Sonic the Hedgehog #190 (Sep 2008) Yardley! Cover, Part 2: a mirror image of last issue's cover. Let's see: Scourge is green and has teeth like a shark, Princess Alicia, Miles Prower, and Fiona are wearing vaguely fascist-looking uniforms, Boomer looks like a Borg, and Patch is ... well, Antoine with an eyepatch. This is somebody's idea of "evil;" appropriate that it appears on the cover of a comic book. "Bold New Mobius: Part 2: Duality" Story: Ian Flynn; Art: Tracy Yardley!; Ink: Jim Amash; Color: John Ray; Lettering: John E. Workman; (Managing) Editor: Mike Pellerito; Editor-in-Chief: Victor Gorelick; Sega Licensing drones: Condy Chau, Dyna Lopez, and Kristin Parcell. Note: for the remainder of this review, I'm going to resort to the abbreviation "...x..." While this usually is relationship shorthand, as in "BunniexAntoine," I'm using it to denote not love but war, as in "SonicxScourge." Frankly, I just don't want to have to keep fishing for synonyms for the verb "to fight." After the page 1 splash we get a little over 1 page of ScourgexSonic served up with a side order of exposition. Seems that since Scourge took a powder in S184's "Chaos Angel" (running the Warp Ring plot device into the ground in the process), he's taken over his home world. That's his story, anyway; it hasn't been independently confirmed. Not content to kick back and be in charge, however, he's come back to Mobius Prime to broaden his fledgling empire. Not if Sonic has anything to say about it. And with Rotor and Nicole looking on, we launch into the battle royal: TailsxMiles, AntoinexPatch, BunniexBoomer, Amy RosexFiona, SallyxAlicia, and the main event, SonicxScourge. In a flashback to S24's "When Hedgehogs Collide," where we had this same plot once before which was resolved by Sally telling everyone to "Change partners!" instead of fighting their alt- selves to a standstill, we get SallyxScourge and SonicxAlicia to even out the odds. This is a good time to cut away to the gang at the Egg-Net. Dimitri is like "Give it up, yo!" and gets goaded by Lien-Da, who apparently didn't take the hint in last month's story and go away. Julie-Su tells him he "SOLd OUT OUR PEOPLE." I put it that way because the d in "sold" is noticeably smaller than the rest of the type in her word balloon. Instead of telling the ladies to just shut up already, Dimitri gives the order to open fire. We then get a "Win one for the Gipper" speech from, of all animals, Vector. This fires up Knuckles, who thinks that he, Julie-Su, and three of the Chaotix, can fight the Dark Legion. While the five of them do their re-enactment of the Charge of the Light Brigade, Sonic almost succeeds in bouncing Scourge back into his own dimension, but Fiona makes the save. Scourge tells his people "You do NOT want to be sent back with me!" which puts the fear of Scourge into them. Nicole, meanwhile, pretty much orders Rotor to get out of the game and report to sick bay. He'd have been stopped except for some TailsxMiles and SallyxAlicia action. Bunnie, meanwhile, who played NO ROLE WHATSOEVER in S24's "When Hedgehogs Collide," suggests to Antoine that "it's time to switch dancin' partners." That was the strategy Sally came up with which brought that story to a conclusion, as I've already mentioned. Of course, it makes so much sense that Antoine argues against it. Ant still wants the satisfaction of doing his Inigo Montoya impersonation for Patch, telling him "You killed my father. Prepare to die." Bunnie goes along with the idea, especially as he gallantly offers to protect her as part of his heroism shtick. But in the middle of this tete-a-tete Miles shows up and spoils the mood completely, creating enough of a diversion to allow Boomer to get the drop on Ant while Patch seizes Bunnie. At which point Sonic comes in with a three- cushion shot off of Miles, Patch, and Boomer for the save. This leads to Sonic getting bowled over by Scourge, who then executes a leg sweep to dispatch Amy Rose; Scourge really needs to work on his people skills, especially the part about how not to treat a lady. Sonic then returns the favor with a leg sweep of his own against Scourge. For someone with pretensions to taking over, Scourge isn't doing very much here. But back now to the Chaotix, who despite the overwhelming odds against them seem to have scattered the Dark Legion (don't ask me how, and don't ask Ian for that matter) and are taking Dimitri's scorpion-thingie apart. We then get a replay of the Lien-Da Calling For Back-up And Snively Blowing Her Off scene from the last issue before Julie-Su gives the word to blow the Egg-Net off-line. Ray, Charmy and Saffron escape from the exploding tower in a move which I remember seeing in "Sonic Heroes." Lien-Da finally gets a clue and makes tracks, but Knuckles takes one last shot at talking some sense into Dimitri, who provides an important bit of foreshadowing: "You make it sound like I'm purposefully weakening the greatest evil this world has ever known from within." If it wasn't for the fact that he has a robotic head, I'd guess that this speech would be accompanied by a huge eye-wink. Knuckles, however, doesn't seem to get it, so the Chaotix head back to the fight at Knothole. It's still busy over there, with TailsxAlicia, BoomerxBunnie, SonicxScourge, Amy RosexMiles, AntoinexPatch, and SallyxFiona. Even though the battle royal lacks the symmetry of "When Hedgehogs Collide," Sally advises not a change of partners but a strategic fall-back. This sounds nicer than having her say "Run away!!" Sal's real plan is to abandon HQ, which is getting trashed, to the baddies while they head back to the city. I buy her "They got the drop on us" rationale, but she leaves unstated the fact that once they're inside the city they'll have an ally in Nicole who can mess with the bad guys and gals at will. I had hoped that this was where Ian would be going with this, but it looks like we'll be stuck with Metal Sonic instead. To be continued. HEAD: With a story like this, the What is a no-brainer, so you have to look at the How. Aside from the Antoine and Bunnie conversation where the action