Sonic #74 [Sep 1999] Spaz/Harvo/Ray cover: OK, I can see Bunnie's metallic limbs not needing to be crammed into a space suit, but letting Tails's tails hang out? That's asking for trouble. And how come Sonic didn't get the blue space suit? "Don't Call It A Come Back [sic]" Story: Karl Bollers; Art: Steven Butler; Ink: Pam Eklund; Lettering: Jeff Powell and Justin Gabrie; Color: Frank Gagliardo; Editorial: G-Force. Either Sonic is developing a sty in one eye, or else Bollers and Butler are trying to interject an appropriate emotion into the story line. Frank Gagliardo, however, pulls them back from the brink at the last possible moment. Sonic then reports the development at the end of "The Truth Is Out There": that Knothole has been cleared of its robotic inhabitants. "Something is definitely wrong!" intones King Max, who takes home the Golden Duh! Award for that observation. He then tells Sonic to stay put, for all the good that does. He then gives Sally the Herculean task of talking some sense into our hero, who seems to have had it with this monarch in particular if not with monarchy in general. Sally and the rest of the group catch up with Sonic at the trash heap on the edge of town, and Nate Morgan reprises his role from "Retro Activity" (S71) as The Walking Plot Device by not only pointing out an unused space shuttle that he and Rotor "stumbled across" (never mind that the thing is so huge that Stevie Wonder could have stumbled across it with no problem!), but also supplying a handful of power rings to fuel the thing. Lacking sufficient boosters, Sonic enlists the aid of Dulcy to get things started. Don't ask me why she's so tearful after launching them into orbit; Karl Bollers has once again lapsed into that mode where he's about as helpful to the reader as a rubber crutch. After the group goes EVA in space (once again with Tails letting it all hang out), they arrive at Space Station Pokemon just as they're taking out the garbage. Nicole helpfully explains that the group has thirty seconds to board the ship before running the risk of being dissolved in the acid bath that was supposed to have taken care of the cloud of garbage they just had to wade through. Why THAT didn't happen Nicole can't explain. Neither can I. After boarding the station they get the standard reception from a group of SWAT-bots. But the second wave that threatens them are "Shadow-bots" who are just the warm-up act for Robotnik. Sonic rushes the guy and gets swatted away, but Bunnie connects with a left. Sonic and the group then follow Robotnik into a Cavernous Secret Installation where the roboticized Mobians, their minds once more under Robotnik's control, are busy...doing...something or other. Botnik and Bollers never are clear on the point of all this activity, but it looks impressive, unless you've already caught this scene in every James Bond movie that's ever come down the pike. Sonic and Robotnik mix it up some more until Robotnik gets Caught on the Conveyor Belt and gets hit by the Corrosive Chemical Spray (which is so out in the open that OSHA would have a field day writing up citations). And what we all had thought to have been Robotnik turns out to be...the reason to buy Sonic #75. HEAD: The story started out strong, I'll give it that. Sonic's report to the others about Knothole has a suitably sad air, despite the fact that Bollers and Butler couldn't cut loose emotionally. But by the time we get to page 5, Karl has gone into cliche overdrive: Nate "Deus Ex Machina" Morgan points out the painfully obvious shuttle, our heroes enter through the all- purpose garbage chute/heroes entrance, there's the obligatory one-on-one fight between Sonic and Robotnik before the latter gets caught on the conveyor belt (how many times have we seen THAT pivotal piece of machinery?), and we get set up for the Revelation of His Secret Identity in the next issue. Why do I have the feeling that by this time next month I'll be wishing that Justin had simply given us the Revelation of His Secret Identity in THIS issue, set aside the following story, and put us all out of our misery? Head Score: 3. EYE: The most charitable explanation for having Tails floating around in space with his tails nekkid is that they just didn't look good INSIDE the suit where you'd expect them to be. And Karl Bollers gets points for trying to show Sonic emoting, to the extent that he could show it at all. Otherwise, Bollers makes the comic look impressive even when we're not really seeing anything new. Eye Score: 7. HEART: As I said when I first instituted this rating system, I'm not looking for bathos or emotions per se; rather, I want to see if we the readers are given a reason to CARE about these characters. And Bollers and Butler manage to do a good job of that for four pages before being overwhelmed by a cliche tsunami. By story's end, they still hadn't come up for air. Which only puts more pressure on them to deliver a suitable payoff in Sonic #75. The last time we had our expectations raised this high, the payoff was Sonic #50. Fortunately, Archie let Ken Penders have do-overs. Bollers and Butler may not be so lucky. Heart Score: 4. "Tales of the Great War: Part 3" "Enter Robotnik" Story: Ken Penders and Karl Bollers; Art: Art Mawhinney and Chris Allan; Ink: Jim Amash; Lettering: Jeff Powell; Coloring: Barry Grossman; Editorial: G-Force. And now for something completely different: a seven-page