Sonic the Hedgehog #217 [November 2010] Yardley!/Herms cover: No, this isn't a picture of Sonic's summer vacation along the Gulf of Mexico. It's more like a tribute to Pat Spaziante and that cover feature from days of yore, the Uvula Shot. For some reason, Spaz frequently did cover art where the characters' mouths were wide open and you could see clear back to their uvula (e.g., the classic cover of S41). And like much comic book cover art, it's not reflective of the actual contents of the story. Pretty impressive though too much in- your-face, literally. "Thicker Than Water: Part 1" Story: Ian Flynn; Art: Ben Bates (debut); 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. Under a blazing sun, Bunnie indulges in a little beach volleyball. Just two problems: there's no beach in the area, just an oil refinery. And Sonic is the ball. "OK, this is not how today was supposed to go," Sonic thinks Joe Gillis-style in a text box amid all the action. Settle back and relax, kids; ahead be flashbacks. As Sonic and Bunnie rat-race across the Badlands desert floor they bring forth heavy servings of exposition to fill us in on the back story instead of focusing on just staying hydrated. Seems they've been drafted to provide requested back-up for the Sand Blast City chapter of Freedom Fighters. They may be Freedom Fighters but under the dubious leadership of one-eyed Jack Rabbit they definitely do NOT work and play well with others, particularly Sonic and Bunnie since they formerly used Sonic as a cat's paw and Bunnie as bait in their ongoing fight against the neighborhood Robians. By the time they get to Sand Blast City, Bunnie suddenly conks in mid-air, at which point she gets pulled over by the Law of Gravity. Sonic figures this is a typical Sand Blast City reception, and knowing how tough domes in this comic can be, decides to enter the city on the down-low: i.e., he'll burrow his way in. Popping up in town, he asks a few of the local toughs to tell Jack to hustle his bunny butt over here. And the Blasters attack Sonic, as he expected. This goes on for a page until some lizard names Tex blind-sides the Blue Blur and only then does Jack show up and pull a sidearm on Sonic. Jolt the road runner tells Sonic that Bunnie probably got felled by an electro- magnetic pulse that knocked out her electronics; this earns Jolt a punch from Tex for talking out of turn. Like I said, they don't work or play well with anybody, even each other! After a quick explanation to Sonic, Jack proposes helping Sonic rescue Bunnie from the clutches of the local Legion (who were seen grabbing Bunnie when she fell out of the sky) in exchange for Sonic's help in taking over the Legion base. We and Sonic then get brought up to speed on the changing politics of the area: after the Robians reverted to normal (thanks to the intervention of space aliens; see Karl Bollers' "The Last Robian" in S123, still to my mind one of the WORST stories ever to appear in this book), the Robians maintained their allegiance to Eggman. That's Jack's version of things, anyway. If you want the flip side.... Bunnie comes to in a D.E.L. building and does not like what she sees. But when the Legionnaires call for baronial back-up, Bunnie looks as if she's seen a ghost. Turns out this ghost has a name: Beauregard Rabbot, aka "Uncle." After a brief one-panel reunion ... any manga creator would have milked the moment for a page and a half ... Beau the Legion Grand Master has Bunnie the Freedom Fighter set a spell. We get a quick recap of how Bunnie got the way she did and Beau's reaction to her having tied the knot in the interim; his line "Ah blinked and you grew up!" is perfect. We also get a hint of some bad blood between the likes of Beau and the House of Acorn, but like the revolution that kicked off "House of Cards, Part 1" (S178) Ian just as quickly drops it down the memory hole. What Ian DOES tell us is that according to Uncle Beau when the deroboticized Robians tried making peace with the Sand Blasters they got the typical Sand Blaster bad reception. Having been driven off into the Badlands, the ex-Robians felt they had nowhere else to go except to the Dark Egg Legion. So now they're stuck protecting the self-same oil refinery (inspired by the Oil Ocean Zone from the Sonic 2 game and not by the BP Deepwater Horizon oil well disaster of 2010) that Jack and the Sand Blasters want Sonic to help them capture. So it's no surprise that when Sonic tries to rescue Bunnie and takes a poke at Uncle Beau that Bunnie pokes back. And that pretty much brings us full-circle back to the opening. HEAD: And you thought the title had to do with all that Persian Perrier on the cover! Ian is using the same plot template he's just used in "Reigning Cats and Dogs" and "Family Matters." The heroic duo this time is Sonic and Bunnie, the locale is Sand Blast City out in the Badlands, and the McGuffin is the oil refinery. But the major feature of this story is Family, to an even greater extent than it was in "Family Matters." In the latter story, Ian never did get around to making any kind of convincing case that Rotor had a close relationship with his family. This despite the fact that this was something like the third time for a Sonic writer to jump-start that particular plot point. What's weird is that, when dealing with Bunnie suddenly hooking up with a relative, Ian is able to get traction. You get more of a feeling that Bunnie and her Uncle Beau have a closeness that Rotor never demonstrated toward his mom and kid brother. I don't know why this should be, unless Ian (possibly backed up by Editorial) thinks that only