Sonic the Hedgehog #187 (June 2008) Yardley!/Jensen cover: "Sonic vs Everyone (well, almost...)" pretty much says it all. And of the villains shown, just about all of them are throwbacks to the comic's "Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog" origins or are otherwise on the villain B-list. You'd think the whole Sonic-in-a-fight thing has been done to death by now, but you'd be wrong. Good drawing of a tiresome set-up. "Mister Popular" Story: Ian Flynn; Art: Matt Herms; Ink: Jim Amash, Color: Josh Ray; Lettering: John E. Workman; Editor/Managing Editor: Mike Pellerito; Editor-in-Chief: Victor Gorelick; Sega Licensing reps: Kristin Parcell, Dyna Lopez and Cindy Chau. For someone whose early appearance in the comic made him out to be a James Bond wannabe, Geoffrey Sinjin (sorry, I STILL have trouble using the surname Ken Penders gave him) shows up for the opening of Mammoth Mogul's casino wearing a brown suit and blue bandana combination instead of a tuxedo. He's accompanied by Rouge, who's poured herself into a dress for the occasion. That's enough to keep Geoff from being hunted down by the hosts of "What Not To Wear." It looks like a reunion is in progress, or at least an employment agency for has-been villains. Scratch (at least HE'S wearing a tux) is the concierge, Grounder appears to be tending bar while wearing a chef's hat, and Coconuts delivers half a page of exposition before complaining about being "a monkey butler." He misses the chance, however, to complain about having to wear a "monkey suit," which is an old euphemism for a tux. Mogul, the new owner of the club, chats up Rouge and Geoff and delivers exposition of his own. He doesn't really answer the question of why a ridiculously powerful being such as himself would even want to open a casino, except that the Casino Night Zone has always been part of the Sonic canon. After three pages of exposition, we get down to business as Mogul meets in the back room with the Destructix and delivers probably the most chilling bit of dialogue ever to grace this comic: "I'll pay handsomely for the shoes of Sonic the Hedgehog. It is up to you if his feet are still in them." Oh, yeah, THAT'S a picture! Two pages of advertising separate this page from the next one in the story, and a good thing, too, because without any explanation whatsoever we find Merlin Prower casting a wide- dispersion general purpose anti-mumbo-jumbo spell to cleanse our friends of both Dr. Fin's hexing and Mogul's mind control. Me, I'd have suggested two weeks on the beach at Emerald Coast, but maybe the tourist season is over already. Sonic brings up a contradiction in the plot, and Merlin answers in the best Sonic-Grams tradition: "That, I'm afraid, is a mystery." So is the reason for this three-page digression. He then packs up and takes off while telling Tails to give his regards to the kid's 'rents (who are still MIA from the continuity). Sonic meanwhile meets up with Sally. The two of them get into the spirit of things and start dipping their toes into Lake Exposition. Speaking of the Freedom Fighters, Sally says "We were just kids then, fighting a grown-up's war." Yeah, too bad none of the writers for this book ever took the time and effort to explore THAT premise. Editorial probably would've swatted them down if they'd tried, but let that pass. Sonic does a simple leap off the rock they've been sitting on, while Sally does a flip with a half-twist as if she were executing a dismount off a balance beam. Despite the fact that she sticks the landing, she still only gets a 6.5 from the Russian judge. Sonic assures her that, even after the Slap Heard 'Round the Fandom in S134 they're still friends. But just when they appear to be stepping over THAT line... Ian decides there hasn't been enough soft-core violence in the comic in a while so most of the remainder of the story plays catch-up on that front. Bean, the comic's poster bird for Attention Deficit Disorder, and Bark, playing what Gene Hackman as the blind Hermit in "Young Frankenstein" called "a really ... big mute," make their entrance. Sally goes after the easily-distracted Bean, but Sonic proves just as easy to distract and gets sucker-punched by Bark for his trouble. The Destructix arrive and spend another three pages trying to gang up on Sonic, but even though they get a couple of punches in Sonic stays on top of things. Sally, meanwhile, is playing Let's Make A Deal with Bean and