csbernard

I don’t want to do this. I really don’t. It’s a large part of the reason why I missed two weeks’ worth of updates. But! Because I’m a silly and dedicated enough Sonic the Hedgehog fan, I’m going to do it. I’m talking about reviewing Sonic the Hedgehog #205.

…Lord, give me strength…

GeeKY News Presents: Sonic the Hedgehog #205
“On the Run Part One: All the Eggs in One Basket”
Writer: Ian Flynn
Penciler: Steven Butler
Colorist: Matt Herms
©Archie Publications
©Sega of America

As always, let’s start with the cover. So what is there to say? Very little it turns out. I mean, wow, this is one of the worst Patrick “Spaz” Spaziante covers I’ve ever looked at. Sure, his pencils are clean and the coloring is good. But, it’s just Sonic the Hedgehog, Miles “Tails” Prower and Dr. Ivo “Eggman” Robotnik posing, with an image of Regina Ferrum, “The Iron Queen” looming menacingly behind them. Apparently, Spaz had something better to do, because anything he could have been doing would have ten times better quality than this static, cliché image. Ironically, the biggest problem isn’t the artwork, but rather the tagline in the upper left portion of the cover.

‘THE TEAM-UP NO ONE GUESSED: SONIC AND EGGMAN?!’

That tagline immediately renders Tails’ presence here questionable at the least and pointless at worst. Secondly, when haven’t Sonic and Eggman teamed up before? They’ve been making a regular habit of it since 1998 and the release of Sonic Adventure 1 on the Dreamcast. Likewise, it’s something they’ve done in the comics before, too! As a matter of fact, they were forced to team up in issue #19 back in 1994 as part of the whole “Night of a Thousand Sonics” story. Which, coincidentally was the debut appearance of the alternate reality “Robo-Robotnik” from whom the current “Dr. Eggman” character derives his back-story. But, that becomes important later on.

The story proper picks up where #204 left off: Dr. Eggman sitting in a padded cell in the Egg Dome in a straitjacket drooling and babbling.

Hey! Let’s play a game!

Ladies and Gentlemen! Welcome to “Continuity Snarl,” the game-show that dares to ask, ‘Are the writers paying attention to the history of this comic?” Today, let’s look at Dr. Eggman’s insane ramblings:

‘…must do away with Kodos … no, Crabmeat that’s my cookie … more ore for the Ultimate Annihilator … hate that hedgehog … cell block override authority epsilon-gamma-gamma … want to ride the pasha … tastes like clucky…’

Oh-kay! So, which line would be incorrect here?

Was it the Kodos reference? Nope! Incorrect, because in most every “multi-verse” back-story for Dr. Robotnik/Eggman, he betrayed his former mentor, Warlord Kodos, in order to overthrow the Acorn monarchy and establish his dictatorship.

Did you guess it was the ‘tastes like clucky’ line? Far from it! That’s a nod to the games continuity that the comic shares intersecting points with, not to mention from which the latter is initially derived. So, flickies and cluckies would be fairly common in the comic’s unique animal kingdom!

What was it?

If you said ‘the Ultimate Annihilator’ reference then consider yourself CORRECT!

As I mentioned earlier, this Dr. Eggman character is supposed to be an alternate reality counterpart to the original Dr. Robotnik that took over when the latter was vaporized by the very weapon mentioned in that sentence fragment. While both characters are indeed “the same person,” their different histories diverge around two very key points. Robo-Robotnik, or “Robotnik Mach II,” roboticized himself in a failed attempt to turn the tide against his reality’s victorious Freedom Fighters. While he was able to make a comeback years later, thanks to downloading his cybernetic consciousness into an orbital satellite, and rain death upon Mobius and conquer the planet, his “Prime-verse” counterpart didn’t fare so well. Filling a need to equalize the cosmic balance, Robo-Robotnik returned to the comic’s main storyline and took over for his former-self. Not too bad of a premise, since other comic books had done similar things before. Better, it “raised the bar” for the storyline since, now, both Sonic and this Robotnik had each come fresh from a major victory. However, one had to keep in mind that Robo-Robotnik never developed an Ultimate Annihilator in his universe, and only knew about this one thanks to going back through his counterpart’s records. He even found out it was Snively who had tampered with the Ultimate Annihilator so that it would destroy the original Robotnik.

