First things first: I'm sure Sonic fans everywhere extend their deepest sympathies to Richard Goldwater, editor-in-chief of both the Sonic and Knuckles books, on the death of John L. Goldwater who passed away on Friday, February 26, 1999. John Goldwater created the eternal adolescent from Riverdale, Archie Andrews, and founded Archie Comic Publications. Sonic #70 [May 1999] It Was A Dark And Stormy Spaz/Harvo Cover: Sonic and Elias take on Kodos while Arachnis prepares to drop in unannounced and Snively decides to sit this one out. "Saving Nate Morgan" Story: Karl Bollers; Art: Steve Butler; Ink: Pam Eklund; Lettering: Jeff Powell; Color: Frank Gagliardo; Editorial: G-Force. OK, so it WASN'T a smoke grenade. And if you're wondering why the title looks so...pedestrian, skip ahead to the Sonic-Grams. But I'll get to that in due time. Sally tells Sonic she feels OK except for where she got clobbered "at the back of neck" [sic]. Karl must've realized that a blow to the head with a hammer, even as improbable as the one Nack was wielding in the previous installment, might have been cause for a citation that he'd violated the Emulation Clause. It still did enough damage that Sally managed to forget to use a possessive pronoun in her sentence (where it should have read "at the back of MY neck"). Still, Karl gets an Attaboy for managing to use "whack" and "weasel" in the same sentence. Maybe when Sgt. Simian re-enters the story he'll be able to work "spank" and "monkey" into the same word balloon. Everybody appears to be OK but at first glance I thought that Amy Rose's arms had disappeared and Rotor looked like he's been taking steroids. Deer John's missus starts complaining about the place being a shambles because their insurance didn't cover being trashed by second-rate villains dressed like third-rate Cold War spies. Then again, you'd expect her to be concerned about the money since she only has one buck to call her own. Sonic is then given the deathless line: "Don't you understand? [Nate's] scientific skills make him a top secret ingredient or somethin'!" I'm going to say he's more like a "somethin'" than, say, a tub full of sodium benzoate or MSG. The group then heads off for the castle where Sally looks to confront a REAL pain in her neck, her father. Geoffrey and his crack team of underutilized extras (who are all wearing safety goggles for no discernable reason) are informing King Max of the demise of the escapees from the Devil's Island Gulag with the same certainty of the scout who reported to General Custer that he didn't see any Indians over by Little Big Horn. At that moment, Sonic and the gang show up with their arrow collection to politely beg to differ. Dr. Quack then shoves his bill in where it's not welcome with a way to try to resolve the conflicting stories; I still say a check of the D.I.G. motor pool inventory would have accounted for the third missing shuttle craft. Or am I just being too sensible about this? Prince Elias is showing some good sense himself by suggesting that they check out the land mass nearest to the prison. Before Sonic and the gang can do something about it, however, Max clips their collective wings by officially (and rather summarily) disbanding the Knothole Freedom Fighters. This raises a procedural question: can the King disband something that was never really banded? The Knothole crowd was never an officially sanctioned fighting force; rather, they started out as what Sonic would have referred to as a group of way-cool ten-year-olds doing something nobody else could do (least of all Max himself, who was still cooling his royal heels in the Void at the time). But you know how grown-ups are. So Max sends Geoffrey's team out instead. They arrive "many hours later" by sub; conveniently for the plot, portions of Mexico and Texas were washed off the map at some point. Geoffrey tries for a dramatic "Guns of Navarrone"-style entrance, which is deflated by Sonic's having gotten there first because he took a plane. Geoff tells Sonic he's got no business being there; personally, I think the commander is honked off because HE didn't think of taking a plane. Sonic and Geoffrey then argue over strategy, Geoffrey hoping that the bad guys will simply give up because he asks them to. Geoff also has a problem with the fact that Nate's an Overlander. Sonic's objection sets off yet one more grudge match between the two, effectively breaking the truce the two had established in "Brave New World." Geoffrey tries clobbering Sonic with an ornate hunting horn while Sonic executes an old-fashioned leg sweep. Before it goes much further, we