It seems like a hundred years ago, but it was just shy of 100 issues. I began my review of Sonic #49 by citing some words in passing that were part of a response to a piece of fan mail. It explained the concept of "loose continuity." It also explained, unintentionally, why comic books can be so poorly written. Thanks to the loose continuity doctrine, the writers don't have to work themselves up into a serious think in order to iron out continuity problems in a story. In fact, if the continuity of a book is loose enough they seem to feel no need to address any problems they leave behind until the problems multiply like tribbles to the point where the book has to pull a stupid stunt such as "Crisis on Infinite Earths" to try to provide new writers something like a clean slate. Well, this time around the "obiter dicta," the words in passing, are provided by Ken Penders, tucked into an interview featuring Ken, Pat Spaziante and Steve Butler, concerning the Sonic comic as it approaches the 150th issue mark (it ran in Silver Bullet Comics and was posted at the Sonic HQ message board): "Having written stories that involved talking about divorce, explaining the birds and the bees to one's son, religion, politics, death, love and relationships, as long as one is sensitive and keeps in mind you're dealing with primarily a young audience, it's not so much a matter of what one wants to do but rather what one believes is appropriate to do." This only confirms what began in my mind as an embryonic notion after reading S147. Note how Ken characterizes the readership: "primarily a young audience." Never mind that for the last 10 years plus the comic has managed to hold onto child readers as they've entered their teens; even a few of us really old farts have hung in there more for love of Sonic and friends than for appreciation of the garbage the comic's creatives have inflicted upon them. But Ken pretty much telegraphs the message that we oldsters and hardcores are getting the big freeze-out. This book is being dumbed down to attract grade schoolers. Now, I've never believed that there is such a thing as a good story written only for kids (or even only for grown-ups). The writers of really excellent stories, from Mark Twain to J. K. Rowling to Richard Adams to Hayao Miyazaki, are able to cross over. They can write stories for older readers that won't necessarily blow over a little kid's head, or they can write for children in a way that doesn't patronize oldsters or insult their intelligence. Since discovering this comic with issue #18 I have nursed the hope that SOMEONE in Editorial would realize this simple truth. Obviously they're not interested, and S147 is your proof: a mindless fight story, followed by something that should have run in Mad Magazine instead of this comic, followed by a fox-and- his-dog story that didn't even try to go for the kind of Walt Disney "Awwww!" moment that might have pulled it out of the crapper. But that was Exhibit A. Let the record show that we are entering this into evidence as Exhibit B: Sonic the Hedgehog #148 [June 2005] Pat Spaziante cover: good composition, bold and edgy. "The Good, The Bad, and The Unknown: Part 3: Genesis" Story: Ken Penders; Art: Steve Butler; Ink: Jim Amash; Color: Jason Jensen; Lettering: John E. Workman; Freelance Wrestler with Continuity Problems: Bob Repas Jr.; Editor: Mike Pellerito; Managing Editor: Victor Gorelick; Editor-in-Chief: Richard Goldwater "Now, the Royal Throne Room" for three panels featuring Princess Not Appearing In This Story. Cut back to where we left things last month: Fiona, Rotor and Bunnie are being electrocuted as Tails and Tommy Turtle watch helplessly on a video monitor. Having Tails say "What a pickle!" is bad enough, but maybe Ken and/or John E. Workman came to their senses and decided against trotting out "Sizzling SWATbots!!!" again. Then, to prove his membership in the Brain Trust, who goes off to rescue Rotor and Company? Who makes with the quick exit, in a situation where speed is of the essence and every nanosecond counts? The turtle. THE TURTLE!!!! Ken is already two pages into his story and he has the slowest character, the one who was no speed demon as established back in "The Tortoise and the Hedgehog," dashing off to the rescue. This is one more sign that Ken just doesn't get it; he's sending a turtle to do a flying fox's job. If he thinks Tails and Tommy are interchangeable in a situation like this, and if they're trying to sell Tommy as being every bit as much of a brainiac as Rotor, it tells me that Ken's so deep into writing an action story that he's forgetting who his characters and what their capabilities are. But believe