So, while you got a “Continuity Snarl,” Ian Flynn, thanks for playing! Your consolation prize is: Keeping your job! Which means you’ll continue to help drive this comic into the ground! Congratulations!

Seriously: if Ian’s trying to explain this as Eggman being crazy enough to think he’s the “other” Robotnik, that doesn’t hold water. Why? Well, if he’s crazy enough to imagine himself as being an alternate reality persona, then he’s crazy enough to think he’s Dr. Ivanna Robotina from the Sailor Moon inspired universe. In a more psychologically compelling book series, this would be very interesting, since it would imply that Eggman is in fact capable of manifesting several personas from across the Sonic the Hedgehog multi-verse at any given time. After all, in the classic Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on a Serious Earth, Joker is quoted as being “super-sane” and manifests different personalities every day, thereby being a nearly harmless prankster one day and a violent mass-murderer the next. Well, I’m afraid that’s not shown to be the case here and that’s horrifyingly disappointing.

Oh, and if you’re saying, “Dude, relax, it’s just a comic,” well, I hate to tell you but, the staff at Archie have exhausted that escape route. Saying that, at this point, is basically trying to excuse the fact that the editors and writers have dismissed the work of various writers and editors before them. Say what you will about Ken Penders or Karl Bollers, but I defy anyone to compare “Endgame” or “Homecoming” to “Mobius: 30 Years Later.” Naturally, you would want to bring up the fact that it was Ken Penders who tried to off Sally AND originated the “Mobius: 20 Years Later” story itself. But, let’s face it, Ian’s wiped out whole civilizations by this point and Ian BROUGHT BACK “Mobius: 25 Years Later” and even brought us a continuation of the very same garbage. The editors are just as bad for either suggesting or condoning these actions.

…

Oh, right, we’re still on the first page. I feel like crying.

Amongst the ramblings that Eggman blurted out, one of them was the voice override to his cell’s lock mechanism – dramatically convenient. Of course, how does an old-fashioned latch-lock get overridden by a voice command? Deciding to investigate this plot-hole, Snively comes back to check on Eggman and see if the clacking sound he heard was the old coot having an accident. Well, he nearly has an accident in his pants when Eggman comes bursting out of the padded cell, screaming at the hapless lackey.

‘SNIV-LAAAAAAYYY!!! What are you doing out here?! Snoo-Ping as usual?!’

OH GOD!!

I-

Wow.

I-

I just can’t believe it folks.

When- when I READ that line, I lost it. I mean, I went right around the loony-bin and back. I suddenly felt like I needed a straitjacket by that point. And here’s why:

As many of you may or may not know, ‘Snooping as usual, I see’ is an infamous phrase that has made its way from the humor-oriented Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog to YouTube, where people have used it over and over and over again for the specific way that Long John Baldry, Dr. Robotnik’s voice-actor in that show, pronounced the word “snooping.” His unusual emphasis on the word broke it into two separate words, “snoo” and “ping.” The “ping” word was then followed by the word “as.” The end result went down in “meme” History because the two words combined seemed to sound like “penis.”

Now, if you want to challenge that, just go listen for yourself over at YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyM1UGD8sqM

From that link, alone, you can find dozens upon dozens of parodies, short videos, and “YouTube Poops” that make usage of this bizarre hiccup in American animation. The fact that ARCHIE PUBLICATIONS made use of it is NOT a good thing. Instead it’s bad. Like, really bad. It was so bad, so juvenile and so unnecessary, that I did some investigating of my own to find out the mind-set behind this inane reference. So, I popped over to Ian Flynn’s own messageboard at BumbleKing Comics to find he had this to say about it:

‘I'll explain "PINGAS" again since I want to be 100% clear on this.

