Sonic Triple Trouble Special [Oct 1995] Spaz-Harvo cover: The Big Three put in an appearance: Sonic, Tails and Knuckles, with Nack nosing his way into the scene. I really like the expressions on Sonic and Tails; makes a nice change from the stone-faced poses of some issues (the look on Sonic's face for the cover of S60 comes to mind). "Triple Trouble" Story: Mike Gallagher; Art: Dave Manak; Ink: Harvo; Lettering: Mindy Eisman; Color: Barry Grossman; Editorial: Scott Fulop, Victor Gorelick and Richard Goldwater. We start with Robotnik in possession of both a Chaos Emerald and a robo lackey, Crabmeat. Unfortunately, the Crabster set Robotnik's gizmo (which is supposed to be powered by said emerald) for a different level power source. Anyone who's traveled from the U.S. to Europe and had to futz around with voltage converters can definitely relate. The result is that the emerald splits two for one, meaning Robotnik would ordinarily have to work twice as hard to recover it. However, being Robotnik, he's got people for that (using the term "people" loosely). Sonic, meanwhile, takes time out from scarfing chili dogs and foreshadowing Tails's solo story to track one of the emerald hunks into the Great Forest where it creates a new zone. Rotor calls it "breathtaking." Maybe if Spaz had done the artwork it would have been; I wasn't that impressed. Instead of waiting for Sally to get back from her miniseries and come up with a plan, Sonic heads out to scope the situation, unaware of the sinister figure following him (and doesn't THAT sound like a line out of an old "Rocky and Bullwinkle" cartoon!). Meanwhile, on "Another World," Iva tries to make amends with Rose, Carly hands Hal the goods on Craig, Julia and Chris both head out for Oakdale...sorry, that's "As The World Turns." What we find on the Floating Island is Knuckles catching some rays, though I don't think he's going to get any redder. But he starts seeing red when the second Chaos chunk colors his world. "It better not threaten this floating island unless it wants to mess with me!" he intones in all his one-dimensional glory. Hard to believe that at one time this was as complex as Knuckles was allowed to get. The emerald chunk KTOOMs into "Mt. Osohai," which is a real groaner but at least it didn't have the word "Great" in front of it. Reaching the point of impact, he finds the emerald settling into the mountain like a hot coal into a stick of butter, but before he can do anything a rock conks him on the head and knocks him out. Sonic, meanwhile, disappears into a cheesy pavilion that looks like something they put up on the local fairgrounds midway last summer. Nack, whose scooter is equipped with a handy plot device, moves in after Sonic. Sonic navigates approximations of the 6 Triple Trouble zones or levels or whatever they are, catches up to the emerald, and gets zapped for his trouble by Nack. After getting in touch with Robotnik and renegotiating his contract, Nack heads for the Floating Island. As for Knuckles, he regains consciousness in the presence of "The Ancient Walkers," marking their first appearance in the series. This motley crew consists of undersized dinosaur types wearing masks that look like they were ripped off the wall of a Trader Vic's. At first Knuckles panics because he thinks that behind one of the masks is Hannibal Lecter and that he's expected to provide lunch: brain salad and blood sausage. Instead, using pictographs, the Walkers alert Knuckles to the fact that the half-emerald he was chasing is burrowing toward the whole emerald that keeps the Floating Island floating. And according to the principal of physics which states that Too Much of a Good Thing Is a Bad Thing, one whole emerald plus one half emerald equals one whole lotta trouble. Beclouding Knuckles's mind by making him inhale paint fumes (which is so disorienting that it shrinks one of the Walkers to the size of a parakeet), Knuckles is magically (and conveniently) transported to the surface just in time to punch out Nack because...well, because Nack just showed up, I guess. Nack's vehicle spirals into a nearby lake, with Sonic either in the trunk or the back seat; it depends whether you want to believe Gallagher or Manak. In any event he spins out of his bonds and, despite his non-swimmer status, swims to the surface. We then get two pages of Sonic and Knuckles doing their Itchy and Scratchy routine when Robotnik calls on Nack's holographic wrist- communicator cell phone...thing. With just enough exposition and not a lot of time, they find the other half of the Chaos Emerald, take a shortcut to the Chaos