get one of the uniformed soldiers giving the old "Save it for the enemy" speech. Geoffrey tries pulling rank on the grunt, whereupon what we had thought to be just a lowly extra takes off his helmet and demonstrates how pulling rank is really done. It's not a new scene, of course. Anyone familiar with the story of Robin Hood knows that at some point the nameless pilgrim making his way through Sherwood Forest on his way back from the Holy Land will be revealed to be none other than King Richard the Lion-Hearted finally returned from the Third Crusade. Still, I couldn't help giving Elias 10 on a scale of 10 for coolness in the way he took Geoffrey down a couple pegs. About the only thing missing was the reason why Elias came along for the ride. I doubt that this trip was Daddy's idea. In any event, it's good to see that Prince Elias is game; let's just see if he's GOT game. Inside the "old courthouse" Nate's just about to get axed by Kodos when Bomb bursts into the scene. Instead of going "Ping ping ping" as he did in "On His Majesty's Secret Service: Part 2" (S62), he gives a short countdown before...well, let's just say that what happens to the little guy is something to which too many of us males well beyond the age of the core audience can relate. So while Bomb waddles offstage looking for a drugstore where he can get his Viagra prescription refilled, Sonic and Geoffrey's squad charge ahead into... OK, that's it! I've had a problem with this satellite business ever since it came on the scene. It's the same thing, over and over, and it's been going on for the better part of half a year now! We all know that it's merely a tease to get everybody ready for the return of Robotnik -- you'd have to be as brain-dead as Queen Alicia not to have guessed it by now. And it's so ambiguous, with no hint of any cause-and-effect action at work. Did the first satellite bit have anything to do with the escape from the Devil's Island Gulag in S62? Does this month's sequence have anything to do with the awakening of the giant robo-squid on page 15? Nobody can say because Karl Bollers can't be bothered to connect the dots and make this sequence relate to the rest of the story. But now THIS! Of all the times we've been subjected to this sequence THIS has to be the WORST example of all! For Karl manages to insert it just as the good guys and bad guys are about to confront each other. Yeah, yeah, Karl, I saw "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" too. He actually ripped off one of the bits from the movie: when Arthur begins to cross the Bridge of Death amid dramatic soundtrack music and suspense, then the scene cuts away to sprightly organ music and an "Intermission" slide for five seconds before returning to the action. Only it was FUNNY when the Python boys did it! Here it just serves as an annoying interruption of the flow of the narrative and a reminder that this whole business with the satellite has become just a pointless distraction. We then get a fight sequence featuring Sonic karate-chopping Kodos's legs until they go numb (thanks to the blurring of Sonic my eyes went numb before Kodos's legs), and in a touching reunion with Drago Hershey is not only willing to reopen some old wounds but to inflict some new ones. Both Nate and Snively, meanwhile, seem to have shrunk to toddler size. Anyway, then the giant squid comes into the story only to last all of one page before Bomb finally manages to do his thing and make his physics-defying reappearance. As most of the bad guys are rounded up for return to "Gulag Island" (can't ANYBODY keep that name straight?), it appears that the core villains (Kodos, Arachnis, probably Snively and Predator Hawk at the very least) managed to escape in Sonic's plane. HEAD: As with the other long-time writers for Sonic, Karl Bollers has developed what is by now a recognizable style, with its own inherent strengths and weaknesses. By way of comparison: MIKE GALLAGHER, once known for writing short jokey stories, has proven that he's able to write simple and direct prose with engaging story lines, but he's more than occasionally hampered by temptations to commit atrocious punning and to rely on the most improbable scientific explanations ever to see print. These tendencies CAN be kept under control, and when they are (as in "When You And I Were Young, Sally," Sonic Kids special) the results can actually be delightful. KEN PENDERS is given to sweeping story arcs that can admit to real depth of character were he not hampered by an obsession with characters who keep secrets from each other resulting in the kind of frustration that