Sonic Universe #22 (January 2011) Yardley/Amash/Hunzeker cover: There's a rather unflattering description of someone along the lines of "They couldn't find their own backside with both hands in broad daylight." Or words to that effect. Here are Nack, Rouge, Shadow, Cream, Amy, Omega, Bean and Cheese vying for the honor. Out of view is Blaze executing the Mother Of All Facepalms. "Treasure Team Tango: Step 2: The Cruzada" 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 Let's review: Team Dark has possession of the Sol Emerald (aka the McGuffin), which Team Rose (w/Blaze in for Big) also want to acquire. A quick "Let's be reasonable about this" is shot down by Omega, whose opening line of dialogue sounds a lot like Ian Flynn has been channeling Ken Penders: "Yippie-ki-yay, pastel-colored resistance!" Feel free to barf; I just about did. Blaze, however, steps up and gives new meaning to the term "Firewall." Rouge tries to mollify the censors by saying that Omega's gun show was only supposed to scare the girls, but then Blaze shows Omega her A-game and is rewarded with what looks like a marriage proposal: "I like you! Let us burn things together!" The readers may need a breath of fresh air before their gag reflex kicks in again, so we adjourn to the surface where Three Shadowy Figures survey what's going on in the gully and wait to pick up the pieces. And now, it's ... HOGS ON ICE! Not really, but that's what it looks like. Over the course of the next 3 pages, nobody seems to be able to keep possession of the Sol Emerald until Cheese lands it and flies away with it. As a consolation prize, Rouge snatches a gray Sol Emerald from Blaze and laterals it over to Shadow for a simple Chaos Control ... which backfires in spectacular fashion. Memo to Shadow: when handling Sol Emeralds, RTM. Or just leave it to the professionals: "And that is why I am their guardian," Blaze says. Once outside the root ball (don't ask me how Ian did it), Cream flies up to reunite with Cheese only to discover that he/it has been Chao-napped by Bean, Bark and Nack. Once Bark nabs the bunny, Cream starts raving out: "We have worked very hard to get that back for her, you know! This whole day has been nothing but rough-housing and rude people and I simply will not tolerate it!" Sheesh, somebody give the kid a talk-radio show! We get two panels of Bean acting psycho as Amy and Blaze make their way to the surface. Nack and crew, with Cream still in their possession, take off on Nack's machine, but Blaze overtakes them. There follow two pages of Team Nack picking themselves up off the ground and allowing Amy to catch up to them, at which point Team Dark catches up with Team Rose. Team Dark is so intent on putting the smackdown on Team Rose, however, that it takes something like four pages to get across the point that Team Nack is in possession of the Emerald. Blaze then mentions YET AGAIN that the fate of her world depends on her retrieving the Sol Emerald; one more mention and she'll be upgraded to the Ben Parker Level of Redundancy Level. But Team Nack isn't exactly getting away clean, for an Ominous Airship is closing on in them. Don't you hate it when that happens? HEAD: The "cruzada" in the title of this installment refers to the crossing of one dancer's foot in front of the other. If one is not careful, though, that could be a prelude to falling flat on one's face. And there's a lot of that in this chapter. Ian is clearly going for the comedy part of the action- comedy equation. This is especially true during the butterfingers segment of the story where the Sol Emerald goes from hand to hand. This is old school slapstick, named after the device that was built to deliver not much pain but a loud smacking noise when you strike someone with it. Nowadays, they just punch up the soundtrack. Supposedly, the sound during fights in kung fu movies is enhanced by foley artists (aka, sound effects people) smacking the backs of naugahyde furniture with ping pong paddles. Cream's rave-out struck me as being way too wordy, but otherwise is a good example of what I call the conservatism of childhood. Around the age of 5, when kids have successfully crossed the boarder from toddlerhood and into childhood proper, they begin to figure out just what the rules are that enable people to function in the larger world outside the home. These rules are taken very seriously by some kids and applied practically universally, so of course they don't always work out. It's especially noteworthy watching children get the hang of irregular verbs. You thus hear some children using words such as "runned" or "swimmed" rather than "ran" or "swam" because somewhere along the way they learned in an informal way that the past tense of a verb is formed by putting the "-ed" suffix on the end. Except when you don't. This forms the basis for the kind of humor on display in the "Family Circus" comic panel. There are kids, however, whose grip on the rules is tighter than most, and who not only protest the changes that keep showing up in daily living but who turn into scolds when they see other kids "doing it wrong." Cream, who's learned her manners from Vanilla (viz. her uncertain "Thank you" to Bean after his psychotic compliment of her raving, and her prefacing several sentences with "Excuse me..."), lashes out at Team Nack for their not playing by the rules she's apparently internalized to a pretty strong degree. This puts her in company with Dolly from the aforementioned "Family Circus" and D. W. Read from the "Arthur" books and animated series. Oddly, Cream's character is the most believable of an increasingly crazy bunch of characters in this story. Mostly what we get here is chases and fight scenes, though Rouge's boot to the back and elbow to the head combo platter may be old hat to WWE devotees. Of the cast members here, the worst has to be Omega because Ian seems to just turn him/it loose to be used as it suits him with no real guidance. Omega's opening line was bad enough, a weird homage to Bruce Willis in the "Die Hard" franchise. But his "Please surrender! Think of the poor trees!" line is inexcusable because HE'S the one destroying the timber while delivering the line. I'm sorry, but "Look what you made me do!" is not a valid excuse for one's behavior. Ben Parker is, of course, Peter Parker's Uncle Ben from the Spiderman franchise, whose fortune cookie dictum "With great power comes great responsibility" has been driven into the ground so often in and out of the comic that it's become a punch line. This past summer I even saw it as copy on a billboard advertising John Deere tractors. OK, I know how important Sol Emeralds are to Blaze's home world, but is she going to remind us in every chapter of this story arc? So far, the story has gone from two groups looking for the emerald to three groups looking for the emerald to, starting in the next issue, four groups looking for the emerald. I'm so not looking forward to this. Head Score: 3. EYE: Not much to find fault with in Tracy Yardley!'s artwork. He does an especially good job with Rouge as well as Blaze, the latter not often well-served by this comic. Eye Score: 9. HEART: Despite Blaze's repeated protestations that the fate of her home world hangs in the balance, it's getting harder to care one way or the other as new teams of characters keep bumbling into each other and slopping up the story. This is becoming more and more of an ordeal for the reader. And we're only halfway through. Heart Score: 3. Fan Art: Will gives us Super Sonic and Audra gives us the return of T-pup along with Tails. But major points go to Thomas who constructed an entire deck of playing cards with Sonic characters on them. Appropriately enough, there are more Jokers than usual. Unfortunately, some are too small to recognize, at least for these old eye-bones of mine. Fan Funnies: Nikki reminds us how much time has elapsed as the current model of Tails meets the old SatAM edition. Reminds me of the Alvin and the Chipmunks ep "Back To Our Future" where the 1980s chipmunks end up trading places with their on-model 1961-1962 counterparts. Neat idea. Off Panel: Blaze unleashes the devastating motor-mouthed Marine on Team Dark. Too bad the rest of the arc hasn't been this funny. Sonic Spin: Paul Kaminski finds that the word "absurd" best describes Bean, and I won't argue. I am surprised, however, that he's supposed to be a duck. Looks 100% cuckoo, if you ask me. Letters: Brandon learns that Jules's robo-Chao is still keeping company with him, though we haven't seen him/it for a good long spell, and that Knuckles married Julie-Su in the future. David flies his SonAmy colors, but all the guy answering the letters can think to do is use it as a cue for marketing.