Sonic #66 (Party like it's January 1999) Spaz/Harvo/Ray/Heroic Age cover: I actually heard from one fan who saw the thumbnail for this cover and fretted that Tails was going to be killed off! The female lead gets dropped off the side of a building, next thing you know the fans are worried about wholesale slaughter. BTW, I took a close look at Harvo's signature and I have to say it DOES look like it's spelled "Hario" the way the downstroke on the R melds into the V. Very extensive foreshortening with Sonic's left glove in the foreground. Interesting composition but depressing because of the subject matter. And then there's that creepy eye thing again. "A Friend In Deed" Part 3 of...what's the name of this arc again? Writer: Karl Bollers; Art: Steven Butler; Ink: Pam Eklund; Lettering: Jeff Powell; Color: Ken Penders; Editorial: G-Force. No, it's not a wallpaper pattern for someone's Sonic Web site (though if you scan it in and use it as such, you might want to give Steven Butler his propers). It's another look at Nate Morgan's power ring collection, as made painfully obvious by the scintillating opening dialogue: SONIC: Power rings...you've got a whole mess o' power rings in here, Nate. NATE: Yes, I do, Sonic. Yes, I do. And that, boys and girls, is how you kill the first three pages of a 16-page story. This is NOT a good sign. Sonic is about to sample one of the rings when Eddy the Yeti gets in his face with a "Raargh!" Nate translates: the rings are not intended to be "exploited by outsiders." Of course Nate never does explain why he cranked out so many of them (and no, I won't accept "Because he can!" as an answer). Nor does he (or Karl Bollers) explain why Eddy should wait until the third installment of a three-part story arc to start saying something other than "Raargh!", even if it's in the kind of broken English that would have embarrassed George of the Jungle. When Sonic realizes that Nate isn't about to give up his splendid isolation, he tried lecturing him about getting back into the hero biz; Nate declines the offer because "it never works." This was the point in the story where I started getting my hopes up. When I had learned of the story's premise (Nate's not wanting to get involved), I honestly thought that this might be a meditation on the saying that the hottest place in Hell is reserved for those who in times of moral crisis preserve their neutrality [I've seen the quote attributed to the Italian poet Dante, but have never been able to verify the attribution either in any of the print sources available to me in the library or on the Net. Besides, I think he'd have come up with a classier way of saying it]. And yet something seemed...off...about the scenario. I didn't have much time to meditate upon it, though, for Naugus crashes the party, having finally figured out a way to get past the "mystical wards"/plot devices that had kept him out until such time as it would be convenient to the story line. Eddy shields Nate with his body as Naugus causes the roof of the ring chamber to collapse, burying Sonic and Tails under a ton of names (one of which is NOT Green Gibbon this time). And when the dust clears, we get a two-page splash of Naugus, Sonic and Tails all powered up and ready for the inevitable fight scene. Karl must've sampled a few rings himself because he lapses into full Omniscient Narrator Mode. Good thing SOMEONE connected with the story is omniscient, considering where the story goes from here: First, Naugus signs himself in, apparently using the name of the Artist Formerly Known as Prince. Then he opens up the Zone of Silence, aka The Void, and Karl Bollers opens a can of worms by conjuring up a version of the story at odds once more with the SatAM series. In that continuity, Naugus (who had not yet been cursed with the first name "Ixis") was trapped in the Void as a result of a double- cross by Robotnik. He later found a means to kidnap Sally and Bunnie and bring them to him in The Void, with Sonic in pursuit. Once in the Void, they find what appears to be Sally's father in a gravely ill condition. Sonic uses his speed to liberate his monarch but, surprise surprise, it was really Naugus. Seems his primary ability was mere shape shifting, both himself and others. In fact, he spends his time outside the Void popping different heads on Robotnik's sizable bod, sort of like Sid in "Toy Story." He only stopped when he realized he was turning to