Sonic the Hedgehog #130 (Feb 2004) Spaz/Ribeiro/Ray cover: "Sonic the Hedgehog is back from outer space!", the cover proclaims [Insert thanks to deity here]. Now he's about to break the news to Sally. Powerful cover that just jumped to the top of the Best Cover of 2003 list despite the trick Photoshop backlighting. Frontispiece: a lot of verbal huffing and puffing that made the just-concluded arc sound better than it really was. Herewith, the Truth-In-Advertising Version: "Along the way he's confronted his dark side which beat up on him until it more or less conveniently dissolved, been worshiped as a deity without having to do anything beside fall asleep on his blue butt, defeated an entity capable of destroying whole planets and thus tying up one of the longest-standing loose ends of the comic's continuity, and learned some second-hand information about Mobius' secret history or at least its being visited by space aliens who couldn't seem to make up their collective mind whether to roboticize everyone or leave them as orgos. That's not to mention his getting caught up in an insect war, doing a foot race that was a thinly-disguised version of the pod race sequence in Star Wars Ep. 1, making absolutely no contribution whatsoever to a 5-page Justin Gabrie ego trip, finding out that Tails's parents were kidnaped by space aliens, and taking part in a parody of a feature from Mad Magazine." "Home: Part 1: The Blue Blur returns" Story: Karl Bollers; Art: J. Axer and Stephen Butler; Ink: Michael Higgins and Jim Amash; Color: Jason Jensen; Lettering: Michael Higgins; Editor: Justin F. Gabrie; Managing editor: Victor Gorelick; Editor-in-Chief: Richard Goldwater. Sonic is no sooner back on Mobian soil, having gouged out a sizable amount of it upon landing, than he spies columns of smoke rising up out of the forest. He's pretty sure they're not grilling chili dogs for his Welcome Back party but he decides to check it out anyway. What he finds is a variation on the old Shotgun Wedding: in this case, a cassocked goat is tying the knot between Hershey and Geoffrey Sinjin while the entire wedding party is held at gunpoint by SWATbots. Short story shorter: Hershey and Geoff, having busted out of captivity, have been apprehended. Their last request was to get matched before they get dispatched. Too bad Geoff isn't wearing that tuxedo that he changed into in S118's "Heart to Heart"; it would look more in place at his wedding (and impending funeral) than the high-tech body suits he and Hershey are sporting. And witnessing the nuptials and being addressed by the SWATbots as "Father" is ... well, he appears to be going by both "Eggman" and "Robotnik" these days. Anyway, before Eggman can say "I now pronounce you corpse and corpse," Sonic crashes the wedding and shuts down the SWATbots in a very nice 1-page sequence that doesn't depend on a lot of dialog and which is followed by another 1-pager featuring a close-up on Sonic and his pretty green eyes. The newlyweds are allowed enough time for a quick cheer before jumping into exposition mode: After Sonic thwarted the plans of the Xorda to destroy all life on Mobius (again!), Robotnik backed out of the power-sharing agreement with King Max (no surprise). Plus, Eggman is no longer content just to roboticize other creatures. In a bid to make him an even more villainous villain, Karl has given Robotnik ... WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION!! Well, he's already got the cheesy mustache that seems to be a requirement of the Dress Code for Evil Dictators, cf. the chapter on Bad Facial Hair. Speaking of whom, we cut away to "New Megaopolis-Capital of the Eggman Empire" and apparently a long way from the Robotnik Fortress of Solitude that appeared in the comic just prior to the S125 plot reset. Among the changes that have taken place, Snively appears to have been a guest on "Really Really Extreme Makeovers." Actually, the babe addressing Eggman as "Father" is an android named "M," which is short for "Mecha" (preview publications; gotta love 'em). Robotnik finds out that Sonic is back in the land of the living and throws a hissy fit. Sonic, meanwhile, scoots back to Knothole which has undergone some changes as well. The place is still located in the Great Forest but is now more metallic, looking like a cross between the Ewok village and the Jetson's Skypad Apartments. Only now does Sonic remember Einstein's Theory of Relativity and realizes that he hasn't reset his clock yet. Like Scrooge after his all-nighter with the ghosts of Christmas, he grabs the nearest urchin and ask "What day is it?" and finds out he's off by one year, give or take. So it's off to Castle Acorn. At the Castle, Knuckles, Julie-Su and the Chaotix are in audience