Sonic the Hedgehog #216 [October 2010] Jamal Peppers/Terry Austin/Jason Jensen cover: What's a nice guy like Sonic doing in a dive like this? Seriously, this is a VERY impressive cover: just Sonic and what appears to be a Legionized orca with a crowd of extras from "Finding Nemo" in the background. Their curved form accentuates the vortex layout of the pic and adds to the effectiveness. Two characters in a dynamic pose without a lot of clutter: this is where comic book covers should go. A strong contender for Best Cover Art of 2010. "Family Matters: Part 2" Story: Ian Flynn; Art: Steven Butler; Ink: Terry Austin; Color: Matt Herms; Lettering: John E. Workman; Editor: Paul Kaminski; Managing Editor: Mike Pellerito; Editor-in-Chief: Victor Gorelick; Sega Licensing reps: Cindy Chau and Jerry Chu Above a flashy logo featuring face shots of the good guys (sorry, but I really could have done without the American flag motif), Silver expounds like crazy in the midst of a blizzard. But how else are we and Rotor going to know that he's got it wrong? It also gives Rotor/Boomer a chance to power back up, and the two of them go at it for about 2 pages before Rotor convinces Silver to let him rescue his herd. Deciding that the needs of the many in the present outweigh the needs of the many in the future, Silver agrees. Sonic, meanwhile, utters the dreaded words "OK, just to make sure I've got this straight..." which always signal a prelude to an exposition. Spin-dashing a hole in the ice, he sends the aquatic team off to take care of business underwater while he and the snow team take the direct approach and plow into the zombified walri. And despite the fact that Rotor just told Silver that there are hundreds of them in the herd, Sonic just happens to run into Rotor's mom and kid brother; what are the odds? Those two, still under the spell of the wave booster, don't recognize Sonic so Erma uses a Three Stooges martial arts move on them. Back below the surface, the aqua team meets up with some Legionized orcas. A page's worth of exposition slows the story to a glacier's pace, but things pick up when another Legionized orca gets in on the action. Aside from being telekinetic, he's also a freelance historian; this accounts for his attempt to talk the characters to death by recounting relations between the walrus herds and the orcas for a full page. Rotor and Silver show up and instead of taking on the heard bust their way into the totem pole which just happens to have a "neural interface for direct mental control." What are the odds? Anyway, Rotor figures Silver is the better candidate for the job, despite Silver's protests that he's more in the telekinesis line. He gives it the old Sega try anyway and proceeds to blow the minds of the walruses and orcas. That pretty much signals the end of the story, but there are still 3 pages to fill. Two of them are spent at a small victory celebration where Silver says that he's fixed it so the herd won't have to fall back on the same brainwashing plot ANOTHER time. As for the third page... Without so much as a SPOILER ALERT header, Tails, Bunnie and Antoine come back from their story arc. Sally then announces that Sonic and Bunnie get to go out on the next adventure to an exotic locale to do battle with the forces of evil while the subsidiary characters hooks up with ... man, Ian's getting in a rut! HEAD: This is the kind of story a time-traveler such as Silver could appreciate because of its overwhelming sense of deja vu. Except for some minor details, the story is a retread of "Reigning Cats and Dogs" without the Big-inspired humor. That may mean it works as a story but it gets tiresome for the readers to stroll down the same well-beaten path. I can only assume that this story was in production when Paul Kaminski was handed the editorial reins for the book. Why else would the readers have to wait until the dinner party sequence practically at the end of the story to find out that "Akhlut" was the name of the head DEL orca? Not that it made any difference in the outcome of the story, but you'd think someone would've suggested squeezing it into the sequence where he actually appears! It was something of a disappointment that Akhlut didn't completely live up to his name. I know that Archie has decreed that the book will go the route of humor-spiced-with-action rather than the other way round. Still, there would have been a neat story if Ian had taken the akhlut myth seriously. How's this: Turns out that Guntiver really isn't