Well, "Sonic LIVE!" is still AWOL here in Michigan; frankly, I
think I'm stuck with having to order it by mail.  However, one
store has stocked #43 while #42 is still in most other comic
racks.  So what else is new?


     #43 [Feb 1997]
     Spaziante cover art.  Nowhere near as STUNNING as the inside
splash page.  One of the most moving Spaziante pieces ever!  I'd
really like to see it without the credits in the corner.  And
while we're at it, lose Geoffrey as well.  What the heck, strip
out Sonic too and you have a perfect Sally Memorial Poster.
     "The Dream Zone"
     Story: Ken Penders; Art: Manny Galan and Pat Spaziante
     "Calling Dr. Howard, Dr. Fine, Dr. Howard!  They're not
available?  Then how about just Dr. Howard The Duck?"  C'mon,
can't Galan draw ducks that DON'T look like that feathered loser? 
And how did a hospital manage to survive Robotnik's takeover of
the planet?  And why didn't the Knothole crowd get the King there
sooner, like they said they were going to at the very end of "And
One Shall Save Him" (Sonic #41), instead of wasting time
experimenting with power rings and Chaos Emeralds?  And most
important of all, where did the good ducktor hire that nurse with
Farrah hair in the background of the opening panel?  
     Dr. Quack makes his opening borrowing not only Howard the
Duck's look but Telly Savalas' mannerisms from the old "Kojak"
series.  This is never a good sign.  In the hands of a lesser
writer it's a way of saying to the reader: "I don't know what I'm
doing with this character, I don't have a feel for his thoughts
and emotions, so I'm going to superimpose someone else's identity
on him, no matter how obscure the reference might be to the core
audience, until I can come up with something."  Of course, Ken
Penders is one of the premier Sonic writers at Archie and he'd
NEVER stoop to something like that.  It would be as unforgivable
as...oh, I don't know...as killing off one of the main characters
to try to keep the readers off-guard.  But I digress.  
     Anyway, the best Dr. Q can do is try some cell regeneration
pyrotechnics and hope for the best.  As with the power rings,
there's no change; unlike the Chaos Emerald, the King hasn't
gotten any worse.  The doctor absents himself while the Knothole
crowd holds vigil.  Sonic's question at the bottom of page 3--Is
the King aware of what's going on around him--isn't answered
(sort of) until the bottom of page 5.  No, the Canadian printers
didn't screw up the colors again.  The pseudo-sepia tone is their
way of saying "Cue the flashback!"  Galan tags in Spaziante and
the scene shifts to...Sonic and Sally as a couple of kids a la
"Blast To The Past."  In fact, much of the flashback is faithful
to the canon (which is more than can be said for Part Three of
this story, but we'll get to that in due time).  Anyway, watchers
of the series know that Julian of the War Ministry was supposed
to be overseeing the dismantling of that department; he, however,
has other ideas.  Changing his name to Ivo Robotnik, he stages a
coup.  
     There are a few small deviations from the canon in the
flashback.  For one thing, Uncle Chuck is never credited with
developing the Roboticizer (a project he abandoned when he
realized that a roboticized Mobian's enhanced physical well-being
would be undermined by a loss of free will; Julian simply stole
the plans).  In fact, Uncle Chuck gets no credit at all.  Sally'
nanny, Rosie, who puts in an appearance at the bottom of page
[8], is somewhat off-model.  And Julayla is somewhat more than
somewhat off-model in her appearance on page 7!  She bears NO
RESEMBLANCE AT ALL to the Julayla who appeared in "In The Still
Of The Night" (Sonic #18).  Didn't Spaziante have access to #18
with its ELEVEN DIFFERENT DRAWINGS of Julayla's face?  Didn't he
think to ask Art Mawhinney if he possibly had a Julayla model
sheet he could work from?  Has Spaziante got something against
cats?  Still, even this lemon could have yielded some serious
lemonade.  If Sally's word balloon on the righthand side of page
7 had used the word "Mommy" instead of "Julayla" it would have
made far more sense, would not have necessitated Spaziante's
redrawing the panel, and would have given the fans something to
talk about for months to come.
     To kick off Part 2, Geoffrey St. John shows up for no other
reason that to honk off Sonic; he doesn't even pretend to have
any part to play in the story line other than to barge in looking
for Sally so she can have another pair of arms to rush to.  Not
that the dialogue is any help in the coherency department; it
constitutes about three pages of verbal wheel-spinning during
which the Quackster informs us that he studied under Drs. (Ben)
Casey, (Marcus) Welby and Frankenstein (that's "Fronkensteen!"). 
After wading through this, we arrive at Sally's conclusion that
something's "bothering" her father but she can't say what.  The
Quackmeister concurs that the King is in an unresponsive stupor. 
