Sonic Universe #34 (Jan 2012)

Yardley!/Herms cover: Wave and Storm make avoiding getting shot down by missiles look too easy. Jet and Speedy, meanwhile, are in each other’s faces. It’s a good Action And More Action cover.

“Babylon Rising: Part 2: Reunion”

Story: Tracy Yardley!; Art: Tracy Yardley!; Ink: Jim Amash; Color: Steve Downer; Lettering: Patrick Williams; Editor: Paul Kaminski; Editor-in-Chief: Victor Gorelick; Birdman of Mamaroneck: Mike Pellerito; Sega Licensing rep: Cindy Chau

The Rogues are confronted by Speedy and the gang, and what does Jet fall back on? “Your daddy dresses you funny.” Wave takes up the theme, calling Speedy’s flight harness “extreme undies,” to the easy amusement of Storm. But the lull only lasts two pages as the Rogues make themselves scarce, with the Armada in pursuit. We also learn that the Armada’s aim is about as good as the average Imperial Storm Trooper from the Star Wars continuity. How convenient.

Watching the proceedings are the 15^th Battle Lord and Dr. Fukurakov. And it seems that the former is still bearing a racial grudge against Tails. On a more useful note, he’s looking to intercept the Rogues himself.

The action then shifts to a nearby winter wonderland mountaintop where Jet just about gets his head feathers fried. Storm, ever short on subtlety, uproots a nearby pine tree and uses it to make like Arnold Palmer and hit a few birdies. For her part, Wave does some mid-air geeking as she sizes up a pursuit bird drone and takes it apart. There goes Fukurakov’s Christmas bonus.

Speedy and Jet are still going mano-a-mano until Speedy gets off a lucky shot that wings Jet. Speedy then drops a drama bomb, beating up on the bird and sounding a lot like Syndrome in “The Incredibles” berating his former idol. That’s the cue for Wave and Storm to crash the party and beat up on the Speedster as well until, like any other bully, Speedy’s dad shows up to bail him out.

Kukku XV may be crazy as a jaybird, but it only takes him a little over two pages to rough up the Rogues. While it looks like the game bird’s really got game, we then get an exposition on a Kukku ring. He doesn’t come out and say that it enhanced his fighting skills, but that’s how I’d bet. We ARE told that the ring generated the “compressed gravity field” that turned Jet into a sitting duck. Kukku XV then demonstrates that he’s aware of the piece of advice that says to keep your friends close and your enemies closer by offering to take back the Rogues as an alternative to turning Jet from a sitting duck into a dead duck. The Rogues are on board, despite Speedy’s objections, and Jet turns over the cube.

For his next trick, Kukku XV fits the ring into the cube. This results not in a holographic image of Princess Leia telling Obi-wan Kenobi that he’s their only hope, but in a map showing the location of the Babylon Garden. And from the final two pages it would appear to be … somewhere in the vicinity of New Mobitropolis. Like they don’t have enough problems!

HEAD: This is an action story. And the big problem with action stories is that they work best so long as you refuse to stop and think about them.

The only point worth pondering here is the upgraded skill set of Kukku XV. In his previous appearance in the “Trouble in Paradise” arc, he was more like a classic James Bond master villain: passive, remote in an Olympian sense, letting others do the heavy lifting. Now, with really no explanation whatsoever, he’s going Arnold on the Rogues. I’m grasping, to be honest, when I think that the ring in this story somehow boosted his abilities because there’s nothing else available by way of an explanation. It’s as if Tracy needed a fighting machine, a “monster” to quote one of my correspondents, so he gave Kukku XV the job, promoting him from villain to supervillain.

Yes, I know it might be worthwhile to take the reset from S225 into consideration as the source of Kukku XV’s new-found abilities. But I’m sorry; that’s cheating. And it’s a reason comics ultimately can’t be taken seriously. You simply can’t rewrite the rules and jazz around with the characters for no good reason, and that’s what the new “improved” Kukku XV feels like.

Other than that, not a whole lot of new ground is broken here. There’s a lot of fighting, a lot of talk, and a lot of talking during the fights. The Battle Birds have the upper hand, or wing, at this point, and they’re spreading the love to the cast of the flagship comic. Head Score: 5.

EYE: If you know what to look for, Wave’s slo-mo back flip on page [8] is one of the more visually interesting moments in the story, though a manga artist would have stretched it out over an entire page, it’s that juicy. But Tracy has his heart set on showcasing the Battle Lord. Eye Score: 8.

HEART: Once again, if we root for the Rogues, it’s by default. Speedy makes a play for the sympathy of the readers by berating Jet, but he ends up sounding like someone with issues in addition to the ones he has with his father. The only marginally sympathetic characters are the Mobians at the end of the story. It’s easier to care about the cube than about the characters, which is not a good sign. Small wonder Tracy shifts the story to New Mobitropolis. Heart Score: 4.

Fan Art: Karen shows Swallow showboating as usual, Robert shows Jet, and Nestor breaks the pattern by drawing Silver.

Fan Funnies: Caleb demonstrates an understanding of the term “high concept,” which is the ability to describe the premise of a work of entertainment in a single declarative sentence, preferably with fewer than a dozen words. In this case: “Angry Rogues.” And I have to admit, I prefer his rendering of Kukku XV to the one in the story.

Off-Panel: Ian Flynn gives us the Old Switcheroo plot. Usually it involves exchanging jobs or stations in life; here, it involves Jet wearing Speedy’s flight harness and Speedy trying to use Jet’s board. The results are predictable but, thanks to Jon Gray, highly entertaining.

Letters: Only two this time, as Paul Kaminski’s Sonic Spin pretty much takes up half the page. Jessica gushes about the previous issue, and John asks to see less-predictable Sonic Universe stories. Yeah, like ones with character development.

Sonic Spin: Paul talks about the con circuit, or as I called it when I went to one in Michigan, the Trade Show From Another Planet.