‘There's an episode in AoStH where Robotnik is berating Scratch and Grounder, accusing them of "snooping as usual." The inflection is really odd though - almost deliberate - where is sounds like "snoo-pingas usual." Somebody did a YouTube video that focused on this, and "Pingas" became a brief internet fad to giggle over.

‘Now, whether it's because "pingas" sound something like male anatomy, or if it's in fact an obscure euphemism is unclear (at least to me). All I know is that it potentially dances on the "naughty" line. So I purposefully worded it so that - technically - "pingas" is never out-right said.

‘But I knew the Sonic fans would pick up on it. I'm counting on y'all to get the other that's in the issue too.’

Oh-kay. What did you guys say in Sonic Universe #7 when you responded to a question about how “dark and edgy” the comics could be?

‘While the comics will sometimes have their ‘darker’ moments, we’re really more interested in telling fun stories. You can have fun with a little bit of an edge, but you can’t really be all grim-and-gritty and still be accessible to everyone.’

Huh.

So, “mature” story concepts are bad, considering that they’re too “grim and gritty” for the little kids. But, penis jokes are okay?

…

Well. Do you want to know what I think about that?

YOU CAN TAKE YOUR COMIC AND- [The following content was edited as per site requirements for G-Rated posting; not to mention being incredibly rude and vulgar] -THEN SHOVE THE REST OF IT UP YOUR NOSES!!

It is absolutely astounding to be in the presence of this kind of mind. Compelling stories and a bit of genuine darkness is too much to handle, but we are supposed to be fine with kindergarten level immaturity. What’s worse, this is supposed to be the villain, the character that, for nearly two decades has been the number one threat to Sonic and his friends in all media. It’s sad to the point of being a tragedy that this kind of thing could happen to a villain often celebrated for his evil genius and quality as a character that children could love to hate. It goes without saying that on this second page, the story climaxed for me. The rest of this story is nothing but a mopping up operation after a natural disaster smashed its way through the first two pages.

Snively, not surprisingly, is terrified of his psychotic uncle. Personally, I’m more confused as to how he undid one of the sleeves of his straightjacket. Is Eggman a reincarnation of Harry Houdini??

In order to coax his uncle back into the padded cell, Snively tries to reason with him. Because that works SO WELL in this comic, right? Monkey Khan, Shadow, Tikhaos, they responded to this kind of approach, right?

Well, no surprise that Eggman simply tosses Snively aside and raves about how he must ‘Destroy Hedgehog!’

‘How the blazes did he manage to get out?’

Oh, I don’t know, Snively, maybe because you were more focused on rubbing in his face how you had managed to score some hot arm-candy than going to Home Depot and getting a padlock and key. I mean, seriously, does NOBODY think to fix security systems on this planet? King Shadow easily navigates an outdated system in the future, and Snively doesn’t even bother to think of reprogramming the security parameters of his UNCLE’S CELL after immediately taking over. As a matter of fact, he makes the situation even more imbecilic with his next line:

‘Voice command: open channel to all forces! All Dark Legion and Yagyu Ninja report to the detention level immediately!’

“3PO shut down the garbage mashers on the detention level!”

“Oh…! Shut them ALL down; hurry!”

So; you’re saying that you don’t even have a guard stationed in the cell block where the most important prisoner is kept?

LAME!

Wait, what?! Snively bumps into the Iron King?! How far did he run?! What was the Iron King that close to the detention level anyway?! WHY CAN’T HE HELP SUBDUE EGGMAN?! He certainly can go toe-to-toe with Monkey Khan and Sonic, so he should be able to handle a deranged mad scientist!

Oh, but that’s too reasonable, so inexplicably, Eggman escapes the Egg Dome. Okay… HOW??!!

