Sonic the Hedgehog #168 [Jan 2007]

     Yardley!/Amash/Jensen cover: great expression on Sonic's
face as he looks at a busted test tube.  Me, I'd be more
concerned that NONE of the tubes on the cover appear to be
capped.  Tails's expression to A.D.A.M. says "You lookin' at
me?"


     "Order From Chaos: Part 1: The Gathering"
     Story, Ian Flynn; Art: Tracy Yardley! (with the all-
important exclamation point); Ink: Jim Amash; Color: Jason
Jensen; Lettering: John E. Workman; Editor: Mike Pellerito;
Managing Editor: Victor Gorelick; Editor-in-Chief: Richard
Goldwater

     Break out the shovels and boots, the exposition is going
to start early.  Sonic enters the lab looking for Tommy and
discovers Rotor and Tails each want a piece of him as well. 
This is a complete about-face from the can-do-no-wrong Tommy
that the book tried to put over, and the change is ascribed to
the nanite infestation.
     Robotnik, however, wants to get in on the fun so we get
THREE PAGES of further exposition covering the Destructix,
Tommy, the misbegotten "Sonic's Angels," and the events of the
Darkest Storm arc involving Ixis Naugus, the ninja spiders,
Mammoth Mogul, the demise of the Walkers, and the demise of
Mecha, among other things.  We also learn that Robotnik,
having decided that A.D.A.M. is really "Anonymous," is in the
process of deleting him.  Being the genius that he is,
Robotnik fails to unplug the speakers from his computer so he
has to endure A.D.A.M.'s running commentary.
     Again with HeroScape, and those 3D glasses that gave my
generation headaches at the movies.
     Back to the plot, and the re-engineering of Tommy Turtle. 
Seems A.D.A.M. downloaded himself into T-squared's nanites, so
now he's sporting a look that's a combination Tommy Turtle and
Silver Surfer.
     We cut away in time to see Bunnie losing control of her
mech arm as the dormant nanites therein wake up and assert
themselves.  She starts trashing the lab just as Nicole, who
seems to have taken up residence in the mainframe, faces
imminent corruption (before being completely forgotten).  The
Chaotix, who just happen to be passing through, wrestle Bunnie
to the ground and Rotor disarms her, literally.  Too bad the
nanites in her legs didn't act up and make her go Lord Of The
Dance on everyone; that might have been a hoot.
     Sonic has more serious matters to worry about: Jules has
tucked the unconscious Tails under his arm and is leaving. 
Fortunately for the plot, the nanites haven't overridden his
ability to speak and tell Sonic and the readers what's going
on (What are the odds?).  They head for the nanite city that
got built up and then dissolved in "Sonic's Angels" for no
good reason.  Shadow is already there, responding to a trap
set by A.D.A.M. and baited with Robotnik.  A.D.A.M./Tommy then
spends a page delivering exposition and beating up on Shadow
because ... well, probably because Sonic hasn't shown up yet
and Ian couldn't delay the now-ritual fist fight any longer. 
This is followed by two MORE pages of talk as The Villain
Blabs His Head Off.  The scheme: A.D.A.M. will use Tails
(a.k.a. the Chosen One) and Shadow to harvest Chaos Emeralds
from throughout the cosmos by means of a sci-fi-type projector
of some sort.  That's the cliff; happy hanging.

