Drop your chads and demand a recount, it's THE 2000 SONIC THE HEDGEHOG BEST-WORST LIST Yes, it's that time of year when we find out who survived and who got voted off the Floating Island. Help yourself to some fried rat while we look at the contestants: Sonic #81-91 Sonic Specials #12-15 The categories will have to be retooled come next year, as the demise of the Sonic Specials just about eliminates any venue for single issue stories outside of the realm of fanfic. But for the moment... BEST SINGLE ISSUE STORY: "Zone Wars: Giant Robotno" (SSS12) With a vast reluctance, I have to give the nod to the story that infuriated me when I first read it, one which still leaves a sour taste in my mouth but which ironically is the most memorable piece of writing for the year. Dan Slott's dark, fatalistic zone story turns everyone's favorite Freedom Fighters into decidedly unappealing mutations. Nor is Sonic spared a grim fate as Slott contrives to have him commit patricide-by-proxy. Despite these controversial elements (certainly not BECAUSE of them), Dan Slott proves his mettle as a writer. Up until now, the zone plot has been merely an excuse to perpetrate some lame- brained story idea that would have had no other reason for existence (c.f. "Law of the Land," SSS14). Slott's storytelling is clear and concise, there are no lapses in logic (aside from the Ninja Science Team Gatchaman bit in the beginning) and the story's climax carries the force of a blunt instrument. But what does it say when the top honor goes to someone who's NOT a regular writer for the Sonic comic? To be fair, the regular writers (Ken Penders, Karl Bollers, even Mike Gallagher) were preoccupied with other things this past year so maybe it's not surprising that the prize goes to a ringer. And to a story I didn't even end up LIKING! But to quote Zonic: "I've got no choice it's my sworn duty." WORST SINGLE ISSUE STORY: "Naugus Games" (SSS15) The market for single issue Sonic stories is diminishing rapidly now that the Specials have folded and continuing story arcs take over the last remaining Sonic title. Even in the Specials this past year, many of the stories were crossovers to the action in the main book: all of Special #13 was part of the Sonic Adventure arc, and "The Best of Times, The Worst of Times" in SSS14 served as prologue to the current Knuckles back story arc. So that left precious few candidates to choose from. "Turnabout Heroes" was a quick little nothing that ended up back where it started. Mike Gallagher's "Sonic Spin City" was, behind the Frank Miller trappings, routine at best. "Law of the Land" had a clever idea in there somewhere. But there was NO saving grace, in Heaven or Earth, that could have redeemed Ken Penders' "Naugus Games." Like "Turnabout Heroes" (which he co-wrote with Karl Bollers), this story accomplished absolutely nothing. It was Ken's way of resurrecting Naugus as a series villain. Too bad he couldn't have been resurrected as a CREDIBLE villain. For a self-proclaimed "master of the elements," he doesn't seem to know what to do with them. A couple fireballs and a cheesily-rendered snowstorm were the extent of his bag of tricks. Then Sonic flashes a power ring, says "Take a hike!" and Naugus complies. I haven't seen a villain cave in so quickly and completely since Mammoth Mogul in his disastrous debut, "Don't Let The Island Hit You On The Way Down" (Mecha Madness Special). Once again, I defer to a line from Sonic in the story to sum up my feelings: "Aw, who cares?" BEST STORY ARC: "Heart of the Hedgehog" (S86-87) The Triumph of the Ringers continues with Danny Fingeroth's two-parter. Superficially, this looked like it would be a reprise of the previous story, "The Big Payback" (S85), wherein Sonic does battle with a Sonic bot. What's the difference between this two-parter and Bollers' effort? You know the song by now: Light Behind The Eyes. Fingeroth's Metal Sonic is not only far more of an opponent to reckon with than Naugus was in "Naugus Games," he has loads more personality to boot. Silver Sonic's reliance on hip-cool jargon is merely a way to impose a personality on Silver Sonic; basically he's a Sonic-killing machine. The whole point of "Heart of the Hedgehog," OTOH, is to demonstrate that the Tin Man does indeed have a heart: that Metal Sonic could be influenced by Tails's willingness to risk his own hide in Sonic's defense. And speaking of Sonic and Tails, they're WAY more alive here than in just about