with King Max and Queen Alicia. Knux and the crew, apparently, are on loan to Mobius and want to get back to Angel Island to do a little housecleaning for themselves, but while the Royals are telling Rad Red "You missed a spot" Sonic makes his not-too-grand entrance. This occasions two pages of reunion/exposition as Sonic breaks the new of Eggman's WMD program and discovers that King Max is no longer on the disabled list. But as depicted on the cover, there's one more bit of business for Sonic to attend to. Thanks to some more brilliant artwork by Steve Butler, Sonic catches up with Princess Sally at a monument to Sonic. Thankfully, Karl doesn't spoil the moment with any needless talk. I could, however, have done without the comic relief bit featuring a bunch of Mobian paparazzi. Hey, small price to pay, and I'm glad to see that Sally doesn't want to spoil the moment with a lot of talk, either. And we get one more page of reunions featuring Tails, Amy Rose, Sonic's parents, and the rest of the Knothole crowd. The old gang has also been through some changes: Rotor's wearing glasses and a sleeveless bomber jacket, Bunnie's dressed up like Indiana Jones for whatever reason, and Antoine's acquired a scar on his face and a hard attitude. This being a comic book that functions under the laws of loose continuity, none of these changes is explained. Give it a year or two. While Sonic is getting a tour of the new old homestead, President Square calls in. He's apparently having trouble doing his job because he's got a G.U.N. to his head and the brass hats want him to put the Shock and Awe on New Megaopolis. At this point Eggman clears the phone lines and issues a challenge to Sonic. It's a variation on the old How Can the Hero Be in Two Places at Once Plot, with Robotnik upping the ante to three. Sonic can: A. Deal with a nuclear missile aimed at Knothole; B. Deal with a nuclear missile aimed at Station Square; C. Deal with the SWATbots who are preparing to release all that year-old fallout from Robotroplis when it was nuked in "Station Square Attacks!" (S113). Bet Sonic wishes he hadn't told Buttnik to "Bring it on." HEAD: Cathy Guisewhite once described the self-named heroine in her comic strip by saying that a Cathy is someone who, instead of keeping their checkbook balanced, opens a new checking account every six months. I feel like that's what's happened to the comic. By hurling Sonic into space for a period of time, you just knew that the writers would take advantage of the change of scenery to give the continuity a "While You Were Out" makeover. The worst case scenario, and my biggest dread, was that Sonic would return after many years, if not centuries. This would have given Editorial the opportunity to kill off characters en masse by contracting Father Time to do the job. Mercifully, that didn't happen. And no, I didn't trust the S130 cover art when it appeared in the preview publications; we've been burned by Archie Comics before. It's a pretty mixed bag of changes, some only skin-deep. Because almost all of them go unexplained, however, we have to take them literally at face value. Some, like Antoine's (dueling?) scar and attitude or King Max's recovery, beg to be explained in back stories. Others, like the new look of Knothole, can wait. Of the things that need explaining, I confess I have my share of dread mixed with anticipation. For instance, I'd really like to know what happened to Max. There are a gamut of possible explanations, some of which could make compelling stories or even whole story arcs, and some which could descend into the realm of the ridiculous. I wish I knew the process by which these changes were arrived at. I hate to think that Justin or someone else in Editorial simply stated: "OK, we're not getting any mileage from King Max being a paraplegic, so let's forget that angle" and then left it up to Karl Bollers to get Max from point A to point B. Then there's Sally. The only real change about her is her longer headfur. At first I didn't think much of it, figuring it was just a superficial style change such as was previously inflicted on Bunnie. The more I think about it, though, the more I have to wonder, since Bunnie's upgrade nudged her away from being a partially-roboticized Mobian and moved her closer to being a standard-issue superhero. Sally's shorter hair was not only more proportioned than her current style, but it also made more sense for an Action Heroine. When you're dodging hostile fire from SWATbots or infiltrating Robotnik's headquarters you don't want your long auburn tresses getting in the way. You want to go for a low-maintenance Mary Lou Retton/Nadia Comeneci/Shannon Miller/Demi Moore-as-"G. I. Jane" hairstyle. Maybe the change in Sally's