Sonic #90 [Jan 2001] Spaz/Penders/Ray cover: A study in green, all the better to camouflage the ComBots. Emotionally speaking, Mina gets to turn on the water works while Sonic does the same old same old. After voicing my opinion of the previous cover, I received word from Ken Penders as to what Pat Spaziante WAS thinking when he executed that cover. And I'd tell you what he was thinking but there are children present. Seriously, Ken let it be known that the Sonic comic situation has become more dysfunctional than usual. The management decided that Sonic Special #15 (the last of its kind) should be made up of old stories just lying around as opposed to something self-contained that would have to be purchased, such as the Knuckles: 20 Years Later story arc. That made a certain grudging amount of sense, the comic market conditions being what they are. Unfortunately, the parsimony of the management extended to the Sonic comic itself. Management simply stopped buying new stories for a while until the ones already in-house and bought and paid for had been run. This meant that the freelance creatives had to scramble to take on additional non-Sonic work in order to cover the work that Archie wasn't throwing their way. By the time Archie started demanding stories again, the creatives had found other employers and made other commitments. This state of affairs turned the process of producing a Sonic comic into a mad scramble to make deadline. That explains, in part, why Ken Penders inked the cover instead of Harvo, why the cover story in this issue features the work of two artists and two inkers, and why Ken did just about everything on the back story except the artwork. The last couple of issues, Ken informed me, reached the printers with no time on the clock. I have to wonder whether the Archie management isn't trying to cancel Sonic by attrition: keep stressing out the creatives until they all die of heart attacks and nobody's left to write/draw the comic. Besides, having no inventory of stories to run makes it easier to cancel the book at a moment's notice. I'm reminded of the predecessor of "Off-Panel," the gag strips that ran on the Sonic-Grams page during the editorial reign of Scott Fulop, where the recurring theme was "Let's see what further indignities we editors can heap on the creatives." Thus does life imitate art. "Sword of Omens" [No, this is NOT going to be a Sonic/Thundercats crossover, though after the Mysterious Cat Country bit in the course of the Sonic Adventure arc it wouldn't surprise me.] Story: Karl Bollers; Art: Fry and Ron Lim; Ink: Andrew Pepoy and Jim Amash; Color: Frank Gagliardo; Lettering: Vickie Williams; Editorial: G-Force. On his way to Robotropolis, Sonic comes eye to eye with the observer from last month's conclusion, who to the surprise of absolutely nobody turns out to be Mina. "Hey, don't I know you from some place?" Sonic asks, which is as close as he's ever going to get to using a pick-up line. The answer: "Yeah, you saved my bacon FIFTEEN MONTHS AGO in 'Business As Usual' [S76]; what's your sign?" She then has a nice turn at saying how she more or less plans to let herself get caught so that she can be reunited with her family in SOME form or other. It's a great angle, but Karl only wades in the water for a second before hustling back onto dry land. Mina then notices that Sonic is carrying around the Royal Letter Opener, but before she can get too deep into full nag mode the ComBots crash the party. Page 4, with its scene of Robotnik watching the ComBot encounter by remote control, is notable for the point that Karl DOESN'T make. Robotnik observed that the Sword "seemed to briefly restore [Uncle Chuck and Muttski's] free will." But the question you have to ask yourself is: how brief is "brief?" I.e., is Uncle Chuck's mind still free and he's only faking it? If that's the impression Karl wanted to leave, it's a good one and I applaud him for it. What I CAN'T say I approve of, however, is how Karl fast- forwarded past one of the heaviest plot points of this entire continuity: the fact that Queen Alicia had been unconscious for a lifetime. Two lifetimes, in fact: Sally's and Elias's. How do you think she would have reacted to the sight of these two youths who, last time she saw them, were still in diapers? Karl had a perfectly good Rip Van Winkle set-up handed to him by Ken Penders (who you'll recall set up this story line in the Forbidden Zone arc, K19-21) and he punted it. And don't talk to me about "target audiences," a good writer could have made that scene work no matter WHO the readership is! But like the reunion between Elias and Sally it was totally glossed over. Once more, presented with the chance to make the book far more than a mere comic book, Karl passes it by. Instead, we get a whole new out-of-left-field angle: turns out that the blow to the back of the head that Max received in "Family Matters" (S88) has left him paralyzed from the waist down. OK, if he were BLIND I could understand that, as the vision center is located at the back of the brain, but paralyzed? If Max had taken a jolt to the spinal column I could