Sonic the Hedgehog #214 (Aug 2010) Tracy Yardley cover: I understand the idea: Sonic, Sally, Lupe, Hathor, and Big all clustered around the Onyx. And the modeling is good as always. But the perspective here is all wrong. Lupe CAN'T be standing on the ground without having grown to giantess size and it doesn't look as if she's taken a flying leap for herself. Sally's placement on a crosspiece of the ruins is just as problematic. The UPC code sticker prevents Hathor from being similarly embarrassed. And the bit with Big's trying to land a hook in a solid gemstone is funny, but it doesn't help. Also, the longer you think about it, the sense starts draining out of it even faster. We may just have a front-runner for Worst Cover Art of the Year here. Not because it's bad, but because it fails. "Reigning Cats and Dogs: Part Two" Story: Ian Flynn; Art: Steven Butler; Ink: Terry Austin; Color: Matt Herms; Lettering: John E. Workman; Assistant Editor: Paul Kaminski; Managina Editor: Mike Pellerito; Editor-in-Chief: Victor Gorelick; Sega Licensing reps: Cindy Chau and Jerry Chu Sonic finds himself, again, caught between the Wolf Pack and the Felidae. Seems that despite Sonic and Sally's asking Lupe to let them handle this, the Pack has suited up and decided to take it to the cats. For the moment, it's enough for Lupe and Hathor to get in each other's furry face while Sonic tries to figure things out. As for Sally, she's roped to an altar upon which rests the McGuffin of this story, the Ancient Onyx. She's being brutally tortured by being forced to listen to Drago's trash talk. She decides to go to Plan B in order to get some idea of what's going on here, and to cue the exposition. It turns out that Eggman gave Drago a motor mouth in addition to cybernetic limbs. He reels off the fact that the Doc has gone in for partial roboticizing nowadays, as well as recounting the story of how Razorklaw, coming off his defeat by Locke in S84's "Perfect Chaos," hooked up with other malcontents and sold out to Eggman. Rago also takes the credit for swiping the Onyx in order to disrupt the regional balance of power. So the question in his fuzzy mind is whether offing Sally would make the conflict a three-way involving New Mobitropolis? Meanwhile, Sonic is racking his blue brain looking for the key to this mess, and it's while Lupe and Hathor are rehearsing their old grievances that he makes the connection. Some further questioning turns up the facts that the echidna ruins are a neutral zone between the two groups, and that some of Eggman's troops were chased into the jungle when the wolves showed up. That tells Sonic all he needs to know. At the ruins, Razorklaw is all for shredding Sally on the spot, but all he gets for his eagerness is another argument with Drago. Before THAT goes much of anywhere, we hear the sound of Team Jacob arriving. Seriously, it's the Wolf Pack taking the point as the action slows down for two pages to give Sonic a chance to reveal that for all his faults Eggman is an equal opportunity employer who brought both wolves and canids into the local Legion. This gets Hathor's back up big time, and Drago decides to cut their losses and Sally's throat. However, there's a Big obstacle to his carrying out that plan. Anticlimactically, Big punches Drago's lights out while Sonic gut-checks Razorklaw. But don't check out yet; despite the "Mission Accomplished" vibe this thing still has six pages and an epilogue to go. Amid the rescuing and smiles, Razorklaw activates ... well, we don't know WHAT he activates, but the Legion makes a quick exit so they can hunker in the bunker. Lupe, citing the fact that their combined forces aren't sufficient to do big-time battle, is willing to let the matter rest. Hathor can see the logic in that. Anyway, Sally takes center stage for the next page-and-a- half as she speechifies about how the theft of the Onyx almost made them easy pickings for Eggman. She proposes a union of the tribes while the Onyx stays in the ruins aside from the occasional supervised ceremonial use by the wolves. Both Lupe and Hathor agree that it's a first step. We then see Sonic, Sally and Big get their honorary Wolf Pack memberships, and there's a shout-out to the wolves no longer with them. And to fill out the page, we get a lot of sotto voce speculation about the Onyx; the only conclusion that Sonic and Sally can draw is that it's NOT a Chaos Emerald. Thanks a lot, guys! But wait, there's more! As Councilors Rotor and Penelope burn the midnight whatever trying to redraft the Constitution, Hamlin bursts in to tee up the next story arc: according to the Arctic Freedom Fighters, the Dark Legion is on the move and has taken prisoners from Rotor's herd of origin. Button up your overcoats. HEAD: A recurring problem with this comic is probably endemic to the comic book industry as a whole. This book undergoes periodic major developments and retcons, usually every 25 issues. Which brings up the inevitable question: "What do we do for an encore?" At times, there simply was no plan. Other times, as with the Tossed In Space arc following up S125, I wish they'd have thought harder. It appears from this story, and the lead-in to the next two Sonic issues, that Ian is going to be working the "Legionized" angle, with cybernetics