Sonic #69 (Apr 1999) Spaz/Harvo/Josh D. Ray cover: Despite the ominous alliterative cover message, the mood is one of conviviality at the corner tavern. Cue the theme from "Cheers": "Fightin' against a SWATbot horde Sure can be a grind. If both your tails are being kicked You really should unwind. And if the King's a total flake, You still can catch a break Where everybody knows your name, Though the stories might be lame. You oughta go where villains lurk Somewhere outside the frame, You oughta go where everybody knows your name." The gang, with Nate and a couple extras, are whooping it up while a sinister figure in the doorway gets ready to announce "Last call!" I'm guessing that the green thing on the "arm" of the platypus in the doorway is supposed to be a Polynesian-style tattoo. "A Day In The Life" Story: Karl "Paperback Writer" Bollers; Art: Steven "Nothing You Can See That Isn't Shown" Butler; Ink: Pam "Baby's In Black" Eklund; Lettering: Jeff "Please Mister Postman" Powell; Coloring: Frank "Red Is The Color That Will Make Me Blue" Gagliardo; Fools On The Hill: J. F. Gabrie, Victor Gorelick, Richard Goldwater This is the city. Or what's left of it. The splash page indicates that the place could still use a little sprucing up. But we're here for... No, it's not a ski outing, though apparently ski wear is necessary for THIS family reunion: Max, Elias and Sally get the latest word on Queen Alicia from Dr. Quack, who informs them that the deep freeze has "somehow miraculously halted the mysterious illness...." "WHAT illness?" I hear you cry. Well, it's the...er...uh... "You know, dat gives me anudder reason not to like you." Nick the bartender (the incomparable Sheldon Leonard) to George Bailey (Jimmy Stewart), "It's A Wonderful Life" I've never been shy about my feelings about Dr. Quack. I thought it was a mistake to bring him in and that it was a mistake to keep him. Bad enough that the name is atrociously heavy-handed. Bad enough that he was saddled with a wife and kiddies only so long as the plot of "Endgame" required them and that we haven't heard from them since. Bad enough that he was virtually useless in "The Living Crown" (Sonic #58). But he keeps attracting bad writing like a magnet attracts iron filings, and this installment is no exception. I rechecked the Forbidden Zone arc and could find NO reference to any illness, mysterious or otherwise, suffered by the Queen. There was certainly nothing mysterious about what happened to her as described in the aforementioned arc: she was in a crash and suffered such massive trauma that the boys in Haven could detect little if any neurological activity, and they put her in the deep freeze because they couldn't figure out how to jump-start her brain cells. If Quack knows about the patient's pre-existing condition he doesn't let on. And he's supposed to be such a hotshot doctor? I wouldn't let him prune my rosebushes! Clean off your glasses, everyone, we've got a LOT of exposition to cover. Max brings the newcomers up to speed while explaining to Sally why he didn't think honesty was the best policy at the time. He also has a strange perspective on his daughter's "happiness" for he rather blithely announces that Elias has just been bumped to the head of the line WRT succession to the throne. This is as much of a surprise to Elias as it is to Sally and the readers, judging from his rather convincing imitation of a deer about to be turned into venison kibble by a Mack truck in the last panel on page 4. Sally could use some friends right about now, and they're on their way into the castle. The Knothole crowd, with Sonic and Tails back in their midst, are unaware that they're being watched by a couple mysterious figures in matching trenchcoats and porkpie hats. They must've gotten a good deal at the SPY vs. SPY Boutique. After the group links up with Nate, they encounter the Royals stepping out of the meat locker. This being an Archie comic, Steve Butler can't show Sonic and Sally engaging in a simple embrace. So we get an ungainly drawing of Sally sort of tripping over herself trying to get her arms around Sonic's neck, in a variation of Spaziante's infamous "arms-length hug" from "Endgame" (Sonic #50). If she has to go through all this to give Sonic a simple hug, small wonder he asks why his love life is so lousy ("Zone Wars," Special #8). Dr. Quack suggests that Sally take a break from her father's company for a while ("The lab results are in, Dr. Quack: you've tested positive for intelligence"). The King seconds the motion that Sally and her old comrades make themselves scarce while the scene is being observed by another figure dressed as a cliche spy in the company of a ninja. "D'you BELIEVE any o'this?" the spy asks. Well, yeah, it IS a stretch