believe that. What makes me sick about this development, though, is the nagging sense that this particular plot point was Karl's ripoff (excuse me, homage) to comicdom's more famous paraplegic, Professor Xavier. I can only hope that Max's wheelchair won't hover. I've always believed that the best stories come from the heart; I don't want to believe that this one (or at least this new angle) came from the next rack over in the comic book section. Back in the forest, Sonic gets ready to use the Sword the way he did in "Return of the King"but as he does Mina gets nabbed from behind and another ComBot snatches away the Sword magnetically. This leaves Sonic with two options: get the girl or get the weapon. He elects to rescue Mina, only to get conked by invisible ComBots for his trouble. Ron Lim and Jim Amash quickly step in for Fry and Andrew Pepoy (see above). And they're not the only ones doing some quick stepping. Did I say that the King-Max-is-paralyzed plot point came at us from left field? We now have a plot point coming at us from a whole 'nother time zone! I've never taken Fred Gabrie's statement that Mina is a mongoose seriously; does this mean that she's also part hedgehog? As far as I'm concerned, this was a bare-faced plot cheat. Back in the hospital wing, Max decides that in light of his current medical condition he'd better take an early retirement. He thus makes good on his threat (see "Day In The Life,"S69) to have Elias take over the family business. Elias manages to keep his enthusiasm in check. Just then Geoffrey gives Max the news that the Royal Shiv is missing. Robotnik, meanwhile, is busting his very considerable gut over what's happened to Sonic. And once again we see Uncle Chuck and Muttski as mute witnesses to the scene. Robotnik, however, gets word that there are two UFOs (unidentified falling objects) headed for the city. That means there's no chance of them hitting the ComBots, but he recalls them anyway. As the ComBots head back for town, Sonic comes to. Mina blames herself for the loss of the Sword, but Sonic the Loose Cannon's solution to the problem is simple enough: "Let's get it back." Robotnik, meanwhile, is perched on top of a rather improbable platform, the better to see the action... ...as well as the Fan Art. This month's Let's Actually Have the Drawing Be ABOUT Something Award goes to Kevin Hinton, who resurrects Fiona Fox in order that she might tempt Tails into doing something semi-grown up, thus running the risk of cooties. Sonic shows up solo to confront the ComBots. Relying on the old video gamer's rule (Remember what killed you last time, then just don't do that!), he avoids the invisibles and finds the bot with the Sword. In a rather nicely ruthless touch, though, Robotnik effectively sacrifices the bot by slicing it in half with a force field of some kind, so that the sword is on the inside with him. As for Sonic, he just HAPPENS to be standing at the exact spot where the two UFOs are going to fall right on top of him. How conveeeeeeenient! HEAD: During the latest online chat session with Ken Penders (Nov 8, 2000), one of the questions left unanswered was "Where did Mina's speed come from?" Nice to know there were other readers just as surprised as I was by this unaccountable turn of events. Ken stated in the chat session before last that the creatives are looking at a romantic realignment of the Sonicverse. Sonic and Mina will apparently be something of an item, and her surprising burst of speed is probably Karl's way to make her more Sonic-compatible. I don't think it's the BEST way, however, since it was simply dropped into the story with no set- up or justification whatsoever. Also, Geoffrey and Sally will be seeing more of each other, thus resurrecting a plot point that hasn't troubled anyone since "Brave New World" which was only, what, THREE FREAKIN' YEARS AGO?!? Can I take this opportunity to say one more time that I think loose continuity totally sucks? Yeah, well I just did, so there! While that turn of events is maddeningly infuriating, Max's plot-induced paralysis comes in a close second. OK, so Elias is now involved in the story continuity up to his epaulets, but couldn't this soap opera turn have been handled more plausibly? I'm making a point of this because it hits close to home; a coworker at the university library here recently underwent brain surgery to remove a tumor that was located in the motor center of the brain and affecting the range of movement of her right arm and leg. And said motor center is located well away from the back of the brain where Max had taken the hit. Hey, it's called "research." It's what I do. Not that the story didn't have its good points: Mina's meeting with Sonic was believable and set the right tone, and the ambiguous status of Uncle Chuck I found to be very effective. But the Mina speed thing, the Max paralysis, and (let's cover all the tabs here) the deus ex machina meteorites seriously undercut the story. Head Score: 6. EYE: Knowing that Fry and Lim probably had to work independently to get the pages to the printer before deadline, I can forgive the continuity glitch