me, there's worse to come. Sonic comes to and slowly realizes that he's fallen onto a set of tracks and there's a train or a roller coaster or something bearing down on him. He jumps onto the platform in time. Then, taking a page from the Karl Bollers dba Benny Lee Tossed In Space playbook, Sonic decides it's time to get on board. After all, he was improbably adept at piloting foreign space vehicles during the aforementioned story arc. Anyway, he leaves his three pursuers waiting for the next train. We then get Shadow, Metal Sonic and Isaac standing around like stranded commuters asking why Sonic even bothered to take the train. Isaac's speech balloon is pure lead: "THE PROBABILITY OF THAT OUTCOME IS 0.05%. INSUFFICIENT DATA TO EXPLAIN THE MOTIVATION OF THAT PARTICULAR SENTIENT LIFE FORM. HOWEVER..." Unfortunately, neither Shadow nor Metal Sonic have the brain capacity to tell Isaac to shut up if he's this poor of a conversationalist. But believe me, there's worse to come. In order to avoid having to listen to Isaac a second longer, Shadow takes off after Sonic on foot. Metal, however, has another agenda: "gathering data for my creator, Dr. Robotnik." This unfortunately flips Isaac's Oprah mode switch and we will soon be hip-deep in the equivalent of Isaac's life story. Metal, you moron! After noting that "ROBOTNIK IS AN ANAGRAM OF KINTOBOR" and declaring that there may be a 99.3% relationship between the two (and thus winning this month's coveted Golden "Duh!" Award with Advanced Calculus Clusters), we cut to Tommy coming upon Fiona, Rotor and Bunnie still in the process of being electrocuted. The place must be on energy saver mode because they should have been fried to a crisp by now. Tommy, the budding genius, finds a "weird" leather glove. Don't ask me what's so weird about it except perhaps that he's just not clear on the concept of "rubber." Then, in a move I haven't seen since Eggman took a swing at the Master Emerald in the first Sonic Adventure adaptation, Tommy grabs a handy length of pipe (no lab should be without one) and smashes the nearest wall switch on the assumption that that's where the current is coming from. Because this is a story in a badly-written comic book, it turns out to be a good guess. We then cut back to Tails who's managing to eavesdrop on Metal and Isaac. Isaac is continuing to expound on the Kintobor- Robotnik correlation, so we are now treated to WAY more exposition than anyone needs to know. Hang on: Note how Isaac addresses his creator: "IVAN KINTOBOR, BORN JUNE 6, 2006, EXACTLY TWELVE THOUSAND TEN YEARS, 11 MONTHS, 2 WEEKS, 9 HOURS, 47 MINUTES AND 13.7 SECONDS AGO." I can just hear this being delivered in a Beldar Conehead monotone. We then quick cut to Tails in the hope that it'll wake up the readers who fell asleep during that speech balloon. Before Metal can say "Thank you for sharing, now shut up!", we learn that I.K. not only "LED THE DESIGN TEAM THAT CREATED ME" (after swiping the specs from Sega, apparently), he also adapted "ALIEN TECHNOLOGY AS PART OF THE MATRIX." Which may explain why the sequels were so bad. We then see a repeat of the Alien Autopsy sequence involving one of the Xorda from the Sonic Adventure 2.5 story arc. Either that or we're looking into the kitchen of the local Olive Garden(tm) during their Calamari Festival. Anyway, we're told that the Xorda unleashed their "gene bomb" and Isaac tells how he ensured Kintobor's survival in a post-apocalyptic environment without happening to mention how Kintobor survived getting HIS genes bombed. While Isaac talks (and talks and talks and talks!) about settling into a life of medical monitoring, light housekeeping and occasional field trips to the surface, we see Sonic being pursued by Shadow. "THE BOMB," we're told "WAS INTENDED TO PRESERVE THE PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT [but] INSTEAD TRIGGERED VOLCANIC REACTIONS WHICH SENT BILLIONS OF TONS OF ASH AND DIRT INTO THE ATMOSPHERE. THIS IS WHAT IS KNOWN IN CURRENT ECHIDNA THEOLOGY AS THE FIRST DAY OF FURY!" It's also known as "nuclear winter" or by its nickname among the military, "Oops." In another bid to wake up the audience, Shadow takes a flying leap and puts Sonic in a choke hold. Sonic gets out of this tight spot by slamming on the brake. And he knew that was the brake ... how exactly? As Shadow gets a serious case of road rash, Isaac continues to drone away. You have to read this thing to really appreciate the disconnect between all this exposition and whatever narrative sense Ken Penders had going in. We have to wade through sludge such as "BESIDES TRIGGERING THE DEVOLUTION OF HOMO SAPIENS, THE BOMB ACCELERATED THE EVOLUTION OF