Tone down the sparkle on those vampires, it's THE SONIC THE HEDGEHOG 2009 BEST-WORST LIST There's a gratifyingly large field this time around as Archie Comics launched Sonic Universe this past year. That means there are 11 SU issues to consider (sorry, SU12 arrived too late to make the cut and complete the story arc) as well as Sonic #196-207 inclusive. This was a generally strong field, especially in art where Tracy Yardley! turned in consistently great work and was joined by old pros such as Stephen Butler and promising newcomers such as Jamal Peppers. So throw those teabags overboard and grab a chili dog, it's time to separate the cash from the clunkers: BEST COVER STORY: "Mobius 30 Years Later: Five Years of Peace" (SU5) The year started off with Sonic still trading punches with Scourge and ended with Mobius being attacked by the Iron King and Queen, and I was reminded that more often than not the comics don't let the furries catch much of a break. That's why I cherished this opening installment in the M30YL arc. As we join Sonic and Sally they've spent the last five years doing nothing more challenging than parenting their twin offspring. The fly in the ointment, however, is Lien-Da, who almost pulls off a neatly-planned scheme to take out Sonic with a rocket-propelled grenade, which a time-hopping Silver stops at the last possible second. This is a first-rate story, with the action paced like an episode of "24." Yet the opening of the story (a documentary/exposition as to how things came to be in future Mobius, followed by a look at the home life of the Royals) is so cheery that it perfectly tees up the suspense later on. There's no misstep in the story incidentals and Lara-Su's adventure in babysitting is as perfect as the depiction of the settled married love between Sonic and Sally. A masterpiece by any measure. WORST COVER STORY: "Blackout" (S207) This story was all over the place. It began with Jun Kun smashing through an anachronistic wooden fort, then failing to do the same to the dome covering Old Robotropolis. In between, we have Bunnie trying to get a bead on Sally's ... well, it's supposed to be about her love life but what we get is a completely unconvincing speech by Bunnie as Sally never really gets a chance to honestly open up about her feelings. As a result, her sort-of hook-up with Khan at the end of this story just doesn't work, a fate shared with the story as a whole. BEST BACK STORY: "Birthright: Part 1" (S205) The major revelation here is that you come away from this story actually feeling sorry for Lien-Da. OK, that may be a stretch, but you understand her a little better. In flashback she is prompted by her brother Kragok to kill their father Luger so the two sibs can become joint Grand Master of the Dark Legion. That plan blows up in Lien-Da's face along with the weapon she was issued to do the dirty. The real punch of this story, though, comes when a wounded Lien-Da is told by her brother that he's scooped up all the marbles himself. It's not often you see anyone in this comic, either hero or villain, get as thoroughly screwed over as Lien-Da is here. The comic's stories don't often get as powerful as this. WORST BACK STORY: "Friend In Deed: Part 2" (S204) This story suffers by comparison with Part 1 in the preceding issue. There, Knuckles confronts the seeming turncoat Espio in a well-choreographed and largely wordless fight scene. Here, however, we're back to the Wall Of Words exposition kind of storytelling which really didn't help the story anyway. Then Espio leaves; he's the lucky one. This was a waste of good trees. BEST STORY ARC: "Birthright" (S205-206) It's not often that an arc of back stories is done as well as this one, but keeping the focus on Lien-Da helps a lot. After flashing back on how Kragok practically killed her and then froze her out of the Grand Master's office, she takes out her frustration on Dimitri by symbolically emasculating him, locking his head away in a box, and becoming Grand (Puppet) Master of the Legion. This is almost like a pre-adolescent primer to the political machinations of Robert Graves's historical novel "I, Claudius." Pretty amazing stuff, even though we suspect that Lien-Da won't be able to enjoy her revenge for many more issues. WORST STORY ARC: Team Dark Arc (Sonic Universe 1-4) The most charitable thing I can say is that the Sonic Universe title was still finding its voice when it premiered with this story arc, about Shadow trying to ... well, the lack of a central reason for doing this story didn't help matters. First Metal Sonic ends up destroyed by Shadow, Blaze, and Marine; then Shadow keeps flashing back to some moments from Sonic Adventure 2 (some of which had been rewritten by Ian) while disabling yet another Robotnik wonder weapon accompanied by Sonic and Rouge; then Shadow can't stop Omega from destroying Gamma; and finally Team Dark steals a Chaos Emerald from Feist who's acting like some kind of prankster. If this sounds like the arc was all over the highway, you're right. But what really ices this underdone cake is when Shadow and the team complete their mission in a scene that has them selling out to G.U.N. in one of the most unconvincing flag-waving endings imaginable. Team Dark loses its darkness as well as any kind of edge and the whole arc collapses in on itself. The Hope interlude in SU4 was genuinely moving in a moe sort of way, but this was worse than disappointing. BEST COVER ART: Sonic #197 (Yardley!