Sonic the Hedgehog #207 [Feb 2010]
     Pat Spaziante cover: impressive, except that it looks like part of a tutorial on layering. 
Sonic is on top of an ink smudge which is on top of a yin-yang, with what appear to be profiles of
Khan and Sally as watermarks looking away from each other.  Only in a comic book is this visual
shorthand for two characters hooking up.  And there's Junk all glowy-eyed.  At least he's not
drooling as badly as Sonic was on the previous cover.


     "Blackout"
     Story: Ian Flynn; Art: James Fry; Ink: Terry Austin; Color: Matt Herms; Lettering: John
E. Workman; Assistant Editor: Paul Kaminski; Editor: Mike Pellerito; Editor-in-Chief: Victor
Gorelick; Sega Licensing reps: Cindy Chau and Jerry Chiu

     We start off with a quick geography tutorial, which is a good thing because geography
was never my province.  Sorry about that.  Anyway, all the opening action takes place not at Old
Robotropolis Under Glass but nearby at the horribly anachronistic Fort Acorn, where the
defenders under the leadership of Amadeus Prower are attempting to hold off the advance of
Junk, who is unaffected by the energy weapons (with cute little arrowheads at the tips of the
rays).  As Junk crashes through the front door...
     We cut to the rustically-named "Marketplace" of New Mobotropolis, which I regret to
report looks more like an outdoor food court from a Southern California shopping mall.  There,
Sally is chatting up Khan, bringing him up to speed on her relationship with Sonic; so far, she's
only gotten to the end of the Tossed In Space arc.  She blames herself for the "striking"
development of S134, which gives Khan the chance to turn on the charm and tell her "I refuse to
believe someone as strong as you couldn't save a friendship that meaningful."  But before the
snow gets any denser, Nicole rezzes in.  She took it upon herself to dispatch Sonic and Tails to
save the bacon of the Fort Acorn defenders.  This prompts Khan to utter the fateful words "I'm
sorry, I'm lost.  What's going on?"  What's going on, of course, is a set-up for some exposition.
     In a nutshell, it appears that Junk is out to breach the Old Robotropolis bubble that's
keeping all the toxic radioactive stuff on the inside.  Thanks to Nicole's engineering, it acts like a
battery for New Mobotropolis, so Junk wants to trash it in order to bring down the shield.  So, let
me see if I've got this straight: in order to breach the impenetrable dome protecting New
Mobotropolis, he's got to breach the (hopefully) impenetrable dome protecting Old Robotropolis. 
Something tells me Junk isn't the brightest bulb in the lamp.  Neither is Khan, because he flies
off to get in on the fun.
     Meanwhile, Fort Acorn has been renamed Fort Kindling and Junk starts to move on
toward another dome he can't break through when Amadeus tries to do the hero thing.  His hero
skills, however, are about as leet as his revolutionary skills (i.e., not very).  "Gnat.  Speck.  None
can stand against the Iron King," Junk says while working on his Mammoth Mogul
impersonation; he's got the attitude down pat but apparently he only knows short words.  At this
point, Sonic intervenes and knocks Junk off-balance, telling Amadeus to bug out with the rest of
the group.  Tails is flying the troop carrier for this retreat, so despite Amadeus's less-than-stellar
leadership performance he still gets to ride shotgun.
     Now that it's just Sonic and Junk, Sonic does a quick job of burying him up to his
ridiculously huge pecs though he just as easily digs himself out.  Just then Khan joins the party
and he and Junk get in each other's faces, with the best line going to Sonic: "I'm going to chill
here until you decide to actually do something.  Just make it today, okay?"
     And now for something completely different: the action comic turns all chick flick on us
as Sally drops in on Bunnie.  Her insurance having run out, Bunnie is recuperating at home,
relaxing in an easy chair that is upholstered in Early Camo.  After ushering Antoine out of the
room, they settle in for some girl talk.  We get the news (it's news to me, anyway) that Sonic and
Sally are no longer supposed to be an item.  Sally's unsure about her unnamed interest, but
Bunnie tells her "That's what datin' is for ... you test the waters and see if things click."  Clicking
water; I'll have to remember that one.  Sally counters by saying that she doesn't have room for
"Date" on her Crises To Deal With Today List, and before the comic goes any further and risks
losing the core pre-ado boy audience, we get a page of counterpoint between Bunnie's text boxes
and the three-way fight sequence involving Sonic, Khan and Junk.  I'll spare you a replay of
Bunnie's advice to the lovelorn here and save it for the Heart section.  Sally, for the record,
thinks Bunnie's got her figured out even though the best closer Bunnie can come up with is the
tired old After-School Special cliche: "Follow your li'l ol' heart," which doesn't improve after
being Southern fried to a crisp.
     But back to the boys.  After a few more fight frames, Junk attacks the Old Robotropolis
dome with his mace and monosyllabic vocabulary.  That's when we learn (and Junk apparently
has no clue yet) that the power siphon connected to New Mobo and hooked up to Old Robo is on
the OUTSIDE of the dome and on the opposite side of where all this action is taking place.  This
actually makes sense; what doesn't make sense is Junk whanging on the dome itself instead of
looking for the siphon, as well as the fact that the S-word never came up in Nicole's exposition
earlier in the story.  Sonic then puts in a rush order with Nicole Fabricating Inc.  Returning to the
fight between Junk and Khan, he tells Junk "We give" and just asks him to trash the siphon but
leave the dome intact, which sounds reasonable even to a bonehead like Junk.  Turns out Junk is
so busy smashing the siphon that he doesn't get to hear Sonic stage-whispering that he's only
trashing a decoy siphon and not the new and improved one that Nicole just slapped together
underground.
     So the pair of heroes returns to New Mobotropolis where Sally wants to have a few words
with Khan.  As a consolation prize, Sonic gets to spend quality time with Amy Rose, who's
something like five years younger than he is with all the immaturity that that implies.  If those
two were humans, I wouldn't be calling that a date; I'd be calling the police.