     HEAD: Ian is still cleaning up after Ken Penders and Karl
Bollers.  Thus we find ourselves in Flashback Country, going
back to S159's "Insidious" and its Typhoid Tommy plot.  But it
had to get dealt with some time, so Ian may as well get it
over with.  Hopefully we'll be over Tommy by the end of the
arc as well.
     The backing up of A.D.A.M. into Tommy was a good idea,
but unfortunately it reminded me too much of Voldemort
depositing bits of his soul into various Horcruxes in Harry
Potter #6.  It also reminded me of the symbiotic relationship
between King Einon and Draco in the 1996 film "Dragonheart"
with Sean Connery doing excellent voice work as Draco.  If
Flynn goes the "Dragonheart" route by having Nano-Tommy
destroy himself in order to destroy A.D.A.M. I won't complain,
because that way at least A.D.A.M. will be out of the picture. 
Also Tommy  will finally get the death he deserved and of
which he was deprived when Editorial decided to bring him back
after a perfectly workable and meaningful demise in "The
Tortoise and the Hedgehog" (S117).
     I admire Ian's willingness to make an end of so much
garbage that has been littering the narrative landscape, but
regret that it takes so much set-up to explain things before
the smack-down.  Flashbacks and exposition may be necessary
evils, but they're still evil.  Head: 8.
     EYE: Nothing really to fault in Tracy Yardley's artwork
here, but I have a major problem with the Bunnie sequence,
about which I'll have more to say below.  Eye Score: 8.
     HEART: Here I speak not just as a freelance reviewer of a
comic I've followed for over a decade, but also as a
practitioner of Sonic fanfic and the perpetrator of "Mobius
Apocalypse."  In that story, one of the first horrors to be
inflicted on the residents of Knothole is that Bunnie awakes
one morning to find that her mech limbs are gone.
     Ian gives Bunnie a modified version of this treatment in
that she only loses her arm, and he tries to milk the moment
for the appropriate emotion.  He is, however, sabotaged on two
fronts.
     One problem is the Tracy Yardley artwork.  Bunnie is
still wearing that leather jacket, so what we see after Rotor
is through is Bunnie with an empty sleeve.  And we don't even
see THAT very well since it's kept "upstage" and partially
hidden from view.  It actually minimizes the impact of what's
happening.
     The other problem is of Ian's own making.  By this point
the plot is in full swing and there's really not much time to
put on the brakes and get a feel (as it were) for what's
happening.
     This is one of the problems with writing for this comic:
pacing.  Because Ian is adhering to the philosophy of "action
and more action," there's no chance to pause and let something
as heavy as losing a limb sink in with the reader.  Sure,
Bunnie is affected, and Tracy works at conveying that within
the CCA guidelines for such things.  But the pace of the story
demands that the focus shift to Tails's disappearance and the
continuing setting up of the plot.
     The counterpoint to Ian's way of handling this
development can be seen in a different kind of comic: the
comic strip "Doonesbury."  Thanks to the nature of the
newspaper comic strip, which allows for slower pacing and
resulting character development, Gary Trudeau was able to do
justice to having his character B. D. lose a leg in Iraq (if
interested, you can read the arc in the Doonesbury compilation
"The Long Road Home: One Step At A Time").  
     Here, Bunnie is featured in all of two pages: she loses
control of her arm in the first page, then loses her arm
itself in the second, after which it is promptly forgotten.
     This just feels ... wrong, somehow.  I know she's been
reduced to a minor character who, because of her SatAM roots
might easily be shunted aside if Sega and Archie so agree. 
It's bad enough that after "Upgrade" (Special #11) she worked
as little more than the occasional superhero.  It's bad enough
that she was shown packing heat in the infamous S133's
"Finale."  It's bad enough that she was subjected by Ken
Penders to an ill-defined fate in "Sonic's Angels" (S153),
only to be rescued by Sonic.  It's bad enough that Ken
couldn't even figure out what to do with her in the "Line of
Succession" arc except to be the bearer of bad news about
Sally's impending nuptials.
     But it's clear that Bunnie isn't going to be the
breakthrough character she should have been years ago.  Yes,
she turns on the waterworks as a result of losing her arm, a
decidedly traumatic event, but this lasts all of, what, two
panels!  The one serious Heart moment in the story, and it
gets little more than a polite nod from a narrative point of
view.
     I wrote the following as part of the review of S133
almost three years ago:

     "...it may be that Editorial has decided that, rather
than integrating the book and making the characters, male and
female, complex and engaging enough to interest readers across
the age and gender spectrums, it'd be easier to go the King
Solomon route and cut the book in half.  Let the stories in
the front be the boys' stories full of action and not much
else, while leaving the table scraps of halfway decent
storytelling to please the female readers and the older
hardcores to the back stories...."

There have been plenty of changes since then: the writers and
editor are gone and the continuity has been tweaked.  But I
still got a sense of deja vu when rereading that passage. 
You'll know what I mean when you finish reading this review. 
Heart Score: 3.


     "Courage and Honor"
     Story: Ian Flynn; Art: Gary Bedell (debut); Ink: Rich
Koslowski; Color: Josh and Aimee Ray; Lettering: John E.
Workman

     Antoine surveys the carnage that is his home after the
Antiantoine trashed it.  But considering how much time the
baddie spent in the Castle skulking around trying to play Dr.
Kevorkian with the King, it can't be in THAT bad of a shape. 
But it's still too much for someone with a Y chromosome to
handle so he calls in reinforcements: Bunnie.  While she
straightens up, Ant tries his hand at character development,
knowing he may never get another chance in this comic.  True
to the Ken Penders style, Antoine slips in and out of his
French accent, and Bunnie's Southern stylings are only
slightly more stable.  But just as Antoine betrays his utter
lack of Frenchness by declining an invitation to move in with
Bunnie, Sonic arrives with word that Antoine's dad, Gen.
D'Coollette, is in a decline of his own.
     Dr. Quack informs Antoine that the Antiantoine was such
an incompetent villain that he gave way more of the "poison
we've never seen" to the General than to the King, who was
supposed to be his intended target in the "Line of Succession"
arc.  I know, it doesn't make any sense to me, either, but
that's comic book writing for you.  If Dr. Quack had been
replaced by Dr. House (who I think on Mobius would be a hyena
or a Tasmanian devil or something else with lots of attitude
and lots of teeth), he'd at least be able to identify the
poison before pronouncing Antoine's dad terminal.  But I'm
getting ahead of myself.
     Antoine and his father than have a moment: first Antoine
apologizes for the way he was portrayed on SatAM as a bumbling
coward and series comic relief, a portrayal carried over into
the comic when they bothered to write Antoine into the story
at all.  The General counters with an assurance that Antoine's
done good, adding that Bunnie has the Right Stuff herself. 
And after saying what amounts to "See you on the other side,"
he dies, never having been on the receiving end of a first
name.  If Ken Penders was still writing for this book, no
doubt he would have named him "Jean-Luc."  You know how
Trekkers are.  We also get a belated notice of a demise of one
of Ian's relatives.