Bark, trying to buy them off. It appears to work as the Dim-bulb Duo disrupt the Destructix. But then... We see Nack waiting off-panel for his cue. He lines Sonic up in his sights, there's an ominous CHKAM!, and Sonic drops. And don't ask me what happened exactly because we have no way of knowing if Sonic took a tranquilizer dart in the butt or was tasered or what. Like I said, Archie likes their violence soft-core. With Sonic out of commission, the Destructix collect our helpless hero, Bean and Bark switch back allegiance to Mogul, and Sally is left alone with Nack who gives her a ten second head start. HEAD: Every now and then, this comic has hit the cosmic reset button to start things over again, either for the benefit of a new wave of noobs or else to disentangle the regulars from a particularly messy entanglement of the plot. Noted examples have been #94's "New Order" and #130's "Home: Part 1." This doesn't feel like a reset, but instead more like a recap. We start with three useless pages of set-up to establish that Mogul now runs a casino in the Casino Night Zone and has brought some minor characters out of well-deserved retirement to staff it. Granted this may be the sort of thing about which G.U.N. and the Royal Secret Service or whatever it's called would like to stay informed, so Rouge and Geoff, respectively, are dispatched to check it out. Unfortunately, we're left to deduce that fact, which is of no help at all to the noobs who may not even know who Geoff is. For that matter, the dialogue between Geoff and Rouge at times borders on the generic. It could just as easily have been, say, Elias and Meg or Amadeus and Rosemary Prower (about whom more in a minute) or any other couple doing the talking. After the one-pager where Mogul lays out the plot, we get three MORE useless page, probably even more useless than the first three. There has been no hint whatsoever that Dr. Fin's mumbo-jumbo leaves any kind of fallout behind, but that's what brings Merlin Prower back for an utterly thankless appearance: to hose down the characters for any lingering traces of pixie dust. What else can you think when you have guest appearances by Knuckles (who has one line) and Mighty and Mina (who don't have any) who completely disappear from the plot the moment the light show ends? This is the kind of outrageous padding I've come to expect from any give episode of "Family Guy." And then we get two MORE pages of exposition, this time courtesy of Sonic and Sally. Once more, they're tying up the kind of loose ends that the hardcores have either seen dealt with in past issues or that the absolute noobs have never even heard of. Take the reopening of that old wound, the Slap. "Who can forget what happened?" the text box asks. Well, considering that issue 134 came out slightly over FOUR YEARS AGO, I have to wonder how many noobs even knew the comic was in existence at that time. The noobs would be clueless, and the hardcores would be as over it as Sonic appears to be; what was the point of working it in at all? The point, it seems, is that after 8 pages of exposition and only one page essential to the story Ian is ready to deliver 13 pages of Action And More Action during which Sonic avoids getting beaten up (with mixed success) until Nack drops him in a way that doesn't violate the Comic Code Authority guideline: "Scenes of brutal torture, excessive and unnecessary knife and gunplay, physical agony, gory and gruesome crime shall be eliminated (1954 edition)." It also doesn't make much sense, unfortunately. We're left not knowing exactly WHAT happened to Sonic because, as they say on "Fairly Odd Parents," those are Da Rulz. The ending gambit is sort of compelling; it HAS to be, with Sonic having been dragged offstage. But having been reminded of Sally's acrobatic credentials earlier on, I can only hope she's running toward a wall she can run up in one of those kung fu maneuvers and land on Nack's head, thus earning herself an Extended Play. I hate to say it, but this has to be one of the weakest stories Ian's committed since he began writing for the book. Head Score: 3. EYE: Despite the impressive splash page at [5] where Merlin delouses the main characters, I came to a dead stop at page [16]. The drawing of Sally propositioning Bean and Bark looks, I don't know, as if it were dashed off at the last possible minute before shooting it off to Jim Amash for inking. I've seen this sort of thing