In no less than FOUR pages, Eggman has managed to escape his cell, make his way out of the detention level unopposed and got into a room where there is a GIANT TURTLE ROBOT and escaped the Egg Dome. This is one of the most implausible escapes I’ve ever seen, no lie. To prove that, let’s flip over to one of the greatest villains ever: Batman super-criminal, the Joker.

While the Joker has certainly been given some of the more bizarre escapes that’s ever been seen, many of them are acceptable, at least within certain bounds. One of my favorite escape scenarios comes from the recent video game Batman: Arkham Asylum. In the game’s opening, Joker is shown as being a very clear and present threat by the number of locked doors, armed guards and security cameras and metal detectors that you must pass by while escorting him into the maximum security areas of Arkham Asylum. He’s even strapped to a gurney for the entire time it takes to move him to the holding area and Batman, himself, is granted permission to escort him into the asylum. At a certain point, Batman is denied access to the area where Joker will be taken and Joker is removed from the gurney. However, when his hands are cuffed for the final leg of the trip, he waits until he’s past a security checkpoint to trip and fall to the floor, when the security guard attempts to drag him to his feet, Joker leaps up and rams the back of his head into the guard’s face stunning him with a sharp blow to the guard’s nose. Using his cuffs like a garrote cord, he chokes the guard into submission while the escorting doctor uses the keys to release Joker. It’s then that we find out that Joker has paid off a crooked guard to cuff his hands so that he COULD use the restraints as a weapon and also provided Harley Quinn with the security clearance necessary to block Batman’s path and open the way for Joker to escape further into the asylum to take control of it with the help of other prisoners and inmates.

HERE… Eggman just escapes and that’s really it. No establishing shots of him receiving assistance or even meeting any resistance whatsoever. But! We do get a song lyric reference when he says ‘I will destroy the blue one, you know! He’s the obstacle that always gets in my way!’ …Is THAT the “other” reference that “Pingas!” Flynn mentioned?

Next page, cut to boring heroes being boring. Naturally, Mopey Khan can’t help but angst up the place and a security alert is given by Nicole to Sonic about ‘something large inbound.’

“It’s the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.”

Thankfully, Khan will be remanded to hospital rest so we don’t have to look at his whiny face. Sonic goes to investigate and, big surprise, it’s Eggman who’s reliving his earlier days of trying to find and destroy Knothole as per the original premise of the comic. Spying out Sonic, he goes ballistic and starts lobbing missiles at him.

‘Here it comes, rodent! Right from the show!’

‘”From the show?”’

‘From the show! I’m going to be on TV! I’m going to be… …a TV star!’

‘Okay, we can rule out him being lucid.’

“Lucid?” Does Sonic even know what “lucid” means? And even if he does, is it something he’d say? I mean, where’s the one-liner about Eggman’s “crack-up” or even a reference to the “Humpty Dumpty” rhyme?

…Oh, and does THAT count as another reference to material outside the comic, namely Sonic X?

No time for that as we immediately cut back to the Egg Dome and the Iron Queen handing out orders left and right. The Yagyu Ninjas will be taking up the pursuit of Eggman in flying saucer vehicles, while the Dark Egg Legion will handle defense of their base of operations; reasonable enough. Oh, and Conquering Storm shows up for three panels to remind us that Espio the Chameleon didn’t get the Master Emerald, which means they’ll be trying for it again at some vague and unspecified time “later.” Which, again, proves the fight between Knuckles and Espio was near-pointless if not outright superfluous in the preceding issues. Oh, and Conquering Storm is the “new Snively,” in case her evil sneer, shadowy exit and snarky reply to the Iron Queen’s orders aren’t gigantic enough of a red flag for you. Seriously, you could see a future betrayal coming from this character from the moon and this is one of very rare scenes with her actually speaking in the comic since her introduction in #200.

So, the Iron Queen leaves her headquarters in the hands of Dimitri, who in turn hands over authority to Lien-Da, who in turns says she’ll ‘be in my bunk.’

Seriously, these are our villains now?? It’s like watching a dysfunctional family or, worse, a group of preppy high school kids…

“No-no-no-no! I said I wanted a BROWN pony for my Sweet Sixteen, not a BLACK one!”

