Sonic Universe #16 [July 2010] Yardley!/Hunzeker cover: Nice cast picture layout, but I ended up wondering what some of the characters are thinking. Sally: "Will anyone notice I'm wearing a brown vest instead of my blue one?" Tails: "I can't get my own SU miniseries fast enough!" Bride of Constant Vigil: "He never calls, he never writes...." "Journey to the East: Part 4: A World Under Constant Vigil" Story: Ian Flynn; Art: Tracy Yardley!; Ink: Jim Amash; Color: Jason Jensen; Lettering: Teresa Davidson; Assistant Editor: Paul Kaminski; Editor: Mike Pellerito; Editor-in-Chief: Victor Gorelick; Sega Licensing reps: Cindy Chau and Jerry Chu Last time we were here, Espio had just decloaked. Khan wants to have a few non CCA-approved words with him, but Sonic convinces him to back off and let Sally do the talking. For now, Espio passes the buck on whatever information the gang wants, stating that the Bride of Constant Vigil will spell things out for them. Sal is still suspicious so Espio resorts to graymail: he'll spill the beans on each of them "removing any advantage I might have had" and thus preventing him from selling them out to the tabloids. And on the facing page, the news that the latest Sonic Archive issue comprises the misbegotten Endgame arc, which happens to be Volume 13. Karma or coincidence? You decide. We don't have any ninjas in this issue, but Espio slices Sonic, Tails and Sally with the kind of speed and efficiency I'd have LIKED to see from the ninjas in this series. Sonic is hit with the youthful indiscretion of toying with a lame superhero identity, Tails is reminded of the fanboy comic book he was working on as part of his original miniseries, and all Espio has to do is say the word "birthmark" to Sally and they both quickly agree they're not going there. When he gets to Khan, there appears to be a communication breakdown: Espio keeps saying "other Khans" and Khan himself appears to be royally unclear on the concept. But this is the 4th issue of a 4-part story arc and we can't waste any more time so we move along. The move is a slow one since the four of them are blindfolded, but not so slow because Ian quick-cuts from journey's start to journey's end. The end, in this case, happens to be a cavern with a huge chasm and no discernable bridge. Khan lights up the gloom revealing that Tails would have been sliced and diced if he'd tried flying over. Sally, however, dusts the trail in front of them. What we have here is a trap combining elements from Sonic Heroes (Hang Castle's torchlight path), "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade," and one or two DOOM levels. Dusty but intact, they reach the Bride of Constant Vigil. Breaking pattern, it only takes one page for Sally and Khan to get the chameleon Bride to accept the disintegration of the Iron coalition. Khan is disappointed that he won't get a chance to kick any butt in this issue. Sal tells him to take a chill pill, but he still gets in the Bride's face about Constant Vigil's apparent neutrality. Her answer boils down to "Been there, done that, got OUR butts kicked." Thus the Shinobi withdrew into their life of self-preservation and concealment. Then it comes time for Espio to out himself: Seems that he wasn't a native of Rainbow Valley after all, as he explains in his exposition, but an agent of the Shinobi clan sent to keep track of the Guardians and the Brotherhood (Guardians in retirement). But Espio went rogue and eventually became part of the Chaotix, deciding they'd be better friends than subjects to observe. The Bride declares that even though Espio broke the Shinobi Prime Directive it worked out well and he's free to return to Angel Island and lead his own life. And buried here is Espio's own embarrassing secret: that he got his job through nepotism. He heads out and back to New Mobitropolis with a stop along the way to pick up the Mystical Fan of Fen Xing. Mama Constant then reminds Khan that, now that the business with the four Houses is over, he's got to start living up to his campaign promises. Morphing his power ring into a crown, he administers the oath of office to himself. They're then dismissed but not before C.V. reveals that the chamber has been crawling with Shinobi chameleons the whole time. So Khan's swearing-in had a sufficient number of witnesses. We finish up with two pages of not-much-happening as the royals say goodbye to Li Yuen and head back for home and Sonic #212. HEAD: When I read S212's "The Roads We Take," especially the scene on Angel Island where Espio plays psychic reader to the audience of Chaotix, I thought it was just a way for Ian Flynn to sow the seeds of future stories. BTW, I have since been informed by "thejadedwarrior" on deviantArt that Mighty's sister was mentioned in passing twice in the comics: in "Those Were The Days," S120 and "Line of Succession: Part 2," S156, both written by Ken Penders. Here, I was a little unsure as to Espio's reasoning for telling tales out of school; as Sonic rightly pointed out, for dirt it wasn't all that dirty. But the context is revealed when we realize that when he's back home Espio still lives with his parents ... or with his mom, anyway. It reminded me of a line from an ep of "Rocko's Modern Life" where Heifer, a steer raised by a pack of dysfunctional wolves, brings a female elk home to dinner. He's smitten by her and clueless enough not to realize that he's having a dinner date with the intended dinner. The dating falls apart and she leaves but not before Heifer says "Would you like to see some embarrassing photos of me as a child?" Arlene Harder, in discussing Erik Erikson's developmental theories at learningplaceonline.com, observes that according to Erikson "...adolescence is a stage at which we are neither a child nor an adult ... Our task is to discover who we are as individuals separate from our family of origin and as members of a wider society." Trouble is, problems can arise when the adolescent wants to go one way and the parent wants, or at least wishes, they'd go another. That's when it's tempting for the parent to treat the