before, usually in stories illustrated by Dave Manak which made me wonder whether he wasn't up against deadline and had to dash something off. Most of the rest of the artwork is good, but this was too obvious to ignore. Eye Score: 8. HEART: So you may be wondering: "If that's how you feel about the comic, why keep on reading it?" That's not the first time the question's come up in all the years I've been commenting on the book. And the answer is always the same: love for the characters. And THAT comes through in this story, despite a weak script. Though freighted down with exposition, the Sonic-Sally moment had a certain charm to it; it reminded me a little of Ian's work at the climax of S167's "Tempus Aeternus." There was only a short hint of hot impending romance just before Bean dropped his calling card in on them, but the interaction between the two I thought was perfectly believable. Likewise Tails's largely thankless role opposite his equally thankless Uncle Merlin. Even though Ian's having Merlin tell Tails to give his regard to his parents felt absolutely phony (IMO it would have been just as easy to work Amadeus and Rosemary into the story), Tails's sadness at Merlin's parting and his wanting to be alone because "I have to work on something" struck me as perfect. Then there was Sally's dismount. Granted that it's not the easiest thing to depict in a comic book, but this was one of Sally's character traits: her athleticism. It gave some depth to a character who, in the wrong hands (those of Ken Penders) reduced her to the role of Pretty Victim in the infamous "Line of Succession" story arc, someone who said and did nothing in the face of her impending marriage to the antiAntoine. Here she shows intelligence and a certain amount of spunk, even if her idea of buying off Bean and Bark didn't pan out. Props to Ian for getting a handle on the characters. It's just a pity that he had to harness them to such a no- brainer plot. I can only hope that the next installment pulls back from the brink of mediocrity and lets these characteristics empower the characters and actually bring some interest to the story. He's already done so in the back half of the "Mogul Rising" arc by judiciously backing off from yet another hedgehog-mammoth confrontation. But it's questionable that that kind of lighting will strike twice in this comic. Heart Score: 8. Sonic-Grams: Kensley S.'s letter gets the usual inter- spacing from, I guess, Mike Pellerito. Mike states that Pat Spaziante, Tracy Yardley! and Art Mawhinney are "all probably reading this." An alternate way to contact Art Mawhinney is through the publisher of some of those Where's Waldo-type books densely packed with all kinds of visual business. I saw one featuring the Strawberry Shortcake 2.0 cast drawn by Art, and one on the Disney Fairies line that was just laid out by him; the art was kept in-house by unnamed Disney artists. Mike then announces the "Sonic Select" line of 128 pagers which are reprints from the Sonic Specials (Death Egg Saga, Sonic Live, etc.). As long as they're repackaging the regular comics, why not? He then clears up some confusion about Nack's sister, Nic, and Rob O' the Hedge before diving head- first into the Endgame briar patch. He simply says the fate of the original Robotnik "was much too complicated to go into here." Translation: if the writers didn't know what the frick they were doing, why expect ME to figure it out! He then totally shines off a question on selecting fan art submissions, and given the poor quality of the fan art in this issue and the last (standing figures only, reduced to 2 inch thumbnails) I'd have to guess they haven't figured out any selection criteria yet. Here's an idea: it would make the job a lot easier if the fan art had its own page as it did back in the day. And they squeeze in one more plug for Sonic anthologies. Coming Attractions: "Once Out Of The Burning Building..." I've cited this before as a supreme example of hack writing from, I believe, one of the old Nancy Drew novels. The writer needed to get Nancy out of the building so he did and never mind explaining just how it happened. I felt that way looking at the thumbnail cover for S188. Sonic obviously revives and starts paying back Mogul's minions for tranquilizing him, and Sally just as obviously eludes Nack's whatever weapon. I can only hope that Ian made these events a little more interesting than the give-the-game-away cover art.