Super Special no. 9 "They're ba-ack!" They being the Sonic Ki-ids. Spaz/Harvo/Josh D. Ray cover: In a blatant example of product placement, Spaz has managed to work a Sega Dreamcast (which Rotor is playing and next to which Knuckles is standing) into the cover art. Another Sega icon on display is the Astal doll being carried by Tails. WHAT is the connection between these two in Spaz's mind? After all, Tails was last seen chatting up Astal in the bar on the cover of S69. Advice to Spaz: clarify the point of these cameos before we start getting the idea that when they grow up Astal and Tails will end up sharing an apartment on Castro Street in San Francisco IF you know what I mean AND I think you do. As for the doll that Sally's holding, I'm pretty sure it's Chun Li from Capcom's "Street Fighter" video game. Could have been worse: she could have been holding a Lara Croft doll. At least Antoine has stuck with a recognizably low-tech plaything. Credits page: as in the first Sonic Kids special, we get a Spaz coloring book design; unlike the first Sonic Kids special, we get a second helping of Sega product placement. Spaz/Harvo splash page: the new-and-improved Sonic is strolling, not running, down memory lane. Awkward question: if the first meeting between Sally and Knuckles was supposed to have been a secret thing, without either King Max or Locke being aware of it, who took the picture? It's a nice piece of art but it's also the visual equivalent of the awkward narrative moments that Sonic couldn't have been aware of in "Stop! Sonic Time!" (Special #5). But that was then, this is... "Zoneward Bound" Story: Mike Gallagher; Art: Sam Maxwell; Ink: Harvey Mercadoocasio; Coloring: Josh D. and Aimee R. Ray; Lettering: Vickie Williams; Editorial: G-Force. In a rather one-sided snowball fight, Antoine gets the worst of it from everyone else until a stray shot from Sonic finds Rosie. After an uncharacteristic (for an Archie Comic publication) emotional interlude, Rosie suggests a change of venue to a nearby pond. Once on the ice, Sonic not only does a replay of the one-on-one b-ball sequence from "When You And I Were Young, Sally," but also demonstrates the fact that whatever else can be said about the state of Mobian technology, the Zamboni hadn't been invented yet. While everyone else waits for the pond to refreeze, Sonic discovers that a golden ring of some kind is embedded in the ice inside the bucket of an old well. This plot device is promptly ignored (you know kids and their short attention spans) as the team retakes the ice. In a salute to Nickelodeon (which has claimed Manny Galan), the gang performs a song written by chief "Rugrats" composer and former front man for Devo, Mark Mothersbaugh. However, the group gets separated as Sonic and Sally each slip into different zones while the rest of the cast enters a third. Kids, do NOT try this at home or at your local theme park! Sally finds herself deposited into a roller coaster car and barely hangs onto the restraining bar which is supposed to keep her in her seat. Just as she gets back in the saddle again she gets a premonition of her crystallized father. I don't know what the name of this roller coaster is, but it wouldn't surprise me to learn it's "Endgame." It sure ain't the "Love Rollercoaster." Antoine, Rotor and Tails, meanwhile, appear to be trapped in some kind of circuit board. Well, that's what it reminds ME of. The group floats around, apparently unaware that they are being watched and commented upon by the Ancient Walkers. The second panel on page 12 aptly symbolizes this interlude; as you can see, somebody's got a screw loose. As for Sonic, he gets a dose of vocational guidance and is informed that he has a brilliant future in the video game industry. If Robotnik will let him HAVE a future, that is. Sonic dispatches Robotnik's mace ball before the fat guy can tap into Yugi Naka's subconscious, which is the true "creative force" at work here... And then, for no other reason than because it's the last page of the story, everybody spills back into the present and Sonic 86s the power ring. HEAD: This is the weakest of the three stories in this issue. The only character whose odyssey into a zone seemed to have any real point was Sonic, and again it was with a broad bow to the game play rather than to anything inherent in the plot. Tails is linked with the by-now forgotten (by most of the readers, I'm willing to bet) Chosen One angle that first appeared in the Tails miniseries, "Southern Crossover," only to resurface momentarily in "Immortality is Infinite" (S56) before disappearing again. As for Sally, she's not the only one who doesn't appreciate being jerked around, though at least the business with her father makes a smattering of sense by comparison. The weakest link of all was the last page, where everybody escaped their respective zones for no discernable reason. The most charitable explanation would be that ANY zone story already has two strikes against it. Head Score: 6. EYE: Sam Maxwell serves up FAR more detail than he did during the Lupe and the Wolf Pack story arc (S67-69). While he does justice to the modeling of the kids, I was a little disturbed by the amount of detail of Sonic's hands in the page 1 splash: they looked positively arthritic! Maxwell has a good grasp