borders on Idiot Plotting. If the members of the Brotherhood ever bothered to play straight with Knuckles and each other for five minutes at a stretch, the comic would be turned upside-down. And KARL BOLLERS has demonstrated that he, too, is a capable writer with a sensitivity to characters but with an unfortunate tendency to lose his grip on a story if he tries to do too much with it. Karl, in fact, seems to suffer from a kind of attention- deficit disorder when it comes to writing. When the story has a single narrative line with no distractions (e.g., "Running To Stand Still," S54) he does superb work. But introduce one too many narrative elements, as in the Icon story arc (where you had Sonic versus the Sandblasters PLUS the escape from the Devil's Island Gulag subplot PLUS the satellite subplot) and the narrative starts to collapse under its own weight. Karl had gotten my hopes up last month in "A Day In The Life" when he didn't work in the satellite bit, only to demonstrate this month how little its adding to the comic. Prince Elias was something of a breath of fresh air, but we never got to see what he's capable of doing (other than taking the initiative to join Geoffrey's squad). And you know you've got problems when your supervillain (the squid-bot) only lasts one page before disappearing in a cloud of ink. Should have been way tighter. Head Score: a reluctant 7. EYE: Steve Butler, who's getting ready to move over to drawing the Knuckles comics starting with K33 (see my review of Knuckles #23 for details) turns in more excellent work here. That blur thing on page 14, though, really hurts! Eye Score: 9. HEART: My hopes were raised for a different reason on page 10 by Geoff's speech about the Overlanders, but I waited in vain for him to use the f-word: "father." After all, Geoffrey HAD discovered what finally became of his father in the course of the "Forbidden Zone" arc (K19-21), so he's got a personal grudge against the Os. Unfortunately, neither Ken Penders nor Karl Bollers has seen fit to make use of such a powerful motivator in the course of any stories to date, so once again a major Sonic character comes off as being dead behind the eyes. And it's not as if such a revenge motive automatically renders a character unpalatable: witness Mandy Patinkin as Inigo Montoya in "The Princess Bride." But this outing was reduced to being a mere fight story (verbal and otherwise). Heart Score: 4. "Status of Limitations" Story: Paul Castiglia; Art: Chris Allen (debut); Ink: Jim Amash; Lettering: it says "Barry Grossman" but it was really Vickie Williams; Coloring: it says "Vickie Williams" but it was really Barry Grossman; Editorial: G-Force. Before we dive into this one, let me note that this is the first story I've ever seen for which the author supplied a press release. Paul Castiglia issued a "pre-emptive strike" (his words) by posting the following to Ron Bauerle's Sonic listserve, alt.fan.sonic-hedgehog, and several other places. For those of you who didn't catch it, here it is almost in its entirety: Hello, Sonic fans. Paul Castiglia here. Just thought I'd de-lurk to drop a quick note about my story, "Statue of Limitations," which appears in SONIC THE HEDGEHOG #70. Specifically, I'd like to set the record straight from the very beginning that the story is in no way meant to criticize or make fun of fans. For those of you who are very active in Sonic fandom, you will notice that certain individuals have been either quoted or paraphrased. This was done with the permission of the people in question. Also, the point of the story is basically, "What makes a legend?" Well, for me, part of the answer is that when someone is transcendent in their actions when someone really strikes a nerve they are a lot of things to a lot of people. And certainly, there are many people with many different views on Sonic. As far as I'm concerned, everyone has a right to their opinion, and the right to voice it since they are opinions, they're certainly valid because I believe that if just one person holds them, they are validated even if I or others disagree with a particular opinion. So the point of the story is, no one opinion of Sonic is necessarily "the right one" in lieu of the others; and no one opinion is necessarily "the wrong one." To use cliches, variety is the spice of life; to each his own. I might also point out that Tails reminds Sonic that he's touched people's lives, and that's why they care for him. And while I may not have spelled it out literally, I believe the story also implies the flip side of that where would a hero be without fans? It's reciprocal you