Sonic the Hedgehog #208 (March 2010)
     Pat Spaziante cover: Close-up of Sonic and the Queen's hand. 
OK, so it's not really in line with the story since Sonic is all
natural and thus immune to technomagic.  Still a really effective
cover, though.


     "Iron Dominion: Part 1"
     Story: Ian Flynn; Art: Tracy Yardley; Ink: Terry Austin;
Color: Matt Herms; Lettering: John E. Workman; Assistant Editor:
Paul Kaminski; Managing Editor: Mike Pellerito; Editor-in-Chief:
Victor Gorelick; Sega Licensing: Cindy Chau and Jerry Chu.

     Snively checks in with the Iron Queen, who reminds him of
his homework assignment: getting into New Mobotropolis.  For the
benefit of the Queen, and the noobs in the audience, he recaps a
plot point from one of the sorriest excuses for a Sonic story
ever to appear in this book, "Sonic's Angels."  He reminds us
that the nanite-built city in that story became the building
blocks for New Mobotropolis, thanks to Nicole.  So the nanites in
question and Nicole also represent the answer.
     Tails, meanwhile, is explaining that he's just finished
refitting his biplane.  The fact that he did it without recourse
to Nicole not only shows pride in craftsmanship, it also hammers
home the point that the plane won't be taken over when the Irons
attack right about ... now.
     We get one page of Nicole sizing up the situation and 2
blink-and-you'll-miss- em panels of Khan putting the moves on
Sal.  But there's no time for dancin', or lovey-dovey, Ian ain't
got time for that now.  Nicole makes the tactical mistake of
being the one to confront the Technomage and quicker than you can
say "James Cameron" Nicole become the Queen's personal avatar.
     Sit down and strap in; the pacing really accelerates at this
point.  As the shield is dropped and the enemy troops flood in,
Sally tells Bunnie to make herself scarce before the Queen starts
whipping her around again.  But the metal dome on the city snaps
shut before she can make good her escape.  
     Most of the Mobians inside figure that now would be a good
time to panic.  That's not in Sally's playbook, however, and she
sends Khan to get reinforcements from the palace.  Before a ninja
bat can attack Sal, however, he's back with the news that the
castle is sealed off as well.  Sonic and Tails finally fight
their way through to Khan and Sal.  At this point, she decides to
take the advice of Benjamin Franklin: "We must, indeed, all hang
together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately."  Next step:
get out of there and back to Freedom Fighters HQ so they can
debug Nicole and pull her back from the dark side.  Which may not
be as easy as it sounds, especially since Junk takes this
opportunity to look for some payback for being previously
humiliated.  Khan then takes on Junk solo while Sonic, Sally and
Tails make tracks.
     And for those of you who STILL need a clue as to what the
heck is going on with this story arc, we get a one-page recap of
Snively gloating after having found the Room Full Of Crazy (see
tvtropes.org for an explanation) where Uncle Eggman is being
held.
     Ignoring the fact that they're supposed to be in another
continuity all together, Vector is told to gather together the
Chaotix and hop the next warp ring out of town while Antoine and
Bunnie fight off the baddies.  Ant wants Bunnie to split along
with the Chaotix, but she decides to Stand By Her Man.  "Voici la
puissance de notre amour!" Antoine says as a battle cry, which
roughly translates "Here is the power of our love;" Bunnie
settles for an old school rebel yell.
     But now Nicole is getting serious and the pavement grabs Ant
and Bunnie and pretty much anyone and anything else, including
the Tornado.  Sonic spins through the thing and gets the plane
loose, but they still need to find the exit.
     Back at the Khan-Junk fight scene, someone FINALLY remembers
that Amy Rose actually had some chops back in Sonic X and she
decides to tap out Khan and to start going martillo-a-martillo
with Junk herself.  She tells Khan to go away, and Khan
apparently knows better than to argue with an armed lady.
     Khan hooks up with the Tornado and blasts a hole in the dome
so they can make their escape.  Now to see if that whole
debugging Nicole thing will work.  But not until the next issue.