six-pager. In order to explain Uncle Chuck's presence in THIS issue when he was supposed to have disappeared in the LAST issue, Chris Allan and Karl Bollers supply a prologue page which "explains" the discrepancy. It's not a seamless segue; Nate appears to have gained 30 pounds between page 6 of "Don't Call It A Come Back" and his appearance here, and Amy Rose's pupils have shrunk to almost nothing. But that's what you get when you practice loose continuity. We start with Uncle Chuck ruminating that he'd still have rescued Robotnik in the beginning even if he knew then what he knows now. The burden of this story is Ivo's treachery in feeding Kodos into the Void and filling the sudden job opening of warlord. HEAD: Usually, typographical and grammatical errors can afford a mild diversion, but the ones that crop up in THIS story betray nothing less than sheer carelessness. Uncle Chuck speaks of the Overlanders "raging war against our kingdom." Cute, but everyone knows you WAGE war, you don't "rage" war (whatever that means). I read that sentence a couple times, and "raging" was definitely intended as a verb and not as an adjective. And then there's the center panel on page 5 where Kodos refers to the Zone as his "pais de resistance." I tried looking up "pais" in both English and French dictionaries and came up empty, aside form the fact that it's spelled "piece de resistance" with a grave accent over the first "e" in "piece" and a circumflex accent over the first "e" in "resistance." OK, so who's responsible? Did Ken Penders write it that way? Or did Jeff Powell commit the errors? Or was Justin in any way responsible for not shortstopping these problems before they got passed on to the printers in Canada? C'mon, people, get it together! You've been doing this for over six years now! As for the story, it's a fitting outgrowth of the previous tale which involved Kodos and Naugus. Head Score; 5. EYE: The usual good artwork by Mawhinney, though I'm looking forward to a story where Tails and Amy do something other than register shock and surprise. Eye Score: 7. HEART: And now, some tales from a not-so-great war. For the benefit of the newbies amongst us, I work on the campus of Andrews University. Several weeks ago, some members of the Social Work Department faculty arranged with a church-run relief agency to visit several Kosovar refugee camps in Albania to study post-traumatic stress among war refugees. I'll only mention one of their findings: that among the ethnic Albanians of Kosovo one of the strongest stabilizing factors, stronger even than religion (the Kosovars are nominal Muslims whose religious heritage was bulldozed out of existence when Albania was under Communism) or patriotism/nationalism (that with which the Communist government tried to supplant religion) was a strong sense of family. In one refugee account, Serb soldiers occupying a village separated the women and children from the men (a very common tale told by the refugees). One young woman was summoned by soldiers to a room where her uncle and cousin were being held. She was then ordered to shoot them. She refused. This went on for several hours amidst a lot of shouting and crying and threatening until everyone was so emotionally worn out that the woman was sent back. I never found out what happened to her uncle and cousin. The point of all this is, I've had enough of the Great War as a tale of its leaders. It's high time we readers saw it from the other side of the chain of command. Ken Penders himself hinted at the direction such stories should go in a line from "Brave New World": "You're our fathers and mothers, our family and friends." THAT'S where I'd like to see the emphasis shift to. Too bad the survivors of such things, the roboticized Mobians, just got relocated. When they get back to Mobius (sooner rather than later, we hope), it would be good to hear THEIR account of things. Not to put the knock on Kirby, but sometimes there's a REAL story that's more engaging than the official story. And we haven't heard it yet. Heart Score: 5. Sonic-Grams: Why doesn't Justin's preoccupation with style over substance in this month's "Off-Panel" surprise me? And why do I see a connection between said preoccupation and the Sonic-Sabrina crossover? I've read Sabrina #28, which sets up Sonic Special #10. If the cover story of Special #10 is anything like the opening shot in Sabrina #28, the review I will write for that one will present me with an unique challenge: how long can I hold out before using the phrase "piece of ----." And belated congrats to Steve Butler on becoming a papa. Letters: "becky" wonders if Overlanders are humans; Justin says to count the fingers but DON'T count the drawings of the Overlanders by Manny Galan in Knuckles #25 where the Os DO have five fingers on each hand. Jeff "Hedgehog" Mills is told to check his local listings for "Sonic Underground" this fall. Jeff had better be living in France or New Zealand; if ANY station in the Yew Ess is slated to show it, I haven't heard about it. Find Your Name: Once again, Alaska and Hawaii are treated the same way as Canada, Malaysia, India, Iceland, Australia and Egypt. Talk about 50s retro! And Fan Art: Tammy Haller takes a cue from the infamous "The Map" (Battle Royal special) and given Antoine legs, and Jeremy Obre-Smith has Sonic and Sally watching the sunset. Gordon Purcell and Andrew Pepoy supply the Pro-Art.