Chamber (the entrance to said shortcut located right where they happen to be standing), and as the two halves fuse...Sonic and Knuckles are transported to the surface of the Island. After trading insincerities, Sonic heads for home with Nack tied up, and "Elsewhere" "an age-old prophecy is fulfilled" as the Walkers take possession of the emerald. My guess is it's a pretty pointless prophecy. HEAD: If you're going to adapt a Sonic game for the comic, especially a Game Gear game like this one, you can do worse than follow the Mike Gallagher formula on display here: reduce the role of the game to two pages out of 24, pages which are actually irrelevant to the plot and which could have been skipped over by the impatient reader. Two pages; that's as much space as was devoted to Sonic and Knuckles trying to beat the Stovetop Stuffing(R) out of each other. And unlike future adaptations of more complex games, particularly Sonic Adventure (S79-84) and Sonic Shuffle ("Premonition," S92), this story is actually coherent, engaging, and not so tied down to the game in question that it leaves the reader scratching his/her head when it's all over. As of this writing (March 2001), comic readers are awaiting the Sonic Adventure 2 adaptation with something akin to a nameless dread. Archie has screwed up the adaptation of the games so badly (aided and abetted of late by the anal retentive game developers) that the fans' expectations have been significantly lowered. I hate to think that "Triple Trouble" represents the most workable solution to the problem of adapting the game to the printed page. This story features Knuckles from his Black-and-Blue Period. The Chaos Emerald streaks across the sky so he wants to punch somebody. Nack drives by so Knuckles punches him out even though he's never even SEEN Nack before. Sonic surfaces from the water; I don't have to tell you what happens. Mercifully, Knuckles eventually spent over 2 years in his own book, acquiring a girlfriend, family, a back story (Remember them?), and a certain amount of character depth. It's not fair to compare, since these developments lay in the future and Mike Gallagher didn't have much to go on, but it still goes to show that characters CAN change over time. Which brings us to the Ancient Walkers. If Dave Manak was trying to be impressive with these Tiki/T. Rex hybrids, fuggedaboudit! Eventually, the dino suits would disappear and we'd be left only with the disembodied masks, which still look funky and touriste, but are still a vast improvement over what we have here. Still, the narrative works AS narrative. There are some improbabilities (Knuckles just happening to be in the right place at the right time to K.O. Nack), but nothing too severe. And no matter how unexplained and ridiculous it looked, the finale with the Walkers actually worked for me. It hinted that there's a lot more going on in this little universe than what happens to Sonic and Knuckles and Robotnik directly. I miss that about the book nowadays. Biggest complaint: the breakdown in communication between Gallagher and Manak concerning whether Sonic was in the trunk or the back seat of Nack's vehicle. Head Score: 7. EYE: Back in the days, Gallagher and Manak were a team. Still are, as a matter of fact. But Manak's work here, while it suits Sonic's zone scooting and Nack's stalking and even Robotnik's bumbling, is all wrong when it gets to the Ancient Walkers segments. I'll grant that it's a first try, and his drawing of the Walkers for the Tails miniseries was much improved, but it still falls short. Eye Score: 7. HEART: Pretty basic stuff: Will Sonic escape a watery doom? Will Knuckles survive the encounter with the Ancient Walkers? Is the Pope Catholic? That sort of thing. The lightness of tone kept me from taking it too seriously, though the idea of the Chaos explosion worked for me. Still, not a heavy-duty effort, and I suppose that's the way Gallagher/Manak planned it. Heart Score: 5. "Submersible Rehearsal" Story: Mike Gallagher; Art: Art Mawhinney; Ink: Rich Koslowski; Color: Barry Grossman; Lettering: Mindy Eisman. The good news: Rotor has cobbled together a submarine for Tails's use. The bad news: it's not a WORKING model. On orders from Sally, Rotor didn't put any "oil" in it. So the only fumes we see come from Tails, who resents being treated like a junior partner. His righteous indignation is interrupted, however, by the appearance of a nameless, slicked-up seagull, as loaded down with exposition as he is with oil. Tails scrapes the oil from the bird, adds it to the Sea Fox, and it starts right up! I don't think the