     HEAD: With the Irons installed in the Egg Dome but unable to penetrate the dome of
New Mobotropolis, their conquest of Eggman's home base is at a standstill.  Unfortunately, the
plot grinds to a halt as well.
     First off, Fort Acorn is not only an anachronism, it's a pointless anachronism.  Old
Robotropolis is out in the middle of Absolutely Nowhere, covered by an impenetrable dome that
doesn't need any defending and which is holding in stuff that nobody in their right mind would
want to approach.  This of course makes it an irresistible lure for Junk.  I missed the fact of the
siphon's existence and location the first time I read this story, but it looks like Junk was even
slower to catch on since he just started in on the dome instead of actually looking for the siphon. 
By the time Junk gets a clue (from Sonic) as to where it is, the back-up siphon is already in place
underground, where it should've been in the first place, but you know what they say about
hindsight being 20/20.  Good thing Junk is so slow on the uptake.
     Let's make it official: Amadeus Prower has got to be one of the lamest characters in the
history of this comic.  I thought he earned his uselessness credentials when his revolution against
the Royals petered out after one lousy panel in S178's "House of Cards: Part 1."  Here, he
witnesses Junk breaking down the wooden doors of Fort Balsawood so naturally he goes after
Junk with a cutlass.  And I don't mean the Olds variety, either.  Sonic has to save his hide, which
is not news.  But Amadeus has less reason to be in this continuity every time he shows up.  Ian
should either retool him or send him back to Argentium where Sonic picked him up because he's
only wasting oxygen here.
     Ian FINALLY lets Khan go on the make and start trailing after Sally, which was
foreshadowed back in S201's "Change in Management."  After one page of his subjecting Sally
to his simian charms, Nicole shows up and spoils the mood completely.  The news about Junk, of
course, lets Khan get into macho mojo mode and he shows up to hassle Junk along with Sonic. 
Not that it really gets him anywhere.
     And seriously, what is the deal with Junk's vocabulary?  I mean, sit down and READ it! 
Most of the words he uses are only one syllable long, though some are two syllables and there are
a handful of three-syllable words in there, but come on!  And the weird thing is we're not going
to see this kind of dumbing-down when we get to his narration in the back story.  When Eggman
finally collects all his marbles he should keep Junk on staff; with this hunk of sirloin-on-the-hoof
hanging around, ANYBODY would look like a genius.
     Despite all the violence in this story, which is mostly directed at inanimate objects,
nobody dies.  The story, however, rolls over and goes belly-up about halfway through page [4]
during Nicole's exposition and it never really rises from the dead.  By that time, Ian doesn't do
more than show a token effort to care about the plot since he's plunging into the swamp of the
relationships between Sally/Khan and Sonic/Amy.
      I get the sense that this is Ian's answer to the storytelling device used in manga and anime of
taking a break in the story and engaging in character development.  This is a laudable goal and a
good idea, but it's badly executed here.  The business with the siphon, which was really
introduced too late into this story to be a credible plot point, is a clever idea but it makes the
destruction of the fort seem gratuitous, just a violent sop to the boys in the audience who want to
see some action more dramatic than Junk accomplishing absolutely nothing by hitting
indestructible domes.  This thing is a mess.  Head Score: 3.
     EYE: It's been a while since James Fry has worked on this title, but he kept his hand in
by working on the SonicX comics.  His skills haven't deteriorated and his modeling is on target. 
To my way of thinking, he saves his strongest work for the Bunnie-Sally chick flick segment of
the story despite giving one page over to counterpoint between Bunnie's text boxes and the fight
sequences.  He also gives Chez D'Coolette a cozy domesticity despite the eclectic decor
(Japanese bonsai and an Ojibwa dreamcatcher?).  Eye Score: 9.
     HEART:
     "...who are we trying to impress?" [Sally asked]
     "What do you mean?"
     "I mean, unless there's another group of refugees nearby with kids our own age, the only
boyfriends we're going to have are right here in Knothole."
     "Ah never thought of the boys as ever bein' boyfriends; Ah always figured they were  
well, just boys!"