headfur reflects nothing more than the taste of Justin Gabrie [Is he still the Art Director?], but I'm curious to see whether Editorial is edging Sally out of her role as a freedom fighter. Maybe she can start doing a Lara Croft thing and tie it up in the back. And then there's the Techno-Tree. Now I've always resonated with the underlying Green theme of the SatAM series, the whole Nature vs. Technology thing. And the games are no different: the platform games had Sonic jumping on the various baddies and turning them into cute little animals such as bunnies, birdies, seal pups, chipmunks, etc. In Sonic CD, when you warp to the Past and stop Metal Sonic from trying to step on some small animal, all the baddies revert to the kind of forest creatures who would have been right at home in Disney's "Snow White" or "Bambi." I also appreciate the vision of Sonic CD where in the Good Future technology and nature work in tandem; the Good Future of the Tidal Turmoil stage with its use of green plants as an integral part of the water system is a prime example. And Heaven knows anime has done its share. Though based more on Shinto belief and practice that on Western Green philosophy, the presence of certain trees is an integral part of several anime motion pictures ("Windaria," "My Neighbor Totoro") and television series ("Tenchi Muyo!"). So in one respect I'm not surprised that a great tree should be used as a communications hub. And Rotor is, of course, the master at high tech. But the sight of the tree circuited like a character from "Tron" and decked with video screens as it they were Christmas ornaments.... I honestly don't know. Like the scene in the Hanna-Barbera adaptation of E. B. White's "Charlotte's Web" where the barbershop quartet sings the praises of "Zuckerman's Famous Pig," that scene was just right and just wrong at the same time. That having been said, "The Blue Blur Returns" is a quantum leap improvement over the bulk of the stories in the Tossed In Space arc. In a number of those stories, "Evo-Solution" being the prime example, Sonic's involvement was marginal at best. Here, Karl gets back in the groove and actually tells a story involving Sonic DOING something. Even in the previous issue's "Welcome to the Wheelworld," much of the exposition-laden story spun out around Sonic whose main contribution was busting 9009 out of jail. Sonic is home here and it feels great. Head Score: 9. EYE: Not to slight J. Axer, but Steven Butler's artwork is the centerpiece here, and it lets us know just why the Japanese comic industry managed to steal a march on its American counterpart. In 1947, Osamu Tezuka made his debut with the first manga of the new wave, "Shintakarajima." Fred Shodt has written that Tezuka's visual approach, which included using close-ups, pans and a number of other visual devices Tezuka learned from watching French and American cinema, made reading the comic feel "as if someone was watching a movie." In the quick-cuts of the SWATbots being dismantled, in the close-up of the victorious Sonic, and in the pan-in to the mourning Sally about to get the shock of her teenaged life, Butler doesn't just do comic art, he's given us a story board. And THAT has been one of the legacies of manga: to expand the depiction of action in a comic beyond simply showing the fist of a stalwart hero connecting with the jaw of a villain while a giant POW! fills up the background. Let there be action, and let it be as cinematic as possible. Let's hope this is a sign of things to come. Artistically, there isn't a false note in the story, though Butler does give away the fact that M is an android by providing her/it with exactly ONE facial expression to wear in all her/its appearances. But given Eggman's (you'll forgive the expression) robot jones, it wasn't that much of a leap. Eye Score: 10. HEART: This is probably old news to any fans of "Digimon Tamers," the third "Digimon" series to air in the U.S., but I recently came across a Web site that's indispensable to any fan of the show: www.konaka.com. It is actually the official Web site of Chiaki Konaka, and this is a great site not only for fans but for writers. Konaka is himself a writer, having written novels, live-action films, and anime [three of four episodes of "Mahou Tsukai Tai"/"Magic Users Club," "Bubblegum Crisis Tokyo 2040," as well as being the head writer for the second season of "Big O" as well as for "Digimon Tamers." It is instructive to go between Konaka's notes on the characters and the "Fact Sheets" that appeared in this comic a while back. While the Fact Sheets provided little besides character biographies based on what had happened in the comic, consider the following about the character Jeri: ... At first, I did not have