touch our lives and we'll touch yours. So is anything, this story is a celebration of fandom. Another aspect of this, of course, is how the hero feels about fan worship. Some are humble, and some feel they're not worthy, and I've always found that interesting when I was writing Conservation Corps, my collaborator and I would do signings and we actually had followers, fans who loved what we were doing and even thought about the characters and stories more than we did, anticipating future developments. And we were just humble after all, we were just two regular guys who lucked out and got a chance to have our characters see print, but we weren't "comic book superstars" by any stretch. So we were ultimately thankful that people would actually be that touched by and that involved with our creation. [Note about credits error deleted]. Thanks for listening... Paul Castiglia ARCHIE COMICS So with that in mind.... Sonic is suffering from a recurring nightmare where he ends up falling toward the open mouth of the statue of himself that once stood in Sandblast City. It once stood there because he trashed it so he and Tails could escape at the end of the Icon story arc. In order to get over it, Sonic determines to carry the dream forward, since he always wakes up just short of impact. He manages to dive into the mouth of the statue (which viewed from above looks something like a giant Isz from "The Maxx"). Sonic comes to in a park-like setting with his face plastered all over everything, including the cheap t-shirts a young fox is selling. Before Sonic (who's either suddenly come down with a case of humility or else just wants to save his hide) gets mobbed by his adoring public, the fox leads him to the Sonic Adventure Archives. There, he finds himself in the presence of a fanboy and two fanfurs. The one human reminds me a little of the nameless proprietor of The Android's Dungeon, Springfield's foremost (if not only) comic store (as featured on "The Simpsons"); all he needs to do is put what hair he has left into a bad ponytail. Sonic is more freaked by these guys than he is by the mob of admirers, and he wakes up in a cold sweat amid their declarations that he can do no wrong. BTW, nice to see Sonic has traded in his race car bed for a more grown-up model; maybe he got it as a birthday present. Then again, Chris IS the new kid on the block so he may not be aware of Archie's policy of Sonic's enforced prepubescence. Tails drops by just then as Sonic gets into an uncharacteristically introspective mood. Apparently, Karl Bollers's ending of the Icon arc (wherein Sonic basically abandons the Sandblast Citizens to their problems) didn't even satisfy him, and he's the lead character! And the same Sonic who, according to Antoine and Rotor in "When You and I Were Young, Sally," "does not believe in false modesty...or any other kind," admits that even he isn't perfect. At which point Tails becomes uncharacteristically wise for his age: "But think about all the lives you've touched. Maybe that's what it's all about. Not about being perfect just about caring enough to be there when you're needed! Heck, I don't know where I'd be without you. You're my my [sic] hero, my brother, and my best friend rolled into one!" HEAD: Where to begin with this little piece? Well, by sheer serendipitous cowinky-dink, I was rummaging through my papers two weeks ago and discovered a copy of COMICS JOURNAL #76 [Oct 1982]. Between the covers, sharing space with a review of Don Bluth's "The Secret of NIMH" and a really, REALLY DARK essay by Harlan Ellison on the spate of horror/slasher movies with which the moviegoing public was being inundated at the time, I discovered Dwight Decker's column, "Rabbits In Clothes." The title derives from a line of dialogue in DC Comics Presents #34, wherein Superman (a humanoid superhero) meets up with Hoppy the Marvel Bunny (a furry superhero). Please note this was well over a decade BEFORE "Parallel Paradigm" makes me wonder if either Ken Penders or Jim Valentino had ever read it. Decker's topic: funny animal books, of which "Sonic the Hedgehog" is allegedly one, as well as furry fandom. Even before the advent of furry RPFs on the Internet, there were funny animal books, mostly derived from animated shorts (Walt Disney Comics and Stories) or TV shows (the Dell and Western comics of my own misspent youth). Decker discusses the appeal of the books, citing Aesop's fables and the French tales of Reynard as historical examples, then ponders the fact that while Marvel could create Hoppy the Marvel Bunny, the closest DC could come to doing a furry book was the Legion