     The preceding is an excerpt from one of my fanfics, titled " Grow Up!'"  I'm not doing
this by way of self-promotion, only to bring up the fact that the relationship between Sally and
Bunnie, which is literally the heart of this story, is a lot more complex and of longer-standing
than the scene allows.  Bunnie's one-page commentary on Sally's taste in heroes is incomplete.
     Bunnie's reading of Sally's character is accurate as far as it goes, but it still ends up
feeling like a dime-store astrological reading.  Basically, Bunnie tells her that she favors someone
who shares her outlook and character traits (selflessness, self-reliance, etc), but with a dash of the
willingness to throw one's life away that she can't afford.  This is a fairly good reading of
Sonic's personality, but we actually NEED the counterpoint between Bunnie's text boxes and
Jim Fry's artwork to illustrate that Khan himself also fits the profile.  Khan, after all, hasn't done
much over the past half-dozen issues except interrupt a concert, prove to be of limited
effectiveness in battle, and get whipped by the Iron Queen's technomagic.  Despite his debuting
in this comic over 10 years ago, Khan really doesn't have much of a history.
     And yet Sonic and Sally not only have a history, it's a SHARED history.  Whether
Bunnie was part of that history (SatAM) or not (Archie, Sega), both Sonic and Sally spent most
of their lives as refugees from Robotnik's takeover and as teenage guerrillas working against
him.  That sort of life experience tells you more about a person than you can learn hanging out
with them at the Riverdale Malt Shop.
     This is, after all, an Archie comic despite the Sega imprimatur, and dating is the coin of
the relational realm in Archie's flagship publications.  This despite the fact that there is an
anti-dating backlash out there.
     Perhaps the prime example of this is Josh Harris's 1997 book "I Kissed Dating
Goodbye."  According to the article on it from Wikipedia:

"Harris believes that dating has become too inwardly focused. He feels that people date to find
 their' mate according to their own principles, rules, and desires. In doing so, he argues, people
put up a fa‡ade in an attempt to appear to be what the other person wants, and this hampers the
 getting to know you' part of dating. He feels that it is more appropriate and more healthy in the
long run to participate in  group dates' in order to truly understand the way a particular person
interacts with others, since in a group setting in which some people know the person that person
is less likely to be able to maintain a fa‡ade for the duration of the date. Harris proposes a system
of courtship that involves the parents of both parties to a greater degree than conventional dating
schemes."