but there's worse to come. Anyway, Elias decides to take a pass on the Gray Line tour of Mobitropolis. His speech on page 7 is the FULL EXTENT of his dialogue this time around, and Karl did a good job with the kind of vocabulary and syntax he would have picked up from his years spent with the Colonel and the Missus. I could very easily picture his dialogue being spoken by David Ogden Stiers as the imperious upper- cruster, Major Winchester, on the "M*A*S*H" TV series. Still, I got the impression that either Elias has an agenda that has yet to come into the clear, or else he doesn't think that the monarchy is the place for on-the-job training. And don't ask me why he's wearing stirrups on the hem of his jacket. As the Knothole group heads out into the street and as Sonic introduces Nate to the concept of "heartburn," nobody seems to notice the TWO MORE cliche spies lurking in the shadows. Someone must've gotten a VERY good deal at the SPY vs. SPY Boutique. Either that, or somebody believes in volume buying. The increasing number of identically-dressed Cold War clones cluttering up the landscape is starting to get ridiculous. Sonic and the gang eventually make their way to "Deer John's" drinking emporium. If it was named "Deere John's" everybody in the place would be talking in the broad Northern Midwest accent usually associated with Bobby Generic's mother, police chief Marge Gunderson from the motion picture "Fargo," and just about any resident of Michigan's Upper Peninsula or Door County in Wisconsin yah hey dere criminy! Still, I'll bet when they serve margaritas they don't salt the rim of the glass: they bring you a salt lick. Justin then favors us with a demonstration of the difference between defining a phrase and explaining its meaning (in a furry book like this just about everyone is only a step or two away from being "au naturel" as the term is more commonly understood), and Nate picks up the Golden "Duh!" Award for saying "I seem to be drawing quite a bit of attention." I really don't want this to become a regular feature, so let's dial back the statements that demonstrate a firm grasp of the obvious. Page 10 is sort of painful because Bollers and Butler come SO close to greatness only to fall short of the mark. The set-up: after some banter between Sonic and Antoine on the subject of Bunnie, Antoine's thoughts turn toward his old man. Anyone who remembers the Forgotten Tribe arc and its digression into Sonic #58 will realize that Sonic and Tails have already encountered the gentleman in question. In Knuckles #12, Sonic responded to Tails's asking about filing a report by saying "We tell Antoine zip!" But it appears that Sonic has done a 180 on the question and appears to be on the verge of unzipping his lip. This is a classic set-up. Specifically, I'm thinking of the scene in the film "On The Waterfront" where Marlon Brando confesses to Eva Marie Saint his complicity in the murder of her father by thugs working for the corrupt head of the longshoreman's union. The amazing thing about that scene was that it was done with long camera shots and a soundtrack full of noise and soundtrack music but no dialogue. It was a defining moment in American cinema, and proof that dialogue isn't always necessary to drive a scene. Bollers and Butler almost pull off the same thing on page 10. Yet instead of keeping the focus on Antoine's reaction to getting the news from Sonic, we get Bunnie ruminating in the foreground while Sonic and Antoine are reduced to a bubblegum-pink silhouette. I was left with the impression that Sonic told Antoine SOMETHING, but exactly how much we don't know. Still, this page comes very close to taking the comic to the next level beyond being a mere funny animal book, and my respect for Bollers and Butler went up a couple ticks. Unfortunately, that grinding you hear is the narrative gears shifting. A panda patron decides to douse Nate with tomato juice (maybe he thought Nate had gotten too close to the skunkette who was shakin' it on the dance floor at the top of page 9), and Sonic decides to get in the guy's face. Before the situation deteriorates, cooler heads seem to prevail. And once again, nobody seems to notice the identically-dressed strangers at one of the tables, one of which is talking into a walkie-talkie. "The plot sickens," indeed! And now get out your SCUBA gear because this story's about to hit its definite low ebb. Back at the castle, we discover that Geoffrey has been at the Devil's Gulag Island Or Island Gulag Or Something. Despite looking rather convincingly dead in Sonic #62, the guards are alive if not well. Geoff also reports that eight of the former residents have escaped and are presumed par-boiled. He apparently forgot to check over the property clerk's