of Super-Pets. He cites my old _bete noir_, "corporate policies," as a contributing factor. Decker also notes that "funny animal comic fans tend to be either very young or relatively old. Generally, only children or adults like funny animals; fans in between wouldn't be caught dead reading `baby books' and read THE X-MEN instead." He concludes: "What it probably comes down to is that the superhero fan is a fan for different reasons than a funny animal fan. It's vitally important for a superhero fan to be able to BELIEVE [emphasis original] in the superhero world. He's willing to accept a lot of impossible things in that world as long as they contribute to the wish-fulfillment but when a funny animal appears, suddenly the whole thing looks shaky. It looks like something a writer wrote and an artist drew, not like a window on a better world than this, where noble people fly and have adventures. The funny animal has got to be explained, accounted for, so it doesn't affect the serious fantasy with irreality. The parallel world justification explains it very well, thank you." Which may have been true back in 1982, but something definitely happened between then and now. Archie still maintains that their core audience is the "very young" demographic (8 to 12 year old boys), but somehow the books, both Sonic and Knuckles, have attracted the attention of the teens who are supposed to react to funny animal books with the kind of enthusiasm reserved for strained peas. One correspondent thinks Prince Elias is something of a hunk, and at least one teenage girl is awaiting Knuckles's "first date" arc. What happened? Mainly, Sonic happened. One reason that the SatAM "Sonic the Hedgehog" became such a touchstone for fans is that it wasn't a funny animal show. Rather, it was an UNfunny animal show. On purpose! It didn't try to inundate the viewer with hip-cool patter ("Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles") or even strive for a balance between comedy and action ("The Real Ghostbusters"). "Sonic the Hedgehog" was mostly an action series with some humor thrown in (usually provided by Antoine). This was a world that took itself at least as seriously as "The X-Men" ever did. Then, too, the nature of furry fandom changed. It's no longer possible to argue that there's too much "irreality" about Sonic and Mobius and Robotnik. After "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" the notion that the furry world looks like "something a writer wrote and an artist drew" held a lot less water than before. Sonic fans DO believe, many of them fervently, that Mobius and the Floating Island are themselves better worlds than this, and that Sonic and Knuckles are as much heroes in their own right as the Man of Steel and just as entitled to have adventures. Of course it's impossible to cover the entire spectrum of fandom in a six-page story, and I didn't expect Paul Castiglia to seriously try. In fact, he only touched on two types of fans: the FAN PROPER and the HARDCORE. The FAN PROPER plays the video games, reads the comics, wears the clothing, and keeps the plushies out of sight when his friends come over. Over on the Fan Art page is a photo of Stephen Grzybowski's collection of Soniciabilia. It wouldn't surprise me if that wasn't his entire collection. The HARDCORE is the older fan Decker wrote about. Paul mentioned quoting or paraphrasing some of the fans. I only recognized the quote about getting a lifetime from Alessandro Sanasi's sigline. BTW, Paul didn't ask yours truly for a quote; if he had, you'd have read one of the Archivists/HARDCOREs talking about unwarranted interference in the comic by management types at Sega resulting in ill-conceived editorial decisions over at Archie Comics. Yeah, right, like they'd have printed THAT! There are, however, other subspecies of fans. Here are a few I've observed: The SPECULATOR couldn't tell you the plot of Sonic #1, and probably never heard of Mike Gallagher or David Manak. He CAN, however, quote you the market price for a mint condition copy. He probably shouldn't be considered to be a fan at all but a subspecies of investment banker. There is a subspecies of HARDCORE which has emerged recently; they still consider themselves to be HARDCORES but have become the DISENCHANTED. The DISENCHANTED have renounced some measure of Sonic fandom, usually because they are convinced that the comic has taken a disastrously wrong turn. Juan Lara renounced Sonic fandom after Archie arranged for Princess Sally to cheat death in the course of "Endgame." Magnus Andersson recently posted his reasons why he believes the Archie