WHAT WAS ONCE REFERRED TO AS THE ANIMAL KINGDOM" of which Homo sapiens was technically a part, but never mind. Of course, it's a wonder that anything survived the ensuing nuclear winter caused by the gene bomb, but Isaac doesn't go there, either. A thousand years later, according to the verbose tin man, the sun finally "BURNED THROUGH THE LAST OF THE ASH AND DIRT IN THE ATMOSPHERE." He then says that Kintobor, who apparently came out of the Big Sleep of his, started going to the surface, scavenging stuff and tracking ash and mud all over Isaac's nice clean floor. Note how Isaac compresses subsequent history: "VARIOUS SOCIETIES BEGAN TO EMERGE AND DEVELOP" but who cares about that? Isaac would much rather go on and on about "THE BERYL DEPOSITS [REACTING] TO THE ENERGY OF THE GENE BOMB AS IT WAS ABSORBED OVER TIME" and how "EMERALDS ARE CRYSTALS OF THE MINERAL BERYL" so therefore "THE CONDITIONS WERE PERFECT FOR THE CREATION OF THE POWER SOURCE NOW DESIGNATED AS CHAOS EMERALDS." Glad we cleared THAT up! I think the only thing Isaac missed was the correlation between Chaos Emeralds, Queen Beryl and the Moon Kingdom of Princess Serenity. Which would have made for a more interesting story than THIS snooze is turning out to be! Isaac makes passing reference to encountering Mammoth Mogul 10,000 years ago (and we don't miss him a bit!), as well as the beginnings of echidna civilization and the Acorn Dynasty. Like I said, there's a serious gap between the nuclear winter and all this animal activity, but some things you just have to take on faith. End of exposition and end of the ride for Metal and Isaac as they reach a dead end with Sonic having escaped through a convenient sliding door. Shadow works the door loose and gets spun into for his trouble. Sonic then dashes up a nearby ramp and, after dodging four pages of advertisements plus a glossy ad insert (about which more later), he comes across an intercontinental ballistic missile with the motor running. Either this is Ken's homage to "Beneath the Planet of the Apes" or else this is what's left of Saddam Hussein's cache of weapons of mass destruction and we can start bringing the troops home from Iraq any time now. HEAD: This is some of the worst writing I've ever encountered in this comic, and I'm old enough to remember "Endgame"! Turn to any page, ANY page, and you're likely to find some problem, whether two-dimensional characterization, implausible story elements, boring dialogue, or padding. Lots of padding. If you leave out Isaac as a plot device, you'll find that this is basically a nine-page story stretched to twelve. Ken must have known that this was a thin batch of soup so rather than focusing on the Mobians we're subjected to Everything We Never Wanted To Know About Mobius while some more important questions go unanswered. But more on that in the Heart section. The "electrocution" sequence was especially insulting. Basically, Ken creates a danger to some of the characters that turns out to be no danger at all. Bob Repas has subsequently posted on Ken's message board that no, they weren't being electrocuted (despite Tommy saying so in the previous installment), they were being held in a "stasis chamber." Yeah, well, maybe Ken and Bob should have dropped a line to Steve Butler since based on his illustrations the effects of stasis chambers are that your hair stands on end and you grimace in pain and start vogueing all over the place. NOT my idea of a good time. And everybody comes through without a scratch. The obvious interpretation is that Ken created a false threat to try to keep the readers interested. That's cheating. Then again, the entire story may be a cheat. It's pretty obvious Ken is building toward something in #150. At this point, I'd venture a guess that the "Dr. Kintobor" Isaac has been babysitting for who knows how long is in fact Dr. Robotnik aka Eggman which explains how he came to be the only hyoomon on Mobius yadda yadda yadda. Now ask me if I care. And let's not forget the ease with which Tails navigates the control room in the complex after never having been there in his life. I haven't seen anything look this easy since Jeff Goldblum hacked into the mothership in "Independence Day" with his trusty laptop. Honestly, this story is contrived and weighted down with irrelevant detail to the extent that when Sonic comes upon the missile at the end it's like "So what?" If they've gotten through so many "serious threats" to get to this point, why bother taking the missile seriously? Head Score: 2. EYE: Once more, Steve contributes good art to a less-than- worthy cause. At this point I found myself looking for little details, such as the fact that