Sonic the Hedgehog #162 (July 2006)

Pat Spaziante cover: As thumb-nailed in the back of the previous issue, this cover is actually part of a triptych formed by the covers of S162-164. And since the title storm threatens to sweep away some of the cast of characters, this is interesting in showing who’s up for going down. Going clockwise we’ve got Sonic (safe), Mammoth Mogul (hopefully on the bubble), two of the Ancient Walkers (gone as of this issue), Tails (safe), Sally (don’t even get me started!), and Amy Rose (safe).

“The Darkest Storm: Part 1: The Gathering Tempest”

Story: Ian Flynn; Art: Jim Fry; Ink: Jim Amash; Color: Jason Jensen, Lettering: John E. Workman; Editor: Mike Pellerito; Managing Editor: Victor Gorelick; Editor-in-Chief: Richard Goldwater.

First up to bat is Anonymous, whose contributions to the continuity to date have been as shadowy as his depiction here. In a splashy splash page he/it tries to cement his/its fanboy credentials by rattling off the names of three passé villains: Robotnik (with the implication that he’s the same as “Eggman”), Ixis Naugus (who never really amounted to anything, especially after his appearance in the infamous “Naugus Games” of Special #15 -- widely condemned as being some of the worst story and art ever to appear in the comic), and the recently-defeated Mammoth Mogul. Yet A-Nonny-Nonny claims to be able to take over the whole shootin’ match.

But we cut back to Sonic, who’s in conference with Elias. Turns out Elias plans to rebuild his father Max’s old Brawn Trust: “a new court of Acorn.” He wants to re-activate Sonic’s mostly-useless knighthood from a number of issues back, but Sonic acts like he’s too cool for the honor.

Speaking of knights, one of them, the horse-faced “Sir Connery,” appears at Tails’s workshop with a visitor in tow: Merlin Prower, finally making time to touch base with his nephew Miles. He comes bearing the Chaos Emerald in which is sealed Mammoth Mogul after the battle with Titan Tails, as seen in “The Chosen One: Part 2” (S150). OK, Merlin should have known that one of the rules of stories like this is that when you’ve got an infinitely powerful villain trapped in some kind of artifact, whether a lamp or jewel or whatever, LEAVE THE FREAKIN’ THING AT HOME OR IN A SAFE DEPOSIT BOX OR SOMETHING!! We now KNOW that M-Squared is going to get out before the end of the story.

But now we cut to the Egg Grape arbor, where Eggman/Robotnik serves up some exposition along the following lines: he plans to “syphon [sic] power out of the Zone of Silence, purifying it through the egg grapes, giving me the raw energy of an entire dimension.” It’d probably be easier just to switch to ethanol, but never mind. It’s a weird science scheme, underscored by Jim Fry’s literally foaming-at-the-mouth artwork. We then get a reminder that Anonymous started off by pestering Robotnik, roboticizing some minor villains and setting up the useless “Sonic’s Angels” story.

At this point the story goes to … Heaven, or whatever the comic cosmology has as an ill-defined replacement for it. Ian Flynn takes a turn at writing mumbo-jumbo as the Walkers, who have gone from being disembodied masks to crumbling disembodied masks, tell Athair and Aurora (who I thought was supposed to be an arch-deity, but never mind) that their powers are diminishing and that Athair, Aurora and Merlin must “maintain the balance of the Chaos force” and get their midichlorian count checked every three months or 3,000 miles whichever comes first. “Any one event could take us away.”

Before we get to the Any One Event, Ian realizes that he has to fulfill the “action and more action” clause in his contract so without any explanation whatsoever (or maybe the explanation was buried in S160-161 and I missed it, in which case I apologize), a half-dozen minor villains jump Connery and try to get the Chaos Emerald, making speeches and calling each other by name for the benefit of the noob readers. After less than two pages of this kind of old school nonsense, Sonic crashes the party and the rest of the gang (Fiona, Knuckles, Bunnie, Antoine, Merlin and Connery) clean up the mess. “Same old lameness,” Sonic observes. Indeed.

Ian then moves the characters indoors where he supplies his own spoilers: the characters, we are told, are “unaware that their work will be for naught.” Well, thanks for letting the air out of THAT balloon! Anyway, Connery tells Elias that his pig-sticker is “the Sword of Light.” This is Merlin’s cue to make with the exposition: thanks to the Ancient Walkers putting a curse on the hunk of Chaos Emerald that wound up embodied in his pachy dermis, Mammoth Mogul’s emerald hunk “always led him to a key misjudgement [sic].” I thought he just had bad writers working on his behalf, but never mind. He then informs us that MM used the last of his strength before being imprisoned to inflict a Gotterdammerung on the Walkers. Hence Merlin’s arrival; he’s come looking for the Suh-wooooord of Acorns and the accompanying Crown, both of which were fashioned from the ol’ Pool of Goo, aka the Source of All. And Sally, who already went through a couple head trips thanks to the Source, tags in to continue the exposition. Elias has no problem parting with the Crown.