“Ugh! Can you BELIEVE what Jennifer told me the other day? She said that Derrick was going out with Monique!”

“But, Dad! I don’t WANT to babysit! I’m going to my room!”

Sad.

Pathetic.

Next page.

‘Outside the Great Forest’ we find that Tails has to dodge the useless narration box in order to reach Sonic and Eggman. After a short exchange about Eggman being on the loose again, Sonic simply recommends that Tails should just fly up to the Doctor’s robot and switch it off since, in his blinded insanity, Eggman doesn’t even seem to notice Tails at all. But, it’s on the next page that things just go stupidly weird or weirdly stupid. Either way, it just doesn’t seem to work.

After Tails overrides the robot’s controls, it shuts down and Tails comments on how easy it would have been for Sonic to destroy the robot with any of his signature spin-dashes or homing attacks.

‘You’re not going easy on him, are you?’

‘I… guess I am.’

‘Why?!’

Tails’s question here makes total and complete sense. And, while I’ve seen MANY superheroes refuse to kill or destroy their arch-enemy on sound principles, Sonic’s responses here are entirely ridiculous. Even on a children’s level. Let’s just read on…

‘I really wish I knew. I mean, I’ve had no trouble wanting to kick his big ol’ butt in the past. Everything he’s done is unforgivable.’

‘But…?’

‘But this is different somehow. I didn’t just beat him last time, I broke him. And as stupid as it sounds, that makes me feel bad.’

‘…Please tell me I’m making some sense?’

‘None that I can follow. I don’t think he deserves any sympathy at all.’

Okay, Tails! Now you’ve got it figured out. Because, in the real world kids, even the police will take a mentally disturbed person down HARD when said mentally disturbed person is carrying a deadly weapon, let alone driving a war machine.

‘But…’

Oh no… “Pingas!” Flynn is going to preach at us.

‘…That doesn’t mean we have to be cruel in how we handle him. So I guess I can understand you feeling like you crossed a line.’

‘Yeah… Maybe that’s it. Thanks.’

Or, maybe you’re a twit with Alzheimer’s. I mean, you gladly fought to the death with the original Robotnik when he arranged to have Sally murdered and wiped out Knothole. Sure, she got better while the village got tossed into a time-warp, but whatever. Not to mention the things this Robotnik has done, many of which are on par with the original’s brand of evil. I mean, he staged a SECOND coup d’état to seize the city BACK from the newly reinstated Acorn monarchy, complete with further roboticizations and terror tactics. Eggman having a nervous breakdown would certainly be a great loophole for an insanity defense, but that doesn’t remove the fact that he’s a threat to himself and others.

‘So the civil thing to do now is arrest him. Leaving him locked up with the Iron Goons would be cruel.’

Oh. You mean the thing you SHOULD have done in #200?? IDIOT!! I can understand mercy and compassion for evil people. Really, I can. It’s what makes good people and the heroes shine all the more brightly in our eyes. After all, even Superman didn’t vaporize Lex Luthor with his laser-vision when he made a bid to conquer the universe and forced the Flash to seemingly sacrifice himself in an episode of Justice League Unlimited. I can see that and I can respect that, especially since Super was on the VERGE of doing just that thing and Batman kept everyone else from interfering, because he knew this was a moral position and decision that the Man of Steel would have to make for himself. Choosing not to be Luthor’s judge, jury and executioner, Superman showed just how super he was and left it to others to decide Luthor’s fate.