Sally's head hair has grown down past her butt. Guess she really DOES have too much time on her hands. Eye Score: 10. HEART: Let's recap one of Isaac's bits of dialogue: "IVAN KINTOBOR, BORN JUNE 6, 2006, EXACTLY TWELVE THOUSAND TEN YEARS, 11 MONTHS, 2 WEEKS, 9 HOURS, 47 MINUTES AND 13.7 SECONDS AGO." I quote this again because it's become symbolic of the way this comic is approaching the characters in it. What you see above is a torrent of facts but lacking in anything about the personality of the subject. As C. S. Lewis rightly noted, this is more like IMPERSONALITY, the sort of thing that can be reduced to a paragraph in an article in an encyclopedia or a really unfortunate eulogy: "The funeral director covered the where and when of Maud's birth, the where and when of her marriage, and the names of her children. Then he seemed to run out of steam. All he said about Maud's character and interests was that she liked to read novels and watch TV soaps, and that she had been a good mother." [David N. Marshall, "Checkout," Messenger (British Union Conference of Seventh-day Adventists) 2005, Apr 8, p3] Now look at the final splash page. Aside from the (blessed) absence of Tommy, there's Tails by himself, Bunnie and Rotor and Fiona crammed into one of those roller coaster cars, and close- ups of the villains. The artwork is good, but there's no sense of connection between the players even though they may be in the same area. Now let's pause for a moment and look at some of the advertisements in this book. The center of the book is dominated (and the main story interrupted) by something called "Heroscape" by Milton Bradley. It appears to be an RPG that brings in characters from all over the library, like Dungeons and Dragons with odd anachronistic bits thrown in. In the middle of the advertisement is a 6-page comic tie-in. The cover features not only the usual RPG suspects but a Sergeant Rock knock-off and a fugitive from a spaghetti Western. The plot takes a page and a half of text boxes to summarize, and the dialogue is unbelievably bad. A sampling: "Stand your ground! Today none of them are under the Protection Spell! Strike at them and they will fall!" "I'm surprised you human cowards can fight without hiding behind Raelin's Spear of Gerda." "Cowards? Why you yellow-bellied monsters!" I suppose it's because I'd never heard of Heroscape until now, in addition to the fact that I can't play RPGs without my writer's brain taking over at some point and thinking about the characters in terms of "What story can I tell about them?" But I found the whole thing unengaging, uninspiring. I felt differently about the two advertisements tied into the animated series "Teen Titans," one for a collectible card game and one for the second DVD of episodes. Of course the main difference is I'm a fan of the show, something I didn't think I would be. When I first learned of it, I feared that it would be as wooden and uninteresting as the Batman/Superman/Justice League shows, or something fluffy and brainless along the line of "Totally Spies." I'm happy to report I couldn't have been more mistaken. The show is loosely based on the continuity of the comic that dates back to the 1980s. The eps veer between drama (Robin's battles with Slade) and humor (any ep featuring Mad Mod), and sometimes there's a mix of both. You get the superhero gimmickry of the characters plus a well-written emotional subtext. Cyborg is still mostly a machine but he has issues about his humanness. Starfire has her quirks but also some insecurities. Raven is telekinetic but despite keeping a tight rein on her emotions lets herself become a fool for love (or something close to it) at one point. Beast Boy provides a lot of the show's humor, but his feelings for Terra carry a certain poignancy. The show in relation to the comic is almost like a Best Of Teen Titans The Way They Should Have Been All Along. In fact, DC spun off a comic title, "Teen Titans Go!", which tracks with the animated series continuity; the comic is based on the cartoon and not the other way round! What makes this show work for me are the factors I've been complaining have been in short supply in the Sonic comic: good ensemble writing, well-defined characters and honest emotional content. Ensemble shows seem to have been coming into their own for a while now. The hero-with-sidekick model that once dominated the comics is so last century! In animated series we're seeing shows like "Teen Titans," "Codename: Kids Next Door," "W.I.T.C.H" and "Winx Club." These shows depend not so much on a solo superhero with a sideshow sidekick but on a team to get the job done. If you want to take it back to the roots, I