Actually, it's a cue for the next flashback, wherein he remembers
Robotnik's takeover and his own exile into the Void/Zone of
Silence.  This particular bad trip causes him, stupefied though
he is, to cry out.  So Quackerino trots out the latest in the
long line of Improbable-Looking Plot Devices.  Let's see, we've
had the Neuro-Overrider that looks like a calculator battery
("Steel-Belted Sally", #29) and the Zone Neturalizer that looks
like a household bug bomb ("Heart of Darkness," #36).  So is it
any wonder that the Quackmeister's Electroencephalographic Memory
Inducer looks like a glorified gumball machine?  I didn't think
so.  Despite the stated dangers of this kind of mind meld (too
bad the Quackmaster didn't study under Drs. McCoy, Crusher and
Bashir), there's no shortage of volunteers to make the trip. 
Sonic wins the (very dubious) coin toss, he begins journeying
into the King's head and any semblance that we've been following
the Sonic canon sails right out the window.
     Once more Sonic and the King encounter each other in space,
only now the King has no trouble recognizing Sonic as Sir
Charles' nephew.  Sonic calls it a "wild, strange trip."  That's
"LONG, strange trip", Sonic, but I guess you aren't that much of
a Deadhead.  Before they can figure out how to get someplace
recognizable, they confront the Warlord Kodos.  You remember the
Warlord Kodos, don't you?  No?  That's not surprising since there
hasn't been word one about the dude since an offhand reference by
Robotnik back in "Heart of Darkness."  Kodos, who looks like
Mobie the (yeah, right!) Cave Bear having a very VERY bad hair
day, uses a huge battle ax to take a swing at the King.  Sonic
attempts a rescue and gets nowhere for who should appear but
FEIST, some kind of giant skunk/badger/wolverine with glowing
eyes.  Hey, you can admit to being confused; we're all friends
here.  And the awkward placement of one of Sonic's word balloons
in the middle panel of page 20 so that it can easily be mistaken
for one of the King's word balloons doesn't help matters.  Feist
nukes Kodos, but before he can do anything to the King Sonic
launches into some heavy (for him) dialogue; as he explains that
Feist and everything else around them is just part of the King's
memory, he starts using some pretty big words we're not used to
hearing from Sonic, and he loses his hip argot completely.  I
suppose that all bets are off when you're roaming around inside
someone else's head but in any other context this would be called
"breaking character".  Sonic briefs the King on current events
and tells him he's got to struggle against the crystallization
because "We need your experience and wisdom...But above all else,
Sally needs her father."  Yeah, to deliver her eulogy four issues
from now!  Sonic wakes up with a headache, the King's vital signs
stabilize, and the blue dude misquotes Shakespeare's "Tempest". 
All in a day's work.
     I don't suppose there could have been anything else to do
with the story line to justify a return to the events of "Blast
To The Past" without yet another shot at time travel.  I got the
point--that the King needed to begin healing from the inside
after all these months--but Ken didn't make it easy.  Some of the
bits with Quack (who's an even bigger candidate for Worst New
Character than either Kodos or Feist) were really expendable.  So
was Manny Galan's artwork.  I have been browsing the newsstand
copies of "Sonic Quest" and was pleasantly surprised to see the
quality of Galan's artwork improve from Part 1 to Part 2; the
artwork on Part 2, Page 10 is VERY impressive!  It seemed like he
was taking Spaziante lessons.  So I was UNpleasantly surprised to
see the quality of his artwork take a tumble here.  Sally's
emotions as she ran to Geoffrey in Part 2 were unrecognizable. 
It reminds me of the deadness of Kyle Hunter's art in "And One
Shall Save Him" (#41) which marked a new low in the quality of
Sonic comic art; heck, that one gave me a new appreciation for
the work of Dave Manak!  This story was marginally worth it, the
artwork was definitely NOT worth it (pseudo-sepia is not a good
color for Spaziante); the whole production was eclipsed by the
Spaz splash page that preceded it all.
     Sonic-Grams: Sorry, Fred, I DIDN'T enjoy "this
little...concoction".  As for his promise of a "roller-coaster
ride" for Sonic #50: unless Ken's been teasing the lot of us and
plans to resurrect Sally at the conclusion of "Endgame" it'll be
a trip I'm going to make with a vast reluctance.  Also a plug for
Sonic #44: The Antisonic and the Antiknuckles come to Mobius.  
That's an angle I didn't think of when writing about the
Antibunnie in my fanfic "When A Bunnie Meet A Bunnie" (available
on finer Sonic Web pages).  Betcha my Antisonic is more evil than
yours; well, he's kinkier, anyway.  Letters: Jacob and Jason
Lower ask, among other things, about Sally's species.  OK,
people, it's clear that nobody's reading the FAQ File on this one
and nobody's buying the line that she's a ground squirrel.  We'll
just have to wait until issue #47 in order to say once and for
all whether she's a ground squirrel, a shot squirrel, a strangled
squirrel....