any plans to make Jeri bear the heavy burden of "destiny" that she does in the middle of the second story arc (taking place in the Digital World). However, Jeri is the girl most often on Takato's mind and closest to his heart. This was something underlined not only in the scripts that I wrote, but also in Mr. [Yukio] Kaizawa's direction in the first episode. This was when Jeri's importance to the series was cemented. "Woof!" Jeri uses a hand-made hand-puppet and practices ventriloquism. This was something that was not in Jeri's original character concept, but Mr. [Katsuyoshi] Nakatsuru's design sketches of her included the hand-puppet. I could see that this hand-puppet would definitely be of use as a prop in the drama to come, and more importantly, Jeri looked very cute with the puppet on her hand. Thus, Jeri's character was shaped and molded by Mr. Nakatsuru's designs. Furthermore, Director Kaizawa came up with the idea that Jeri carried around the puppet to entertain her much younger brother. From this, the concept of Jeri's step-mother (a second wife to her father) was born. ... Konaka's note aren't just "This is going to happen to her, then that is going to happen to her." There's an emotional subtext to the action. She's an important character in relation to Takato because without his being conscious of it he's starting to develop a crush on her (this is made explicit in episode "Reunion" where Takato confesses his feelings to the faux-Jeri that's really an agent of the D-Reaper). In the same way her actions in the series tie in with events we pick up on the fly: the death of her mother, her father's attitude, the death of Leomon. They're all plot points, but all emotionally charged. Just as manga took comics to the next level visually by its emulation of cinema, so anime has in its own way kicked animation up a notch by paying attention to how motion pictures and television are written; what Konaka would call "loose continuity" is defined, not by the comic works of Kirby and Lee, but by high-line television drama such as Steven Bochco's "LA LAW" and "Hill Street Blues" which he openly admires. Though there's plenty of loose continuity in this story waiting to be tightened up, it's important to note that this story isn't so much about Robotnik's WMD threat as it is about Sonic emotionally reconnecting with the other characters. In addition to the big reunion scene with Sally, he's on the receiving end of hugs from Hershey, Uncle Chuck, Tails and his mom Bernie. It's hard to believe when you read this story just how emotionally sterile this comic used to be. If there's a hopeful sign as to the future direction of the comic, this is it. The near- universal judgment of the fans was that the "Hearts Held Hostage" arc had managed the feat of combining action and emotion. "The Blue Blur Returns" proves that it was no fluke. The rest of the "Home" story arc may end up leaning heavier on the action side, but in terms of all elements, story and art and emotion, the comic seems poised to finally live up to its potential and break out from the shadow of Archie's mainline titles into what passes in the industry for greatness. Heart Score: 10. This Justin: J. Fred hints that the animated "Sonic X" will be integrated into the comic continuity ... somehow or other. Mega-Blurb for Sonic #131: The tease for "The Gathering" makes the plot sound a little too much like something out of "Lord of the Rings" but we'll see where Karl takes it. Of greater significance is the off-hand line about the "overwhelming popularity" with the fans of what Archie Comics had always promoted with a measure of hesitancy: that Sonic and Sally will get married some day and rule Mobius. But with the comic having stood the test of time and Sega itself a casualty of the hardware wars, Ken Penders prepares to debut an extended story arc set in Mobius's future a quarter-century down the line: "Mobius: 25 Years Later." The first installment promises to deal with Lara-Su's coming of age; this being an Archie Comic, expect it to have to do more with her getting her learner's permit than having a talk with Julie-Su about echidna hygiene. Sonic-Grams: After some crowing about M:25YL, Ken gets a letter from a school library aide (Shout out to ya, Penny!). Greg wonders Wassup with the Spy v. Spy parody. John Stetz thinks that S101 should have been S100, and it WOULD have been were it not for Sega's insistence on a Sonic Adventure 2 adaptation, and calls Benny Lee on the correct number of Chaos emeralds, red or otherwise, needed to morph. Fan Art: Michael Pagan gives us Sonic grinding, Shandelle Williams and Garret Levitz submit portraits, and Mariah Renaud gives us Sonic and Tails while a non-anthro wolf howls in the midground.