suppose "Ninja Science Team Gatchaman" (which served to inspire their live action counterparts in the Power Rangers franchise) gets the credit for blazing the trail. Other shows, however, refined the genre. These include "Sailor Moon" and, yes, the SatAM "Sonic the Hedgehog." One of the things that attracted me to SatAM, and which made my job as a fanfic writer easier, was the clear and strong personalities of the characters. Tails, Sally, Bunnie and others had personalities that stood out from the herd and made it easy to write about them. Sonic was almost a harder sell because at first all he had going for him was his speed and attitude. Until the show brought in Uncle Chuck. To the dismay of some fans I'm going to have to resort to the R-word: it was in dealing with the relationships between the characters, even occasional ones like Uncle Chuck, that the show cemented its appeal. These weren't just two-dimensional characters going through shtick. Unfortunately, this is where the comic appears to be heading. This means that the characters are reduced to dead-eyed cardboard cutouts to be manipulated for the sake of whatever "plot" is being worked. Bunnie, Rotor and Fiona existed in this installment, for instance, for no other reason than to be on the receiving end of a non-threat. And like I said, this could also be Ken up to his old tricks again, preparing to surprise us with the fact that Robotnik/Kintobor/Eggman/Whoever is the same 21st century dude Isaac has been babysitting in stasis since before the Xorda did whatever they did with the gene bomb. In which case the story wasn't about the three furs anyway, so who cares? I like to think the fan base does. But I fear this comic will continue to be ruled, dominated, enslaved to old school comic writing conventions that pay no attention to who these characters are and what their appeal is. And Bob wonders why I dread the thought of Issue #152's "Sonic's Angels." Heart Score: 1. "Playing Around" Story, Art, Inking, Lettering: Nelson Ribeiro; Color: Jason Jensen. You get an idea of where this story is going right from the opening dialogue: "How come Robotnik has never found this place?" "Because then we wouldn't have a story, silly!" "This place" appears to be an amphitheater with statuary homages to "Romeo and Juliet" and "Hamlet." But it's tragedy tomorrow, comedy tonight as Rosie escorts a gaggle of kids to see a stage production about one of Sonic's exploits. The twist here is that, except for Sonic, the show is full of cross-casting: Sally: Knuckles Geoff: Bunnie Nicole: Archimedes Robotnik: Big the Cat Snively: Tails Roboticized Uncle Chuck: deroboticized Uncle Chuck Tails: Rotor SWATbot: Vector Stagehands: Jules, Mighty, Espio Sound effects cue cards: Amy Rose HEAD: This is burlesque, and it's probably not what you're thinking. The definition of "burlesque" is a theatrical form that either trivializes something important or else treats something trivial with unwarranted high seriousness. The former includes "Hooked on a Ceiling," the "Animaniacs" sendup of Michelangelo painting the Sistine Chapel ceiling ["You expect us poor innocent children to climb up dangerous scaffolding and paint naked people all over a church? WE'LL DO IT!!!"]; the latter would include the theme music for the anime "Dragon Half" which consists of a song about omelettes set to the tune from the final movement of Beethoven's 7th Symphony. The clue that this is burlesque is not just the generic bare-bones plot of the play (Robotnik kidnaps Sally who's rescued by Sonic) but in the cross-casting. Casting the seriously underutilized Big as Robotnik is an inspiration since he resembles the evil genius in girth only. Once Big opens his mouth and speaks his lines you KNOW he's not the sharpest knife in the drawer. The same goes for the casting of the rotund Rotor as Tails, a piece of miscasting so bad it takes three stagehands to fly him on-stage. I get the feeling that Nelson Ribeiro has had this story languishing in inventory for a long time, and Mike Pellerito is doing some Spring cleaning. Note that, in the occasional panel Sally's hair, and Knuckles's Sally wig, are of a more reasonable length than Sal's current Repunzelesque tresses. Also note that Bunnie has forsaken her Air Cav outfit. This isn't just outside the GBU continuity; this is a major throwback. This story, unlike GBU, doesn't have some hidden agenda we're not supposed to know about until S150. It's a goofy little stand-alone skit-within-a-story and it works on that level. If anything, I'd have liked to see it go on for another page or two, to have Sonic and Knuckles actually come to blows at the "romantic" finale to the