Duck and cover, everybody, it's: The Sonic the Hedgehog Best/Worst List for 1997 It has been quite a year, hasn't it? So let's crawl out of the rubble, shake the dust off our clothes, and take a look back. This appraisal covers the following issues: Sonic #45-56 Knuckles #1-9 Sonic the Hedgehog: Sonic Blast Sonic v. Knuckles: Battle Royal Sonic the Hedgehog: Brave New World I have decided NOT to include "Sonic: Firsts" as it is simply a reprinting of stories which appeared many years ago. Also, I have resisted the urge to include the "NiGHTS Into Dreams" miniseries simply because it has nothing to do with Sonic; besides, it won't wrap up until 1998 anyway. Once again, please keep in mind that these are my personal observations and everyone probably has a different take on things. So, let's do it to it: Best Single Issue Story: "Brave New World" by Ken Penders The Knuckles stories, unfortunately, are out of the running in this category since to date we have only read story arcs running three issues at least. Also, a sizable chunk of the Sonic comics this year were consumed by the Endgame arc. Yet even with such a diminished field of contenders, "Brave New World" stood out. Archie Comics has finally, even if momentarily, "got it." Over the years they've ground out story after story where some device of Robotnik's was defeated. Which was all well and good but these stories tended (with a few exceptions) to be light on the character development. Ken Penders managed to blend the two in a way that worked. We witnessed the characters we care about going through some heavy changes quite apart from the action of the story. We caught a fleeting glimpse of their hearts and souls as Sonic ran from the roboticized parents whose existence had been kept from him and as the usually capable Princess Sally let herself be overwhelmed by the task of reconstruction and cried herself to sleep alone. These small moments count for more than flashy action sequences that span several pages because they make the world of Sonic real and more compelling to the readers. And THAT is how the artists and writers are supposed to keep the readers coming back for more. Worst Single Issue Story: "Battle Royal" by Kent Taylor and Ken Penders As usual, there were more than enough contenders for THIS title. Mike Gallagher's "Guerrilla Thriller" (Sonic #45) laid early claim with its ridiculous script (where Mobie the "Cave Bear" was brought into the story for the sole purpose of falling asleep halfway through his appearance), and Kent Taylor's "Immortality is Forever..." or whatEVER (#56) featured dialogue so overwritten and action so muddled it too was under serious consideration. But I have NEVER read a story that drove me so close to abandoning Sonic fandom altogether than Kent Taylor and Ken Penders' "Battle Royal." I came away from this...thing...feeling like I'd been deliberately run over by a truck! I STILL hate it, mostly for Kent and Ken's cynical denouement. There were a hundred other ways that they could have kept the Sword of Acorns plotline going, and it feels like they simply decided to go with the most infuriating. I appreciate a good surprise ending, but this was one I actually resented. It reminded me of all those low-budget, nihilistic horror movies that were cranked out in the early Seventies: no style, no originality, and usually the Devil (or whatever the evil entity was) won! "Battle Royal" went on for two dozen pages and got absolutely nowhere. Best Mutiple Issue Story or Miniseries: "Lost Paradise", Knuckles 4-6 This was the series that gave the Knuckles books its own firm reality, one it has yet to trade away (fortunately). Instead of simply serving up a villain du jour, we've got miles of texture in the narrative, an extremely compelling premise (the shuffling of two dimensions together like a deck of cards), and loads of new characters who aren't just villains and who have lots of breakout potential. Lara-Le, Constable Remington, General Stryker...each one of these characters is rich enough in their own right; seen in the context of the Knuckles line, each could easily support a three-issue miniseries by themselves. This REALLY gives the reader something to look forward to. Worst Mutiple Issue Story or Miniseries: "Endgame," Sonic 47-50 I KNOW it wasn't supposed to be this way. Ken Penders didn't set out to write a powerful story that degenerated into confusion with occasional sidetrips into stupidity and that by the time it wrapped up had abandoned any attempt at logic or credibility. I'm not in the habit of quoting Margaret Thatcher, but she once said something to the effect that "History counts for more than intentions" and now that "Endgame" is history it's clear that its good intentions were subverted and the results speak for themselves. The arc certainly had a troubled history, starting with the ambitious objective of trashing the continuity Archie's artists and writers had inherited from the extremely successful Saturday morning cartoon. Turning their back on such a legacy was the first step down the road to disaster. From there the story slid into multiple hands with no apparent direction. By that standard alone "Endgame" came close to being a train wreck of Biblical proportions. Robotnik may be gone (perhaps only temporarily) but at what cost? Consider the amount of Damage Control that's followed the story. Not only