inventory sheet; if he had, he would have found out that the crystal "statues" of Kodos and Arachnis were missing as well. It's one thing to be spoon-fed such a heaping helping of exposition, but having Geoff get it WRONG is another matter. Still, maybe Karl planned it that way. If he did, he places himself in the Professional Wrestling School of writing. One of the staple moments in pro wrestling is when one of the heels (bad guys) distracts the referee, allowing his cohorts to smack around the babyfaces (good guys) undetected. It's infuriating as anything and that's the kind of infuriation I felt after reading page 12. So like I said, maybe he planned it that way. Back at the bar, the trenchcoat crowd begins to close in on Sonic and his friends. Thinking that this is a continuation of the previous Nate altercation, Sonic threatens to start loosening some teeth in the name of interspecies harmony. But at that moment Sally gets hammered. No, she hasn't been nipping at the hard cider. She's hit in the back of the head with something that looks like it was swiped from the Mighty Thor. And I'll bet he was mighty thore to find it mithing (sorry about that). Sonic decides to break the one-handed choke hold Kodos put on him and go to Sal's aid. That just ticks off the guest villain carde, who sign in. I'll spare you the Mouseketeer Roll Call. BTW, the "Coming Soon" ad is for the roll-out (one of these days) of the Sonic Adventure game. The green eyes and the hideous grin are taken from the character promo art for the game, and IMHO the drawing of Sonic looks like it owes too big a debt to R. Crumb's "Keep On Trucking" logo from the Sixties. Anyway, despite the rogues line-up represented here, they don't do a heck of a lot. For instance, I'd have expected more from Drago than simply putting Rotor in a full nelson. Seems their primary objective was to kidnap Nate while getting in everyone else's way, and then beating feet. "He can't want to kill her, or he would have done it by now." Schmendrik the Magician, from Peter Beagel's "The Last Unicorn." However, the Sarge leaves a little going-away present. But what do you want to bet it's a smoke grenade? This crowd is ASKING to be followed. Which is apparently the set-up for the next installment. And now as a public service For The Benefit of Mr. Kite and anyone else who's trying to understand what the title of the story has to do with the plot, here's a synopsis of this episode in Beatlespeak: Her Majesty's A Pretty Nice Girl but she's still floating around on life support as if she were In An Octopus's Garden. King Max has apparently decided that ever since Geoffrey called from Haven to tell him "Here Comes The Son" that That Boy will be next in line for the throne when he himself steps down as king, possibly When He's Sixty-Four. Sally's mood can best be described as "I'm Down (I'm Really Down)" and she decides to get by With A Little Help From Her Friends, but since this is an Archie Comic she can't tell Sonic to "Hold Me Tight". Meanwhile the King gets the word from Geoffrey that the Band's On The Run from the Devil's Gulag. The gang goes into a juice bar and since he's the only human in the place, Nate tries to Act Naturally, but Nate is hassled by a patron who's Had A Drink or Two And He Don't Care, but before things get ugly Sally urges Sonic to Give Peace A Chance. The panda Doesn't Want To Spoil The Party so he goes. Then what looks like Maxwell's Silver Hammer comes down on Sally's head (though three pages later she's able to tell Sonic "I Feel Fine"), and then Sonic and the gang are jumped by a bunch of characters who look like they belong Back In The U.S.S.R. Nate is kidnapped by an oversized Blackbird before he can say "Won't you please, please help me!", and the villains take off Helter Skelter. This is not The End. HEAD: Sure, there were flaws. Dr. Quack got it wrong, as did Geoffrey. Still, after seven months of warming up, Karl Bollers is starting to pull things together. My impatience with his narrative style had to do with his trying to write along two of three tracks which had yet to interconnect. Finally, Karl has integrated the villain subplot into the main plot (and, mercifully, didn't bother with the business about the satellites this time around). The ease with which the villains could wander around Mobitropolis looking like Boris Badinov wanna-bes was also a stretch. But the rest of the story was actually compelling enough that they didn't leave too much of an aftertaste. Head Score: 8. EYE: Steve Butler has definitely made himself at home in the series, and it shows. The regular cast is looking good, as do the incidental characters (such as the skunkette on page 9). And having endured some stories where Sonic's expression barely changed