himself; he's Akhlut passing for Guntiver. Hey, if you're a creature that can morph between wolf and orca forms, it shouldn't be that much more trouble to morph to look like a specific wolf. And as long as we're dealing with killer whales, why not have him be true to type? As he could inform Erma in the midst of his exposition on what happened to Guntiver: "He was courageous ... and DELICIOUS!!" Yeah, like THAT line would ever appear in an Archie comic! Then again, Riverdale High has just gained its first openly gay student, so who knows? To old hands like myself, the statement by Silver that he's rendered future attempts at mind-controlling the walruses useless is something of a joke. As I pointed out, it was a case of Been There Done That when we remember S85's "Home and Back" and even the "Tundra Road" arc from S31-32. Yes, it would be nice if the book didn't ever make a THIRD (or is it a fourth?) run at the plot. While the story gets the job done, it relies on formula plotting so completely that there's really no reason, other than fan love for the characters, to put oneself through it. It also doesn't help that, Steven Butler's talents notwithstanding, the walruses look even more alike than other Mobian species. There's really nothing else about this story I can say that I didn't say when reviewing the "Reigning Cats and Dogs" arc. Head Score: 4. EYE: For whatever reason, the walruses appear to have been standing in the wrong line when they passed out gene expression on Mobius. I know of no other species that has appeared in this comic, or in the games, that have been as limited when it comes to physical depiction. Not that past artists haven't made mistakes; I shall NEVER forgive Dave Manak for not knowing the difference between a koala bear and a lab rat when it came to designing Barby for the Downunda Freedom Fighters. Even the several other orcas in this book can be distinguished by the differences in enhancements if not in skin patterning. I mention this because despite Butler's established and considerable talents, the homogeneity of the walruses is a hurdle that trips him up. Eye Score: 8. HEART: Once more, we run into the same problem here as in "Home and Back:" the comic gets a failing grade in Show And Tell. Despite our being told over and over that Rotor is devoted to his family and herd, we don't get much of a chance to SEE that happening. Even during the dinner party sequence the focus is on the Sonic-Silver conversation rather than on Rotor. Ian shoehorns in one or two bits of character development concerning Rotor's family, but everyone else is just part of the scenery, stand-ins. The rest of it is Akhlut's rant and the face-off between Rotor and the confused Silver. Heart Score: 3. Sonic Spin: Paul Kaminski's column is actually shaping up to be worthwhile. In this installment, he reveals some of the prototypes of the Rotor supersuit as designed by new penciller Ben Bates, who'll get thrown into the deep end of the pool next issue. But the fact that the big guy got dubbed "Iron Rotor" by the staff, as an obvious homage to the re-awakened Iron Man Marvel franchise, tells me that they're not thinking outside the box in Archie-land. "Future Tense: Part Two" Story: Ian Flynn; Art: Jamal Peppers; Ink: Terry Austin; Color: Ray Dillon; Lettering: John E. Workman As Silver checks in back home after the party, he runs into "Guardian Edmund," who may or may not be a constant in Silver's experience. As Silver explains it, every time he tweaks something in the past, it shakes up things down the time stream. In this case, the burned-out hulk of the Space Colony ARK is still smouldering offshore in the background, but Silver's forgotten that he's fought against the "Krudzu spore." While still in mid-conversation with Edmund, Silver's "Master" (aka "that sad sack of lies") yanks his chain mentally, which means Silver's got to take a meeting. Mercifully for us, he and the Master have the bulk of their conversation while Silver is in flight, which spares us having to look at the boring sight of two characters standing around talking. OK, except that also describes the scene between Silver and Edmund, but who wants a second helping of THAT? And considering that the "Master" is none other than a down-on-his-luck Mammoth Mogul, the less seen of him the better. HEAD: This isn't a story so much as an autopsy. With Silver back in his own time, he gets debriefed by Edmund before having to face Mammoth Mogul. On one level, this is the kind of story I hate