was the need felt to review the ENTIRE arc in "First Contact" (and it only took two pages!), but the Return of the King Special will feature the account of how Bunnie and Antoine escaped from Crocbot's clutches in Downunda. This subplot was one of the more obvious casualties of "Endgame" having ended up on the cutting room floor. Despite "judicious editing" the subplot came off like the worst hack writing the first time around ("Well, once we escaped from the dungeon...."). The fact that Archie is STILL picking up the pieces tells me that this story's reach surely exceeded its grasp. Best cover art: Sonic #52 In an age when colorization of just about anything that ISN'T in color is taken for granted, Pat Spaziante has demonstrated how powerful black-and-white (though I guess it's called "grayscale" nowadays) can still be. This is simply terrific use of "monochrome" (though actually a range of grays) to set the mood. Spaziante puts everything into the single character of Sonic and comes up with an extremely dynamic design; note the parallel diagonals formed by his hat brim, watch chain, and trenchcoat belt. Even without Sonic's trademark blue color, Sonic loses nothing here, least of all his attitude. Quite simply, it works! Worst Cover Art: Sonic #49 A kind of sickness infected the worst Sonic covers in 1997; I call it "PaintShop Fever." It is characterized by realizing that covers can be scanned into a PC loaded with PaintShop or some other artistic software, and those covers can then be manipulated in a million ways, none of which apparently need to make sense. Like a kid with a new toy, the artist wants to try every possible new gadget, including transparencies and soft focus. These were almost all on display in the cover of Sonic #51, but they didn't sabotage that cover as badly as Spaziante's single drawing that brought down the cover of #49. As I said in my original review, Dulcy looks constipated. That one figure undermined the entire composition, draining it of seriousness and bringing down the cover design to the level of a joke. A close runner-up in the Bad Joke Department was the "Preview" cover for Sonic #51, which featured Sally wearing Hershey camouflage to fool the die-hards who always read the preview media. Only in this case, the joke was on the fans. Best Story Art: TIE: Art Mawhinney, "Taking The Fall": Endgame, Part 1, Sonic 47 /Manny Galan, "The Gauntlet," Knuckles 8 This was probably the worst assignment of Art Mawhinney's career: selling the death of Princess Sally. The emotional impact of the sequence was such that one misstep and NOBODY would have stayed around to see how Endgame turned out! If Mawhinney had been let in on the joke of Sally's impending (and improbable) resurrection, he never let on. He had to portray strong emotion despite the fact that Archie's policy toward such things never let him cut loose and get seriously operatic about it. Yet the layout of page 9 as a whole is as powerful as the panels themselves. The images of the dying Sally on subsequent pages are hauntingly effective, and the composition at the bottom of page 18 is masterful. It all came together as one of the defining moments of the Sonic comics in 1997. It was also the year that Manny Galan definitively found his metier; after punting his drawings of Sonic et al., he's become the MASTER of the Knuckles Universe! The two panels depicting the shifting between echidna and dingo realities in the "Lost Paradise" arc were brilliant. Yet even as cool as that was, the splash page from Knuckles #8 (page 18) is just about perfect from a design point of view -- the figure of Knuckles in freefall forms the diagonal that carries the reader's eye along. Only the misspelling of "there" mars the entire page. Worst Story Art: Sam Maxwell, "Battle Royal"/Dishonorable Mention: Dave Manak and Jay Oliveras, "Guerrilla Thriller" (Sonic 45) This was Sam Maxwell's first foray into the Sonic comics as an illustrator, and he apparently suffered from a case of beginner's luck--all bad! Most of his characters were extremely off-model, even for a newcomer, and his backgrounds in many cases look as if they were simply tossed off in haste. An article on Sam Maxwell in an issue of Sonic-Grams Extra lists the Rasta movement as one of the influences in his life; if Sam had been wasted on ganja at the time he drew "Battle Royal" it's hard to see how it could have been any worse. His artwork HAS improved since then -- he proved himself capable of excellent comprehension of gesture in "Sounds of Silence" (#53) -- but with "Battle Royal" he made a horrible first impression. And WHAT excuse could Archie possibly offer for the artwork in "Guerrilla Thriller"? The inking has to stand as some of the worst in the history of comic books! The only charitable explanation is that Jay Oliveras was under such deadline pressure that he erased much of his own inking when he was cleaning up the pages. Not that Dave Manak (who announced in 1997 that he is moving on and will no longer illustrate Sonic stories) helped matters any; his drawings have never been uglier and his proportions at times were simply crazy. This is hardly the legacy he would have wanted to leave behind -- "Court Martial" (Sonic 40) demonstrated that he could have adapted to the sea-change in the Sonic comics as they moved closer to the Saturday morning continuity and away from the syndicated