from one frame to the next (Manny Galan's early work in "The Dream Zone" in Sonic #43 being a prime example), it's gratifying to see the characters' faces actually convey a range of identifiable emotions. Eye Score: 9. HEART: As I suspected, Karl Bollers sidesteps the little matter of the Royal family dynamic; if Max feels anything for his wife, she doesn't let on. And Karl's attempt to soften the Queen's condition is only delaying the inevitable. Ken Penders has admitted to me that the Queen's condition is such that she'll either have to recover in a supremely preposterous fashion (which is, after all, what happened to Max in "Return of the King") or be allowed to die. As I write this, the country of Jordan is mourning the death of King Huessein, and the media event that was the funeral of Princess Diana is still probably fresh in the minds of most readers. Still, the overall mood is generally upbeat, which is what the fans want to seen after the past year. Sonic breaking the news to Antoine about the General was good if not great, and the near-altercation in the bar felt right. Heart Score: 9. "Tales of the Freedom Fighters presents: Lupe and the Wolf Pack: Weathering the Storm" Story: Ken Penders; Art: Sam Maxwell; Ink: Ken Penders; Coloring: Kewn Penders; Lettering: Jeff Powell; Editorial: G-Force It's still raining. While Diablo tries teaching Aerial some manners, Lupe and Reynard debate the fate of the girls while scrounging. Over dinner that night, Lupe pretty much decides to keep the two humans. It keeps on raining. And that's pretty much it for the story arc. Head: "Minimalist" is the word I want to use here. Granted, Ken only had 18 pages to use spread out over three issues, so he could really only tell the story of finding the two girls. WHY they showed up in the comic (aside from the possibility that, like Nate Morgan, their presence is an attempt to convince the audience that this isn't REALLY a "funny animal book") is still a mystery. And if I read the preview media correctly, it's a mystery that'll remain unsolved for quite some time. That's loose continuity for ya. Head Score: 6. EYE: Again, "minimalist" springs to mind. The backgrounds are simple, when Sam Maxwell bothers to put them in at all; on page 2, there's really no background to speak of so the action could be taking place in a cave on Mars for all we know. Some of the character designs are equally truncated; the drawing of Canus at the top of page 6 reminds me of a balloon animal. There are some good mood pieces, but they can't carry the whole story. Eye Score: 6. HEART: Ken tries, especially with the dialogue between Diablo and Aerial on page 2, as well as Lupe's final journal entry on page 6. Yet in the end, the story feels like a set-up to something else, and it's a something that won't happen for a while. The story, like the pack, is going to have to wait it out until conditions improve. Heart Score: 6. Off-Panel: I had a hard time believing the premise that Sally has script approval based on what happened to her on page 13 of "Day In The Life." Let's see, she got brained by a sizable piece of masonry in "The Day Robotropolis Fell" (Sonic #37), fell to her "death" in "Endgame" (#47), and now this. If they want to revive Queen Alicia, they should just inject her with some of Sally's DNA; this kid can take just about anything and bounce back. In fact, the ONLY way I could believe the premise for this month's strip would be if it was established that Archie Comics granted Sally script approval as partial atonement for "Endgame." Sonic-Grams: Freddie G. is still in full-metal marketing mode, explaining how Comic Shop News will be running a 14-week strip of Sonic and Knuckles doing the Old Body Switcheroo plot (that doesn't have TOO many cobwebs on it, do you think?). I'll ask by my local comic store if they get CSN, but I'm not too hopeful: aside from the time I saw a copy of the Image special in the rack, they don't even CARRY Sonic comics so I have to get my copy at a bookstore/newsstand/card/stationery store at the mall. Anyway, there are letters about the Icon arc, blurbs for Knuckles #23 and Sonic #70, the return of "Kitty Maus" on the Find Your Name half- page, and the annual sales report data. Ron Bauerle crunched the numbers for the last 3 years and Sonic's sales have slipped, though management attributes this to Wal-Mart's decision to stop selling comics which supposedly hurt sales across the board. The Fan Art features Bunnie dressed in slacker mode by Priscilla Lassiter, and Alexandria Silberkleit drawing inspiration from Art Mawhinney's most important contribution to Sonic #50, Take Two. And "former Wonder Woman artist" Colleen Doran contributes the pro-art, complete with photo background. But I'll Be Back Again.