/Jensen) Unlike a lot of the covers this past year, this isn't cluttered up with a lot of characters. It's just Sonic and Sally ... behind bars. Sure, the situation doesn't reflect the story on the inside where Sally is the one in hot water with the Council while Sonic takes on Scourge in an alt-zone, but the personalities of the two characters comes through far better than on the other covers. And that makes all the difference in a year where the cover art was busier selling the situation than the characters. WORST COVER ART: Sonic #200 (Pat Spaziante) OK, so we hit issue 200. This cover, however, is no cause to rejoice. It's too generic and absolutely divorced from the story inside. Anyone could have knocked this one off. Spaz can do, and has done, way better. BEST STORY ART: Tracy Yardley!, "Mobius 30 Years Later: Five Years of Peace" (SU5) The artwork was so strong this past year that it's gotten harder to single out a Best than to select a Worst. Not that there's anything wrong with that. What tipped in the lead-off story of the M30YL arc for me was, once again, Yardley!'s sure touch in depicting the members of the Royal family while letting the personalities of the kids and parents and even Lara-Su come through. And the depiction of the assassination attempt at the end of the story was equally masterful, making use of some nice layout touches to keep the suspense level up. WORST STORY ART: Tracy Yardley!, "Knight Time" (S197) Yardley! has done amazing work all year with the comic art, but this story tripped him up badly. While managing to duplicate most of the details from the opening cutscene from "Sonic and the Black Knight," the game's cinematic treatment defeated Yardley!'s best efforts. The creatures summoned by the Black Knight are far from convincing, and Sonic's destruction of them is ruined by a badly-placed and absolutely unnecessary "ZOOM" sound effect. It's well below Yardley!'s usual work. BEST CHARACTER: Skye Prower In crafting "Mobius 30 Years Later," Ian had a chance to write in a host of new characters, such as the royal tweebs, and to dust off some old ones such as Rutan, Lien-Da, and Mr. and Mrs. Miles and Mina Prower. Unfortunately, some were no more lively than some of their cardboard predecessors in this comic and it was soon apparent that there was no real light behind their eyes. With one notable exception: Skye Prower. In contrast to his father, who has always been portrayed as being not only devoted to Sonic but as a happy and self-confident kid, Ian has written Skye to be the antithesis of Tails in his younger days. Skye takes after his dad in that he has two tails, but he still hasn't got the whole flying thing under control yet. Even in his initial appearance, he looks seriously nervous, as if wishing he could be somewhere else. Unlike Jacques and Belle, the offspring of Bunnie and Antoine who have been tarted up with cybernetics for no good reason that I can see, Skye actually has a personality instead of a gimmick. I'd like to see a sequel just to see more of Skye; he's a welcome addition to the continuity. WORST CHARACTER: Conquering Storm When she made her entrance with the Irons at the end of S200's "Turn About Is Fair Play," she appeared to be a formidable-looking potential opponent even for Bunnie, and I wondered whether she's be anything like Toph from "Avatar: The Last Airbender." No such luck. Constant Storm, who it turns out is the Bride of the House of the same name, walked on and off a couple times, and delivered some very ordinary dialogue, only to be sent back home in S205's "On The Run: Part 1." I really felt as if she was a perfectly good character with a lot of potential gone to waste. Maybe her design by Yardley! helped to oversell her, I don't know. I hope she makes it back into the arc and does something worthwhile before it wraps up. BEST DIALOGUE: "I will not go through this again. I will not act, I will not give ANY order, until I've had direct approval from the Council. Even if we're in the middle of a fight. You can discount any help from the Chaotix. They're free agents, beyond my control. I will refuse to give them any orders. "Or ... you can trust me." Sally, calling the bluff of Councilor Hamlin in "Consequences" (S197) WORST DIALOGUE: "I ve got you all beat. I was dead' during all that." Sally, with a gratuitous "Endgame" reference in the midst of "Knocking on Eggman's Door" (S199) BEST IDEA: Sonic Universe Seeing the premiere of the "Sonic Universe" title doesn't just mean more Sonic every month, which of course isn't a bad thing. The stated goal of the new comic, if I understand it correctly, is to loosen up the continuity belt a couple notches and broaden the storytelling. Hence the appearance of the Mobius 30 Years Later arc. DC Comics tried and failed to corral their continuity issues despite "Crisis On Infinite Earths" and its follow-ups. Archie and Sonic Editorial, by contrast, must realize that even though they have continuity issues of their own, the fans actually LIKE some of them. And in 2010 there's the prospect that SU will also carry some parallel story arcs to the main Sonic comic. And to think that for years the creatives worried that the comic itself would be cancelled (though "Endgame" did come close to finishing it off). WORST IDEA: Love Triangle I understand exactly what Ian Flynn is doing in the extensive (and, as of this writing, ongoing) story arc concerning the fight against the Iron King and Queen while Eggman takes a brain breather. There's a two-track story here: the larger political story of fighting against the conquest of New Knothole coupled with the supposed burgeoning love interest between Sally and Khan. Emphasis on "supposed." Ian has done a masterful turn in depicting Sonic and Sally as a married couple in the Mobius 30 Years Later arc in Sonic Universe, and has shown something of the same sensitivity in his too-infrequent forays into the Bunnie-Antoine relationship. But the Sally-Khan story has nothing propping it up. There's been no serious hint that Khan has displaced Sonic in Sally's affections, at least not in any credible sense. If anything, Ian has been at pains to avoid having Sally open up about her feelings. This was especially on display when, in "Blackout" (S207), we got a page of Bunnie discoursing on Sally's feelings and Sally simply signing off on her assessment. Bottom line: everything so far argues against Sally dumping Sonic and needing to learn how to bake a decent banana bread instead of chili dogs. It's still a good story arc without the MacGuffin of a possible change in Sally's love life, but this digression is getting more pointless with every issue.