Comic continues to go from bad to worse. And Richard Paul Smyers had this to say about "Parallel Paradigm": "I looked at it, put it back on the rack unbought, and haven't purchased an Archie Comics product since." It's a judgment call as to whether, like Shakespeare's Othello, the DISENCHANTEDS loved Sonic not wisely, but too well. And then there are the JACKY PAPERS. The JACKY PAPER is named for the boy in the song "Puff The Magic Dragon" who, at some point, simply stopped believing in dragons, a land called Honalee, the whole shot. Marketing a funny animal book aimed at a pre- adolescent audience always carries with it the seeds of its own destruction. For at some point the members of your core audience will grow up; what they decide to do about the book is out of the publisher's hands at that point. To Archie's credit, they've tried growing the book up along with its audience, abandoning the Gallagher/Manak formula of the early days for something (relatively) more complex. So far the strategy seems to be working. A comic with no current game tie-in whose associated TV show stopped production four years ago is still alive and kicking bot butt. I had to take Paul Castiglia's "all opinions are valid" statement with more than a few grains of salt. As someone whose job title is "Editor" I know what the reality is: when push comes to editorial shove, some opinions end up counting for more than others. I couldn't help thinking of the words Walt Kelly wrote for Deacon Mushrat: "Whereas the Chair recognizes that there are opinions different from the Chair's, and whereas the Chair recognizes the freedom to express those opinions, the Chair reserves the right to throw the bum out!" Head Score: N/A [not applicable]. EYE: Chris Allen's debut looks good but in some respects (e.g., the third panel on page 1) the art almost seems to be a throwback to the Gallagher/Manak days. I WAS impressed by the composition of the first panel on page 6 and its effective use of black space. It's a good first impression. Eye Score: 8. HEART: There's a delicious irony at work in this story. Paul has Tails ramble on about all the lives Sonic has touched and about Sonic's being a hero because he's there when he's needed, yadda yadda yadda. To whatever extent that may be true for the relationship between Sonic and his fans, Archie has worked like crazy to undercut that VERY SAME QUALITY with regard to Sonic's relationships with the other characters. Honestly, do we know ANYTHING about Sonic's interacting with his parents since they were introduced in "Brave New World"? Not really. The closest Sonic comes to a display of affection for Sally in this issue is when he picks her up off the floor after the grenade goes off. And Sega has already lowered the boom and said Sonic and Sally won't be tying the knot in THIS lifetime! Which makes the "Should Sonic and Sally Get Married" poll on the Archie Web site such a joke. It's already a dead issue, the corporate fix is in. The same Sega that decreed that the marriage ain't gonna happen has been policing Sonic since day one to make sure he sheds no tears and displays no affection. But when I voted in the poll I used the "Additional comments" space to let Archie know that even if they never do tie the knot in Knothole, we ought to see these two showing that they really do care about each other. But in a comic book where a kiss is a peck on the cheek and a hug is administered at arm's length, what are the odds of THAT happening? Heart Score: 1 for the sheer hypocrisy of it all. Off-Panel: Gallagher and Manak take a well-deserved jab at the editor's comments which pop up every so often, "often" being the operative word (there are FIVE of them in "Saving Nate Morgan"). Sonic-Gram: Archie has set aside a separate P.O. Box for those who want to communicate with the artists and writers by sending fan mail, samples of their work, dead fish, whatever. Instead of letters, we get a pencil drawing for what SHOULD have been the two- page splash opener for the cover story. "There was one page too many for this month to support," we're told. Gee, Fred, I know how you could've solved that: you could've LOST THE CRUMMY SATELLITE SUBPLOT PAGE!! Find Your Name includes Bunny Nguyen, and Spain's Eva Richarte Prieto who did a terrific-looking NiGHTS parody on the Net with an absolutely unprintable title (by me, anyway). Dave Brewer and Andrew Pepoy contribute the Pro Art while I thought Kate Collins's Fan Art with its use of light and shadow to be very impressive. And blurbs for upcoming issues: Knuckles is upside-down and Sonic is bass-ackward. This does not bode well.