#37 [Aug 1996] I'm getting tired of these covers by Spaziante...NOT!!! Sonic in freefall (apparently) holding Sally in his arm. Nice design - - call it "The Mobian Pieta." And if you don't know what I'm talking about, get thee to a library and read up on the sculptures of Michelangelo [the sculptor, not the turtle!]. "The Day Robotropolis Fell" Story: Angelo DeCesare/Art: Brian Thomas Sonic and Sally rendezvous with Uncle Chuck in Robotropolis, who breaks the news to them that Robotnik has predicted that an earthquake is going to hit the city (Excuse me, Dr. Robotnik, some gentlemen from Cal Tech have just arrived; they keep talking about "the big one" so I assume they mean you...). Robotnik's plan is to hover over the city in a giant saucer-like craft loaded with his SWATbots until the quake ends. He doesn't particularly care what happens to the worker bots (i.e., roboticized Mobians) but Uncle Chuck does. Uncle Chuck's plan: while Robotnik is hovering, they enter his HQ, reactivate the deroboticizer (gee, that's the first I've heard of it!) and treat as many worker bots as possible before the quake hits. This assumes what Uncle Chuck doesn't: that Robotnik left a comfortable margin between takeoff and the quake. Unable to deroboticize the Mobians one at a time, he plans to blow up the roboticizer by overloading it, counting on the diffusion to deroboticize the Mobians in bulk, as it were. Sounds to me like the scientific equivalent of supply-side economics, but never mind. In the resulting blast, Uncle Chuck is NOT effected while the rest of the worker bots are. Uncle Chuck and DeCesare don't bother to explain how this could have happened before the next tremor comes down the pike. Rotor just happens to arrive with a transport plane, but it proves to be too small. Sally pulls rank and orders Uncle Chuck onto the plane -- OK, so it's not exactly the airport scene from "Casablanca." While Sally tries to find out from Nicole what's the best way out of Robotropolis during an earthquake, a sizable chunk of masonry lands on top of her. If this weren't a comic book, she'd be a stain on the pavement; as it is, she's unconscious and it's up to Sonic to get her out of town. They manage, and we eventually see Sally with her head bandaged and her arm in a sling. Robotnik lands and resolves to rebuild, relying on a satellite-based force field to protect the city during its reconstruction. I'll leave it to the Californians on the list as to whether DeCesare's depiction of a quake is credible; me, I had enough troubles with this story. Uncle Chuck is suffering from a bad case of logic deficiency in this one: the business with the deroboticizer--It will be most effective if I overload it to the point of destroying it--reminds me too much of some of the plot problems with "Steel-Belted Sally" (#29). There's no way ALL of the roboticized Mobians could have converged on the deroboticizer just in time for the explosion so some of them had to have been victims of the quake, just as there's no way Sally could have avoided becoming a blob of royal jelly after that masonry fell on her. Nor do we ever find out how Uncle Chuck escaped the effects of the deroboticizer, or how Rotor was able to get a plane from Deus Ex Machina Airlines into the city in time. The premise of the story was good, as was the artwork, but the more you think about the plot the more it turns into a no-brainer. Sonic Art: I thought Brian Thomas had drawn the eyes of the characters in "The Day Robotropolis Fell" too big--Sally especially looked as if she belonged in a black velvet painting-- until I saw Charles Kusiak's fanart. You could drive a TRUCK through those pupils! "Bunnie's Worst Nightmare" Story and Art: Rich Koslowski[debut] Bunnie's first solo effort starts out with quite a premise: What starts out as an annoying itch turns out to be a spreading case of roboticization. Thanks to a convenient hologram of Robotnik to describe the plot, it turns out that Bunnie may have been partially roboticized at one time, but a "microscopic device" implant has started to finish the job. On the verge of total roboticization, she leaves Knothole. After traveling all night she falls asleep and wakes up to...The Old Dream Ending! It's a pity Rich was only given 8 pages to play with; with another 8 pages, this could have been the story it was meant to be. It's not that this ground hasn't been travelled before: it has, in everything from "The Amazing Colossal Man" to "Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde" to the remake of "The Fly": what it's like for someone to gradually lose their humanity (or in Bunnie's case, to borrow a word from Richard Adams, her "animality") while becoming something else. If you'll allow me, here's how it could have played: At first Bunnie ignores the first signs of change, though she may even have a suspicion as to what it may mean. This proves the saying heard in 12 Step groups: Denial ain't just a river in Egypt! Then the condition continues its slow, relentless possession of her. I think it wouldn't be too strong to say that, from Bunnie's point of view, this gradual takeover of her bod must feel like slow-motion rape. An off-hand remark from one of her friends (spoken in innocence by Tails or in ignorance by Antoine) lets the reader know that she's not just turning into a machine but also into one of Robotnik's minions. After the obligatory note scene, she starts to leave Knothole but is intercepted by Sally who tries one last time to talk her into staying. After a tearful farewell, Bunnie begins to leave, then pauses. Sally, ever hopeful, runs over to her, only to discover that Bunnie's transformation is complete and that she's gone over to the Dark Side, as it were. She now has a new set of priorities, the first of which is: "DETAIN FREEDOM FIGHTERS. BY ORDER OF ROBOTNIK." I'm not trying to brag, but I barely broke a sweat coming up with this enhancement to the story line. Yet I also couldn't help but think of (if you'll allow me to get momentarily off- topic) an episode of Disney's "Aladdin." In this one ep, Jasmine begins turning into a kind of serpent creature due to a spell by Mirage, an evil cat-morph. She and Al journey in search of a possible cure. When all attempts to get at the cure are foiled by Mirage and Jasmine's transformation into a monster is complete, Al takes it upon himself to become the same kind of creature as she has become, for the sake of love. I mention this because while Rich does a good job of showing what is happening--the plot certainly moves right along--there's not much room in the story for all but the most superficial treatment of Bunnie's emotional state. Her interior landscape is painted only in the broadest strokes; this was the fatal flaw that made Tails' change of heart at the end of "Southern Crossover" [Tails miniseries #3] patently unbelievable. Perhaps this goes back to the question of the core audience of the comic, but the Aladdin ep mentioned above demonstrates that it is possible to tell such a story without dumbing it down emotionally. I look upon this story as eight pages of "what might have been." As glad as I am to see Bunnie getting a solo shot, I really believe she deserved better. Sonic-Grams: hint that the theme of a devastated Robotropolis will continue and that Sonic will become a slow-mo. Plug for Knuckles #2, and a hint that Sonic will finally have a date with the Roboticizer in #39. Cute depiction of Joe Pepitone as Robotnik and Fred Mendez as a computer program. Lyrics to a Sonic song, and a couple guesses as to the identity of Archimedes, with an actual answer! Almost a full page of names of readers who have written--major headache!