look of things. Not the farewell performance it should have been. Best New Character: La Femme Echidna Many of the new characters introduced in 1997 in the Knuckles books (Remington, Lara-Le, Stryker) have needed time to "find their voices" and register with the readers as having distinct personalities. ONE character, however, didn't have that problem. Practically from the moment she was introduced in Knuckles 1, Julie-Su was about as subtle as a Beethoven symphony! Hers is an incredibly strong personality who still never slips into being disagreeable. Whereas Sally was also strong but kept a certain coolness about her (as might befit an heir to the throne), Julie-Su was more action-oriented than even Sonic at times, and wasn't prepared to back down for an instant. Yet she's even let her mask slip at times to show signs of vulnerability. And how could I NOT like someone with those big, violet eyes? Worst New Character: Fightin' Sergeant Antoine with Action Accessories!!! (from: "The Map", in Sonic v. Knuckles: Battle Royal) OK, he may not be a new character in the strict sense of the term, but he certainly bears little resemblence to the Antoine that the readers have come to know from the TV series. Even when the TV show was on the air, I didn't care for Antoine all that much because (more often than not) he didn't have any character to speak of; he was simply a raw nerve. Well, Tom Rolston gave him a makeover for "The Map." As makeovers go, this one is a stunning failure. NOTHING about him even hinted that he could qualify as an action hero, neither his stature nor his character. And speaking of stature, the ridiculously long legs he suddenly acquired from Dave Manak don't help matters. He ends up being about as plausible, and plastic, as a toy commando. Like Monkey Khan (whom he beat out easily in this category), he seems to want to upstage the recognizable regulars with his feats of derring-do. But the WORST of it is that the few endearing traits that Antoine possessed were tossed on the trash heap. His treatment of Bunnie is totally out of character and absolutely uncalled for, especially if these two are supposed to be "an item" in the future. Mere chivalry (which is obviously something important to him) would have dictated that he treat Bunnie with much more courtesy. I may not know much anatomy, but I do know that you don't have to cut a character's heart out to give him a backbone. "Countdown to Armageddon" (Sonic 46) hinted at how to properly install an Antoine upgrade; Rolston and Manak should have consulted it before foisting THIS Antoine upon us, an experience I trust will NOT be repeated. Best New Idea: It's a Family Affair (Sonic and Knuckles meet the 'rents) Film critic Roger Ebert has, on several occasions, wondered out loud why so many films for children, live and animated, depend on the loss of a parent for their plots. The answer seems simple enough: kids haven't lived long enough to develop an emotional stake in abstracts such as saving the world, finding the Ark of the Covenant, or uncovering a fortune in gold. The biggest emotional hook for children (whether they admit it or not) is not treasure and power so much as the parent-child bond. Therefore in many children's films (especially the ones that also work for us grown-ups) that bond is either threatened (Dumbo, Secret of NIMH), actually severed by death (Lion King, Land Before Time -- the first and best one), or in some way healed (E.T.). Introducing the parents of Sonic AND Knuckles really shifts the templates. Sonic no longer exists merely to fight against the Robotnik wanna-bes; he has an emotional stake in what happens to someone other than the kids he grew up with in Knothole. As for Knuckles, his interactions with his mother promise to elevate him above the merely mechanical fulfillment of his Guardian responsibilities. This development gives them an emotional context for their actions--if Sega will allow it! Worst New Idea: Tag Team writing and illustrating (Endgame, esp. Part 4) In what had to be a monumentally poor choice of words, Ken Penders described the death of Princess Sally as "a kick in the teeth" for the readers. Well, the reader of "Endgame" GOT a kick in the teeth, followed by a folding chair across the back of the head and a moonsault from the top rope. And when it was all over the reader staggered out of the ring in a daze after having been declared the winner by disqualification because Archie had so many illegal men in the squared circle. Don't you just LOVE professional wrestling analogies? "Endgame" might have succeeded if ONE writer and illustrator had handled it as a conventional story arc. Instead, after the strong opening by Ken Penders and Art Mawhinney, Ken collaborated in Part 2 with Kent Taylor while Manny Galan did the artwork; in Part 3, Mike Gallagher teamed up with Ken to do the writing while Sam Maxwell did the artwork; and the ill-fated Part 4 turned out to be the REAL Battle Royal as EVERY Sonic writer and artist piled into the ring. Chaos was inevitable. Workable collaborations are OK; some of Ken Penders' best work was done in collaboration with Mike Kanterovich. THIS simply DIDN'T work! Justin Gabrie called it the "All-Star Jam" concept, but it felt like everybody showed up for this jam session with sheet music for different tunes. The result was noise and a splitting headache for the readers.