in the story slams into a wall, it's well-paced so long as the action stays in FFHQ. I can't say the same for the Chaotix portion of the story where there's WAY too much talk involving Knuckles, Vector, Lien-Da, Julie-Su, and Dimitri. The only justification for all the chatter was Dimitri's heavy-handed revelation that he's working his own agenda; no way would he have said anything like that just to kill time. That may or may not be a spoiler, but let's face it, the Battle Of The Sonics isn't exactly the freshest idea to appear in the comic. Unless Ian does something else besides tossing Metal Sonic into the mix next month, I don't know how it'll get any fresher. That's why I hoped that the battle WOULD switch over to New Mobotropolis. Remembering how Nicole was able to interrupt the duel between Elias and Amadeus in "Royal Flush" (S179; "House of cards: Part 2"), I can just imagine what kind of fun she could have with Scourge and his people who might not be aware of her existence (if you want to use the term). And with the mention of the F-word, "fun," we note something that's been lacking in stories like this. Here, Ian has resorted to witty repartee between the combatants, and especially Sonic and Sally, but it's not the same thing. The prospect of Nicole driving Scourge and his people nuts or making them think the city is haunted (I'm sure Patch is at least as susceptible to cowardice as Antoine) would bring some much needed comedy into this comic book. And being a virtual entity, Nicole could bedevil them all at the same time no matter where in the city they are. It's just too good of an idea, and I'm only sorry Ian hasn't gotten around to mining it yet. And since Ian's idea of upping the ante is to throw Metal Sonic into the ring, it looks like he won't be doing anything about it next issue, either. Pity. Head Score: 5. EYE: There's nothing to complain about WRT the artwork, but nothing jumps off the page, either, except for Mighty carrying a souvenir from the engagement with Dimitri's scorpion-whateverbot. Eye Score: 8. HEART: Not a whole lot this time around. It's even hard to work up sympathy for Lien-Da since all she does is reprise her act from the previous issue. The Antoine-Bunnie interlude is the closest thing to a Heart moment, but that's pretty flat. We know where the heart of the comic REALLY is as Tails gets slammed against the wall in the background as the twosome starts heating up. Heart Score: 3. Sonic-Grams: Jaidah figures out that the comic has more than one person handling the art chores. While Mike Pellerito (or whoever answers the mail these days) informs Jaidah that "quite a collection of artists" have worked on the comic over the years, he neglects to mention that most of the good ones (Art Mawhinney, J. Axer, Dawn Best, Pat Spaziante, Jonathan Gray) and the not-so- good (Kyle Hunter, Sam Maxwell, Jay Oliveras, the dreaded "Many Hands," and Jim Valentino demonstrating that he's seriously out of his element when drawing furries) have moved on. Mike also blows off the question: "How long will the comic go on?" I can't pass THAT up. It seems that for the longest time ... for years, literally ... those who worked for the comic simply refused to believe what the true fans knew in their heart of hearts: that Sonic would be around for a LONG time. Granted the mortality rate of comic titles is high, and that predicting success for any title is tough enough. But even without tie-in films or a regular supply of good games, Sonic has kept its appeal. Were the creatives and Editorial even aware of the groundswell of fan support? In one respect, there was a self- imposed blindness at work. One of the major expressions of fan love, aside from letters to the editor of the comic, is the production of fanart and fanfic, something made even more ubiquitous thanks to the existence of the Internet. From deviantArt to fanfiction.net, this outlet has been available to the fans, who in some cases have produced works that outdistance whatever the professionals put out each month to appear in the comic. Yet it's all a closed book to the pros. One of the ethical standards in the business holds that they studiously avoid fan sites at all costs, lest they "unconsciously" steal an idea or two and thus open the way for a lawsuit against the publisher by the wronged artist/writer. I've always found this rationale to be absurd because the so-called professional artists and writers are still free to be influenced by the mediocrities that appear on television and in the cinema. At times, they actually play it up. Thus a scene in "Endgame" was directly lifted from the Harrison Ford-Tommy Lee Jones film "The Fugitive," a Karl Bollers story, "Evo-Solution," was consciously based on the "Blink Of An Eye" episode of "Star Trek: Voyager," and Ken Penders's "Last Game Cartridge Hero" did nothing to disguise the fact that it was inspired by Columbia Pictures's $80 million turkey, "The Last Action Hero." It's safe to say that, at this point, the Sonic comic isn't going to go away any time soon. In fact, the fan world is bleeding over into the world of the pros, with long-time fans such as Ian Flynn, Tracy Yardley! and Matt Herms now having their work appear in the comic. So while nobody can say when the comic will end, I think Jaidah can rest assured that she'll grow older and lose interest in the comic long before it prints its final issue. Mike C. is told there are no immediate plans to revisit the "Mobius: 25 Years Later" arc, but whether we're talking about the Ian Flynn 2-parter or the year-long Ken Penders story arc isn't clear. Mike, however, also says that Sonic #200 will be a surprise to them in Editorial, hinting that they haven't planned for it yet. I hope that isn't true because that's a sure-fire recipe for disaster. Better that Mike P. Should have told Mike C. To MYOB. Fan Art: still amateurish thumbnails. Like I said above, the real deal WRT fan art is at DA and other related sites. S191: Ian throws Metal Sonic and "a surprising new-comer" into the mix. I am officially not hopeful about where this story arc will be going.