     HEAD: This story resembles "The Gathering" in that it's
pretty straight-ahead writing with no real subplots in the way
(Tommy is possessed by A.D.A.M., General D'Coollette dies)
with various expositions as the only thing slowing down the
train.
     But whereas "The Gathering" was so weighed down with the
burden of exposition (something like 7 of the 14 pages are
given over to either A.D.A.M. or Robotnik yammering away) that
Ian had to crank the action the rest of the time, this story
represents a genuine change of pace, literally.  It's
refreshing in that it demonstrates, quite nicely, that Ian CAN
do character development when the circumstances call for it
and Mike Pellerito is looking the other way.
     My one big fear is that this may only be prelude to
something really wrenching happening to the two kids in future
issues of the comic.  Even the blurb for S172 indicates that
after some nastiness Bunnie and Antoine will be back together
only to face MORE nastiness.  That's the way the comics work,
I guess; look at the amount of together time Sonic and Sally
enjoyed just before S125 when Sonic took half a year off to
bum around outer space.
     The final deathbed scene between Antoine and his dad was
handled extremely well, for a medium which could have taken it
over the top.  Ant didn't get all angst-ridden and vengeful,
which is probably what would have happened in an X-Men comic. 
Now if writers can only figure out how to do this kind of
character development AND action within the same script, this
comic would really be in business.  Head Score: 9.
     EYE: I used to think that the artists who should NEVER be
allowed near this comic are the ones who insist on drawing
furries with hyoomon proportions: seven heads high with torso
and legs three heads high each (if you're a girl in a shojo
manga, your legs have to be FOUR heads high).  It's a look
that never worked for furries, who are more compactly built. 
This usually happens when a comic artist who can do terrific
work for hyoomon comic characters tries his/her hand at
furries and discovers that they're unable to adjust their
style and so end up bestowing the wrong proportions on the
characters.  In the past, notable artists who couldn't adjust
to the book's furriness have included Jim Valentino and Ron
Lim.  To that roll call we must now add the name of Gary
Bedell.
     A check of his work at geebeemedia.com shows that the
Springfield, Missouri-born artist knows his way around the
human anatomy, and even in this story his frame compositions
and page layouts show a good sense of design.  But the
character modeling absolutely defeats him.  There are precious
few furries in his portfolio of Illustrations, and the furry
cast of "Sky Lords" ... well, "feathery," in large part ...
look like they belong in another continuity altogether. 
Whatever he brought to "Sky Lords" seems to have fallen off
here.
     But even hyoomon modeling would have been an improvement
over his work on this story.  The worst is the way he draws
arms.  They look like the arms on those stupid bendables you
find at souvenir stands and shopping mall kiosks, and they're
as impossibly long as the legs of a shojo manga girl.  I want
to believe that he was pretty much tossed this assignment with
very little in the way of modeling instructions and an
extremely short deadline, which would explain the lack of
background detail especially in the hospital room scene,
although that IS effective in a Zen sort of way.
     But the Sonic Curse continues as strong as ever, making a
mockery of the work of artists who would be more at home with
the spandex-and-steroid crowd.  It's not that Bedell and Lim
and Valentino can't do good work; it's just that for whatever
reason the can't seem to good work HERE.  Does Archie even
supply model sheets to new artists?  Eye Score: 2.
     HEART: It's a shame that Bedell's artwork spoils what
could have been one of the strongest stories to run in the
comic since Tania del Rio's "Stargazing" (S151).  This may not
have been to the taste of the pre-ado boy demographic, but it
certainly would have suited us hardcores who came to the comic
via the SatAM series that gave birth to it.  The interaction
between Antoine and Bunnie was totally believable, even down
to Antoine's rather un-French demurring at the suggestion of
cohabitation.  Plus, it's gotten to be a refreshing change of
pace to witness a death in a comic and know that it isn't
about to be undone by a death cheat of some kind.  If only Art
Mawhinney or J. Axer had been available....  Heart Score: 10.