Sonic #54 [Jan 1998]
     "Running To Stand Still"
     Script: Karl Bollers; Art: Nelson Orega [John Hebert (debut)
on Devil's Gulag sequences]; Inker: Harvo; Lettering: J. Powell and
V. Williams; Editorial: G-Force.
     Ya don't want SPOILERS, read something else.
     Spaz/Harvo cover: Sonic.  Sally.  Tails.  Snively.  Uncle
Chuck.  Egg Bots.  No apparent purpose.  "EVJ 93"?
     Splash page...literally.  Pic: Is Sonic surfing?  Will he wipe
out?  Why is it that only the makers of the Sonic anime seem to
have read the character description and gotten it into their heads
that SONIC CAN'T SWIM?  Text: Don't take it too seriously; the dig
at "politics" shouldn't be overblown.  But it does ask the old
question: Now that the Freedom Fighters have won the war, will they
win the peace?
     Archie PSA: would Juliet's balcony have had a wheelchair-
access elevator?  And would it have been designed by da Vinci?
     Cutting through the yadda yadda yadda on page 1, we learn that
Knothole is still in a three-hour-ahead time zone, that it's
surrounded by a barrier that keeps everyone out, and that the Oak
Slide is the only access to the place.  It also means that having
established this patently nonsensical state of affairs in "Endgame",
the writers aren't about to back down now.  We're also told that
Sonic has been accustomed to "the way of the warrior," which makes
him sound more like a samurai than a teenage guerrilla fighter
who'd rather scarf chili dogs in his off hours than meditate.  What
he's doing at the moment is burning out one of Uncle Chuck's
devices that's supposed to measure Sonic's speed.  It also appears
he's doing it on purpose, since his attitude has slipped into
something less than cooperative; in fact, he and Uncle Chuck
reprise the celebrated dialogue from Marlon Brando's "The Wild
One."
     In the first of several flashbacks (this time NOT presented in
yellow or gray or some other monochrome), we begin to understand
why.  Sonic finds himself on some kind of dias with Sally and
Rotor.  Geoffrey St. John and Dr. Quack (!) are there as well while
for some unaccountable reason Bunnie, Tails, and Antoine are in the
audience with the other extras.  Somebody better remind Karl of the
Knothole pecking order; this doesn't seem right.  Neither does
Sally's speechmaking or her appointing Quack, Rotor, Geoffrey
(whose head shot on page 5 makes him look embarrassed to be there),
and Sonic to top-level government gigs in the Mobius Recovery
Administration.  Sally never actually gives them job titles or
anything, though.  Sonic finds the proceedings about as exciting as
watching alcohol evaporate.
     Quick cut to the Devil's Gulag Rendered In High-Detail.  I
STILL have a problem believing that this is one of the few parts of
the Mobian infrastructure that doesn't need a post-Robotnik
overhaul.  The latest transport ship unloads...the crystallized
forms of Kodos and Uma Arachnis from "Sounds of Silence" in #53. 
I thought they were inanimate puppets because Naugus was able to
crystallize them whereas he couldn't crystallize anything organic
like Sonic.  I also failed to see their forms when Sonic busted up
Naugus's wand at the end of the story; was I the ONLY one who
thought they'd evaporated or that Naugus had simply taken their
bodies with him?
     I think I'm thinking too much again; let's move on.  Tails
awakens Sonic for the next stage of Uncle Chuck's testing, which
involves having Sonic do a little of what fighter jocks call "rat
racing" across the local desert called the "_____ Plains."  Guess
the missing word.  C'mon, guess!  I can't believe that Mobians have
THAT few adjectives at their disposal.  That's not the only
language problem, though, for it appears that Sonic and Uncle Chuck
are barely on speaking terms.  A handy flashback on page 8 reveals
why: Uncle Chuck proposed that the roboticized Mobians who want to
form their own colony (see "Brave New World") can move to Knothole
for the time being.  Tails and Amy Rose think it's a good idea; so
does Sally, who goes off to get her father to sign off on it. 