As for the Suh-wooooord, we discover that the Egg Arbor is suddenly suffering from an infestation of ninja spiders. We also learn that “the Egg Grapes [wonder if that’s anything like cherry tomatoes?] are behaving outside of their programmed parameters.” As Eggman and M-bot beat feet, the ninja spiders reveal the Suh-wooooord because … well, because the plot demanded it, I guess. Exit the Ancient Walkers, enter Mammoth Mogul.

HEAD: This story is something like a catalog of the lamest of lame ideas remaining in the continuity. The Ancient Walkers, the Matrix-ripoff Egg Arbor, a half-dozen villains who could never even have been considered B-list, and reheated mumbo jumbo are all served up either to help set up the plot or else to be summarily dispatched. It is the reshaping of the continuity that is the grand design of this story after all, rather than any narrative element within it.

This is the point where Karl Bollers and I parted company. He got on my case and accused me of wanting every story in the book to be like “Watership Down.” I still can’t see why he made that sound like a BAD thing. All I said (over and over and over again) was that a story in a comic book stands or falls in accordance with the same rules that govern whether ANY work of narrative fiction succeeds or fails: is the story good and will it keep the reader turning the pages?

This story is paced well enough, but the weight is on the plot and not on the characters that inhabit it. For all of Sonic’s self-boasting he’s pretty useless here except for the melee with the Hapless Half-Dozen or whatever you want to call the bunch of loser villains who are quickly set up and just as quickly mowed down. Tails has even less to do aside from enjoying the briefest of reunions with his Uncle Merlin who himself gets clocked when Fuzzbutt Mogul makes his entrance. But there’s no real connection between the characters and the plot here. By that I mean if all the characters were stripped of their names and identities, we would have no compelling reason to want to read this story. Fan love coupled with a morbid curiosity about who will be blown away by the impending storm is what holds our interest here. On its own terms it’s well done, and after all these years maybe I shouldn’t expect more than that. Head Score: 7.

EYE: Jim Fry manages to ad lib beyond the script, imparting small doses of character in a story that doesn’t make too many demands along those lines. Eggman’s literally rabid overacting on page [4] is gross but not out-of-character. He also has Tails giving Sonic an if-looks-could-smack gaze because of Sonic’s proximity to Fiona.

But WHY does the lettering look so anemic in spots? It looks like it’s ready to flake off and blow away. I make no secret of my belief that the letterer has to be at the bottom of the comic book production food chain. Manga hasn’t used letterers for decades, especially for the use of Chinese kanji characters; instead, someone types out the dialogue and text at a computer keyboard and it’s pasted in place on the board. I’m surprised that the American comic book industry hasn’t seen fit to make the change themselves. Eye Score: 8.

HEART: So far the Joe Bob Briggs Memorial Body Count stands at: 3 dead masks and one clocked wizard. If this is all part of a grand reset on the order of Crisis on Infinite Earths, things will probably get way busier in the next two issues. This installment of the story is essentially two large blocks of exposition interrupted by a two-page fistfight and capped off by the death of three deities whose personalities and roles were never really defined anyway.

As a result there’s no real Heart factor at work here. That should change if any of the core Freedom Fighters trade in Knothole for the harp farm. One of the keenest lessons I took away from the debacle that was Endgame (S47-50) was the intensity of emotion on display at the Princess Sally Memorial Cybershrine. The reason that fan disagreements get overheated, that the Sally v. Mina partisans are so ready to go to war to defend their chosen coupling, and why I had to bail on this comic when the stories sank to such a level I was looking for excuses NOT to read them, is that the fans CARE about the characters first and foremost. Only secondarily do they care about the plots and then it’s simply because of what happens to their favorite character(s) within those stories. So far, nothing of consequence has happened, so there’s not much reason to care. Heart Score: n/a

“Ties That Bind”

Story: Ian Flynn; Art: Tracy Yardley; Ink: Jim Amash; Color: Josh and Aimee Ray; Lettering: Teresa Davidson.

“What am I doing here?” Snively asks. He’s not the only one. Again for the benefit of the noobs, he quickly flashes back on his career arc then briefly contemplates his relationship with Hope. But before the Sniveler can stroll too far down memory lane, his cable service gets cut off. Worse, Robotnik/Eggman shows up and gives him a shot at rejoining his team.

He asks Eggman to hold that thought while he dashes off to touch base with Hope, who’s grease-monkeying around at the airfield. Even after catching his breath, he demonstrates that he’s not so good at making small talk but eventually warms up to his subject: he suggests that Hope might want to think about relocating to some place a bit more human. She tells him she’ll think about it but doesn’t sound adverse to the idea. Then, in a mutual display of distrust, Snively does a heel turn. Show of hands: who DIDN’T see that one coming?

