Sonic #76 [Nov 1999] Spaz/Harvo/Ray cover: Split screen: On one side, Sonic leaping tall ShadowBots in a single bound. On the other, "Dr. Robotnik Returns." Isn't that yesterday's news? I don't know what kind of a "doctor" he is, but after looking at that gesture he's making on the cover I can only hope he isn't a proctologist! "Business As Usual" Story: Karl Bollers; Art: [James] Fry; Ink: Andrew Pepoy; Lettering: Jeff Powell; Color: Frank Gagliardo; Editorial: G- Force. After having survived "I Am The Eggman" in the last issue, Sonic, his friends and his parents (with Snively in tow) land the shuttle outside Robotropolis and make themselves scarce before a welcoming committee of ShadowBots shows up. The rigors of space travel are evident with Sally (whose eyes have gotten somewhat larger and more expressive) and Tails (even moreso). Without any of the fanfare or narrative gymnastics that accompanied Sonic's makeover in "Retro Activity" (S71), Tails is now suddenly looking like the Sonic Adventure model. Only fitting as the book gears up to turn into an extended print ad for the game (and, Sega hopes, its platform). That's show business, accent on the "business." Snively, who's looking more cartooney himself than when Steve Butler was drawing him, brings the gang up to speed WRT Robo-Robotnik and the likelihood of his taking up residence in a new bod. He then thinks he can walk away, but finds himself seriously outnumbered as Sonic reminds him that he's really got nowhere else to go. Memo to Pat Spaziante: it IS possible to do open mouth shots and NOT show any uvulae (cf. page 5, panel 1). A little something Fry apparently picked up from manga/anime. Sonic, Sally and Snively deal with the download problem while everyone else heads back for Knothole... where the NO VACANCY sign is up but isn't doing a heck of a lot of good as refugees from the previous story continue to pour in, one of them being King Max. Consider: he doesn't know what's happened to his daughter, his subjects have been routed, and he's schlepping around his wife inside a giant test tube. Yet he appears to have hung a VACANCY sign on his heart. Once again he launches into speech mode, and there's no faulting his decision- making. Still, in a book that features too many characters who are dead behind the eyes, Max comes off as practically mummified. I found myself wondering if we weren't listening to a leftover Max droid from "Endgame." Elias wonders about his father's "regal bearing." "Emotional constipation" is more like it. Back in the big city, Sonic and the others come upon some ShadowBots who are subjecting a handful of prisoners to that most insidious of tortures: annoying PhotoShop lens flare. Sonic creates a diversion, and Snively discovers that Robo-Robotnik hasn't had time to change the locks yet. As for Robo-Robotnik himself, he's honked off that he can't see the action clearly on his monitors because of the equally annoying PhotoShop blur. He barks orders into a Garth Brooks microphone while Sonic tells the Mobians to beat feet (webbed or otherwise). After a one-page interlude where Sally and Snively actually have some decent dialogue (Sally: "I'm not quite used to working with someone who's tried to do me in on more than one occasion." Snively: "Oh, bring THAT up, why don't you!"), Sonic manages to disable the bots with a variation of the old tar baby maneuver. He then has to prevent one of the Mobians he recently rescued (a girl of indeterminate species wearing a black sports bra and brown shorts) from walking back into trouble. The character, Mina, breaks down and explains that she's trying to rescue a nameless "someone". When she states that Sonic wouldn't understand what she's going through, Sonic's answer is basically "Been there, felt that...just not very emphatically, thanks to the Management!" Sally joins the two as Snively states that his hitch is up and he's outta here. Robo-Robotnik's attempt to do anything about it, however, is cut short by a computer virus. Didn't I read something like this in H. G. Wells? HEAD: OK, THIS is what I've meant all along by straight-up storytelling. No annoying digressions where you have to wait months for the resolution (the stupid satellite bit), no meandering arcs that get the reader absolutely nowhere when all's said and done ("Knuckle's Quest," Sonic and Tails's Round The World Tour), no cynical reverses at the end ("Battle Royal," the Dark Alliance arc). You let the heroes BE heroes! It's not that hard to figure out. WRT Archie's storytelling techniques, I wish this HAD been "business as usual." The most glaring problem with this story (and I don't mean the lens flare on page 8, but that comes close) was Mina's reference to "someone I love." Would it have killed Karl to have dropped a name? He wouldn't have had to elaborate on the relationship: we don't know if that "someone" is a sibling or a parent or a friend or what! The reader should have been given a little SOMETHING to hang on to until the plot point's resolution. As it is, it sounds as if Karl Bollers had suffered a case of writer's block: "OK, Sonic tries to stop Mina from going in to rescue...ummm...well, let's say 'someone she loves' and I'll get around to filing in the blank later." Only "later" never came. But in a tight and well-written story, this was the one flaw. Head Score: 9. EYE: James Fry (who insists on the designation "Fry") proves he's capable of being more than a one-joke artist (the one joke in his case being "Zone Wars: Prelude", Special #8). He's mastered that manga/anime thing where a character's open mouth takes over more than half their face. It's an acquired taste, I suppose. I was also pleased with the way he handled the crowd scene on page 6. Heaven only knows how Sam Maxwell would have handled the scene with his tendency to rely on outlines and silhouettes. But I have to wonder how he acquired the name "Fry." Maybe there's another "Jim Fry" out there in the industry and he had to differentiate between him and the other guy. It can't be because of his artwork, which is nothing