concerning the ComBots, which appear sans camouflage on Ron Lim's pages. Despite the fact that the two artists have very different ideas of layout [compare Fry's layout on page 6 with Lim's relentless gridwork on page [14]], they acquit themselves well. I was even grudgingly impressed by Lim's use of flame photography as the background for page 13; it nicely telegraphed Sonic's mood. Eye Score: 8. HEART: Again, as much as I liked Mina's opening scene, I WISH that Karl had thought to do something with Queen Alicia's mental adjustment to having woken up after 15 years. This just felt too much like Sally's resurrection in "Endgame": an occasion for high drama simply shined off. Last month's "Thicker Than Water" struck just the right balance of action and feeling; this installment is a hopelessly lopsided action story. Heart Score: 5. "Between A Rock And A Hard Place" Story: Ken Penders; Art: Steve Butler; Ink: Ken Penders; Color: Frank Gagliardo; Lettering: Ken Penders; Random Graffiti: Justin Gabrie Seems that High Sheriff d'Coolette's escape wasn't all that productive. In fact, it was destructive. As the EST boys clear away the debris, Gala-Na finds Knuckles in time for the Dramatic Cut-Away. Back at their quarters, Rob and the Knothole gang are trying to get into the story. Not willing to wait for the elevator, Rob fashions an exit that's in more of a dramatic idiom. Let me just say that I LOVED the drawing at the top of page [3], particularly Bunnie and Antoine. More on them later. Arriving at the scene, they purloin some firefighter duds to blend in with the crowd. Hey, it worked; nobody stopped to think that that one firefighter hobbling onto the scene with a crutch and a big honkin' cast on his foot looked out of place. What they find is Knuckles having gone green. Gala-Na declares that Knuckles looks a lot like the old recordings of Dimitri, the original baddie on the Floating Island. For an idea of what Dimitri looked like, check out "Deadly Homecoming," in Knuckles #7. The effect was actually first seen in the Rites of Passage miniseries from 1996, but Mawhinney's artwork was a bit more subdued and the effect wasn't as dramatic. Knuckles's reaction to being told he's has something in common with Dimitri is a hearty "As if!!" While Antoine takes a wild guess that maybe it's hereditary, his old man comes to yet again and gives his son the back of his robotic hand. Knuckles (who, you'll remember, has some father-son issues of his own) does to Antoine's pere what he did to the hunter dude in "To The Death" (K32). Gala-Na wants His High Sheriffness locked up good and tight; Antoine, who's watched Uncle Chuck come around under Sonic's influence, wants to try reasoning with dear old Dad. In order to transport him safety, he mentions their having dropped in on Rotor and acquired some sort of stasis device. Gala-Na has her doubts and wants to keep Dad under lock and key on Albion, despite their recent track record in this regard. That's when Knuckles weighs in, acting (and sounding) like a super-powered 2-year-old. Being super-powered, he gets his way: Rob and Amy Rose are back in Deerwood Forest; Bunnie, Antoine and the Sheriff are...somewhere or other...and Knuckles is off somewhere unknown. Knuckles had demonstrated his Chaos abilities to some extent in the past, as in "A Tenuous Grip On Reality" (K14) and "To The Death" (K32). But as of this story he's officially out of the Chaos Closet. "Now that he taps into [the power of the Chaos Emerald his father zapped him with when he was still in ovo] instinctively, what happens next?" What indeed? HEAD: An awful lot happens in this story; page [7] afforded an especially heaping helping of exposition. This was one story arc that Ken would have featured in the Knuckles comic if the management hadn't pulled the plug, and the editing here is far more "judicious" than when Ken first tried to cut the final installment of "Endgame" down to size. Very well-paced. Head Score: 9. EYE: I keep going back to that panel on top of page [3]. When Ken [by his own admission] succumbed to fan pressure and made Antoine and Bunnie an item, I'd hoped that we could see some neat role reversal, some inversion of the classic Big Strong Guy Rescues the Helpless Female scene. Well, here it is and I'm not disappointed. I know Steve Butler has severed his ties to Sonic; his work will only appear in one or two more issues. But this is a good strong send-off. Eye Score: 10. HEART: "What happens next?" The signs point to the distinct possibility of Knuckles doing a heel turn. Once upon a time, professional wrestling had a certain poetic symmetry to it. The squared circle was populated by two kinds of wrestlers: the Baby Faces (the good guys) and the Heels (the bad guys). Nowadays, unfortunately, pro-wrestling has become populated by Heels and Even Bigger Heels, to the extent that I sometimes think that Jerry Springer has secretly taken over the WWF. But back in the days, when a Baby Face was made to act the part of a Heel for a while because they were retooling his persona or just keeping the marks (that's us, the fans) off- guard, that process