HERE, we went five issues after Sonic defeated Eggman and had every right to arrest him. Worse, this was done in the presence of Sally Acorn, the head of the Freedom Fighters and a liaison between the team and the Acorn Council, the governing body of New Mobotropolis. While Sonic may have had a weak-kneed moment, either he or she should have remembered their DUTIES and arrested the ball of lard and dragged him to a Mobian court, even if he were to be sentenced to an insane asylum. The absolutely stupidest thing about all of it, though, was that they were talked into letting Eggman go by SNIVELY, who simply blew smoke about Eggman’s mental state. In short, we’ve basically gone several days (barely a week??) in-comic and several MONTHS in real-time to do something that should have been done the instant that Eggman was defeated, or “broken.” The only reason that this was done was to drag out Eggman’s arrest and put off an important plot-point for several issues. It’s just as bad as with Sonic’s kids coming to the rescue in part four of “Mobius: 30 Years Later.” No drama, no surprise and no real purpose except lazy writing.

So, yeah, let’s watch Sonic calmly drag Eggman off to ANOTHER padded cell.

‘SOK!’

Dude! Eggman just punched Sonic in the FACE! FINALLY, someone around here gave the little snot the kind of treatment he needed! If this whole comic had just been THAT image, I would have taken back everything I’ve said up until now.

…Let’s read that again!

‘SOK!’

Woo!

But, sadly, Eggman slips into delirium and passes out. …Lucky.

So, the last two pages are of Sonic and Tails trying to lift Eggman up and out of his robot, so as to take him back to New Mobotropolis.

OR IS IT…?!

Gasp! It looks as though the Iron Dominion won’t let Eggman go so easily! The Iron Queen, the Iron King, the Yagyu and… the Dark Legion?? …and Snively… are there to take him back!

Wait! I thought the Dark Legion was responsible for home defense back at the Egg Dome. And how did they get there so quickly on FOOT? As a matter of fact, the only people that should be there that quick are the Iron Queen, Snively and the Yagyu because they’re using those stupid flying saucers and the hover-pods. New Mobotropolis and New Megaopolis aren’t that close together! You NEED vehicle transport to move at any decent rate of speed and I don’t see how the Iron King and the Legion could get there that fast.

But, because the story is “to be continued,” we instead pop over to the next story.

“Birthright, Part One”
Writer: Ian Flynn
Penciler: Jamal Peppers
Colorist: Matt Herms
©Archie Publications
©Sega of America

We open this little back-up tale to Lien-Da lying in her bunk like the brooding teenage drama-queen she acted like in the main story. Her gripe is that she should be Grand-Master of the Dark Egg Legion instead of the perpetual lackey she has been for so long.

So, hey, perfect chance for a flashback!

‘The Twilight Zone, aka the Twilight Cage, many years ago.’

Well, at least THAT helps for once. Narration around here is outright pointless most of the time. But, what is galling is the fact that, thanks to Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood, the Sega Corporation now has some things borrowed from the Archie comic books history. The Nocturnus are stand-ins for the Dark Legion, Shade is a stand-in for Julie-Su, Imperator Ix is a stand-in for a collage of characters, ranging from Dimitri himself to Dr. Finitevus, and their back-stories are all carbon-copies of the Archie originals.

By the way, if you ever say that the stories told in Archie are terrible, but the story told in Sonic Chronicles is really good, guess what. You’re an A-Number-One idiot at the very least and a colossal hypocrite at the worst. If you enjoyed Sonic Chronicles, as a long-time “purist” fan of Sonic the Hedgehog, then you’re automatically saying that the Archie comics are sound story-telling in principle, if not in actual fact. And, frankly, I’ll admit, in actual fact, this comic series currently stinks and has done so for a despairingly long time.

One final thing to note is that by incorporating the usage of Sonic Chronicles material this is a pitiful surrender of what few precious slivers of dignity the comic has, since it is letting game developers take away the unique qualities of the comic, change them, and then force-feed them back into the comic. It is as if it were the developers who created these things and not writers and artists who have worked for years on this separate but equal mythos. This is rather sad, considering that they have had to meet the demands of monthly release dates, whereas games only come out every so many months, if not YEARS.

