Sonic the Hedgehog #189 (August 2008)
     Tracy Yardley! cover: Part 1: You may as well turn to the
the Sonic-grams page now in the back of the comic and check out
the thumbnail for next issue's cover.  It's a mirror image of
this issue, with a few exceptions: Scourge is the antiSonic (more
later about all that) and Fiona is taking the place of the
antiBunnie (about whom also more later).  That would explain, in
part, why nobody on this cover looks particularly appealing. 
They're all gnashy of teeth and so on.


     "A Bold New Mobius: Part 1 : Unwelcome Guests"
     Story: Ian Flynn; Art: Tracy Yardley!; Ink: Jim Amash;
Color: Josh Ray; Lettering: John E. Workman; Editor/Managing
Editor: Mike Pellerito; Editor-in-Chief: Victor Gorelick; SEGA
Licensing police: Dyna Lopez, Cindy Chau and Kristin Purcell

     OK, we get it: Ian wants to emphasize the symmetry of
bringing in the Antis against the regular comic cast.  That's why
he's foregone the standard cameos with descriptors in favor of a
back-to-back line-up.  Substituting for the antiBunnie who, we
learned in S151's "Chaos Emeralds Are Forever" is still intact,
is Fiona.  It's understandable, given Fiona's having taken up
with Scourge, who used to be the antiSonic (you noobs confused
yet?), but it saves Ian the trouble of writing for a character
who hasn't put in an appearance in this comic in almost 3 years. 
This is actually par for the course in this comic.
     But on with the story.  Rotor is making a house call on
Tails; seems his Star Posts are acting up.  They're the part of
the old Sonic games that tell you where to start over from when
you lose your rings and a life.  Believe me, I'm WAY familiar
with that function.  Anyway, who should wade through from another
dimension but anti-Rotor dba "Boomer," followed by anti-Tails dba
"Miles Prower,", anti-Sally dba "Princess Alicia," anti-Antoine
dba "Patch, and to break the streak, Fiona.
     Because things are just getting interesting, naturally we
cut away to "New Megaopolis," which still looks like a city in
search of another consonant for its name.  The Chaotix, backed up
by Knuckles, Julie-Su and Sonic, are just coming off a scuffle
with some Dark Egg Legionnaires.  It provides Sonic and Knuckles
a chance to engage in some exposition, as well as giving Knuckles
a chance to feel personally responsible for the situation.
     But enough of the angst, such as it is.  Patch displays a
certain overconfidence in conversation with the antiSally,
calling the Mobians "arbutis."
     OK, that sent me to the Web.  I couldn't find a French word
"arbuti."  I did, however, find a French noun "abruti," which
means "jackass" or, more colloquially, "dumbass."  I don't know
if Ian transposed the two letters on purpose to escape the wrath
of the CCA police, or if Mike Pellerito ordered the editing at
the hands of John Workman, but either way Ian gets the point
across.  So does Amy Rose as she shows up and gives chase to
Patch le Fou.  
     Bunnie then puts the antiSally in an armlock and assumes
that the girlish scream (or so I imagine it) from off-panel is
Patch.  Unfortunately, Bunnie is then blindsided by Boomer, but
that only frees up the antiSally to get a boot in the butt from
the real deal.
     Meanwhile, Tails and his counterpart are going at it in
glove-to-glove combat.  Fiona starts to make herself scarce but
(almost) runs into the business end of Antoine's saber.
     Meanwhile, as Sonic and the Chaotix continue to mix it up,
Knuckles finds Lien-Da and tries to talk some sense into her. 
Instead, she tries to talk to Snively about getting some back-up,
only to be told "I told you never to call me at the office!" 
Knux stifles the urge to tell her "I told you so!" about her
choice of allies, but Lien-Da orders a strategic withdrawal
instead.
     Sonic tells Knux not to beat himself up over the failure of
this peace overture, and to "leave the brooding angst to Shadow." 
Meanwhile, Charmy, his honey-bee Saffron, and Ray are getting
ready to take Eggman's communications center, dubbed with
characteristic humility the "Egg-Web," offline when Saffron
realizes that they're the regroup point for Lien-Da's withdrawal.
     Sally and Amy Rose, with Boomer on their tails, call for
Sonic to get himself back to base.  The story then switches over
into Battle Royal mode: Bunnie v. Boomer, Antoine v. Patch,
Alicia v. Amy Rose, Fiona v. Sally.  Fiona doesn't have much time
to gloat at having gotten the upper hand because Sally admits
that she was just serving as a diversion while Rotor (who hadn't
been fighting anybody) got word to Nicole to recall Sonic.  Since
Sonic's run out of characters to pound himself, he heads back and
misses the arrival of ... Floating Head Dimitri who's cobbled
together a sort of scorpion kind of thingy body for himself.  He
then relieves Lien-Da of command and orders the Legion to engage
in a suicide charge.  Sure, HE'S the one mostly made of metal!
     Sonic arrives at the Freedom Fighter base, and after a
heads-up from Fiona, so does Scourge.  Round two next month.

