Sonic Universe #6 (Sep 2009) Yardley!/Hunzeker cover: It kind of suffers by comparison to the cover of the last issue when Lara-Su and the Royal Kids were key to the composition. Still, it's very well done. "Mobius 30 years Later: Dark Siege" Story: Ian Flynn; Art: Tracy Yardley!; Ink: Jim Amash; Color: Jason Jensen; Lettering: Teresa Davidson; Editor: Mike Pellerito; Editor-in-Chief: Victor Gorelick; Sega Licensing reps: Cindy Chau and Jerry Chu Fast-forward from the previous issue where Silver foiled Lien-Da's attempt to assassinate Sonic and family to later on in the Royals's living room. With the kids tucked in and out of the way for this installment, the grown-ups get to do what grown-ups do best: talk. A lot! Pages 2-3 are almost wall-to-wall conversation, during which Silver drops the bomb that after 5 placid years it's all about to come to an end. At least, Silver is PRETTY sure; since he actually says "Since when have have you time-traveled?" he may be experiencing some ill-defined time travel psychosis that causes him to randomly repeat words. Sonic would rather not talk about all his former zone-hopping along the Cosmic Interstate, and I can't say as I blame him. Sonic immediately suspects Lien-Da, who according to him went underground after Shadow was dethroned. Since great minds think alike, Lara-Su gets the same notion and shows up at Dimitri's place where Lien-Da's son Rutan, now a moody middle-ager, is none too pleased to see her. Before it comes to blows, Dimitri separates the two and Rutan storms off. Once Lara-Su and Dimitri are alone, Lara-Su goes into the same poor self-esteem mode we've seen from Shadow in SU4 and Monkey Khan in S202. While Dimitri gives Lara-Su a rather unlikely pep talk, we cut back to the Royals where, in an unguarded moment, Shadow says something in a different type face just as Dimitri did two pages previously. Maybe that's a cue that they're speaking in a foreign language, I don't know. Anyway, we now get back into action when a bunch of Dark Hands show up at Tails's hotel room and hit him with a dose of knockout gas. Mama Mina dusts off her fast-as-Sonic-plot-point speed and hustles the kids out of the building and onto the street telling them to look for someone official before dashing back inside to help hubby. You'd think she'd have stopped by the lobby and asked the Concierge "I hate to bother you, but we're being attacked by terrorists. Could you please call the authorities, and could you also recommend a secure day care center with late-night drop-off service?" It's almost no surprise that after she dumps the kids she returns to the room only to get gassed herself. Lara-Su, meanwhile, is on her way to the castle when she spots some Dark Presence members on the run. Putting herself in check in a rare display of maturity (rare for an Archie comic, anyway), she decides to "put some of Uncle Espio's training to the test," thereby dropping a spoiler for the current Sonic comic arc. Back in the living room, a maid enters and flatters Silver before she flattens him with more knockout gas. Sonic then gives the sleeper agent a taste of her own medicine. He then tells Sally to lock herself, Silver and the kids in the panic room, to which Sally replies: "I served next to King Shadow for years. I've never taken to being a damsel in distress." Honestly, I can't understand how some fans can NOT like Sal! She ends up agreeing to the plan after a heated exchange with Sonic, and they part in a way that tells me their reunion will be even more heated IF you know what I mean AND I think you do. Personally, I don't think Sonic won the argument, but that's what husbands like to tell themselves. Sonic finds Lara-Su already in the castle having dispatched a number of Dark Presence types; she thoughtfully left one conscious for Sonic to deal with personally. But when the internal security system starts turning against them they beat feet for the nearest window. Outside, Lara-Su catches sight of the Prower progeny who bring King Sonic and the Guardian up to speed. As the youngsters begin losing their heads, Sonic keeps his on his shoulders by reassuring the Prower kids and giving Lara-Su the message that she needs to suck it up and get it together. Lara-Su then suggests they head for the home of Argyle, son of Vector; I won't presume to speculate on their relationship. Back at the castle, Lien-Da is getting an earful from her Hands who are also bringing the readers up to speed. They haul out the legendary (if you're a long-time reader) Chaos Syphon and head for sub-sub-basement while Lien-Da drones on and on about how good things were under King Shadow. Of course there's only one thing you can do with a Chaos Syphon and that's syphon off Chaos energy, in this case the bubble of stuff that's been holding Shadow in stasis for the past 5 years. And now he's back. HEAD: Ian can be forgiven all the talk that goes on in the beginning pages of this story, because the later action more than redeems it. It's been a while since there was this much action in a non-fight story. Honestly, the only fighting here consists of Sonic punching out a Dark Hand; Tails and Mina are dispatched so cleanly by the gas that it hardly counts. The big revelation in this story, whether Ian intended it or not, is Sonic himself. We're so used to the brash blue blur it's kind of amazing to see that, three decades on, he not only still has the chops for action but the maturity to keep himself under control in a situation where everyone else (the Prower kids, Lara-Su) is ready to go to pieces. His reassuring the Prowers, and more indirectly Lara-Su, communicates the message that while Sonic may not look all that different from what he did back in the day, he's definitely grown up. And in a good way. He must have been paying attention while he was being a father to his kids. Same goes for Sally. Even though she's relegated to a minor position of co-expositor in this story, she's not about to fade into the background but still accepts her responsibility for the kids as well as Silver. Her exchange with Sonic, which I can just hear being done at