Anyway, let’s return to the flashback. As it plays out, Lien-Da’s brother, Kragok, has formulated a plan to eliminate the then Grand-Master of the Dark Legion, their own father, Luger. Kragok proposes that, while Lien-Da will act as the gunman in their scheme, he will be the political face that convinces the Legion leadership to accept his and her as rightful joint-Grand-Masters of the Legion. The plan goes exactly as laid out by Kragok. Unfortunately for Lien-Da, he “forgot” to explain the part of his plan that winds up hospitalizing her and leaving Kragok to become the sole Grand-Master of the Legion. She reflects darkly upon this turn of events, realizing her brother had meant to get her killed as well. Her survival was a fluke, but no danger to his ambitions. The scene changes from her in furious tears and bandaged in her hospital bed to her, in the present, sulking in her bunk in the Legion’s barracks inside the Egg Dome.

She is brought out of her reminiscing and brooding anger by Dimitri calling her to come to his laboratory elsewhere in the Egg Dome. The story ends there and we’re left with a “to be continued” box.

…

This just plain ticks me off. Aside from, as I pointed out, the usage of carbon-copy terms and ideas re-invented by BioWare for Sega, this story, while very good, again demonstrates that Ian Flynn, and quite possibly the editors, just doesn’t have the gumption to tell stories on this level on a regular basis. YES, this is a good story. Why? Because! There is actual character development, genuine plot laid out, and mature implications put before us. That is why!

Sadly, again, notice that it is a BACK-UP story that gets this kind of attention and, again, it has something to do with the Knuckles the Echidna cast of characters. This isn’t quality story-telling, it’s basically ignoring the title-star and the development of his crew and putting all the focus on someone who, if they ARE going to get this kind of attention, then they SHOULD have their own separate comic series. You know, like back in the day when Ken Penders was on board and, mostly, doing a good job with the Knuckles the Echidna series. Should I be expecting another attempt to kill Sally?? So help me, I’ll lose it if this all culminates in a “Robotnik Mach III.”

And you know what stings the worst?? Again, remember the editorial response from Sonic Universe #7: ‘While the comics will sometimes have their ‘darker’ moments, we’re really more interested in telling fun stories. You can have fun with a little bit of an edge, but you can’t really be all grim-and-gritty and still be accessible to everyone.’

Sorry guys, but you can’t put a family-friendly smile on patricide and attempted sororicide. You either play Barney the Dinosaur or Godzilla, not both at the same time. Although, in the proper hands, that would be AWESOME.

Lastly, there’s Off-Panel and Sonic Grams. Let me save you the trouble: “Pingas!” Flynn writes out a bad El Gran Gordo joke.

As for Sonic Grams, well, relax and remember: my comments will be in red.

Dear Sonic Grams,

In STH #195 when Silver said that one of the Freedom Fighters turns on the team, did he mean Espio? Because in STH #201 it looked like he was turning on the team.

Nathan S. North Carolina

Good guess, Nathan! But Silver said “Freedom Fighter,” and Espio is with the Chaotix. The mystery continues!

“I mean, yeah! We want to really disappoint you with our true reveal.” Okay, seriously, this actually was a decent letter and response, so let’s let them off the hook. …For now.

Dear Sonic Grams,

The name is Damian L. and I am a HUGE Sonic fan. (Not to mention a little egotistical. But, when you’re name is Damian, it’s kind of expected. Wait a minute! Damian is the name of the kid in The Omen! THAT must be how “Pingas!” Flynn is still selling this book! He made a deal with the Anti-Christ! RUN!!) I have a lot of his comic books, video games, and his T.V. shows. (“As well as his immortal soul and all of those of the current staff as well; ha-ha-ha-ha!!”) I would like to say Sonic is way past cool, and I would like to thank you for your continuing the Sonic the Hedgehog comic books.

From your biggest fan,
Damian L.
Texas

Oh well, at least all of this explains why I feel parts of my soul die while reading “pingas!” jokes.

We’re glad you’re such a Sonic-nut (EW!) and enjoying the series! Be sure to keep writing in and letting us know what you think.

“Also, please leave the souls of our loved ones alone.”

