Sonic #111 [Aug 2002] Spaz/Ribiero/Ray cover: Impressive BEV (bird's-eye-view) of Sonic and Sally facing the attack of the ninja spiders. Honestly, wouldn't you just love to see a movie with that title? I don't know if I like the eye thing that's happening with Sonic, but I DO like the backwash from the Sword. Plus we get artwork of Rob and Amy Rose, who's REALLY showing some anime influence. And even though he's replaced in the story by a flickie-type bird, I like the mini-owl perched on the bow. That's about how I picture Pig, the owl acquired by Ron Weasley at the end of "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban." Nice frontispiece by Axer and Amash. "Kids of the Spider Woman" Story: Karl Bollers; Art: Ron Lim; Ink: Andrew Pepoy and Pam Eklund; Color: Josh and Aimee Ray; Lettering : Jeff Powell; Editor/Art Director: Justin F. Gabrie; Managing Editor: Victor Gorelick; Editor-in-chief: Richard Goldwater. And now for something completely different: a one-page layout of Amy Rose and Rob O' The Hedge on their way to Knothole. En route, Amy misses one of her connections and ends up landing in a net that looks way too symmetrical to be spider webbing; see the aforementioned splash page. Back at the castle, Sally tells Sonic, Tails and her folks about the impending infestation of ninja spiders. As far as Sally is concerned, she has enough worries considering that she's channeling the Source via the Sword. When one of the Raspberry Berets tries to take it away, however, it puts up enough of a fuss for Sally to hang onto it a while longer. "You know you need me," the Source says, dusting off one of its older pick-up lines. Tails is sent out to round up reinforcements while the Raspberry Berets are deployed around the castle. The ninja spiders being ninja spiders, of course, easily get the drop on the guard who, if they ever appeared in a Star Trek crossover, would immediately qualify as "phaser bait." The spiders enter the castle in a fairly impressive sequence, so impressive in fact that it could have worked without any caption boxes at all. And the fact that Karl chose to use the words "Silent" and "Deadly" in that order is another argument for losing the boxes. The spiders burst into the throne room where Sonic, Sally and the Royals appear to be just waiting around for the attack. Queen Alicia decides now's a good time to get the King's wheelchair out of second gear, but Sally chooses to stay and help Sonic, even if this means she's "fulfilling the destiny the Sword has chosen for me." Besides, cowardice isn't a good look for you, Sal. She does cover her folks' retreat while Sonic's whirlwind maneuver proves ineffective, and he gets konked for his trouble. Sally then goes into possession mode and gets more mileage by ZAMming the spiders at the same time that the backup arrives. We get a single panel of the royal rumble before the Source calls a halt. It seems that the ninja spiders only want the Sword because they've been programmed to want it, a trait that they inherited from their mama-san, Uma Arachnis. O-kaaaay. I myself may have inherited a genetic tendency toward alcoholism from a close family member, but I'm not about to tempt fate by jumping off the water wagon in this lifetime. Sally decides that since the ninja spiders want the Sword, they can have it. HEAD: I really had to work at getting past the premise that these spiders were born knowing ninjutsu. I mean, we never saw them working out at a dojo or anything. Then again, at 11 pages, there wasn't a whole lotta room for back story. This story is based on a plot point that closed out S95's "Enemy Mine" and which nobody did anything with until this issue. That's 16 issues where we've had a chance to forget that the last time we saw them, these ninja spiders hadn't even hatched from their respective egg sacs yet. OK, there was SOME foreshadowing in last issue's "One For All," but still, a little development would have helped. We're talking bare-bones action here: the ninjas attack and Sally turns over the Sword after the briefest of battles and one more helping of mumbo jumbo. I'd like to believe that the ninjas and the Sword have officially been retired. Head Score: 6. EYE: The Sonic Curse strikes again! Just as Nelson Ribiero turned in surprisingly effective artwork for "Myth-taken Identity: Part 3" (S105) where his drawings of the Downunda Freedom Fighters were far superior to his work on the franchise characters in S96's "The Messenger," so at the very beginning of this story Ron Lim actually manages to do decent drawings of Amy Rose and Rob O' the Hedge before returning to ten pages of the same old same old for the rest of the story. There's even the slightest hint of an attempt at expressiveness in his drawings of Amy Rose. He also manages to do some decent modeling of the ninja spiders, but once more the art of the main character is just plain awkward at best: Sonic's quills have grown to Rapunzelian lengths by the bottom of pages 7 and [11]. I honestly don't get it. Eye Score: 5. HEART: What saves this story for me is that, with the surrendering of the Sword to the ninja spiders, Sally not only severs her link with the Source of All, after the pool of goo had been boiled away in last month's atomic explosion, but she also