the top of their respective voices, rings absolutely true: "This kingdom and our kids are more important than me, by a long shot." "Fine then!" "Fine!" "Be careful, and safe!" "I will!" "Good!" "Good!" For all the monosyllables, it really comes across that these two care about each other, sometimes even despite each other. This exchange feels more real that just about anything Ken Penders wrote for them back in the day. It's just as refreshing to watch Lara-Su be on the verge of freaking out then pulling back, once while Sonic is trying to calm the kiddies, and once on her own as she stalks the Dark Presence. It's called "maturity" and it's a rather neglected virtue in popular culture. Nice to see it get a workout here. Rutan appears in this story, but we're really no closer yet to knowing whatever happened to him. Just as well; there are higher priority plot points. Lien-Da's off-hand remark about "that horrible Kintobor woman" raises the possibility that despite her feelings about going back to Mobius as expressed in SU4's "The Ultimate Lifeform," Hope eventually made contact with the old gang. I'm sure they were suitably forgiving of her absence. I mentioned in the previous review that this story feels more like an episode of "24" than the 80s-90s action movies that helped shape the plotting of the comic early on, especially in "The Last Game Cartridge Hero" (Sonic Live Special) and the Good/Bad/Unknown story arc (S145-149). The association with "24" is made even more obvious by Dimitri's blink-and-you'll-miss-it reference to the Dark Presence as a "terrorist" group. You know we've come a fair distance from 9/11 when this comic can drop the T-word into the dialogue and it fits. The big question now, of course, is what Shadow will do once he's had his wake-up call. Does he feel he owes anything to Lien-Da for waking him up, or is he still angry enough that he'd just as soon vaporize her as thank her? Unlike the end of "The Ultimate Lifeform," where Ian showed Shadow sufficiently housebroken by G.U.N., this Shadow is still the dark wild card that the fans know and want to see. This is going to be interesting. Head Score: 10. EYE: Yardley!'s artwork is up to the challenge here, especially when he has to trace Lara-Su's moods. Again, we have to take it on faith that these characters have aged because they sure don't look all that different. Eye Score: 10. HEART: The real emotional focus of this story has to be Lara-Su. Baby-sitting a couple of preschoolers is one thing, but she's officially in over her head now, and she knows it. Fortunately, Sonic and even Dimitri are there for her. That's something of a departure from the role of Guardian as defined in this comic back in the day. Under Ken Penders, the Guardian role was comprehensively constructed, but usually in the context of someone who was a loner as they guarded the Master Emerald and generally didn't have a life otherwise. Once the emerald was passed to the new generation, the old Guardians would retire to Haven and keep tabs on the new kid. It was all very remote and secretive and emotionally distant. Ken went on to create a pretty detailed back story for the echidnas (or at least the ones who didn't get wiped out by Chaos in the first Sonic Adventure game) and to provide Knuckles with a family with whom he barely interacted in any meaningful way. Still , it's a toss- up as to which was more dysfunctional: Knuckles with no other echidnas or Knuckles with echidnas who had dynastic issues. I've always maintained that the way Knuckles's upbringing was depicted, with Locke essentially dumping him at a tender age and letting him grow himself up, was murder on his social skills. Mercifully, Ken more or less abandoned that scenario for the original Mobius: 25 Years Later story arc where Lara-Su is a live-at-home teenager. Ian, in continuing things, hasn't shown any sign of wanting to go back to that old sick scene, either. Lara-Su's social skills are more (dare I use the term) normal than Knuckles's were, back when his reaction to newcomers was basically to beat them to a pulp if they got near the Master Emerald. Locke treated the infant Knuckles as little more than the subject for a science experiment by bombarding him with Chaos energy before he hatched and then excluding Lara-Le from any parenting role. To me, this explained Knuckles's inability to deal with discovering an infant echidna left alone in an apartment when its mother was caught in a freak blizzard, part of the fun and games of "Whatever Happened To Queen Alicia?" (K19). If Lara-Su, OTOH, has been regularly babysitting the Royal Tweebs with whom she gets along reasonably well, you KNOW her social skills are light years ahead of those of her old man back in the day. I've already mentioned that, aside from being slowed down by the exposition at the beginning of the story, the Sonic-Sally relationship is done surprisingly well. I say "surprisingly" because there has still been very little on display as to how married couples, such as Jules and Bernie and the Prowers, get along with each other. This story arc has been a chance to counter than and Ian has used it to great effect. I only hope he can keep that balanced with the action sequences to come. Heart Score: 10. My Sonic Universe: Todd from Oz welcomes the appearance of Shadow and Blaze in SU1, for however brief a time, along with kudos to Yardley! and Herms. Kenneth B. may not be too happy with Silver's appearance in this issue where he doesn't get to do much of anything before getting knocked out. Lydia L. notes that the Sonic-Shadow fight in SU2 was an echo of a SonicX ep which itself was based on Sonic Adventure 2. I've watched tape of the game play and noticed two things: how gorgeous the backgrounds were for that game, and how hideous the CGI characters were in the cut scenes. I wouldn't mind seeing the game re-issued with new cut scenes; CGI has certainly come a long way since then, and Maria wouldn't look so much like a marionette. And Emily K. wants to see more Shadow; whether she likes the thawed-out version who'll appear in the next issue remains to be seen.