of gesture and facial expression: I liked Sally about to lose it at the top of page 3 and Sonic going into a skid on page 7. And this time he didn't try to cheap it out by using photo backgrounds or no backgrounds at all. Much better. Eye Score: 8. HEART: The first time Mike Gallagher tries going for pathos on page 3, he comes perilously close to making Sally look manipulative, as if she were simply pushing Rosie's buttons. That's the trouble with not having any kind of set-up for Sally's statement (Gallagher demonstrated a proper set-up in the third story in this issue). The rest of the story is more action than anything else. The premonition about Sally's father, though, is a pretty good touch. In a comic which otherwise turns a blind eye to such scenes, it's a vast improvement. And Gallagher is just getting warmed up. Heart Score: 7. Off-Panel: as Justin and Sonic walk off into the lens flair, er, sunset, I now have reason to go back and edit my review of Special #8 to give Pam Eklund her propers. Sonic-Grams: Unless I succumb to a serious case of professionalism, I'm thinking of boycotting Special #10. I have serious reservations about the back story, which not only recycles Evil Sonic, but also manages to gum up the continuity by working the Sonic Underground characters into the plot, probably using another lame "zone" angle. And keep in mind that the show hasn't even AIRED in the U.S. and Canada yet! Maybe they thought it would have by the time the special is due out, but the show won't be aired domestically before the Autumn of this year at the earliest. Assuming that anyone in North America is GOING to air it. So far, the only place I know that's showing it is France, and then I only know because Alessandro Sanasi has been offering screen grabs and plot synopses on his Sonic site based on videotapes he's received from someone in France. Check it out yourself at: http://www.franken.de/users/deco. And as for the cover story...I'm sorry, I can't even bring myself to discuss a Sabrina/Sonic crossover without wanting to resort to language that would make Howard Stern blush. Pro art by Sam Maxwell and Harey Mercadoocasio that's detailed to the point of incoherency. Letters: Toby May asks about Bunnie and Freddie avoids telling him the answer that few people want to hear: that "once and for all" Bunnie's NOT going to get deroboticized. The fact that she's been ignored for so long and yet still generates interest ought to tell the Archie creatives something! Blurbs for Knuckles 25 and Sonic 72. "My Secret Guardian" Story: Mike Gallagher; Art: Manny Galan; Ink: Jim Amash; Color: Josh D. and Aimee R. Ray; Lettering: Vickie Williams; Editorial: G-Force. While this father-daughter outing is billed as a vacation, Mike Gallagher lets us know that Max has his own agenda: following yet another lead as to the fate of his wife and son. Appropriately enough, since he chooses not to let Sally in on what's going on, the Brotherhood won't be telling HIM anything, and boy do THEY have a lot to tell (c.f. Knuckles #21). I don't know to what extent Ken and/or Mike planned all this, but it's a pretty clear example of what happens when someone doesn't get off the tracks when it's time for the karma train to pull into the station. The King lands the craft, which looks to me like a cross between the space shuttle and a minivan, then leaves Sally so he can get lied to by the Guardian On Duty, Locke. All this is witnessed by the Apprentice Guardian, Knuckles. Seems he needs to brush up on his stalking skills, though, because Sally's spider sense or whatever tells her she's got company. After flushing him out, Sally and Knuckles introduce each other using some of the most pretentious dialogue ever uttered by a couple of characters who are supposed to be only five years old. And being five-year-olds it's not long before hostilities break out. Push comes to shove comes to kick, which gives Knuckles a chance to demonstrate his flying abilities. And like the kids playing ball indoors in "When You And I Were Young, Sally," things get a little out of hand/mitten and to borrow a phrase Sally used in "Crash of the Titans" (Super Sonic v. Hyper Knuckles Special), it's the landscape that suffers. This is enough to bring the action sequence to a close just as Knuckles hears his father calling. Sally makes herself scarce to keep Knuckles from REALLY getting into hot water. She then gets to indulge in a bit of age-appropriate self-pity before her father returns for her. HEAD: OK, so Sally is growing up as heir to the Mobian throne and Knuckles has been genetically altered and overly drilled by Locke in the ways of the Guardian. Somehow I think that those AREN'T valid reasons for the two kids to spout dialogue more appropriate to the Broadway stage. C'mon, Mike, when's the last time you heard five-year-olds saying things like: "Don't worry about me when you're the one who's gonna need a hand, Princess, after I mash your royal self into this tree trunk!" and "I hope this isn't an omen that I'm destined to have those I love taken away from me." Knuckles and Sally need not have delivered those lines at all! This has got to be the most overwritten story since Kent Taylor's "Immortality Is Infinite..." (S56). I've made a big deal about this because it's actually the ONLY flaw