Sonic #77 [Dec 1999] Spaz/Harvo/J. D. Ray cover: Sonic and Sally leave the driving to Dulcy. I've made my peace with Spaziante's Astal fetish, so I wasn't all that surprised to see the little gremlin on yet another Sonic cover. But when I first saw the black-and- white thumbnail of this cover and those critters with the big noses and soft caps I thought to myself: "I swear, if those are Smurfs I'm gonna go postal on somebody!" Instead, they appear to be relatives of Jack Frost. Come to think of it, I wouldn't mind seeing a story involving these wood sprites or whatever they are. Maybe some time after the book stops being a six-month-long commercial for "Sonic Adventure." "Rebel Without A Pause" Story: Karl Bollers; Art: [Jim] Fry; Ink: Andrew Pepoy; Lettering: Jeff Powell; Color: Frank Gagliardo; Editorial: G- Force. If any sequence ever justified the Bollers Opening Gambit, this is it: as if the place weren't crowded enough, Bunnie, Antoine, Tails, Sonic's parents and Jeremiah drop in on Knothole all at once. BTW, I don't know if the misspelling of Jeremiah's name in BOTH stories is the fault of Jeff Powell or Karl Bollers or who, but I'm sticking with the original spelling. And does anybody else feel that both Geoff's line about Jeremiah and Bernie's reply look like they were inked in after the rest of the spread had been lettered? And that's not the only continuity glitch: Bernie and Jules's wedding band bracelets have both shrunk to finger ring size. This last error, though, is probably due to the fact that this is only Fry's second outing and he may not have had access to Butler's original concept as displayed in "The Truth Is Out There" (S73). Which is far easier to believe than Nate Morgan's discourse found on page 4 panel 4. As Morgan should have said: "Science doesn't matter when there's a hole in the plot you could drive a truck through!" While the gang hems and haws when Max asks where Sonic and Sally are, we find them escorting a group of Mobians toward Knothole. As the Mobians make tracks, Sonic and Sally engage in banter until three pods bearing ShadowBots arrive trailing clouds of Annoying PhotoShop Blur. I hold the Art Director personally responsible for that touch. It looks bad for our heroes until Dulcy shows up and plays some killer bocce ball with two of the pods and sends the other one scurrying. "Interlude One: Just beyond the rim of the galaxy, there is a burst of blinding energy and twin vessels emerge from the mysterious folds of hyperspace. Whence did these spacecrafts journey? What course has been plotted across this vast star system? And more importantly, why hasn't Karl Bollers learned anything from the stupid satellite business which I'd hoped would be a dead issue?" After an equally useless page-and-a-half of EggBotnik, everyone arrives at Knothole, with Sonic and Sally getting the word that they broke curfew and can probably expect to be grounded. Sally finds her father in the Knothole cold room where the Queen is still being kept on ice, and we get the kind of heartfelt reunion scene we should have gotten long before now. This is followed by the King's giving Sonic a reception as chilly as the room they're in and a thorough dressing-down ... ...before doing one of the most complete and unwarranted about-faces I've ever seen in my life! This didn't just come out of left field, this was shipped in from a whole different ballpark! Name me ONE instance since "The Living Crown" (S58) where you could have described the King as acting in an understanding manner, not counting the "regal bearing" business in the last ep. But someone must have told Karl Bollers that they needed to make the King more of a good guy and so he did, no matter how little narrative sense it makes. Not that the "how" matters all that much, as the next half-year will be spent plugging the game and minor inconveniences like plot points will just have to wait as Sega holds a gun to Karl's wallet. HEAD: Overall I really liked this story. It had a lot going for it: it was active, upbeat, and mostly coherent. The few continuity glitches at the front end were minor, compared to the major annoyance of the space interlude. And did anyone else get whiplash from the King's 180-degree behind-the-back in-your-face reverse slam dunk at the end? If I'd have tried getting a story featuring a change of heart that sudden past an editor of anything except a comic book I wouldn't get a rejection slip, I'd get lynched! I mean, go back to your English lit! The reason why we believe Ebenezer Scrooge's conversion at the end of "A Christmas Carol" was because we witnessed the process by which he changed his ways. Bob Cratchit, understandably, thought all the beads had finally fallen off the old guy's abacus. And Karl could have done it in one page! All he needed was a scene where Sally sticks up for Sonic and reminds Max that Sonic saved his own life more than once: by hauling him out of the Void ("And One Shall Save Him," S41) and by his exorcism of Naugus with the Sword of Acorn ("Return of the King"). And I hope I don't need to explain WHICH page could...SHOULD...have