HEAD: For those who don’t know how Hope is related to Snively, she’s the stepchild of Snively’s brother Colin Kintobor, who got roboticized back in S105’s “You Say You Want A Revelation.” I like to think I’m familiar with the relationship, since I authored the article on Hope for the “Sonic-Wiki” at www.nz17.com.

The difference between this story and the previous one in this book is an important one, and it has nothing to do with the length (16 pages for the former, 6 for the latter). “Gathering Tempest” is littered with critters; aside from the series regulars there are those who only manage to get in a page or two of face time. By contrast, there are only three characters in this story: Eggman, Snively and Hope. This allows the story the chance “Tempest” couldn’t take: to examine characters.

Not that that’s a draw for the core demographic of pre-ado boys. Reading tastes for boys generally doesn’t run to the relational. I say this, not as a result of reading this comic for over a decade, but after reading research on teaching reading to elementary school boys. Hey, it’s all part of my day job.

The absolute key scene here is the Snively-Hope meeting. Ian’s assignment (and it’s a doozy) is to convince us that even as he’s on the brink of going back to being a villain, he cares just enough about Hope to want to get her out of town ahead of the action. That’s tough enough to do with ANY villain, who are usually portrayed as embodiments of self-interest and are so busy looking out for #1 that nobody else comes up on their radar. It’s especially tough for Snively, whose turnaround in S152’s “Sonic’s Angels,” when he went over to the furries, wasn’t all that believable to begin with.

He goes from a breathless dash to the airport to a “I’m not good at making conversation” panel with no dialogue, then using the plane she’s working on as the hook for the talk he gives her every reason to stay in Knothole, but ends up telling her that for her own good she should turn her back on those who have cared for her and should go back to the species that turned its collective back on her. This is not as far-fetched a speech as is her possibly positive reaction to it. She says she’ll think about this unwarranted bit of advice from her “big brother,” and allows Snively to dash off page and finish his heel turn.

Since “Sonic’s Angels” I don’t think Snively has been given all that much face time with anybody, let alone Hope. The result is a pretty solid WTF moment for the comic. Fortunately, Ian hedges his bets here so that we don’t know whether Hope takes him up on his suggestion to get out of Dodge (I’ll get into the reasons for her not going through with it in the Heart section). So if Hope needs to come back into the continuity she’s got an out. Call it an Exit Cheat. This is a good story if you can manage to swallow the premise; if like me you can’t, it seems like it came out of nowhere. Head Score: 7.

EYE: Tracy Yardley’s Hope is certainly cute enough, and the other characters (both of them) also look convincing. Snively’s expression at the end, though, manages to drain any sincerity out of his wanting Hope to get out of harm’s way. As a result, it subverts the emotional subtext of the story. Eye Score: 8.

HEART: Let me briefly recap the “Hope” article from Sonic-Wiki: After the Mobians failed to find a new home world and returned to Mobius with their anti-fur prejudices intact, they were easily exploited by Eggman who got them to stay with him in Robotropolis. It was Hope who got the first inkling that something wasn’t right about Eggman, but by the time the other Overlanders realized it the remainder of her family (Lady Agnes, Snively, and Colin Kintobor) had been roboticized. She and the other Overlanders moved out of the city, and eventually were relocated to Station Square.

Except for Hope. I have a fanfic in progress that explains how the intractable enmity between the Overlanders and the Mobians prevented the Os from settling into Knothole, and how no Overlander agreed to act as legal guardian for Hope, effectively stranding her in Knothole and resulting in her petitioning the throne in “A Girl Named Hope!” (S108) to stay. This story will thus plug up a considerable hole in the continuity that Karl Bollers left behind.

So Hope has every reason to stay in Knothole with creatures who may not be of her own species but who still care about her and have accepted her. What, on the other hand, does Snively suggest? That she take up residence with her own kind despite the fact that they abandoned her.

At six pages, Ian had no chance to make the offer in an even remotely plausible manner, and he can’t have Snively be brutally honest with Hope. He simply tells her that this is a good idea while lying through his teeth. At least Hope didn’t unconditionally accept.

Had Hope taken Snively up on his suggestion without a blink, it would have ruined Ian’s credibility. I’ve said before that a comic book story or a fantasy, even if normally impossible, must still retain a certain degree of plausibility; otherwise the readers will know that the writer is just making up as he goes along and will stop believing it. Hope’s feint in the direction of leaving still leaves enough room for her to change her mind; had she been unceremoniously hustled out of the continuity it would have seemed like a desperation ploy. Instead it retains just enough credibility and, as a result, sustains emotional involvement.

The flaw in the story, of course, is the almost complete lack of set-up. There’s a rapport between Snively and Hope that hasn’t been on display up to now and which the readers have to take on faith for the story to work. But Hope is young enough to be trusting even if she looks too young to be piloting aircraft. Heart Score: 7.