this story has. The plot and characterizations work extremely well, and would have been even more effective through the occasional use of silence. If Sally had silently watched as Knuckles and Locke walked away, or maybe if she had been allowed a single sniffle, I think we'd all have gotten the message without Mike Gallagher's heavy-handed foreshadowing. Likewise with the young Knuckles watching father and daughter depart: did he have to say ANYTHING at that moment? In an otherwise great story, less would definitely have been more. Head Score: 9. EYE: Manny Galan, on the verge of cutting back on his work for the Knuckles books, turns in an extremely convincing job here. And even though he's never been my favorite artist when it comes to the adult Sally, his drawing of the young Sally is faultless and incredibly expressive. Eye Score: 10. HEART: Having been there and survived that ("that" being childhood) I can relate to the mercurial moods of the two kids in the story. Sally's grandiosity and sorrow are each appropriate to the moment. As for Knuckles, considering he's spent much of his life up to this point with only his father for company (and he'll lose even THAT in a few years), it's no wonder his social skills aren't all that they could be. The emotions may have been overscripted, but the mood is never false. Heart Score: 10. "Eve of Destruction" Story: Mike Gallagher; Art: Art Mawhinney; Ink: Rich Koslowski; Color: Barry Grossman; Lettering: Vickie Williams; Editorial: G-Force. I'm guessing that Mike Gallagher is over 40; how else to explain the title, taken from one of the more intense protest songs of the Sixties (and recorded by Barry McGuire, in case you were wondering). The Mobian playground version of the Fantastic Four (Sonic, Sally, Rotor and Antoine), have taken their game of dodgeball to the street, near the home of Amadeus and Rosemary Prower. He's a Commander in the palace guards and she's "en famille" as Antoine might say. Some exposition lets us in on the fact that Sonic's Uncle Chuck has given up the game of science and, though the dialogue doesn't fully explain it, the artwork attributes it to the fact that Sonic's father was roboticized. Gee, and it's only been TWO FREAKIN' YEARS since the point was teased in Sonic #46's "Countdown to Armageddon." I have been assured, though, that Ken Penders WILL fill in the blanks of what happened and why with this angle before the turn of the century. Anyway, as Mr. Prower heads off for the palace, he asks the kids to keep their pointed ears open in case his wife needs anything. As for Uncle Chuck's old roboticizer project, ex-War Minister Julian is not about to mothball the device. Amadeus happens to witness one of the device's test runs and tries to put a halt to things...WITHOUT calling for backup! He thus gets introduced to one of Julian's other pet projects: a SWATbot. I think I now know why he lost his left eye. The gang, meanwhile, hears Rosemary's screaming and, since they don't know nothin' 'bout birthin' babies, convey the mother- to-be to the next page... Where she's already given birth. Boy, Archie Comics glided right over THAT one! The kids continue hanging around the new mom while she gets a courtesy call from King Max. Then the room REALLY gets crowded when Julian squeezes his bulk in, accompanied by Snively and a Commander Prower who's wearing surgical scrubs though nobody else seems to have taken similar precautions. Amadeus takes one look at his new son and turns and walks away. And Sally thought SHE had abandonment issues in the previous story! It turns out, of course, that Amadeus has joined Dr. Robotnik-To-Be's labor force, though his speech center is a little haywire: the phrase is "Robotnik's word is law." Shocked and exhausted (they don't call it "labor" for nothing!), Rosemary pretty much passes out. Sonic offers to hold Rosemary's Baby and, quicker than you can say "Konrad Lorenz," the future best buds have bonded. HEAD: Although I'm usually a stickler for chronology and would normally insist that Tails would not have been born until after Robotnik's takeover given the ages of the characters, Mike Gallagher's script here is totally believable. Amadeus's recklessness was about the only quibble I had with the story; you'd think he would have learned SOMETHING about tactics on his way to becoming a Commander. As for Julian's gowning up Amadeus and ushering him into Rosemary's room, it's on a par with Robotnik's testing the Ultimate Annihilator on one of his own kind in "For Whom The Bell Tolls" (Endgame, Part 4, Revised Version): it establishes that he's one nasty S.O.B. Head Score: 10. EYE: Art Mawhinney's also getting ready to move on, but he doesn't let himself get careless. He turns in another superb bit of work. Eye Score: 10. HEART: It's classic: set up Amadeus and Rosemary as a likable, loving couple with a baby on the way, THEN have tragedy befall them. And Mike Gallagher did it right, with just enough build-up to make the two appealing, then at the right moment stick the knife in (Amadeus gets roboticized) and give it a twist for good measure (he appears to reject his newborn son). The tone is perfect without being "mushy." Heart Score: 10. Congratulations, everyone! Now, if only Sega will let this kind of work get through on a regular basis....