female characters can be allowed to have an emotional life. That would certainly go a long way toward explaining why the relationships between Sonic and Tails and their respective rents are considered No-Fly Zones in this comic. The only exception was the Mobius 30 Years Later arc when Sonic and Sally are comfortably and non-canonically married and raising kids. Jack continues to be an SOB (son of a bunny) toward Sonic. While I don't buy the theory that the models for some of the characters are vague transcriptions of classic Warner Brothers cartoon characters (Jack = Bugs Bunny, Jolt = Road Runner), note the casual use of the names "Tex" for the lizard and "Avery" for the bear or overgrown prairie dog or whatever he is. And of course there's Matilda Armadillo, who would ordinarily be dismissed as just another walk-on except for the fact that Paul Kaminski happened to post some conceptual artwork for Matilda in his column in this issue. It's got to be obvious even to relative noobies that she's the sister whom Mighty and Ray are traipsing around Mobius hoping to find, as documented in S212's "The Roads We Take." Of course, the story itself is book-ended with Sonic and Bunnie exchanging punches. Not that there's any real feeling to it: Bunnie as much as apologizes to Sonic for the smack down, while Sonic has decided to "play it up and see how things pan out." That could get done in no time flat if Bunnie and Sonic each explained to the other where they've been for the past 24 hours. Then they could put their furry heads together and come up with a plan, in much the same way that the "Reigning Cats and Dogs" arc ended with the wolf clan gaining visitation rights for the Onyx. To fail to do so would turn this promising premise into a typical Idiot Plot. But maybe I'm getting ahead of things here. The story works well, especially in giving Bunnie the time she needs to reweave her kinship bond with Uncle Beau and not spending it all on exposition. Yes, against all odds some honest-to-goodness character development shows up here. The problem having been teed up, we can only hope the solution is just as good if not better. Head Score: 9. EYE: "I'm super excited to get to add to the Sonic world especially on one of the main characters! I've come a long way from the 13 year old kid dreaming of working on the comic." Those are the words of Ben Bates, making his front-of-the-book debut in this issue after having appeared in a couple of Off- Panels and having his design concept for Rotor's super suit make it into Paul Kaminski's column. The quote is taken from his blog, bbates.com. If you want to tour his blog, use the "Older Entries" button at the bottom of the page; the Archive links are junk. This is the Tracy Yardley! Era, which means that beyond modeling you also have to be good with page layout, and Ben has that covered, especially in the nicely-disjointed layout on the first page during Sonic and Bunnie's fight. He also managed to soften up Steven Butler's original design for Beau, about which more later, and to invest Matilda with a good dose of ennui. A very good introduction. Eye Score: 10. HEART: When I realized what was happening to Bunnie here, I felt I knew where this was going to go because I toyed with the same idea myself. In 1998. My fanfic "Runaway" was pretty ambitious going for me, and ended up being a Sonic novella (over 90 pages single-spaced). A young stranger shows up in Robotropolis and he hooks up with the Knothole gang. But when his actions endangers one of the crew, Sonic and the gang end up taking him home to his family. Which also turns out to be Bunnie's family. Ian may have pulled his punches to some extent by reuniting Bunnie with an uncle, but I went all in and reunited her with her parents and her sibs, both older and younger. This set up the secondary conflict in the story: does Bunnie return to Knothole with her friends, or remain in the bosom of her family? Ian has arrived at a similar place by introducing Beauregard Rabbot and making him part of the Legion, even if a reluctant part: "We don't want to be a part of this ... but we ain't got a choice right now." Herein, then, is the set-up for the story and Bunnie's motivation for locking horns with Sonic. Under ordinary circumstances she'd have no motivation for guarding a Legion site, but Beau's presence provides that motivation. It also potentially gives her and Ian an out. Since Sonic and Sally between them managed to flip the various houses of the Iron Kingdom into deserting the Irons ("Journey To The East" arc, SU13-16), Sonic could try to broker a similar deal with the Badlands ex-Robians. There are two obstacles to this: the attitude of the Sand Blast Citizens, and Ian's willingness to ease up on the action throttle and give Bunnie a chance to explain to Sonic what's going on. But despite the gooey cover art, the title is the key to this issue's emotional clout since it's blood that's thicker than water, "and cheaper than beer" according to one variation on the old saying. It's a great set-up and I can only hope for a satisfactory outcome. Heart Score: 10. "Welcome Back, Chao!" Story: Ian Flynn; Art: Tracy Yardley!; Ink: Terry Austin; Color: Matt Herms; Lettering: John E. Workman To the accompaniment of much KATHOOMing in the background, Cream takes up herding Chao, which has to be easier than herding cats. The noise is coming from a tripod-drill thing that, for once, lacks any kind of anthropomorphic identity (c.f. the Egg Lobster in S171's "I Am" and the Egg Spider in S200's "Turn About Is Fair Play"). Snively is again the designated driver, seeking "large amounts of mystical energy," which is the McGuffin that brings him to Vanilla's doorstep. But who should arrive to save the day, via warp ring, but Amy Rose. Being at ground level, she can't do more than hammer on the mech's feet. So with much simpering by Cream, Amy gets flown up to the top of the drill things to deliver her war cry "EAT MALLET, YOU SCUM BUCKET!" Amy should have thought through her attack, however, because when she smacks the drill thing it falls into Vanilla's house, turning it into matchsticks. Amy Rose's description of the collateral damage: "Oops." Yeah, at least! As atonement, Amy Rose invites Vanilla, Cream, and the Chao to stay with her in New Mobitropolis for the interim. Cream is initially against the idea because it means abandoning the Chao's garden until Amy suggests that the Power Ring lake could be retrofitted to provide a Chao habitat. Cream is instantly won over to the idea. HEAD: "I remember the day I met her vividly," someone says with the inclusion of a superfluous adverb. I only assume that it's Cream talking because the speaker is otherwise unidentified and the text box happens to be the same color as Cream's fur. Ian takes some extremely questionable short-cuts in this 5 pager. We're never told where exactly Vanilla, Cream, and the Chao are living when Snively attacks, and after the attack is repelled by Amy Rose Ian forgets about Snively completely. This heightens the sense that the primary reason for this story to exist is to explain Cream's presence in New Mobitropolis by way of teeing up the next Sonic Universe 4-parter, the unfortunately- named "Treasure Team Tango" (SU21-24). Ian keeps the action acting here, and leaves the impression that even he doesn't take this material too seriously; see Amy Rose's reaction on page [3] when she's about to be stepped on. As a way of getting everyone to New Mobitropolis it works well enough; that move, however, comes at the expense of the characters, about whom more in the Heart section. Head Score: 5. EYE: This should have been no problem for Tracy Yardley! to get done. So why does it feel so flat? The modeling is faultless, and Matt Herms's coloring works well enough, but even the panel of the drill thing trashing Villa Vanilla as it falls just sits there and does nothing. There's none of the visual exuberance of when Yardley!'s really on his game. It's like Yardley!, Austin and Herms didn't care much for this story either, and they let it show in their work. Eye Score: 5. HEART: There are a number of Sonic characters who have clicked immediately with the fans upon their introduction. Shadow instantly became a hit, becoming second in popularity only to Sonic himself. Rouge enjoyed a similar success. There have also been characters, such as Chris Farrington (with a name that sounds like it was lifted from a Barbara Taylor Bradford novel) who engendered instant fan hatred. Here, Cream tends toward the second category. It's not as if there isn't room for a child in the continuity, an innocent pair of eyes who could bring a different perspective to the boy's comic book genre. That's actually what I was hoping for when Hope Kintobor was brought into the continuity. But in this story at least, Ian seems to have mistaken annoyance for innocence. I can understand Cream's wanting to get the Chao out of harm's way, but putting on a Power Pout in order to get Mama Vanilla to sign off on her flying Amy Rose to the top of the drill thing just seemed wrong. So does her "obstinacy" at the prospect of having the Chao abandon their garden. She just comes off as a spoiled brat. When Ian had the freedom to portray Sonic and Sally's kids, Sonia and Manik, in the Mobius 30 Years Later arc, he succeeded in putting them across as kids who were childish and yet also likable. Here, however, Cream is already starting to taste curdled. And it's not for lack of resources; see the entry on Cream in the Sonic News Network's wiki (http://sonic.wikia.com/wiki/Cream_the_Rabbit) to get a complete description of her character traits. And in a story like this 5- pager, where space is limited and plot is just a set-up, character is everything. I can only hope that Ian can find Cream's voice for the upcoming T3 arc, and that it isn't as whiny and annoying as it was for "Sonic Heroes." Heart Score: 3. Sonic Spin: Spin doctor Paul Kaminski focuses on new characters Matilda Armadillo and Baron Beauregard. Steven Butler's designs for the latter were softened when Ben Bates got a hold of them, especially Ben's toning down the fact that the Baron has beaded dreadlocks. Which means that Butler gave Beau hare Bo hair. OK, I realize that joke is like 30 years old and a lot of you reading this don't get it. If that's the case, just Google "Bo Derek" and "10." Fan Art: portraits of the Iron Queen by Kelsey, Khan and Sally by Jasmine, and Lupe in all her feathered finery by Kathleen. Fan Funnies: Sonic blowing up the world? I think I missed that one. Off-Panel: OK, THIS is what I mean by not getting a read on Cream's character. Cream would probably be the first to extend an invitation to Bokkun, Chris and El Gran Gordo to drop in, with Editorial providing the flop sweat. That's how it seems to me, anyway. Sonic-Grams: Matt comes out of the closet as a completionist as well as a Rotor fan; Editorial says nothing about his suggestion of bringing back Scratch and Grounder from the AoStH continuity. The Delaware Shmoo gets off a rather lame "Robotnik is fat" taunt and Editorial replies in spirit. Nikki sings the praises of S215; Editorial implies that Silver will be back ... with better writers, I hope.