any other story so far this year (S89's "Thicker Than Water" being a notable exception). For all the homage paid to Sonic and Tails being best buds, Fingeroth is just about the only author who's attempted to DO something with that particular plot point. Sonic's protectiveness of the little guy, which seems so natural as portrayed here, has never been played to its advantage. And Tails' fierce devotion to Sonic hasn't really been showcased to this extent since Mike Gallagher's "That's The Spirit" (S20!). Fingeroth had worked in the big league (Marvel) before executing this gem-like arc, and it shows. WORST STORY ARC: "Sonic Adventure" (S79-84...or is it 85?) It takes a LOT of people working together behind the scenes to pull off something this monumentally confused and confusing, so let's name names: KEN PENDERS and KARL BOLLERS labored on the script. Or should I say "scripts"? Somehow, the gears never truly meshed with the Knuckles and Sonic stories the way they did in the game. And the mindless digressions to Station Square (pointlessly rechristened "The Hidden City of the Ancients") and the Mysterious Cat Country didn't help matters any. To be fair, the two writers had plenty of help. THE GAME DEVELOPERS, who were either hopelessly paranoid or else had never heard of a little thing called a "Confidentiality Agreement," decided that they wouldn't cut loose with a copy of the game's story line until they felt like it. Rather than push back the deadline for the series, however, the writers forged gamely ahead, relying on PAT SPAZIANTE who supplied them with notes from his playing of the Japanese game. Too bad Pat's Japanese language skills didn't match his gaming prowess. If they had, he could have gotten a clue as to the game's rather compelling back story. It had to do with the motivation for Tikal's befriending of the Chao and of Chaos, of her opposition to the warmongering imperialism of her father, and of her fate as the "heart" of Chaos. Instead, we get the goofy subplots already cited, a jumble of plot points as Ken and Karl try shoving what they eventually learned about the back story into S83's "Menace To Society," topped off by an inability to spell Tikal's name correctly! The description of "Menace" as "a tale of turmoil" only hints at the chaos that must have gone on behind the scenes to bring this misbegotten project to some kind of completion, however unsatisfactory. BEST COVER ART: Sonic #82 To Pat Spaziante's credit, he did excellent cover work for the Sonic Adventure series. Though the covers for S83 and S84 form an interesting diptych, with Sonic, Tails, Knuckles and Super Sonic facing off against Perfect Chaos, the cover with Sonic about to go one-on-one with Chaos Zero is extremely well- done, except for the fact that Sonic's open mouth looks a little funky but I won't count that against him. It's clear, uncluttered and forceful. WORST COVER ART: Sonic Super Special #14 This cover, however, is a visual mess. Pat Spaziante's given us seven characters with no clear relationship to each other in either a narrative or a compositional sense. They're all thrown onto the cover in the hope that in the end something will stick. It doesn't. BEST STORY ART: Fry, "Thicker Than Water" (S89); HONORABLE MENTION: Sam Maxwell, "Heart of the Hedgehog" (S86-87) While in the midst of marshaling a defense of the artwork in Sonic Special #15, Fry reverted to smart-aleck mode and said at one point: "What the heck, I just draw 'em." A story like "Thicker Than Water" demonstrates that he does more than that. He was able to deliver not only in the exquisite concluding splash page, but also in the smaller moments that may have escaped attention the first time around, such as the last panel on page 5 where Rosie places a hand on the head of one of the children Mina had been babysitting. Sally on the bridge, Elias, Sonic's parents, are all rendered with feeling that's usually missing from the book. Where the writers are too often hog-tied by Editorial and thus unable to communicate feeling in their scripts, an artist has to be able to take up the emotional slack, however subtly. And Fry managed it. Sam Maxwell's art, meanwhile, has taken a quantum leap in quality from the past. His backgrounds, which in some stories were mere outlines, have taken on more detail. And his arcs of molten lava are masterfully executed. But it always comes down to the rendering of characters, and with only three characters to work with (Sonic, Tails, Metal) he brings out the best in each one. Tails, though a little frizzy, shows his age and a measure of the vulnerability that comes along with being ten years old. Even Metal displays a wider emotional range than some other characters in some other comics. If Archie needs back-up artists because they've screwed up the production schedule, they could do worse than bringing Maxwell back as a semi-regular. How much worse? WORST STORY ART: "Many Hands," "Naugus Games" (SSS15) Who let THIS dog out? As funky as the anonymous Diamond Rose Studio artists made Rotor and his family look in "Home and Back" (S85), you at least got the sense that they TRIED! That's not the case with what even now has become a legendary addition to the Sonic canon. This is art work so bad that...well, you don't even need me to tell you. Here are the conclusions reached by other fans: "Point blank - SSS15 is without a doubt THE WORST piece and/or example of sequential artwork I have ever had the displeasure of owning in my sad misbegotten life. There is no way you can defend this. There is no way you can even TOUCH this with a 10 Foot Pole...I'm not a professional artist yet. I never claimed I was. But I know a big steamy pile of monkey doo when I see it - and this, was a big steamy pile of ELEPHANT doo. ... If you see this book, unless you're a completist(and if you are, doubt its existence) - run away. Flail your arms, pull out your pepper spray, and scream like a baby. If you see SSS15 - RUN AND HIDE from it like it was the black plague lest it attack and kill you smothering you in its fake white snow." [Jonathan Gray] "...this mockery of quality production...." [Emerald-Echidna] "I've seen some of the art in that comic[;] believe me... that art really sux." [Mary Echidna] Some fans have tried to guess who should get the credit/blame for which pages. I'm not even going to attempt a guess. Instead, I want to shift the focus off the creatives and onto Editorial. Since decamping to the Left Coast and becoming a part of the Sega payroll, Justin Gabrie has been functioning as "Editor/Art Director" for a comic which has its editorial offices on the other side of the country. Certainly, in ONE of his designated capacities, he had the authority to recognize an abomination when he saw it and to call a halt. But he didn't. Neither did Victor Gorelick. Which leads me to ask: Who REALLY edits Sonic the Hedgehog? And just what do they consider "editing" to be, anyway? Justin's editorial duties, as I understand them, primarily involve making sure that something with words and pictures reaches the printers by deadline. For a different perspective on the editing process, I turn to a 22-page pamphlet I received in December along with my book contract. The fact that my publisher needed to send me a 22-page pamphlet to explain a 15-page contract would surely warm the heart of Sally McAcorn from "Law Of The Land"; I rather doubt that Prosecutor Johnny Snively even HAS a heart. I quote: In Item 66 you give us the opportunity to edit your manuscript. We employ both line editors and copy editors, who ply their skills on manuscripts. The line editor will follow your logic, thinking your thoughts after you, and correcting obvious syntactical and grammatical problems. The line editor will consciously try to preserve your literary "voice" but will smooth off the rough edges. Our goal is to convince readers of your skill as an author. We want readers to say, after reading your book, "Wow! What a wonderful author!" The copy editors are technicians who delve into the fine points of spelling, punctuation, grammar, syntax, and verification. We hire them to be nitpickers, sticklers for detail. They make us all look good. It's pretty obvious, though, that "Naugus Games" failed to make Sonic the Hedgehog, Sega, Ken Penders, Archie Comics, or even the comic book industry as a whole look good, and the readers were left saying, after reading this story, "Wow! What a piece of crap!" Whatever constitutes the editing process at Archie Comics clearly broke down big time. Justin and the people in Mamaroneck are supposed to be professionals. They're supposed to do this sort of thing for a living, even though they're dealing with comic books and not serious fiction. Yet in all my years of Sonic fandom I've lost count of the spelling errors, grammatical errors, factual errors, lapses in logic, and just plain careless mistakes that any conscientious editor, line or