crystal and had to return to the Void. He had not yet become malevolent, though Ben Hurst would have taken him down that path in the third season that never was. Thought you newbies who never got to see the cartoon would want to know. Back to the action. "The cool, blue radiance projected by the being that leaps toward Ixis, interrupting his ranting, is not that of Sonic the Hedgehog." Not only do we get to hear NONE of Ixis's rant, thanks to the incessant narration, but the narrator fails to explain why Ultra-Sonic, trailing black stars behind him, looks exactly LIKE Sonic! We're also told that "his voice is changed as well"; fine time Sonic picked to go through puberty. Of course you'd have no way of knowing that his voice has changed in a comic book, so we'll just have to take the Omniscient Narrator's word for it. I can only assume that Karl is following the rules of whatever game Ultra-Sonic appears in; otherwise, the story would seem to be following no rules whatsoever except the whim of the writer. Case in point: Naugus directs some flaming rays at Sonic with his eyes, and Sonic douses them with "a mentally constructed shield of ice water." Yeah, I KNOW it sounds like a lame-o defense, which is why I hope Karl copped it from a game because I'd be embarrassed to admit that I thought up something like that myself. Outrunning the beams would be cool, warping into invisibility would be cool, somehow utilizing those black stars trailing behind him would be cool. Ice water is UNCOOL. Well, maybe not literally, but you know what I mean. Naugus once again tries to weaken the boundary between the Zone and the ring chamber. This time the attempt is interrupted by Tails (excuse me, "Hyper-Tails") who sets some Flicky Birds loose on the villain (excuse me, "villan") "to make sure history won't repeat itself." Karl Bollers, however, repeats HIMself as Naugus stops the bird-brains by dusting off the ice block trick that was used two issues ago. Nate is losing patience with Naugus's antics, but we still have to put up with another page of this dada. Now Sonic uses a wall of granite to block a wall of "boiling liquid" as Naugus "tells" (but not really, since we never hear a word of it) of his teaming up with Kodos the Whatever Warlord and Feist who is at least recognizable as a badger. Philosophy 101: if a narrator says that a character tells a story but the details of the story remain unknown to the reader, why is/isn't this like a tree falling in the woods with nobody there to hear it? Please limit your answer to two blue books. Nate interrupts the untold tale and "after a monstrously piercing cackle and a mystic gesture later" (is that anything like "a player to be named later"?), Nate is swept out of harm's way by Tails as we realize that Steve Butler never even drew in a CACKLE sound effect and the "gesture" is merely a drawing of Naugus's hand. Sonic and Tails then pass out from their exertions and I don't blame them a bit. We're then treated to the Omniscient Narrator bringing us up to speed on past developments in the Zone which now threatens to engulf Mobius. But before that can happen and contrary to the Law of Loose Continuity which dictates that you should always put off tying the loose ends of a story together for, say, a year or two, Naugus assaults Nate. OK, I was up-front about not knowing very much about the crop of steroid cases that made an appearance in "Parallel Paradigm," but are we going to be treated from now on to monthly stories of Superheroes Who Don't Have The Kind of Name Recognition Enjoyed By Certain DC Comic Warhorses Whose Names I Need Not Mention? Next time, let's see some of the bit players from, say, "The Tick." I'd LOVE seeing Paul Castiglia and Andrew Pepoy presenting the origin of, say, Bipolar Bear ("I must save the world...but I haven't felt like getting out of bed for a week"). So, did you find the hidden plot device in the story? Seems that despite Nate's keeping the rest of the power rings locked away in the closet, he's been carrying around a little-bitty one in his eyepiece the whole time. So when Naugus gets in Nate's face, Naugus gets K- ZORCHTed. Unfortunately, the structural integrity of the cavern or chamber or whatever you want to call it has been weakened and as Eddy the Yeti keeps the place from collapsing, Sonic, Tails and Nate manage to escape while Eddy the Yeti makes a different kind of exit. And while I liked Steve Butler's