strikes a blow against mumbo jumbo. Granted, the comic has been through a lot of changes since its debut. It started out all jokey and episodic, then started taking on longer story arcs. By the time that Ken Penders introduced the Source plot point in S60's "The Ultimatum," the book was trying to reach an audience beyond the all-sacred pre-adolescent boy demographic. I had no trouble with that. It's HOW it went about it that troubled me. The longer arcs, going back to the various Specials and particularly the now-infamous Endgame, were primarily plot-driven and lacked a sense of direction. In some cases, such as the Death Egg saga, there was a lot of action but no development to speak of; as the specials were meant to stand alone, they couldn't affect the plot line that was evolving in the main comic. The book also took a rather schizophrenic approach to the supernatural which seemed to depend on the whim of the writer rather than on any clear-cut editorial direction. Mike Gallagher took his shot in "Ring of Truth" (S35) by introducing the Ancient Walkers, who themselves morphed from unconvincing sauropods wearing patently phoney tiki masks into the disembodied masks themselves. Ken Penders tried being serious about his approach to the subject, especially in the Forgotten Tribe arc (K10-12) and in the invention of the Source of All, which I thought at the time owed far too much to the Great Link on Odo's homeworld from ST:DS9. I STILL think that, as a matter of fact, and now it appears to be a moot point because Sally connection, embodied in the Sword, is officially out of the picture. This book's handling of religion (and let's face it, comic books publishers in general haven't exactly been anything like gutsy and/or insightful when dealing with the R-word, if they deal with it at all) is actually best summed up in the character of Lara-Le, Knuckles's mom. Ken's showed her more than once in an aurorium, which is what passes for a church in echidna society. Unfortunately, we never learned much else about her beliefs, except for a few plot crumbs dropped here and there along the path. The irony is that we now live in a postmodern era that is not as hostile to even the IDEA of religion as 19th and early 20th century Rationalism was. But if management can't even get the EMOTIONAL content right, why should we expect anything to happen on the SPIRITUAL plain? And with the Knuckles stories down to six pages a month when they appear at all, the chance of Ken filling in the gaps are virtually nil. Let us then pause for a moment of silence upon the death of the Source of All plot point, which will in all likelihood never be resurrected. And good riddance. Heart Score: 5. "I'll Shoot The Sheriff!" Story: Karl Bollers; Art: J. Axer; Ink: Nelson Ribiero and Andrew Pepoy; Color: Josh and Aimee Ray; Lettering: Jeff Powell; Editor: Justin Gabrie. Since he didn't get to kill any of the ninja spiders in the previous story and still needs to work off that ol' bloodlust, Rob O' The Hedge decides to decrease the population of Knothole by one by taking aim at D'Coolette Senior, though how much damages he thinks he can inflict on a bot with a flint arrowhead is open to debate. He must have let his subscription to the comic lapse because he didn't know about the ZAM session that restored the former High Sheriff to his right mind in S102's "Family Dysfunction." Further frustrated, he decides to do the next best thing and keep the General (and I DO wish one of the underpaid writers would go to the trouble of coming up with a NAME for him!) under surveillance. In the process, though, he manages to make himself a royal pain in the derriere. When the General catches Rob peeking in through the bathroom window (note the towel bar on the wall), he decides that this, as Antoine might say, is "ze last strawberry!" He pretty much challenges Rob to knock off the sneaking around and get in his face about it. What inevitably follows is a heaping helping of ... MALE BONDING RITUALS as the two of them camp out, gamble, eat barbecue (what else you gonna eat on a camping trip?), and fool around with weapons. About the only thing they DON'T do is change into grubby old clothes and spend the weekend fooling around underneath an old car that's up on blocks and leaking oil all over the driveway. In the end the two act like best buds and, the necessary rituals completed, Rob heads back to Mari-An, who's still presumably holding down the tree fort back in Mercia. Remember Mari-An? HEAD: John Ford's 1952 film "The Quiet Man" climaxes with John Wayne, as an American who goes to live in peace in his mother's Quaint Irish Village, and Victor McLaglen trading punches all over the back lot. I won't go into all the reasons WHY the Duke dukes it out in epic fashion with his new bride's landowner/brother, but the results are the same there as here: instant male bonding. I didn't get it when I saw the movie, and I had trouble buying it here, but at least Rob and the General didn't spend their time trying to punch each other out. I had never thought that Rob was the sharpest arrow in the quiver based on past performances, going back to his debut in S58's "Friendly Rogues and Foul Villains," back when Rob lived in Deerwood Forest in Snottingham and not "Knottingham" as in this story. And he DOES make a homicidal first impression in this story when reunited with the General. Still, Karl apparently had that in mind as the whole idea behind this story: turning Rob from a distrustful butthead into a more likable guy. The fact that it works proves my long-held contention that a character- driven story, even one that lasts only 5 pages, can work just as well as something that's plot-driven and five times as long. Head Score: 9. EYE: Killingly detailed Axer artwork, once more demonstrating great composition, bull's-eye character modeling, and a keen sense for page layouts. With Dawn Best apparently on hiatus for a time, he's becoming the book's premier artist. Eye Score: 10. HEART: It's all about the attitude here, particularly Rob's. There's nothing noble about the extreme prejudice with which he wants to terminate the General. That point is beautifully underscored by the sequence where his "keeping watch" over the General reduces Rob to mere voyeurism. There can't be anything less heroic that peeking into bathrooms. And the psychology behind the bonding of the ex-sheriff and Rob is equally impressive. Rob the Spy actually gets a life by being involved in the General's. When reading this, I remembered a line from a Harry Chapin song, "What Made America Famous?": "It's funny, when you get that close/It's kind of hard to hate." In a comic where the emphasis on action (read: "fighting") is amply on display in "Kids of the Spider Woman," it's heartening to see a story working in the other direction. This isn't the first time it's been done in the book, but the last time it really got a workout was in the Myth-Taken Identity arc (S103-105). Nice to see it get a chance to stretch its legs in the main continuity if not in the cover stories. Heart Score: 8. "Send us your e-mail," the page shouts, "we want to hear from you." Please note that of all the Archie comics represented, Sonic isn't one of them. I get the feeling they're already getting enough mail, both e- and snail, to last into the next century. "Trouble With Grrrls" Story: Karl Bollers; Art: Steven Butler; Ink: Aimee Ray; Color: Josh and Aimee Ray; Lettering: Jeff Powell; Editor: Justin Gabrie. A simple signing for a starry-eyed admirer turns into a mob scene, so Sonic and Tails make themselves scarce. The two males talk about girls, but Sonic apparently isn't down with the idea of having a girlfriend because it would be too inconvenient. He'd rather have girl friends. HEAD: "All art is knowing when to stop." Toni Morrison. I was afraid that we'd get in over our heads when this story was announced. Karl had crafted the perfect little closer for the issue of Sonic's non-existent love life with S109's "The Crush." The main point of interest for the readers, after all, were Mina and Sally and their respective feelings for Sonic. That was all handled quite well, in fact. But somebody, and I'm willing to guess it was somebody in Editorial and/or Management, couldn't leave well enough alone. We had to get Sonic's side of the story. Trouble is, the Sonic presented here is so shallow and superficial that he HAS no side of the story. In this 5 page story, Karl spends two pages just on the set-up, and Tails gets at least as much face time as Sonic. And the Sonic on display is ... well, I've said it already, "shallow and superficial." This isn't even about sex, it's about Sonic being all surface and no substance, all image and no reality. If they weren't prepared to do it right they never should have done it at all. Head Score: 5. EYE: After a prolonged absence, Steven Butler returns to the comic. I haven't seen his stuff here since, if I remember correctly, S84 and the climax of the Sonic Adventure arc. In the meantime, he seems to have studied the artwork for Sonic and Tails from the Sonic Adventure 2 materials. I'm hoping he'll have a chance to draw Rouge and that her figure won't suffer as a result. I like Steve's art, his layouts and perspectives are imaginative, and even his drawing of non-game characters (Sally and Mina) have an authority that Ron Lim lacks. Heck, I even like his drooling fangirls. But I was bothered by Ray and Ray's flat coloring. It's not up to Gagliardo standards, and Ray x 2 did way better work for "I'll Shoot The Sheriff," but because of time constraints or whatever reason the coloring here looked almost like a throwback to the days of Barry Grossman. Eye Score: 8. HEART: "Shields up, Mr. Chekov!" Archie Comic's editorial sexism is on full display here. Sonic is a male and males aren't supposed to have an emotional life. So we get a Sonic who's about as deep and colorful as a drop of water. Once upon a time about 5 years ago, I would have gotten my blood pressure elevated over this continuing to render Sonic as being dead behind the eyes. But now that I'm older and more mature and have the AARP membership card to prove it, I can take this situation far more calmly, especially since this story isn't going to make a bit of difference to the fans who care about Sonic anyway. We can thank anime for that, too. While browsing the Anime Turnpike for Digimon sites, I noticed a section devoted exclusively to ... Couples Sites. Note: if there are any pre- teens reading this you might want to bail out