copy, would have dealt with before the finished product saw the light of day. At times, in fact, Editorial has ended up compounding the confusion; the most blatant example was Justin Gabrie's off-hand statement in the "Fistful of Letters" column of Knuckles #24 that there was a five year age difference between Sally and Elias. He promptly apologized when the fans pointed out that what he was saying was impossible, but this is the sort of thing that an Editor is supposed to prevent, not perpetrate! I'm not saying that anyone at Archie should be sacked as a result of "Naugus Games," but a serious reconsideration of the job descriptions for the editors might be in order. BEST NEW CHARACTER: Metal Sonic True, he's not a "new" character and thanks to Danny Fingeroth's script he won't be back. But he was certainly the freshest breath of air that blew through the comic last year. The Mysterious Country Cats were visually impressive but impenetrable. Tikal and Big showed promise but were never properly exploited. And Mina is in the process of being retooled. But Metal, as I've said, shows more personality than even some of the series regulars were allowed to display. Fingeroth's writing takes the malevolent mechanism to a whole new level of villain: one that can hold his own with Sonic quip for quip, and who can even outdo the Blue Blur when the occasion calls for it. He certainly proved to be far more formidable a foe that Naugus. There are plenty of villains so poorly realized and executed I wish they would just go away: Naugus, Mammoth Mogul, Downtown Ebony Hare. The Sonic landscape is littered with them. But I think I'm actually going to miss Metal Sonic. WORST NEW CHARACTER: Mayor Bullyani As if he didn't have enough troubles in 2000 what with pulling the plug on his Senatorial campaign because of his disintegrating marriage and a diagnosis of prostate cancer, New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani also had the misfortune of being depicted as a nonentity in a comic book. Whereas Danny Fingeroth worked to invest Metal Sonic with a personality, a heart and a soul, Karl Bollers' "Mayor Bullyani" of the Sonic Adventure arc is all wind-up and no pitch. You'd think that with as obvious a name as that there's be SOME attempt at satire, some little dig, some sly wink to the source material. Instead the Mayor of Station Square is pretty square himself. He's yet one more two- legged plot device brought in like Nate Morgan on so many occasions to provide a line or two of exposition, some little crumb to appease the fans and/or disentangle the plot, then to drop out of sight because he is at heart inconsequential to the story. This makes me wonder why he was brought in at all. Much to Mayor Giuliani's good fortune (and no doubt the chagrin of Sega and Archie Comics), he probably never even saw this cardboard cutout that fails on the levels of caricature and narrative. BEST DIALOGUE: Sonic: "Look! Something is breaking through the fake sky!" ["Menace To Society," S83] WORST DIALOGUE: Kodos, to Uma Arachnis as she stands right in front of him holding the Sword of Acorns in plain sight: "Did you get it?" ["Crash!", S91] BEST IDEA: N/A WORST IDEA: Fast Women In an attempt to keep the readers on their toes, or simply to wake them up from their Sonic Adventure-induced slumber, the writers have fallen back on one of those cliched plot twists common to serialized comic book stories: "Change partners!" Thus Sonic will be paired with Mina for an unspecified period of time and Sally will keep company with Geoffrey St. John. This move has gotten the fans talking, and not all that they're saying is complimentary. But after thinking long and hard about this plot development I realize that there's really no harm in this reorientation of the Sonicverse. There's no harm because there's also no point. After all, you can summarize the Sonic/Sally relationship to date in two words: "What relationship?" Remember, this is an Archie Comic we're talking about, where superficial interpersonal relations is the house style! And when since Endgame (or at least Endgame, Take Two) has anything approaching seriousness entered into the Sonic/Sally pairing? Sonic and Sally's parting in "Back to Basics" (S57) had a certain charm about its adolescent awkwardness, but otherwise it was so low-keyed it practically never happened. And their reunion in "Surprise!" (S68) was even worse. Since then, both Sonic and Sally have logged more time