taking the place of full- blown roboticizing, and telling variations on the same story in different locations. So the two-issue arc taking place in Cat Country will be followed up by a two-issue arc in the Mobian Arctic as Sonic and crew go after the subordinate baddies while the Big Boss recuperates and waits for his on-page cue. Unfortunately, the story here slips into generic mode fairly quickly as revealed by two points: the 7 page aftermath after Ian runs out of Action and More Action and has the Legion execute the ever-popular Run Away! maneuver, and the revelation that the Onyx is a great big shiny faceted piece of nothing as far as the plot is concerned. In looking back at the recently-concluded Iron Dominion arc, I can honestly say that the Cats and Dogs arc pales by comparison, and not just in terms of length. In this arc, I got the feeling that the characters, all of them (yes, even Sonic and Sally) were just going through the motions, hitting their marks and saying their lines. In between, the other characters such as but not limited to Lyco and Leeta, Drago and Razorklaw, did the same thing. The hunt for the missing Onyx was supposed to propel the story forward, but the background noise was all labored breathing. Drago gets the nod as King of Exposition in this story, if only because his speeched seemed even more gratuitous than those of Lupe and Hathor. You can feel the story slow to a crawl whenever he opens his yap. We won't know until the next two-parter whether Ian isn't simply going to Lather-Rinse-Repeat this story structure. I can only hope not; this story formula is just too lame to bother imitating. Head Score: 3. EYE: Steven Butler's artwork has to work overtime to generate any interest in the story as a whole, and he does it well. But his heavily-detailed artwork only serves to widen the gulf between the designs for Lupe and Hathor on the one hand and that of Big on the other. Lupe made her first appearance in a couple of episodes of the 2nd season of SatAM Sonic while Hathor was designed for the comic where she bowed as Queen of the Mysterious Cat Country; only now, it seems, has her name finally hacked its way through the jungle and caught up with her. Big, however, debuted in the first Sonic Adventure game and subsequently appeared in Sonic Heroes and did cameos in other games. Maybe his balloon build has something to do with the level of video game animation at that point in time, I don't know. Any resemblance between him and Hathor is purely coincidental. Eye Score: 9. HEART: There are only two Heart moments here. The first is when Sonic rescues Sally from being filleted by Razorklaw and they spend like half a page making eyes at each other. You know Sonic and Amy Rose never had any moments like that. The other is on the next-to-last page, and it is Lupe who speaks: "We raise our voices to the stars, so that the brothers and sisters who have left this world know that there are three more among us." It's pretty obvious what just happened: Lupe's giving a shout-out to the dead pack members. It's actually kind of neat that Ian has Lupe do this. It reminds me of certain attempts by Ken Penders to deepen the continuity, culminating in one case in the lame "Afterlife" arc (S121-124). Ken never really focused on what he was depicting and for Ian this is a throwaway moment tucked inside one panel, but they both tried. Unfortunately, ANY attempt to deepen this story began and ended with the Onyx which turned out to be a big shiny hunk of nothing ... sort of like the story arc as a whole. Heart Score: 4. Fan Art: We get a glimpse of Sally powering up (apparently she turns turquoise when that happens) by "Cinos the Hedgehog," a very nice depiction of Iron Nicole by Noele and Aleah, and Sonic with the kind of tricky calligraphy inspired by the opening credits for the anime "Neon Genesis Evangelion" by Jude. Fan Funnies: Mike C. Jr. from Wisconsin seems to believe that simply burying Amy Rose under Sonic/Sally artwork will stop her; I have my doubts but don't let that stop you from submitting. Off-Panel; If I haven't said so already, Ben Bates's artwork in this feature looks really good. Here, it's done in the service of an obvious couple of gags but they're still fun. Sonic-Grams: Mike, or whoever in Editorial answers these, tells Olivia that if she wants to read any solo adventures for the Chaotix she should invest in the Knuckles Archives; and at $8 each for 8 volumes that IS an investment! Stephanie wants to know why this book is no longer being published, which I'm sure is a surprise to a lot of people out there. Tyler asks about "Consequences" (S197) and the scene with Sally before the Council; Mike's explanation could be boiled down to "Sally takes one for Team Sonic." And there's some tongue-in-cheek haggling about fan rankings; I figure any number you pin on yourself doesn't count. Robert is told the ugly truth that nothing much creative happens on-site in Mamaroneck except when Jamal Peppers shows up once a week (so far he's been relegated to doing the penciling for a number of back stories). And there are the thumbnail covers for S215 and SU18. And of course, this issue's Moment of Zen by jcfreak16: "Big the Stately Recounter of Truth! Today has been a very good day so far."