ms. Nice Kitty!" which leads Rouge to call for back-up,
as Shadow and Omega arrive on the scene.
      
      HEAD: First things first: there's quite a broad range of
meanings for the word "salida" in the title of this installment. 
Given that the word "tango" appears in the title of this story
arc, Ian is sticking with the tango meaning of the word, as a
basic 8-step entrance onto the dance floor.  But while "salida"
literally means "exit," it has secondary meanings which may come
into play depending on where Ian takes this story.  It can mean
"departure," and it signifies the start of a race, both of which
can be seen happening in this story.  When used with the Spanish
word "ocurrencia," however, it also carries the meaning of a
joke.  I fear that this is where Ian is really taking this story. 
And the joke is on the characters, all of them.
      The worst fate befalls Vanilla despite, or perhaps because
of, the fact that she only appears at the beginning of the story. 
She acts out of place and Tracy Yardley! makes her look
uncomfortable in her new surroundings.  Yet according to her
description in the Sonic Wiki, I get the impression that she's
got way more going for her character.
      Notwithstanding advances in feminism over the past three
decades or so, and the domination of the video game industry by
titles directed at adolescent males, a notable niche was carved
out of the industry by the 2006 title "Cooking Mama" for the
Nintendo DS.  Using the DS stylus, the player prepares meals by
slicing, cooking and plating.  Practice and completing simple
tasks open up more complex recipes.
      While the game was judged to have gotten only a fair
reception in the States, there have been a sizable number of
spin-offs.  Titles include "Cooking Mama: World Champion" with
recipes drawn from international cookery, "Dinner With Friends,"
and "Shop and Chop."  There have also been "Crafting Mama" and
"Gardening Mama" games and, inevitably, "Babysitting Mama" with a
plush "baby" doll where the Wii remote gets stashed.  In the
words of Todd Ciolek at Anime News Network, "It sounds like
something invented for a high-school class aimed at preventing
teen pregnancy, but the Mama series specializes in turning the
mundane into tests of player reflexes."
      I couldn't help but think of the Mama games when I read the
Sonic Wiki description of Vanilla.  There she's called "a skilled
chef, knitter and cleaner and never forgets her pleases or
thank-you's."  She is, in short, a domestic diva.
      Domesticity doesn't get much play in this comic, because of
its skewing of the story toward pre-ado boys and the subsequent
demand for Action And More Action.  Yet it does have its place. 
In the works of animator Hayao Miyazaki, I think of the sisters
Mei and Sasuki cleaning up the house they move into at the
beginning of "My Neighbor Totoro," Sophie cleaning up the inside
of "Howl's Moving Castle," and Sheeta cleaning up after Ma Dola
and her gang of air pirates in "Laputa: Castle In The Sky."  This
isn't just giving female characters bits of business to do;
taking a home and getting it into shape is important in the
Japanese culture.  It's literally part of the traditional way to
ring in the New Year in Japan.
      And yet NONE of that comes through in Ian's treatment of
Vanilla either here or in the set-up story, "Welcome Back, Chao!" 
In this story she's a cipher, a non-entity, someone who simply
reacts to whatever the other characters are doing, and not too
happily, either.  I'm disappointed that Flynn and Yardley! leave
Vanilla looking so lost instead of having her start whipping
Freedom HQ (or at least the rooms she and Cream will be living
in) into shape.  In fact, that would have been more of a premise
for Cream to make herself scarce than just having Cream tag along
as Amy Rose investigates the weird energy readings, and could
have been played for a laugh or two.
      To me, this was the first of many signs that, despite the
predominantly female cast of characters, this is going to be a
boy's story at heart.  It's also a sign that Ian isn't immune
from that dreaded malady where a comic book character ends up
being Dead Behind The Eyes.
      Blaze isn't Dead Behind The Eyes, but the temptation to
treat her as such is a strong one.  If any character in the
Sonicverse can lay claim to being a brooding loner the way
Knuckles was early on in his career, it's her (the Archie Comic
version of Shadow, who appears at the end of this story, yielded
the crown when he became a charter member of Team Dark and as a
result a dog of the military by being part of the G.U.N.
establishment).  Like a number of superheroes, Blaze has an
impressive super power which she regards as a curse.  She is
anti-social and withdrawn as a result of being teased about her
pyrokinetic ability according to Sega's back story of her, but
whereas it took hooking up with Sonic to get her to understand
the power of the Sol Emeralds, it took encountering Cream in
Sonic Rush to get past her isolationism and to teach her about
friendship.  I don't know if Cream tells Blaze that "Our hearts
together form an awesome power," but she might as well have.
      Blaze isn't exactly a one-note character, either, a fate
which seems to have befallen Silver in this comic.  She may be
powerful in her own way but she does have her weaknesses.  Most
obviously is her fear, or at least her uneasiness, of heights. 
WHY Ian couldn't have thought of a way to incorporate that in the
ravine scene escapes me.  Yet it seems to have been shunted off
to the side the way Sonic's non-swimmer status was constantly
disregarded in the comic's earlier years.
      And while her antisocial tendencies make her reluctant to
engage strangers (which is something to which I can relate for
reasons I won't go into here), she is capable of interacting with
others in surprisingly meaningful ways.  It's buried in Sonic the
Hedgehog '06, but Blaze gets off one of the sweetest lines of
dialog I've ever heard when speaking to Silver as she disappears
into another dimension: "You're still so naive, but I ... I've
always liked that about you."
      So why does the character of Blaze in this story feel as
elusive as the energy signature they were trying to trace?  Part
of the problem with Blaze is that she doesn't act in this story
so much as react.  She's a strong character by any sense of the
word, but she only brings it out when the Sol Emerald is
threatened.  Otherwise, she's lucky to get any face time here.