adolescent like a child. Sometimes it's done out of genuine concern; other times, it happens because children are controllable and parents may become nostalgic about the power they used to exercise. And shame and embarrassment should not be discounted as control mechanisms. That's pretty much what happens when Espio confronts Sonic, Tails, and Sally. Sonic's adoption of the "Sneak" persona was a one-shot that never got repeated (insert thanks to Deity here), Tails's comic book read like a lot of fan fiction out on the Net, and even if Sally were ruling Mobius the news about her birthmark wouldn't bring down the kingdom, unless pictures of it wound up in "News Of The World." With Khan, the gambit breaks down completely. Still, Espio's own situation as the son of Constant Vigil was passed over TOO quickly. It's not that nothing could have been done with it; I like to think Ian could have had more fun with the reveal, and that he could have done so without stooping to turn Constant Vigil into a stereotyped yenta or something like that. In a book where most of the comic relief comes by way of quips from Sonic, this could have broadened Espio's personality and kept him from becoming an exposition machine and kept his Mom from being another stoic, taciturn leader. Unlike the first three volumes of the arc, where the same things happen again and again, not much else happens here aside from boatloads of talk. The only action sequence is the crossing of the chasm routine which, as stated above, seems to have been cobbled together from bits of media lying around. I've always thought that comic book story arcs need not be cut off with a length of four issues. The Iron Dominion arc Ian put together for the Sonic comic ran for a dozen issues, and I'm pretty sure the audience was able to keep up with it. However, this story and "The Roads We Take" make me wonder whether the greater danger is that the story line succumbs to exhaustion at some point. It was true for the first two Sonic Universe arcs (Team Dark and M:30YL) and it's true here as well: Ian really needs to keep something in reserve for the home stretch; either that, or bring in a closer. Head Score: 7. EYE: Again, no fault with Yardley!'s artwork, though the best work was for the cavern sequence: everything else felt kind of crowded and page [5] reminded me of reading classic Doonesbury. Eye Score: 8. HEART: By this point, the possibility of Sally falling for Khan completely evaporates. It gets one more half-hearted run- through in "The Roads We Take" before being deep-sixed. And aside from short bursts of dialogue that went nowhere with the plot point, one or two panels here and there, and a big chunk in the middle of S207's "Blackout," nothing came of it. So I found myself wondering why Ian even bothered. As I've said before, I can appreciate the symmetry of inserting the plot point into the larger arc of dealing with the Irons. The problem is, the longer it lasted and the more innocuous it remained, it ceased to be credible. And that's deadly unless there's anything like real progress. In my fanfic "Runaway" [Spoiler alert], I tried to make Bunnie's decision to stay with her family and not return to Knothole a very real possibility, until the beach scene where on the brink of having to make the decision she realizes her place is with her friends. The idea was that I wanted it to hurt for Bunnie to make that decision but she felt she couldn't go any other way. With Sally and Khan, there was always a distance between them, even when they were doing things that were supposed to be interpreted as romantic. There was never a sense of Sally stepping up to a line and of anybody, either the reader or Sally herself, realizing that something major will happen once it's crossed. That was hinted at in "Blackout" but the fact that Ian let Bunnie do all the talking so Sally could keep her feelings to herself just worked against it. I realize that this is a comic book, and that Archie Comics in particular has made a business out of a formula consisting of one part romantic teasing to two parts fear of commitment. Still, it's time to pull the sheet over the love triangle plot. Heart Score: 3. Fan Art: Lots of good stuff, with different kinds of good. Juan Perdo gives us an amazing Khan-Sal drawing with a nice bit of backlighting of the main characters. Brittany does a good job of depicting the heavies in the arc, even if some of them are relegated to the background (which literally happened to Conquering Storm). And Kirsten may have only submitted a pencil drawing of Sally, but the posing and comprehension of gesture show that she's got skills. Fan Funnies: OK, so SonicxAmy pretty much petered out after "Blackout;" apparently not everybody is sorry to see that. Off-Panel: Priorities; everybody has them. Letters: Blue from Georgia (I'm not touching that one) isn't told outright about game villains migrating into the comic, though there have already been broad hints of the return of the Babylon Rogues. While Editorial drops a reference to Team Dark's "benefactors" which I'm afraid will screw up the concept of Team Dark even more than the ending of SU4 already did, Blue suggests Imperator Pir'Oth Ix from "Sonic Chronicles: The Brotherhood" and the Battle Bird Armada from the "Tails Adventure" for Game Gear (anybody still have one of those?) As candidates for series villain. Jairus wants to submit artwork and welcomes Fry's work on S207's "Blackout. Hayley wants to tour Archie Comics to see how the books are made. Believe me, H, you wouldn't want to. The Mamaroneck HQ is little more than a warehouse on the first floor with editorial offices on the second floor. Back in the day, the only creative working there was Pat Spaziante doing covers. The creatives interact with each other on the Internet these days, the artwork is shipped to Editorial by mail (where all kinds of nasty things can happen, as Jonathan Gray can tell you), and the book is actually published in Canada (Montreal, Quebec, to be exact). There's a life lesson here: H: reality seldom lives up to your imaginings.