     HEAD: Sorry, there's nothing new here: Sonic and his people
beating up on Scourge and his people.  I think I saw THIS movie
back in 1995, when it was called "When Hedgehogs Collide" and it
ran in S24.  But since when is there a law that says comic books
can't recycle old material?
     S24 was NOT the first appearance of Sonic's Evil Twin (you
can look up the article on Evil Twins in Wikipedia for yourself). 
That's how Scourge began life in the comic: as an "evil" alt-
Sonic first appearing in issue #11 (forgive me if this is old
news to some of you, but it wouldn't hurt to remember just why
Scourge is even in this continuity).  Like other alt-Sonics he
was drawn and colored the same as Sonic, but was tricked out with
sunglasses, a black leather jacket, and engineer boots.  This was
considered "evil" back in the day.
     In "When Hedgehogs Collide," he brought along his posse of
evil biker counterparts (except for the Bunnie counterpart who,
as stated above, has only made one appearance in all this time
and has since been forgotten).  And despite the seemingly
infinite number of Sonic variations (Mad Scientist Sonic, for
example), he alone was considered to be the one and only "evil"
Sonic.
     Sega, however, had other ideas.  In 2001 they launched the
Sonic Adventure 2 game which featured their own idea of an evil
Sonic: Shadow the Hedgehog.  Gone were the 1950s motorcycle gang
accessories; in its place were black quills streaked with red,
red eyes, a boatload of attitude, and one heck of a back story. 
He was less of an Evil Twin, though, and more of an Anti-Hero,
burdened with a dark past and the brooding angst Ian referred to
as part of Sonic's dialogue, a descendant of legions of ronin
(samurai loners in Japanese popular culture).  Unlike many other
Sonic game characters (and a good number of the characters
created for the Archie comic), Shadow clicked with the fans
immediately and became, according to the Wikipedia article on
him, second in fan popularity only to Sonic himself.
     As a result, the Evil Sonic of the comic needed to be
rebranded since the whole biker aura of the character just didn't
work any more as a synonym for "evil."  In fact, it had become
something of a joke even in its day.  As I've noted before, if
that Evil Sonic had been put in the same panel as Cowboy Sonic,
Indian Sonic, Construction Worker Sonic, Policeman Sonic and
Military Sonic, it would have come as no surprise if they were to
suddenly start singing "YMCA."  So, with the infusion of stupid
amounts of Chaos energy from the Master Emerald the former Evil
Sonic became the green-hued Scourge, making his first appearance
in S160's "Birthday Bash: Part 1."
     Not that Scourge, the Evil Sonic 2.0, has worked all that
hard to establish just how evil he is or even why.  He's been
evil ... well, because he is and let's just leave it at that.  I
even reread the "Birthday Bash" arc and Scourge's evil ways come
off as just being standard equipment with no real reason why he
is the way he is.  The depth of his character can be summarized
by the fact that in this story and last issue's "Beating The
House" Scourge appears in ONE PANEL IN EACH ISSUE.  OK, they're
splash pages, but he's not even working up a sweat here.  Maybe
he'll do some actual heavy lifting in S190, I don't know.
     In any event, stories involving Scourge and his gang have
tended to devolve, like the current story, into something out of
professional wrestling shows: the characters show up, spout
outlandish dialogue, then proceed to wail on each other.  This
gets very old, very fast.
     Which may explain why I found the side story, featuring
Lien-Da, to be more interesting.  The girl is NOT having a good
day.  Her troops are getting bested by Sonic and the Chaotix,
Knuckles gets in her face to try to get her to change sides,
Snively doesn't deliver on the back-up he promised her, and to
top it all off Dimitri shows up and tells her to hit the showers
while he takes over.  I almost felt sorry for her, emphasis on
"almost."
     This held my interest not only because we were seeing some
actual story development at work, which requires the interplay of
Action And Reaction, not Action And More Action.  It also worked
because I knew that the fight between the forces of Knothole and
the forces of Wherever Scourge Comes From These Days wasn't going
to amount to much.  NO fight in an Archie comic will ever amount
to much so long as they abide by the Comic Code Authority rules. 
For instance, in S164's "Sonic Riders: Part 2," Sonic is supposed
to look beaten to a pulp after having encountered the Babylon
Rogues, but Sonic doesn't look beat up so much as "scruffy."  For
all of one panel.  Then he's back to his old self.
     Because the fighting between Sonic and Scourge and their
surrogates has never paid off in the past, there's no expectation
that it will happen this time, though Ian seems ready to send the
fight into extra rounds after S190.  That may be a good thing;
nothing noteworthy has happened in THIS story yet.  Head Score:
6.
     EYE: Tracy Yardley! is back from hiatus, and does solid work
on both sets of characters.  I don't know when Bunnie acquired
the uber-long braided ponytail but it works for me.  And my
favorite moment was Sally doing the baseball slide-into-home-
plate while Antoine and Patch cross swords on page [15].  Eye
Score: 9.
     HEART: Like I said, the only character available for making
an emotional connection was Lien-Da.  Everybody else is too busy
beating up on someone else to give the reader a chance.  Heart
Score: 4.


     Fan Art: Still showcasing the youngsters rather than the
seasoned pros.  We get a SatAM tribute from Anonymous and a
Scourge portrait by Perry P.


     Sonic-Grams: Mike Pellerito, or whoever answers the mail
these days, mistakes a plot point cited in a letter from Brian in
North Carolina for a plug.  Or maybe that's just the way he looks
at the comic, I don't know.  Nick from NY tells his story of
having gotten into Sonic as a kid, letting his interest drop,
only to have it revived now that he's in college.  Yet another
hard-core; nice to know they're out there.  The only real news
that can be sifted out of the column is that we're not finished
with Dimitri's latest incarnation yet.