with their parents than with each other, and the only excuse Sonic's been given to take Sally in his arms has been to pick her up off the floor after she'd gotten clobbered in "A Day In The Life" (S69). Other than that, nothing. So I'm not that freaked by the prospect of Sonic and Mina keeping company. Face it, nothing's going to come of it no matter how hard the creatives try. The deck is stacked against them. What DOES freak me out, however, is the forced, heavy- handed way Karl chose to forge their relationship: by giving Mina speed equal to Sonic's in "Sword of Omens" (S91). Fry maintained that Karl Bollers did this to "surprise" the fans. Personally, I think the word "shock" was more applicable. I've got nothing against surprises, so long as they make sense. And this move didn't. Writers simply can't toss off a plot point and assume that the audience will accept it. With something this monumental, the audience needs convincing. Granted there hasn't been any convincing explanation given in the comics as to why SONIC is the fastest thing alive. The best anyone's been able to come up with by way of explanation is that he was born with it and that he manifested that ability early on. But this was a given even before Sonic #0 rolled off the press. It was inherent in the game world and thus the fans had no quarrel with it. Mina's speed, however, just sort of kicked in. One of the implications (in yet one more rip-off of a comic book convention) is that this is one of those things that happens after puberty, like the abilities of the X-Men or Sabrina's magic powers (though THAT seems to have been finessed for the sake of making her spin- off comic and TV series believable/marketable). And Ron Lim's art didn't help matters any. Of all the artists to be on call when this plot development was dropped into the mix, why Ron Lim? Why did Archie go with one of their more mediocre talents, one who's never displayed any serious ability at subtlety and emotion? The artwork in this case had to help convince the readers of the unconvincing: that Sonic had just lost the title of Fastest Thing Alive to Mina. And it's something Mina herself didn't even plan on! And to justify it we get one or two thought balloons and art work that doesn't begin to convey the shock Mina must have felt when she realized what was happening. Anyone who remembers the story arc in Greg Evans' comic strip "Luann" where she gets her first period knows that there are some things you simply can't deal with in a handful of frames in the context of an already-crowded action story. So on top of the nature of what happened, IMHO Karl and Ron handled this development all wrong. And what's really galling about all this is that Mina was on her way toward being developed into a credible, sympathetic character in her own right without resorting to ANY kind of gimmick. Here's what we knew about her going into S91: she's the sole survivor of her family, after the rest had been captured and roboticized. She's a sympathetic, resilient character (as attested by her being willing and able to help Rosie with looking after the younger Mobians) with a certain amount of toughness as demonstrated by her desire to take on Robotnik herself (which also testifies to a certain unwillingness to think things through, but never mind). That's an awful LOT for a character who's come in as late and made as few appearances as she has. Giving Mina speed like Sonic's does nothing to enhance her character and only succeeds in devaluing Sonic himself. His speed made him unique; now, that's off the table. If she'd been introduced as a playable character by Sega that would have been justification enough for the readers. I think they would have accepted that. Mina's sudden ability to pour on the juice was absolutely arbitrary and looked for all the world like a cheap way for Karl to get out of a corner into which he'd written himself. But someone in their infinite wisdom figured they needed a short-cut to establish a "relationship" between Sonic and Mina, and made the unfortunate decision to invest her with Sonic-like speed for no other reason. Remember how one of the duties of a line editor implied in the quote above is to follow the author's logic? There IS none here! THAT'S what's honked off the fans! All I can say is, Karl Bollers had better have a pretty darn good explanation for what could be the biggest bonehead move since the Sonic and Tails Around The World Exercise In Futility.