because Silver admits that the continuity is subject to change simply by virtue of his engaging in time travel. Mercifully, this is a plot point that was never officially exploited in the comic's past. Sure, Ken Penders played with it in "Reboot" and "Life's Realities" (S101 and 102, respectively), but then only as a cautionary tale that teaches the lesson "Don't mess with the past because it'll screw up the present." But Ken never went so far as to imply that Silver's time-leaping has made this a continuing point for him. In a way, I'm surprised that previous writers haven't mined this possibility more than they did. After all, Loose Continuity is a hallmark of comic book writing, and this kind of time travel tweaking is an engraved invitation to indulge in Loose Continuity. It's enough to make you want to cite Albert Einstein's off-topic but oft-quoted dictum that God doesn't play dice with the universe. On the plus side, at least Ian has Silver accept the reality and even be somewhat jocular about it: "What can I say? Time travel." It's not much personality, but it keeps Silver from being a cypher. This plus his vacillation in the previous story actually gives him something of a personality; too bad that personality couldn't have found its way into the "Family Matters" arc. For whatever reason, Silver was something of a one- dimensional stiff in that story compared to his appearance here. That leaves only two other characters for him to play off of: Edmund and Mammoth Mogul. Edmund doesn't get to do more than forget Silver's name and supply exposition. Mammoth Mogul doesn't get saddled with the name thing, but cutting through his elaborate vocabulary one can sense that Mr. Unlimited Power has indeed run up against his limits. Why else take on Silver as an apprentice? In any event, these slivers of personality are all that are allowed to the duo, with no hint of a back story for either of them. I hate Loose Continuity. Head Score: 5. EYE: Jamal Peppers keeps the modeling on point, but the real star here is Ray Dillon's coloring work. I don't know why Silver's purple shadows are as effective as they are, but they work. Eye Score: 9. HEART: As with any story dependent on Loose Continuity, the best parts are the bread crumbs Ian drops about Silver trying to be a "Knight of Kronos" and Mammoth Mogul's humiliation (guess the casino thing didn't work out for him). They serve as croutons to crunch up a wilted story line that adds nothing to what's gone before. In short, they bring nothing to the story per se so who cares? Heart Score: 3. Fan Art: Megan submits a cast picture, but Cadd 9's drawing of Akhlut is seriously effective. More about the content later. Fan Funnies: Sonic tries for a cheap laugh at Silver's expense, but is soon in over his head. And Marlon doesn't even start in on any of the villains. "Coconuts"? Off-Panel: I don't know, Sonic, maybe because you were part of the land team! An homage to Sonic Adventure DX as Sonic is chased by a killer whale. Sonic-Grams: Paul (or whoever does the letters column) thinks that a fan being with the comic fandom for 3 years deserves a BA (Bachelor of Awesome). Yours truly has been with the comic, through good times and bad, since 1995; that should qualify me as Dean of the Old School. But back to the letters. Zoe thanks the comic for sparking her creativity. Joey wants Silver to have his own miniseries, as opposed to his appearance in the Mobius: 30 Years Later arc where he literally sleep-walks through his role after getting a cloud of knock-out gas in the face. Rick is not told whether Amy Rose has a power- up persona; considering how unstable her counterpart Rosy is, I'm not sure I want to see it. He's also told that the so-called "graphic novels" are straight reprints without redrawing. Granted that saves the current artists a lot of work, but I don't think anyone would have objected to Ron Lim's artwork being tweaked. And while the Powers That Be haven't considered what to do with the anti-Fiona, Paul allows that it's not a bad idea. Sam is told that the line extension of titles (adding SonicX and Sonic Universe to the offerings) "allows us to see places we've never seen before and expand on the characters and stories..." Given that Ian seems to be repeating his basic plots lately, I have to wonder about that "expansion" factor. As I've said before, given the potentially interesting parts of Mobius still unexplored, this represents a check that has yet to be cashed. And the inevitable thumbnail covers.