     And it goes without saying, in the above summary, that group dating affords less of a
chance for individual couples to let their hormones take over and indulge in any of the old in-out,
to quote from "A Clockwork Orange."  In fact, the current anti-dating movement puts a stronger
emphasis on what the Library of Congress refers to as "mate selection" than in "testing the
waters and seeing if things click."  And sex is considered a major unclickable.
     Granted, dating may not be the easiest situation to deal with.  Even in Disney's "Up," the
film fast-forwards from the possibility that there may be a childhood crush developing between
Carl and Ellie to "You may kiss the bride, unless she kisses you first," followed by four of the
most sublime minutes ever put on film as their married life is summarized.  What's weird about
this story and its treatment of dating is that Ian Flynn was on similarly firmer ground when Sonic
and Sally were married in Sonic Universe's "Mobius: 30 Years Later" arc (#5-8).  The
relationship between the two was pitch-perfect, even when they were verbally sparring with each
other.  I get a little of the same feeling looking at the all-too-brief interaction between Bunnie and
Antoine here.
      In contrast, Sallie and Bunnie's "follow your heart" dialogue on dating comes across as
clich‚d and phony.  It's driven more by the demands of the plot than by anything that's
happened in the course of the story.  There was no real build-up to this development, and then it
gets laid on thick and heavy.  It reminds me of Bill Holbrook's "On The Fastrack" comic strip
where Fastrack CEO Rose Trellis demonstrates her managerial skills on the plant in her office by
dumping a 40-pound bag of fertilizer on it, blasting it with a high-pressure hose, and thinking
that that should take care of it for the next year and a half.
      Similarly, there's the brief father-son moment between Amadeus and Tails.  This could have
been a major Heart moment in a relationship that's been practically starved of Heart ever since
Tails's parents showed up in the comic.  Instead, it gets the most perfunctory treatment possible.
      And then there's the Sonic-Amy Rose pairing we're left with at the end of the story.  This is
one of those rare occasions where Sega and Archie are pretty much on the same page and have
been since the comic's inception.  Unfortunately, their basic area of agreement is that Amy Rose
is a joke.  Despite her being made older by Sega for Sonic Adventure and all games following,
and her being made a playable character in Sonic Heroes, she's still a one-note character, a
love-struck puppy defined by her crush on Sonic and a single-minded determination that they
will get married.  And Archie has gone along with the party line.  The Amy Rose of S172's
"Worth The Effort" literally sleep-walked through the story opening and was the butt of repeated
jokes about wet feet.  Her Moebian counterpart, Rosy, wasn't so much an "evil" opposite Amy
Rose as she was an exaggeration: ready to commit murder until Scourge showed up and then all
she could think to do was make kissy-faces at him.
      Still, there is a sizable part of the fandom that supports Sonic/Amy Rose or SonAmy or
however you want to abbreviate their shipping.  I don't want to get between the Sonic/Sally and
Sonic/Amy Rose camps on this one, even though my sympathies are generally going to be with
the former unless and until Amy Rose grows up, in more ways than one.  The trick now is how
Ian is going to balance the two new relationships and the ongoing plot.  I do not envy him this
juggling act, nor do I expect anything to change long-term.  Heart Score: 5.
      
      
      "The Iron Queen"
      Story: Ian Flynn; Art: Renae de Liz; Ink: Terry Austin; Color: Matt Herms; Lettering: John E.
Workman
      
      "Idiots!  I am surrounded by idiots!"  No, this isn't a transcript of an Archie editorial
conference, it's Regina venting because Snively and the Bull King have yet to figure out how to
take down the dome over New Mobotropolis.  After she retreats to her room, Junk manages to
put aside his "Hulk break things!" language skills and drops almost 3 pages of exposition on
Snively's chrome dome.  To summarize:
      Despite Regina's technomagic, the socio-political situation in the Dragon Kingdom was so
unstable that the two Irons couldn't get any traction until Robotnik dropped in and they formed
an alliance.  Thanks to the additional mechanical muscle, they were able to take on the "free
people" but had to resort to other means of settling the hash of the four warring clans.  Their
solution: kill off one of the clan "brides" or matriarchs, use the clan as additional muscle and let
the other three get the message.  Rather than staying at home and consolidating their gains,
however, Queenie decided to follow up on the defeat of her old patron Robotnik by taking over
his home turf.  But thanks to Sonic and his crew they haven't been able to hang up the "Mission
Accomplished" banner.  Junk follows Regina's lead and blames Snively but isn't about to crush
his skull in for him.  That leaves Snively free to figure out how to breach the dome, but he'd
rather plot Junk's downfall.
      