Because he took the time to rotate his sneaks, Sonic arrives at the
palace to watch from a distance as Sally gives Uncle Chuck the bad
news.  I'd use the phrase "trouble in paradise" except that
Mobitropolis still looks like hell.
     Back at the Overdrawn Gulag, Snively hears two of Geoffrey's
operatives talking: "Why are we wasting our breath talking about
Naugus escaping the Zone?"  "Why else: so we can bring Snively up
to speed on the plot!"  Snively wants to hear more; what he gets
are advertisements for "Sonic Firsts", Archie subscriptions, the
Find Your Name page (which informs us that Eva Richarte Prieto --
whose totally babe-ular Fan Art of Princess Sally was published
NINE ISSUES AGO -- is 18 years old), and Fan Art (which consists of
TWO drawings of mecha from fans in the Peoria, Illinois area, a
drawing of Sonic and Knuckles getting ready to hit the hardwood,
and a Sonic and Tails drawing from Japan).
     Meanwhile, Sonic and Uncle Chuck hit the beach, once again
conveniently forgetting Sonic's non-swimmer status.  Yet another
flashback reveals Sonic's failed attempt to talk Sally into letting
Rotor take some time off to look for his family who, last time we
saw them, were adrift on an ice floe with a bunch of other
zombified walruses in "Tundra Road -- Part 2" from Sonic #32. 
That's right, we're alluding to a story that ran TWENTY-TWO MONTHS
AGO!  No wonder Sally didn't jump at approving the request; those
bones ain't gettin' any fresher!  And no, you didn't miss anything
in Geoffrey's comment; I didn't see any "crazed mobs" either.
     Back AGAIN to the Overly-Detailed Gulag where Geoffrey's
beavers continue blabbing their heads off for the reader's (and
Snively's) enlightenment.  Aware that Naugus has returned, Snively
activates a computer chip in his thumbnail.  This is only the
SECOND hint that Snively isn't a human (the first was the button-
on-the-hand bit from "Endgame" Part 3) but it appears the writers
aren't about to back away from it.
     Once again, we find Sonic in mid-test inside a large hamster
wheel.  But after a short exchange we realize that Sonic's still
cheesed at Uncle Chuck for not telling him the truth about his
parents, and that's apparently what's got his shoelaces in a knot. 
This is brought home by the LATEST flashback: Sonic is out on the
streets of Mobitropolis when he meets Rosie, who's no longer in
Knothole but is still in the child care business.  Sonic unburdens
himself to her and she passes along some words of wisdom from the
other adult caretaker from Sonic's Knothole childhood, Julayla. 
Armed with a few choice words of wisdom, Sonic walks off.
     "Not The Gulag": credit to Karl for the clever scene
designation on page 19.  Snively's thumbnail must have a lot of
range because it activates...the Eggbots.  But according to the
text they're programmed to seek and destroy Naugus, so no sweat.
     Back in the Great Forest, Tails chases after a dragonfly-like
creature for comic relief while Uncle Chuck tries to get through to
Sonic.  He explains that if Sonic HAD known about his parents,
Robotnik would have used that knowledge against Sonic.  Somehow,
though, when Uncle Chuck asks Sonic to believe him, that isn't
quite the word the elder hedgehog seems to have in mind.  It feels
more like he's asking Sonic not so much to believe him as to
forgive him...something that didn't happen outright in the course
of "Brave New World."  In any event, Sonic and Uncle Chuck reconcile
in a scene that Karl and Nelson manage to slip past the watchdogs. 
Just as the Eggbots sail overhead, Sally puts in a call to Sonic to
have him come over and watch one of the few decent Star Trek movies
that were made: Star Trek II: The Wrath of KHAN!