      Rouge is broad enough of a character that she's relatively
easy to write for: she's got a thing for jewelry and can shift
allegiance at will.  At the beginning of Sonic Heroes she was the
one who got Shadow and Omega to work together.  As the
recognizably oldest member of the cast, she is more worldly-wise
than the rest of the group.
      Amy Rose has always been a shallow character with only a
few attributes, which made the creation of Rosy the anti-Amy Rose
easy in the Otherside arc (S193-196).  Her prime characteristic
here is the freedom to wield her Piko Hammer in the face of both
Blaze and Rouge.  She also talks.  A lot!  This is another
problem I have with comics as a medium.  It's more the exception
than the rule that such a visual medium will actually take
advantage of its visual nature and let the artwork tell the story
instead of ladling on the dialogue.  While Ian gives us the
destruction of a random tree branch by the Rouge-Blaze team, Amy
doesn't go very far in the story without the need to say
SOMETHING, no matter how outlandish: "Is fire all you've got?  I
bring more heat than that!"  This is perfectly good dialogue for
a boy's comic   if a boy was actually saying it.  
      Amy Rose's Sonic mania got really old in the games.  Even
without that, her tweeny-teeny persona could be awfully grating,
but Ian seems to have overcompensated in this story by making her
more masculine in action and attitude than usual.
      And then there's Cream, about whom I said enough in the
course of reviewing "Welcome Back, Chao!"
      I've gone on at length about the characters because in a
story where the plot is so elementary (Who's got the Sol
Emerald?), character is everything.  Here, however, things don't
quite work out because the characters are so off-key.  Rouge
takes charge of the story early on and becomes the alpha female,
Amy Rose acts like a boy, Cream is obnoxious in a way that makes
your teeth hurt, and Blaze's character never gets to do as much
as she can aside from throwing fire (without harming anybody) and
displaying her temper.  The pattern even held with regard to the
minor players; Vanilla never had a chance to develop into
anything worthwhile, and Nicole literally phoned it in.
      So now we're stuck with the prospect of clashes and more
clashes as various groups and individuals vie for possession of
the Sol Emerald.  Maybe we'll also find out what the deal is with
Dr. Nega before this is over.  Head Score: 5.
      EYE: Someone wrote to me to point out that Rouge's eye
color changes several times in the course of this story.  The key
is to look at the cover: there, Rouge has green eyes and blue
eyeshadow.  Within the comic, however, Jason Jensen makes things
easy on himself by matching Rouge's eyes and her eyeshadow more
often than not.  It's a small quibble, but there it is.  And as
I've already mentioned, Yardley! simply can't make Rouge's Drill
Drive look convincing.  He does do impressive work in the ravine
sequence and the head shot-to-head shot confrontation between
Rouge and Amy Rose.  Eye Score: 8.
      HEART: I felt as if Ian had hit upon a good gimmick by
naming this story installment after a sequence of the titular
dance.  This hints at a structure in a seemingly random story.
      The downside is that I hate dancing.
      I don't get "Dancing With The Stars."  Literally.  Where I
live in Michigan, we can't get ANY ABC programming unless we
install an outdoor antenna on our chimney.  And I'm not going to
do that because of a pre-existing condition of mine that prevents
me from getting on tall ladders: cowardice.  And I'm not about to
re-subscribe to cable as long as the rates are being set by a
relative of Captain Jack Sparrow.
      Seriously, even when we could pull the show in, I never got
the allure of dancing.  Some of this may be sour grapes at my own
lack of coordination.  Mostly, though, it seems as if dancing
involves a lot of movement that never really translates into
progress.
      I'm afraid that this is what's going to happen in this
story arc.  The McGuffin of the Sol Emerald dictates the movement
and action of the characters.  There's been enough action so far,
but it seems to be as much a brawl as a dance.
      You'd think that a comic book story featuring an
almost-exclusively female cast would know when and how to slow
things down and get in some character development.  Not THIS
comic book, people.  Despite the fact that Ian has proven his
chops when it comes to character development in Hope's scene with
Shadow in "The Ultimate Lifeform" (SU4), he shows no interest in
topping himself here.  He's settled into an action story no
matter how feminine his characters, whether the domestic Vanilla
or the sexy (within ACA guidelines) Rouge.  And when what you
have is a boy's comic wearing dresses, it's understandable why
the Heart factor recedes so far into the background it's in a
different time zone.  Heart Score: 2.
      
      Sonic Spin: Paul Kaminski's column is supposed to be about
Cream but says surprisingly little that's meaningful about her. 
At least the Sonic Wiki can tell you what her likes, dislikes,
and favorite food are.
      Fan Art: Sam gives us a roll call of favorite characters,
three of whom appear in this story, and there are three
stand-alone portraits of Amy Rose by Peyton, Blaze by Quinn, and
Manic from Sonic Underground by Isaac.  
      Fan comic: Briana contributes a fan comic with Sonic and
Tails demonstrating that, even for heroes, the grass always looks
greener in the other hero's yard.
      Off-Panel: The cast takes a break, but Blaze is stuck doing
KP, such as it is.
      Letters: Paul wonders if the Master Emerald is some sort of
person (short answer: "No"), wants to see Blaze and Silver in
story arcs, and is told that the lower half of Speedy's clothing
incorporates his former egg shell, though Paul steers clear of
mentioning Togepi from the Pokemon franchise.  Jordan tries
working out a chronology for the "Trouble In Paradise" arc that
would fit the "Reigning Cats and Dogs" and "Family Matters" arcs,
and guesses the pronunciation of Dr. Fukurokov's name based on
the Japanese word for owl.  Jacob just sucks up and gives whoever
answers the mail a chance to plug the reprints.