      HEAD: Junk apparently is far more eloquent when on his home turf than when he's trying to
break something elsewhere.  That comes in handy when it falls to him to handle the exposition.
      There's an old joke where a mother sends a note to her son's teacher that says "If Stanley
starts acting up in class, hit the boy sitting next to him, he'll get the idea."  That seems to have
been how the Brides of the four houses were finally dealt with: pick one off, take over the clan,
and let the others submit.  And thanks to the artwork, we're finally clued in to the fact that
Conquering Storm doesn't just share the name of one of the four houses, she used to be the Bride
of the house of the same name.  But then Ms. Rich Night bought the farm courtesy of Junk.  
      We also get that the arrival of the Irons at the end of Sonic #200 has some history behind it:
having relied on Robotnik's bots to give them the edge against the "free people," Junk and
Queenie decide to pick up the pieces once Robotnik came unglued.  It may have taken a while,
including a separate exposition by the Queen herself in S202's "Lonely Girl's Story," but I think
Ian's got the readers up to speed on Regina's back story as well as the situation in the Dragon
Kingdom prior to the arrival of the Irons here.
      Once again we get a dose of "No honor among comic book villains" in the final panel. 
Snively is clearly looking to usurp Junk's place and get back in the Queen's good graces.  There
are, however, two problems: Uncle Robotnik and Constant Storm.
      Skipping ahead to one of the Editorial replies to a Sonic-Gram, we're told that after this issue
Robotnik will "[seem] to be a little better." Better for a villain, anyway.  Thanks for the spoiler,
there.  And if he IS close to finding all those marbles he lost in S200, of course he's going to
have something to say about what the Irons are doing.
      Likewise, now that we know Constant Storm/Connie used to be a Bride before being
demoted to Bridesmaid, her look of sinister satisfaction at being sent back home by Regina in
S205's "On the Run: Part 1: All The Eggs In One Basket," makes way more sense.  With the
Irons getting bogged down in their attempt to take over, it would only be natural for Connie to
report these developments to the remaining Bridesmaids.  They, in turn, could finally get their act
together and start reclaiming their own clans   if they don't resume their old habit of
slaughtering each other first.  This is one of the problems with world building on this scale:
trying to keep all the plates spinning.  Good work by Ian here.  Head Score: 9.
      EYE: Renae de Liz, whose Lord Of The Rings artwork at her deviantArt site is extremely
impressive, turns in some really great work here, with the help of Austin and Herms.  Eye Score:
10.
      HEART: n/a, given that the characters here are all pretty heartless to begin with.
      
      
      Fan Art: Elson of Oz gives us a classy portrait of Sonic and Khan, backed up by Espio and
Lightning Lynx.  And there are two treatments of SonAmy: Nikki as a fan, and Khadeeja with a
dissenting opinion.
      
      Off-Panel: "We get it, you like domes!"  Only so long as they're transparent.  I don't think
we're going to see a full-blown Buckminster Fuller geodesic any time soon.  That would
probably be a real bear to ink.
      
      Sonic-Grams: Devin, in addition to the spoiler about Robotnik, is told that M:30YL is (say it
with me) "a possible future."  OK, possible, but it worked for me.  Also that Shadow and Team
Dark will be back, hopefully with more of the attitude that made them dark in the first place. 
Alex is told that Shadow would've been over 50 if he hadn't been put into stasis between GUN
shutting down ARK and his awakening by Eggman in Sonic Adventure 2.  Speaking of aging,
we're told Mephiles doesn't age, a condition my insurance company probably wishes I'd
contract.  Speaking of Team Dark, Brett is told that Shadow and Rouge "seem to get along
okay," which may be another way of saying "Never get on the bad side of an ultimate life form." 
And Zachary gives Editorial an excuse to plug Sonic Universe #11.  But that's another review.