extent that the bring the house down, literally, with a few reaction shots from Sally thrown in. I couldn't help but think of "The Muppet Show" as I was watching this. Rather than being a TV show about puppets who put on a variety show every week, I liked to think that it was a TV show about puppets who TRY to put on a variety show every week and succeed despite themselves. Here again, what made the "The Muppet Show" work was strong writing for an ensemble cast of distinct and off-the-wall personalities: Kermit as the harried stage manager trying to control a diva (Miss Piggy), a clueless comic (Fozzy), a geeky artiste (the Great Gonzo) and the rats and other fauna running around backstage. That this goof on the Sonic comic works is due to Nelson Ribeiro's adherence to the rules that the main writers seem to have forgotten. Head Score: 9. EYE: Ribeiro, who usually appears only as the inker, does good work here, reminding me a little of Chris Allen's work for the Knuckles book when it was still alive. And Jason Jensen's coloring works as almost a throwback to Robert Grossman's coloring style. Eye Score: 9. HEART: In this case, Ribeiro's heart is in the right place. He's actually having FUN with the characters and situations, another item that's been MIA from this comic lately. Karl Bollers lowered the boom so bad on the continuity with the Home and Return to Angel Island story arcs that in some respects the book has yet to recover, Jon Gray's introduction of Knuckles to his half-sib in the RtAI arc notwithstanding. This story definitely shows some signs of life. Heart Score: 9. "Destiny's Child" Story: Ken Penders; Art: Tim Smith III [debut]; Ink: Michael Higgins, Color: Jason Jensen; Lettering: Michael Higgins. We find the normally pleasant Tails in a lather about the fact that his parents are still stuck on the Bem home world. For the record, it happened in S129 and Tails got brought up to speed in S134's "Say You Will." That was, what, just over a year ago. And he's only just getting around to kvetching about it now? Welcome to the world of loose continuity. Just as he's getting it out of his system by skipping stones across the pond that's at a right angle to where he's facing (try it some time ... it takes real skill!), an Offstage Voice quotes from the book of Ecclesiastes at him. Since Julayla quoted from the same Biblical tome during her death scene in S18's "In The Still Of The Night," this can't be good. No, Tails has not been transported into a DOOM game and that's not a Pain Elemental. It's Athair, Knuckles's great- grandfather who joined the immortals in the course of the Forgotten Tribe arc. His appearance as a Big Giant Floating Head is explained as ... well, he tells Tails he exists "in a Zone far beyond your comprehension" and lets it go at that. "Can you even give me one clue what [being the Chosen One is] all about?" Tails asks. I'm surprised that this got past the Comic Code Authority guidelines; it's extremely dangerous for children to play with loaded questions. We find out HOW dangerous as Athair and Tails spend the next two pages bringing the newbies up to speed on one of the most misbegotten plot points ever to infect the comic. "Why does everyone have to be so cryptic?" Tails explodes, who does another shout-out when he learns that he has an Uncle Merlin. He also learns about his getting so badly clocked by Knuckles back in the original Chosen One story arc that he spent half the story asleep/unconscious/whatever. And the flashback/exposition he goes through can only HINT at the monumental stupidity that was inflicted on the readers when Ken came up with the Tails Isn't Tails plot point. "So what's it all mean?" Tails shouts out once more, whereupon Athair remembers he left the water running in the shower and promptly disappears, but not before hinting that "the hour of the Chosen One is now at hand." Let me guess: it has something to do with S150. HEAD: With "Destiny's Child" Ken Penders has written his own version of Karl Bollers's "The Last Robian." In that story, Karl simply trashed any real narrative sense and filled the pages so full of text boxes that the end-result was what I called "an outline with pictures." Ken relies more on dialogue in this case than Karl but the net effect is the same: sacrifice narrative structure for a crash retelling of the back story. I am so sorry Ken brought this plot point back from the dead. This is such a poison pill I don't know why the writers couldn't just leave well enough alone. A "poison pill" is a business term referring to efforts by a company to prevent a hostile takeover by another company. Let me give you an example: Maximilian Acorn, founder