     HEAD: When we left this comic last issue, Sonic was
compensating for Sal's supposed interested in testing Khan's
waters (I still can't believe that Ian actually wrote that drivel
and that Editorial signed off on it!) by hanging with Amy Rose. 
But like the whole Sonic Feeling Guilty For Scrambling Eggman's
Brain thing, the romantic subplot that was laid on thick and
heavy in the previous issue only gets a short nod in this one. 
We get two panels of Khan with his arm around Sally's shoulder
before the story is overwhelmed by the usual two developments in
this comic: Action and More Action.  As for Sonic, he probably
just needed a temporary adoring audience because there's not even
a HINT here that the Sonic-Amy Rose relationship will ever be
pursued.  Which is just as well, because that age difference
between them will get in the way until they both reach the age of
adulthood on Mobius.
     As for Amy Rose herself, the comic hasn't exactly let her
show off her leet hammering skillz.  Even in the Otherside arc
(S193-194) where the action shifts to Moebius, Rosy got in more
hammer time than Amy Rose.  But FINALLY someone remembered that
she is capable of doing more than endlessly professing her
devotion to Sonic.  And she does it pretty well here, too.
     There really isn't much more to the story.  It falls into
the formula of giving the villains a chance to get the upper
hand, and it's done well enough.  It also gives the customary
brief acknowledgment to other subplots (Sal/Khan and Gloating
Snively), as necessary as pausing to take a breath before getting
back to the action which is the reason for this story's being. 
Head Score: 8.
     EYE: Good Yardley! artwork in this one.  Despite the fact
that he's drawing crowd scenes, it doesn't feel too chaotic.  The
business with the roads turning into hands, though, seemed a bit
confusing especially when he had to use multiple depictions of
the Tornado and the heroes, all the while trying to hang on to
the perspective.  Eye Score: 9.
     HEART: Last issue's story may have teased us with the
prospect of Sonic and Sally seeing other furries, but the major
Heart moment here (as in the Mobius 30 Years Later arc in Sonic
Universe 5-8) belongs to the married folk: Antoine and Bunnie.
     It's already been established that Bunnie took a licking
from the Queen thanks to the technomagic thing; I'm frankly
surprised that Bunnie didn't succumb to it here when the Queen
started messing with New Mobotropolis via Nicole, or even feel a
little of what Nicole described as "interference" for a couple of
issues whenever the Irons were in the neighborhood.  But she and
Antoine slug it out side by side.
     See, this is the difference between dating and marriage: in
the one you only test the waters, in the other, you take the
plunge.  Man, I can't believe I just wrote that!  But I've been
married for going on 33 years, so I think that gives me the
right.
     Antoine certainly comes off as a better person for being
hitched.  Back in the SatAM days, he was NOT my favorite
character.  Frequently, his use for comic effect turned him into
a raw nerve that added nothing to what was going on.  He's taken
some minor turns for the better in this comic, with an occasional
turn for the worse, as in the horrible "The Map" (Battle Royal
Special).  
     But matching him up with Bunnie, who's been put through some
awful stories herself, is probably the best thing that's ever
happened to either of them.  Alone, they were gimmicks looking
for a context.  Together, they make way more sense.  
     And Ian has been making it work.  The proposal was dashed
off in the quickest manner possible (in S173's "Round-Up!") and
the wedding itself was constantly interrupted by the adventures
of Espio and the incessant narration by Eggman in the following
issue's "Union."  Once the knot was tied and they had a chance to
honeymoon in a New Mobotropolis that was so new the paint hadn't
even dried yet, Ian could depict them as domestically settled, to
the extent that he's allowed to do so.
     I've said it before, but the instances of domestic life
familiar to any reader of any decent married life comic strip
("For Better or For Worse," "Baby Blues, and "Arlo and Janis" are
my faves) don't get much play in this book, which totally puzzles
me because when Ian DOES this material he does it very well, not
only with Bunnie and Antoine but with Sonic and Sally in Mobius
30 Years Later.  Yet for some reason, we don't see very much of
it involving other couples: Amadeus and Rosemary Prower, Sally's
 rents, or Sonic's  rents.  OK, so they're secondary characters
at best, but that could change if Ian ever gave them the same
treatment and fleshed them out the way he did with Jules in the
immortal "Father and Son" (S192).  I'm still waiting for Ian to
build on what he put into that story, BTW.  The Bunnie-Antoine
interlude here was a strong Heart moment because Ian was playing
to one of his strengths; he should do so more often.  Heart
Score: 9.


     Fan Art: This one is for the ladies, as Macklin and Kathleen
give us a 3-D rendering of Bunnie and a 2D picture of Nicole,
respectively.  In the Fan Funnies, Liam has Sonic and Shadow
doing some two-hog shtick.

     Off-Panel: Has anybody else submitted anything to this
feature and gotten anything like a reply?  I submitted half a
dozen strip ideas a while ago and haven't heard anything since,
not even a form e-mail saying "Thank you for your submission;
please wait 4 to 6 weeks for your rejection" of something along
those lines.


     Sonic-Grams: Sandman is enjoying watching Snively get his
props, though I think the Sniveler will properly crash and burn
before the arc is over.  I like the way James thinks; he wants to
see more of Conquering Storm as well.
     And the overseas fans get into the act: Matt from the UK is
looking forward for more appearances by silver, and Jean-Francois
from Belgium gushes about the Sonic Universe title and their
utilizing the team of Marine and Blaze as well as Silver.
     But it's the letter from "FairFieldFinder" of Liverpool that
stuck with me.  FFF wonders if the comic will ever fill in some
of the gaps left over from "Mobius 30 Years Later."
     It finally occurred to me that maybe, just maybe, these
letters about M30YL show up in the Sonic-Grams because Editorial
WANTS them to appear so they can fall back on the line that it's
about a "possible" future.  That excuse gets weaker every time
they trot it out.  I expect, personally, that we'll get back to
M30YL at some point for two reason which counter the whole
possible future argument:
     1. If it was only a "possible" future, what other
possibilities could there be and why hasn't the comic trotted
them out?
     2. The M30YL continuity WORKED!  I've said this before about
the SatAM continuity: if Archie can think of a better basis for
the comic, let's see it.  They may have tried over the years when
Sonic and Tails went on the Around The World Tour or when Sonic
was Tossed In Space, but the results were far from satisfying. 
And unless Ian can come up with a continuity that was even more
compelling than M30YL, the fans will be perfectly happy to see a
return to what's already appeared and to have their questions
about it answered.  And FFF asks the same question I did in my
reviews of M30YL: what possible reason was there to fit out
Jacques and Belle with cybernetics if they were born intact? 
Comic books talk a lot about loose continuity; I'm afraid that it
can become a crutch to keep the author from having to work to
fill in plot holes that opened up the first time around.  But
those pesky fans still want a day of reckoning.