same trick would have solved my home heating problems, though. Anyway, Tails pilots the ship down to the underwater roboticizer and his encounter with an ineffectual Octobot (who'd get a lot more serious in the Tails miniseries). Tails destroys the roboticizer by torpedoing it. Let's see: to be on the safe side, Sally ordered that the crankcase be drained of oil but there are working torpedoes in the tubes; makes PERFECT sense! HEAD: At five pages, it's a perfect fit for what Mike wants to accomplish here: set up the forthcoming Tails miniseries by establishing both the existence of the Sea Fox and foreshadowing Tails's attitude. The "oil" business was a stretch; I mean, there's fuel oil and there's lube oil and there's the plain old crude that sea birds usually get slimed with when a tanker runs aground. But overall the story does what it set out to do, without loosening the continuity so much that its pants fall down around its ankles. Head Score: 7. ART: Mawhinney, that is. That says it all. This is cute with depth, not just surface cute, and Tails looks just as good doing a slow burn. Too bad Frank Gagliardo had yet to take on the coloring chores. Eye Score: 9. HEART: Mike Gallagher knows how to swing at the pitches when he has to, but here he didn't have any follow-through. Both here and in the Tails miniseries, he ends up merely toying with the notion that Tails is capable of experiencing an actual (Dare I say it?) emotion: specifically, resentment at being treated like a kid just because he's, well, a kid! In the miniseries it literally served to bookend the story; it appears once at the beginning and once at the end and that's all (though it was also used as a subtext for Tails's drawing of his own superhero comic, the linking device for the three installments). It's a great notion, but Gallagher really doesn't know what to do with it. Here, he almost blows the whole deal when in the last panel Tails tells the nameless gull that he's going to "tell the other Freedom Fighters about this adventure." And that would've jazzed the premise for the miniseries. Mike's since found his footing by writing some excellent Sonic Kids stories (and when are we going to see any of THOSE again?), but here the emotional element is quickly shoved to the background so we can commence with the action. Hearty Score: 5. "First Contact" Story: Ken Penders; Art: Ken Penders; Ink: Jon D'Agostino; Color: Barry Grossman; Lettering: Mindy Eisman. After rescuing Vector's sorry hide, Knuckles notes the name "Archimedes" burned into a nearby rock. Knuckles wonders who Archimedes is, and it's only since we've learned that he's a fire ant that this plot point makes sense. After stopping to chat with Catweazle (yet another character who never got properly developed), Knuckles gets fire-bombed by whatever that flame- throwing bot is that napalms Angel Island in the Sonic 3 game. The attack convinces Knux that Robotnik is behind this: "I'll bet it's him! I'll bet he's back! And I also bet he's this Archimedes!" Wrong on all counts, as it turns out. Stay away from Las Vegas, Knuckles. In a change of games, Knuckles then encounters the (for lack of a better name) lumberjack bot from the Mushroom Hill Zone of Sonic and Knuckles. After dispatching him, Knuckles then falls through a hole in the ground and into the Chaos Chamber where the unseen yet very-much-heard Archimedes plays with Knuckles's head. Knuckles thinks about the encounter and gets a headache. HEAD: Not much going on here, for all the action involved. Ken's main concern is to get to the Knuckles miniseries that was itself a prelude to the Knuckles comic line. He's basically vamping at this point, keeping Knuckles off-guard and trying to set up our expectations as to who or what Archimedes is. The action doesn't so much flow from the story as it interrupts it, which I guess is an occupational hazard of doing a comic story of this type. Head Score: 5. EYE: I dunno. The art looks OK, but that's about the best I can say for it. Some of the set pieces look good, such as the conclusion where Vector runs into Knuckles sitting at the edge of the island puzzling out the latest developments. Come to think of it, Ken used the same motif more than once in the Knuckles books, such as at the end of K16's "Reunions." But there's nothing eye-popping here. Eye Score: 6. HEART: About the only emotional involvement is sharing Knuckles's frustration that the mystery of who and what Archimedes is still hasn't been played out. Vector and Catweazel are just sort of along for the ride and don't add much to the situation. Heart Score: 5.