and CEO of Acorn Industries, finds himself the target of a hostile takeover bid by Ivo Robotnik of Robotnik Universal. This holding company comprises other major firms such as Robodyne Systems, SWATbot Security, Snively Amusements, etc. Having roboticized the Acorn board of directors and a majority of the shareholders, it looks like Robotnik's takeover of Acorn Industries is a done deal. But then Max takes the poison pill: he issues preferred stock in Acorn and distributes the shares to those not yet under Robotnik's influence: his daughter Sally who's taking classes in B-school, Charles Hedgehog in retirement from Acorn where he worked in R&D, Charles's nephew Sonic who works for a delivery service, etc. Unlike common stock, which can rise or fall in value depending on the whims of the stock market, holders of preferred stock receive regular and substantial dividend payments no matter how the company itself is doing. These preferred shares are scheduled to take effect after Robotnik's takeover of Acorn Industries. Max's poison pill strategy is simple: if Robotnik goes ahead with his merger and absorbs Acorn into his holdings, Robotnik's little empire will start bleeding money because of all the preferred shares of stock owned by outsiders. OK, yeah, I audited a course in personal finance this past semester. I DO have a life outside the Sonic fandom. As I'm using it, a "poison pill" is a plot point which, taken to its logical conclusion, spells the end of the continuity if not the world. The "Great Harmony" which the Chosen One is supposed to usher in has been described with such vagueness that it's easy to imagine that it refers to a punching of the Great Cosmic Reset Button which will undo all of Robotnik's evil works, reunite separated loved ones, give Bunnie her old body back, and usher in one of those Happily Ever After things. Unless Ken is toying with us again. Ken is in the same position as the producers of the apocalyptic "Revelation" miniseries. I've chosen NOT to watch it myself, having read the book. But Washington Post TV critic Tom Shales raises a good point about the series: how many people are going to sit through it to watch the world NOT come to an end? In order for the Chosen One plot point to have any meaning at all, it has to carry at least the potential of a full-blown apocalyptic end of the current order and an ushering in of a new one. In comic book terms, this has the potential of being another "Crisis on Infinite Earths" where Archie bends if not shatters the present continuity in favor of another. That other may very well be the Sonic X continuity, scheduled to take a bow in a miniseries slated to appear this summer. For a while, at least, the two will constitute parallel universes, though there are rumors that Archie may very well make it a permanent arrangement and run TWO Sonic comics with two different continuities: the modified SatAM Sonic and Sonic X. That would amount to a choice between Tommy Turtle and Chris. Talk about Doomsday! I've no idea how this will play out, and it's getting to the point where I don't want to know. My spider sense tells me that they could very well make as big a mishmosh of the Sonic X continuity as they have with the SatAM continuity. Be afraid. Head Score: 4. EYE: Tim Smith's style is still pretty rough around the edges. It reminds me a lot of Kyle Hunter's artwork in "And One Shall Save Him" (S41) where the modeling was technically correct but the expression of emotion needed work. Tails is pretty much on model here, though Athair as a Big Giant Floating Head looks too funky to be credible. And I'm guessing that the skipping- stones-at-right-angles posing in the first panel is a rookie mistake, like not allowing enough space for dialogue balloons. Eye Score: 7. HEART: "A lot of people are idiots at the age of fifteen," Sirius Black tells his godson in the course of "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix." At age 11, Tails would seem to be a couple years ahead of the curve. There was something both true and false about Tails's suddenly grousing about his lot in life. Perhaps that's the point: it was SO sudden, with no real build-up except for one throw-away panel in the cover story of this issue. And then the kid's emotional turmoil isn't so much resolved as it is shoved off-panel by BGFH Athair in exposition mode. That happens a lot in this book. Bob Repas's toss-off explanation, "It's hormones," deserves no consideration whatsoever. Heart Score: 4. No fan art, no editorial, no letters, no Off-Panel, no way they're going to hint at the mayhem leading up to S150. Either that or they really needed the money from selling the ad space.