to be ashamed of. If he wanted to be ashamed of anything, it'd probably be the fact that he's also illustrating a comic book featuring that great humanitarian and eloquent role-model, Stone Cold Steve Austin. If anybody else thinks that this is NOT a boon to civilization as we know it, gimme a "Heck, yeah!" And Frank Gagliardo continues to do great coloring work. He still should pull back on using blurs and lens flares, IMHO. I feel about them the way Jeff Goldblum's character in "Jurassic Park" felt about genetic engineering: just because you CAN do something, it doesn't mean that you SHOULD do it. Eye Score: 9. HEART: Memo to Justin Gabrie at Archie comics: PLEASE send copies of pages 14-15 to all Sonic writers with a cover Post- it(tm) stating that THIS is the way to inject some emotional content into the product. And Bollers pulled it off without compromising Sega's heavy-handed dictates in the least! Granted Mina ended up having to emote for both herself and Sonic, but it was still done. This reader was made to care about what was happening, and Sonic did NOT come off as all that dead behind the eyes. Too bad I can't say the same for Max. His "regal bearing" reminds me of the way the Windsors emotionally stonewalled their way through the death of Princess Diana back in 1997. Still, the scene with Sonic and Mina is a reminder of what the book can be if Management allows it. Heart Score: 8. "Tales of the Great War:" "Another Point of View" Story: Ken Penders; Art: Chris Allan; Ink: Jim Amash; Lettering: Jeff Powell; Color: Frank Gagliardo; Editorial: G- Force. If anything else, ya gotta be flexible in this business. Ken probably had this story plotted out long before he had to integrate the characters into the lead story situation by having Tails, Bunnie, Antoine and Sonic's folks steer clear of a roving band of SWATbots. Tails, however, suggests (actually more like "demands") a detour to the library to rescue Jeremiah and his collection. Anyone ever see "The Time Machine" with Rod Taylor? If YOU had to take three books with you to the future, which titles would you select? Great movie; allowed Alan Young (doing three characters, no less!) to work on a Scottish accent long before voicing Scrooge McDuck. But I digress. Jeremiah (who's looking a little toonier but not unpleasantly so) is indeed still in the library, and it turns out that Jules is a fan of Kirby's work as well, which leads into our story: A group of Overlanders, equipped with a mortar and five fingers on each hand, are leveling the city. Turns out one of their number is Colin, Julian's brother. And that's Jules himself in his pre-roboticized days in the last panel on page 4. Family resemblance and all. As the Mobians retreat into the sewer system we meet Sonic's future mom, Bernie [according to Ken Penders, that's short for "Berneice" so that clears THAT up!]. We also meet a relative of Hershey's named..."Cocoa." Digression: In my review of Knuckles #29 I quoted from an e- mail that was sent to me expressing (quite cogently, I thought) the various objections to the whole bit with Sally's coloring. Ken has since informed me that this was an "in-joke" for Sonic fans: "...when coming up with the line about a bad hair day, I thought it would be a great opportunity to work the coloring bit in for long-time readers who would get the joke." We GOT the joke, Ken; we just didn't WANT it. Same here; "Coco" I could have lived with, but this just about made me barf! The Mobians travel down the sewers and emerge just behind enemy lines. Tails's father, Amadeus, takes a shot to the head, thus explaining how he lost an eye ("Eve of Destruction," Special #9). Colin, meanwhile, disappears down into the sewer system and out of the story line. HEAD: Actually another good example of no-frills, no- gimmicks writing. Nice bit of foreshadowing here: Sonic's parents meet up, utilization of the Mobian sewer network (as Sonic and the others would in later years), plus the scene with Amadeus. The "Cocoa" business is unforgivable, especially since the name "Cocoa" is one I'd associate with a warm brown Burmese and not a black-and-white domestic shorthair. Head Score: 9. EYE: After working for Knuckles on the "First Date" arc, Chris Allan takes up his duties as back-up (back story) artist for the flagship book. Tails still looks a little weird, but that's because we're dealing with the revised model. Eye Score: 9. HEART: As already stated, very good foreshadowing of the characters. The sequence on page 5 between Jules and Chuck charmed me against all odds; Chris Allan's art fit Ken Penders's dialogue perfectly. Too bad there wasn't enough space to allow a cut to Tails to see if he realized they were talking about the father he never really knew taking a blaster shot to the head. But since the Forbidden Zone arc (K19-21) totally punted the fact that Geoffrey St. John was leading his squad to the place where his own father was killed, I suppose I shouldn't have gotten my hopes up. Still, I can't help but remember Steve Butler's reaction shots during "I, Robotnik" (S72). But no sense dwelling on what might have been. Heart Score: 9. Off Panel: Hmmm, Sonic characters versus Archie characters in softball. All Sonic has to do is connect; he'd circle the bases before the ball got back to the pitcher's mound. Bunnie and Rotor would be big hitters, but slower afoot. Don't know how I'd handicap the 50-year-old adolescents from Riverdale. And is that Chicago-style 16-inch softball? Sonic-Grams: Plugs for Sonic Adventure and the Dreamcast, but you ain't seen nothin' yet. Letters: Beth Klein guesses that Jeremiah is "a Harlequin Great Dane." There IS such a breed, it turns out, but a Great Dane/Dalmatian crossbreed still wouldn't surprise me. Blurbs for K30 and S77 and Find Your Name. Fan Art: TWO art samples with the Egg-Maniac Robotnic guess it wasn't that big of a secret. Know Your Heroes features The Jaguar, who looks (and dresses) like Ronald Coleman in one of those old jungle movies from the 1930s and who subdues evil with the Annoying PhotoShop Blur!