was known as a "heel turn." Sometimes, there would eventually be a Newtonian "face turn" wherein he goes back to being a good guy. For the moment Knuckles seems to be suffering from a more-or-less permanent Incredible Hulk- ification; neither we, nor he, seems to know how to shut it off. And it doesn't help that Gala-Na has implied that he takes after a disreputable relative. That sort of thing can really warp one's outlook by coloring one's expectations. For myself, I'm glad I've been around the block often enough to know the antidote. And, as usual, someone else has put it into words far better than I ever could: "Listen to me, Harry. You happen to have many qualities Salazar Slytherin prized in his hand-picked students. His own very rare gift, Parceltongue - resourcefulness - determination - a certain disregard for rules," [Dumbledore] added, his mustache quivering again. "Yet the Sorting Hat placed you in Gryffindor. You know why that was. Think." "It only put me in Gryffindor," said Harry in a defeated voice, "because I asked not to go in Slytherin...." "Exactly," said Dumbledore, beaming once more...."It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities" [Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets] Comic books, particularly the superhero books, tend to stand this notion on its head. As a genre they are all about abilities, usually abilities far beyond those of mortal men. And the greater the emphasis on action, the greater the temptation to overlook the interior landscape of the character, which is where choices are made. This focus on abilities is what reduces certain characters to cardboard cutouts, which was the fate of the nameless players in the Knuckles's Quest arc. Unfortunately, adolescence (and Knuckles still IS an adolescent, technically speaking) is a time when people don't always make the best choices. So the question remains whether Knuckles will realize that he's not really fated to take after Dimitri and can direct his own life. Unfortunately, his support system disappeared along with the Floating Island (unless Athair crosses over from The Other Side and gives Knuckles a clue). As things stand now, though, the more obvious course for the story line to take is to have Knuckles draw not only upon the Chaos energy within him but also upon the accumulated rage of having had everyone and everything meaningful to him snatched away. In this, Ken is making a choice himself, and it could have dire consequences for the troubled comic. In Sonic #100, the Blue Blur is supposed to confront a person so far only identified in Ken's chat sessions as "the Ultimate Villain." And I think that a Chaos-powered anti-social Knuckles would qualify. However, plans call for Sonic and the UV to spend the better part of a year butting heads. That means that there's going to be a HUGE risk of alienating Knuckles fans unless there are hints along the way that Knuckles (assuming that he IS the UV) has a chance to do a face turn before fans lose interest and sales slip even further. But that's Ken's headache, not mine. Heart Score: 6. Sonic-Grams: Justin Gabrie tap dances like crazy, "explaining" why "Off-Panel" didn't appear last month, doesn't appear this month, and won't be appearing next month. Honestly, now, who's he kidding? How hard is it for a team with as much mileage as Gallagher and Manak to come up with three three-panel gag strips for three issues of the comic? Unless this is yet another indication of how screwy things are at Archie. I love Freddie's euphemistic explanation: "Both gentlemen have been...besieged by other projects." Translation: "We weren't paying them anything, and the ingrates insisted that they still had to eat." Too bad we'll never learn some of the incorrect "What happens in S100" ideas; the fans on the e-mail lists can probably come up with their own. The blurb for S91 sounds like another Linda Richman blurb: "Talk among yourselves. I'll give you a topic: These two birds of a feather aren't birds and they don't have feathers. Discuss." No mention of any back story by Ken Penders, significantly enough. Letters: I like the reply to the letter from Jacob Lyons: "Thanks for the kind words." Mind if I use it? Once again, Justin grabs at straws, or birthday cake candles, when answering an age question. Antoine is 19? He sure doesn't act his age. Maybe the purpose of imposing chronological maturity upon him serves to justify his carrying that cutlass around; that, and the torch he started carrying for Bunnie. And then there's the last bit of outrage for this issue. The plot cheats and twists of the cover story were bad enough, but did anyone else catch the blatant hint to one of the stories in Special #15? In the reply to Stuart Copeland's letter, Freddie states that Ixis Naugus, the only wizard less popular than Lord Voldemort, did NOT bite the big one in "A Friend Indeed " (S66). In that story, he was simply KZORCHTed by Nate Morgan TWO YEARS AGO and it was left at that. Nothing was said about his being sent to the Zone of Silence. Until now. Darn! Just when I thought we had one fewer obnoxious villain to worry about.