     To hear some fans tell it, this story is something of a
downer, almost the beginning of the end for the good times.  It
does start off on a sour note, with Sonic at odds with Uncle Chuck
and the rest of Mobius, from the look of it.  It's interesting that
Karl Bollers chooses to quote some dialogue from one of the
definitive biker movies of all time.  According to social
historians, motorcycle gangs were first formed by war veterans in
California as a way of reliving the camaraderie of their old
military days.  Sonic now finds himself in the same position:
having to learn to deal with a peacetime Mobius.  But that's only
part of the problem; Sonic's REAL problem helps reveal Karl
Bollers' gift as a storyteller.
     Those of us who felt cheated out of a heart-felt reunion
between Sonic and his parents will have to settle for this story,
where Sonic has a heart-felt reunion with his SURROGATE parents. 
After all, it was Uncle Chuck who had to raise Sonic once he
roboticized Sonic's father, Jules (what happened to Sonic's mom
remains to be told).  And once Robotnik took over, Sonic and the
other kids were raised by Rosie and Julayla in Knothole.  Who
better to help get Sonic's head back together?
     And therein lies the beauty of this story.  I've been
complaining all along that Knuckles seems to have been undergoing
most of the maturing, most of the character development, while
Sonic has been stuck with just his argot and attitude.  Karl
Bollers went out on a limb here to show an antisocial Sonic getting
close to the edge but still managing to work his way back in time. 
OK, so Sonic is no juvenile delinquent here -- for one thing, the
Comic Code Authority would never have allowed that.  But Sonic
FINALLY stops living in one dimension and is given something close
to a soul.  And all without Sega catching on!
     What happens to Sonic in this story, in fact, is almost a
demonstration of the Serenity Prayer in action.  Sonic was starting
to keep everyone important to him out of his life: he kept
interrupting Uncle Chuck on page 7 and wasn't speaking to him at
all on page 11.  It was a situation aptly symbolized by the
business about the "broken communicator" on the final page.  But by
story's end, Sonic realizes that "making a difference" means
accepting something he can't change (Uncle Chuck's lying to him)
and exercising the courage to change what he can (by forgiving
Uncle Chuck), because his conversation with Rosie helped him to
know the difference.
     And one of the most welcome developments in this story was the
use of Rosie in the very pivotal role of the one who helps open
Sonic's eyes to his situation by being there to listen and to say
the right thing; sort of like Guinan with buckteeth.  Ever since
the character was introduced in "Blast To The Past" I'd hoped that
her role would be expanded, that she would become something of a
mother-figure for Knothole along the lines of...Grams Bear.  True
Confession: having been emboldened by a sudden rash of Care Bears
fan art over on Ratman's Squeaky Clean Furry Archive, I have to
admit that the Care Bears were something of a guilty pleasure of
mine in the late 80's and they still are.  And Grams was my
favorite Care Bear.  So it's a gas to see Rosie filling out the
role quite nicely.  With this story coming on the heels of "Sounds
of Silence" (I'm especially thinking of the interlude between Sonic
and Sally at the very beginning), I'm more hopeful that the post-
Endgame Sonic is in capable hands.  About the only major flaw in
this story was the whole business with Snively and the Eggbots --
once we were told that they were programmed to go after Naugus,
they lost whatever dramatic tension they might have generated.  The
subplot literally could have been dropped from the story and it
wouldn't have been missed.  But that's neither here nor there; Karl
Bollers has established himself as a solid and welcome presence
among Sonic writers.
     Oh, and Nelson Ortega's art is good, too, except that his
Sally is a little hard-edged.  John Hebert's detailing is wasted on
Snively.
     Sonic-Grams: "This Just In!  One More Time!"  Aren't these
mutually exclusive concepts?  Plugs for Sonic Firsts, Knuckles #8,
Sonic #55, and NiGHTS Into Dreams #1.  Some carefully selected
blasts from the past...letters and e-mail about #47...which manage
NOT to mention Sally's death plunge.  Coincidence?  I think not.