been dropped from this story to make room for that scene. It was a huge improbability in an otherwise decent story. Head Score: 8. EYE: As sorry as I am that Butler jumped to the Knuckles comic just in time to have Archie management kill the book, I really like what Fry is doing. Fry knows "kawaii" (Japanese for "just too cute"): I've never seen Bunnie look cuter than in the top panel on page 4. And he manages to render a chastened Sonic on page 15 before King Max drops the Mr. Hyde bit, without running afoul of the Sega watchdogs. Most excellent. Eye Score: 10. HEART: Again, a lot more on display here than in previous outings. The end where Sonic gets a Royal Talking-To, once again (I can't say this enough) was undercut by the literal incredibility of the ending. One of the elements of doing work that is emotionally moving, after all, is that what happens is credible, believable. Leave that out and you're just play- acting. That's bad writing, even if it's "only a comic book" and shows no respect for the craft. But this is the closest the book has come to a happy (or at least satisfying) ending in a long time, so it's not a total loss. Heart Score: 7. "Tales of the Great War" "For Better or Worse" Story: Ken Penders; Art: Chris Allen [and NOT Lynn Johnston]; Ink: Jim Amash: Lettering: Jeff Powell; Color: Barry Grossman; Editorial: G-Force. As Prince Elias joins a gathering of Mobians at evening and Amy Rose waxes eloquent about Kirby's work, Julius reminds the group that WRT the Great War, he and his wife have been there and done that. With that, Bernie takes the forest floor: The account starts off with Jules, Bernie and Charles (each drawn with way oversized heads, IMHO) on a mission in Mobitropolis when Jules takes a shot to the head by an Overland sniper. Somehow this is WAY more of a jolt than the two-page spread of Snowpidgeon being turned into an order of extra crispy by Hunter in "Bad To The Bone" (K30). Anyway, I can offer no explanation either for whatever kind of Pokemon ball/weapon Bernie uses on the O (who, because the Archie creatives can't seem to get their stuff together, has FOUR fingers and a thumb on each hand -- the number varies from artist to artist, get used to it), or for that creepy eye thing that afflicts Bernie in panel 4 of page 3. Long story short: Jules gets medical attention, the prognosis doesn't look good, Chuck begins to make a suggestion, we cut away to Max consulting with his War Minister...and if you can finish the title phrase, you can see what's coming. HEAD: Ken showed me an early version of the script which was originally scheduled to run something like TEN issues ago. Needless to say, it's been through some changes since then. For one thing, Jeremiah wasn't part of the cast. For another, one of Dr. Quack's early lines spoken to the unconscious Jules, "If you were a horse, they'd shoot you," was left on the cutting room floor [Insert thanks to the deity of your choice here]. After all, shooting a wounded animal isn't very...Mobian, is it? Still, I'm glad this installment saw the light of day and shifted the emphasis of the Tales of the Great War arc to more of a personal narrative deal. Head Score: 9. EYE: Like I said, I can't explain why everyone on page 2 seems to have contracted a case of Baby Head Syndrome. Or why the hedgehogs have beady little eyes while those of Dr. Quack and King Max are phenomenally huge! Those are about the worst sins committed in this story, though: the modeling and composition are decent, and the yellow-and-purple coloration in the campfire scenes worked for me. Eye Score: 7. HEART: This story may come close to answering, once and for all, one of the great unanswered questions of the Sonic continuity: How come Sonic ended up being raised by Uncle Chuck? Archie certainly took its own sweet time dropping hints: first that Sonic's dad was roboticized ("Countdown to Armageddon," S46), then that BOTH his parents are alive if not in the flesh ("Brave New World"). So only NOW do we see the contours here. We know from "Countdown"'s misbegotten prelude that roboticizing Jules was just about the only option left to saving his life. The only question now is how Bernie follows him up and whose idea it is. I'll be waiting for the next installment of THIS back story if only because the emotional payoff could be HUGE...if Sega doesn't step in and mess with it. Heart Score: 10, for the moment. Off Panel: Not so surprising, considering that Justin has Sonic shlepping Chinese food for him some months back. Sonic-Grams: Once again, the cancellation of the Knuckles comic means that the Sonic Adventure arc will now be spread over SIX Sonics and one special. Sonic #78, we are told, will feature "a new trade dress." Can't be Sally's; all she wears is a vest and some boots. Letters and blurbs for Knuckles #31 and Special #11, the "Girls Rule!" issue. And what do you wanna bet that someone scans that cover and puts matching soccer uniforms on the cast members? Find Your Name, Fan Art (including some serious envelope art), and an impressive drawing of Sonic and Sally spelunking by Pam Eklund.