now... OK, you were warned. At the end of the second season of Digimon (aka, "Digimon Adventure"), there was a brief Where Are They Now sequence which covered what happened to the Digidestined from the first two series ten years later. I was jazzed, of course, to discover that Takeru/T.K. became a writer. Aside from the various career choices that were made, there was also a rundown of who ended up married to whom: Sora ended up marrying Yamato/Matt and Yolie ended up marrying Ken. This apparently didn't sit well with fans who'd been concocting "ideal" pairings and the market exploded. Digimon couples are dazzling in their complexity and variety. Sure, there are your standard pairings; Rina Tay (at www.rinacat.com), a Sonic fan and artist who is still doing the occasional page of art for my fanfic "When A Bunnie Meet A Bunnie" over at TeamArtail, is a diehard Jou/Mimi couple fan. This despite the Matt/Mimi fans, the Jou/Sora fans, the Taichi/Sora fans ... you get the idea. But the Internet is still something like the Wild West where the law east of the Mississippi hasn't been planted yet. So we also get our share of yaoi pairings. Yaoi eludes an easy capsule definition; you can't exactly call it gay-but-not-quite. It's sort of gay life seen through the pages of a Harlequin novel, a heavily romanticized fantasy about men by and for women. If it's your thing, Yaoi Con 2002 is being held at the Holiday Inn Golden Gateway Hotel in San Francisco, the weekend of Oct 18-20. If you're able to get there, say "Hi" to one of the guest speakers: Patrick Drazen. Yes, my twin brother will be there, and his book on anime should hit the stores about a week after that. OK, so much for the shameless nepotism and plugging. Digimon is not immune to yaoi pairing of males, or females (called "yuri"). Taichi/Matt is only one such pairing; Sora/Hikari is another. One link site alone lists 75 existing combinations of 28 characters from the first two seasons. And that's not to mention human/Digimon connections. One site puts a romantic gloss on the relationship between Renamon and Ruki/Rika from the third series, "Digimon Tamers." Couplers seem to have a habit of thinking up cute abbreviations for their efforts at matchmaking, and this site's name says it all: "RuReRo," which is short for Ruki-Renamon-Romance but which also, unfortunately, sounds like dialogue from the new Scooby Doo movie. The purpose of this digression is to show how determined the fan base can be in believing something despite the "canonical" version. It's all neatly summed up in a statement on a Matt/Mimi couples site: "Our motto here is: 'Screw the writers, I'll believe what I want!'" Which pretty much sums up my attitude toward this story. I refuse to believe that this mockery of a hero, this caricature of a personality, in any way resembles the Sonic that has staked out a place in the imaginations of the comic's readers. Readers were afraid that Sally and Mina would end up turning into clones of Betty and Veronica; what we've got here is a Sonic who appears to be modeled on Reggie Whatsisface. And I ain't buyin' it! This is one of those stories that's best forgotten. Heart Score: 3. Fan Art: Two pages. I'm guessing that Wyatt Black's drawing shows Sonic, Tails, Knuckles (still in his green period), and Monkey Khan. What Sasha's drawing lacks in color it makes up for in attitude. And the drawing by Yoshi Poindexter (ya gotta wonder if that's a real name!) demonstrates that anime is here to stay, in terms of look and attitude. Off-Panel: Mercifully, Sonic stopped being a possible candidate for Digest material long ago. Not that they couldn't do a digest of a long story arc, after the manner of manga story collections. This Just In: Karl Bollers interviews Dawn Best. I think she took the "fan artist" designation the wrong way. I'd use it as a compliment, to designate someone with a knowledge of and affection for the characters that comes through in their work in a way that mere comic book artists can't touch. Sonic-Grams: Micah wants a proper SA2 adaptation; maybe now that the writers can access the game without the paranoia of the game developers getting in the way, they can do the job right this time. Trouble is, they'd probably de-emphasize Rouge's parts ... er, part ... OK, both ... and I seriously doubt their ability to get a handle on the complexities of Shadow's psyche. Matt brings up a plot point which will probably go nowhere since Robotropolis went kaboom. And Montana Shane resurrects the How Many Fingers Do The Overlanders Have debate. Ken gives a straight answer by saying that the finger count was "missed by the artist and ... not corrected by the editorial and production department...." Along with a host of other misspelled word balloons, awkward dialogue, and other continuity gaffes such as the invisible Chaos Syphon in the ironically-named "Best Laid Plans" (S94). Coming Attractions: Antoine as ze legend in 'is own mind. Hey, it can't be any worse than "The Map." I usually don't bother with the ads, but when looking at the back cover ad for Oscar Meyer products with a tie-in to the Scooby Doo movie, one look at the cast and I have a strong feeling that the word on this page that best sums up the acting in the film is on one of the boxes: "ham."