mini-drawing of a mournful Tails in the final panel, I had a hard time getting past the Omniscient Narration, which I quote in full: Nate Morgan, in all of his travels...whether he was among Overlanders or Mobians...had never ever known what victory meant...and so, was not aware that it sometimes has it's [sic] price...Today, Nate has finally won a battle...and at last paid dearly. end. Helooooo! Paging Karl Bollers! You're wanted in Rewrite! The high-sounding prose makes NO SENSE given how the story ended. What price did Nate pay exactly? Whatever it was, it can be argued that Eddy paid more dearly. And with that I realized why this story left me feeling that after all its hard work it missed being a great story. Karl had tried to present Nate as a Tragic Figure and Nate just wasn't up to filling the job description. Think back on Sonic's description of Nate as someone who was "once a hero." Then go back over the previous installment and PLEASE inform me what exactly Nate did that was so all-fired heroic. He perfected the power ring. That's it! The rest of his story presents him less as a hero and more as a wimp and a whipping boy for those more ruthless than himself. Let's review: he lets Julian fast-talk him into testing the power ring prototype before all the safety checks were in place; he puts up no defense as I can see when he's railroaded by the Overlanders and exiled; he lets himself get railroaded again, this time by Kodos and Naugus when they blame him for the firefight that precipitated the Great War, and his response to that is self-imposed exile. Karl Bollers wanted Nate to be a figure beaten down by circumstance, which he manages to do quite nicely. But in order to be considered Heroic, Nate would have had to put up a fight at some point. That's something he never did until he gave Naugus an eyeful on page 14. Yet even THIS falls short as a Heroic Act when compared with Eddy the Yeti's self- sacrifice in order to spare Nate's life and those of Sonic and Tails. The Redemptive Self-Sacrificial Act has a long and venerable history and covers a lot of ground: from Sidney Carton in "A Tale of Two Cities" to Gurgi in "The Black Cauldron." Even Metal Sonic in the Sonic anime lets himself be destroyed because "there can only be one Sonic." Nate, in the course of this story arc, tries to be like Achilles sulking in his tent and finally roused to action. Instead, he comes off more like King Lear: tragic, yes, but far from heroic. Either Nate should have died at the end allowing the others to live (in which case the blather about Nate paying the price would have made sense), or else we should have been spared the attempt to portray him as something he clearly wasn't. There was a great story in here somewhere and Steve Butler's artwork consistently rose to the occasion, but at the end of it all the whole thing feels as flat as Eddy the Yeti. Fan Art: I don't know the significance of the outfit Sally is wearing in Lolita Brown's drawing; makes me think she belongs on a soccer team. And even John Peasant gets into the act of foreshadowing Robotnik's return. And Pro-Art: "former Turtles artist" Chris Allan has Sonic and a couple bots in freefall. Next month: former Turtles artists Flo and Eddie sing "So Happy Together." "And Then There Was One" Story: Karl Bollers; Art: Steven Butler; Ink: Andrew Pepoy; Lettering and coloring: Frank [Gagliardo]; Editorial: G-Force. One question remains. Beyond the depiction of a lobster, a bat and a rhino with names straight off a Scrabble tray as anagrams for Naugus. Beyond the blend of wizardry and superheroics. Beyond the actually believable plot driven by the distrust and hubris of the three sub-wizards who were supposed to have merged to become Naugus. Even beyond Steve Butler's charming drawings of the Mobian royal family. One question remains: Does anyone out there actually give a rat's rump about Naugus's origins? Sonic-Grams: promos for Sonic #67 (the back story about Lupe and the Wolf Pack sounds more interesting than the cover story), Knuckles #20 (though they show the thumbnail for #19), and not only do they continue to plug Special #7 but Sam Maxwell contributes a cast drawing wherein the steroid cases actually look less cartooney and more like what you'd find on the other racks than the Jim Valentino artwork. Unfortunately, Bunnie and Tails are AWOL while Antoine demonstrates his ability to touch his forehead with his nose.