Dear Sonic Grams,

I saw Steven Butler was doing issues #202-205. Does that mean Tracy Yardley was fired from Sonic the Hedgehog? (I WISH, along with “Pingas!” Flynn.)

Not to worry! Tracey Yardley is still with us and hard at work with Sonic Universe! You’ll also be seeing his art return to the regular Sonic book later this year.

You idiot! You told me NOT to worry and now you’ve told me everything that MAKES me worry.

Also, could Enerjak come back, please?

Ben W.
Ohio

Heh-heh… Wow. Because it is oh-so obvious you care THAT much about him.

No immediate plans for his return (YAY!), but it’s hard to keep a good bad-guy down.

Liar! You’ve nearly crushed every one of and everything interesting about ANY of the villains out of existence! Just go ask Ixis Naugus, when he’s not mindlessly listening to one of Mammoth Mogul’s one-sided conversations.

Hey Sonic Grams!

OW!! Don’t shout!

It’s me! Arion R.! (“You know, from college! I was your roommate!”) I have a few questions for ya!

My question for you is if you know that there is such a thing as “period” that ends a sentence, so that you sound like you’re talking, not shouting?

1) Do you think you could reprint issues STH #50, 80-83, 100 and #125 and put ‘em up on the Sonic Checklist?

Why?? Are those the missing issues of your collection?

We offer all that we can on the Sonic Checklist, so check each issue to see if it’s been updated. If you can’t wait, check with your local comic shop – they might have them.

Try the bathroom. Every bathroom has to have toilet paper!

2) Do ya think you could put Sonic the Werehog in a couple of issues?

He did show up in our (pointlessly) quick (& dirty) tie-in to Sonic Unleashed in STH #193!

3) Will Fiona join the good side again?

Maybe not; she seems to be having too much fun being bad! But you never know with that tricky vixen…

Dude, shut up; she’s not Joker’s Daughter. Otherwise, I’d be far more entertained. Also? “Tricky vixen…”? EW!

4) Will Sonic and Sally be together again?

It’s looking like Sally might be falling for someone else. (Oh, dude, seriously… No way… I never would have seen it coming (see my other reviews if you’re not catching the sarcasm)) Write in and give us your thoughts!

No. You don’t want to know MY thoughts.

5) Finally, are Sonic comics world-wide, or just in America?

Well, I’m out of room so….see ya!
Arion R.
Maryland

Archie’s Sonic related titles are only shipped to North America. However, enterprising and devoted fans from all over the world have found ways to import them!

“It’s called ‘smuggling’!”

So, there you have it, that’s Sonic the Hedgehog #205. It opens on a penis joke and ends on dark note. Frankly, I hate it, hate it, and in case you couldn’t tell: HATE IT. And can only WISH that I could give it worse than a 1 out of 5, because this kind of trash deserves to be hurt back. Despite the fact that it has a decent back-up story, I’ve already explained that that does not redeem or erase the terrible, terrible story. I openly cringe at what we can expect to see in Sonic the Hedgehog #206.

Hi there folks!

…Yeah, I’m sorry, I kind of missed the whole “next week” deadline, well, two weeks ago; again, sorry. BUT! I have a good excuse. You see, recently, I stabbed myself in the hand. That was the end result of a failed bid to slit my wrists after reading the October issues of Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic Universe.

Now, I know what you’re thinking, “Why would Bernard be talking about Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic Universe?” Well… The reason is I total FAILED on getting Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games played through on time. Yes, it’s deceptively long it turns out and when I stabbed myself, I didn’t really bounce back into game-playing ability once again. It’s still unfinished, BUT, I’ve left you people hanging in the air too long. SO! Let’s get down to the very bane of my existence: Sonic Universe #8.

(Also, don’t worry about the hand injury. It was actually a workplace injury.)

GeeKY News Presents: Sonic Universe #8
“Mobius: 30 Years Later – The Freedom Fighters of the Future”
Writer: Ian Flynn
Pencils: Tracy Yardley
Colors: Jason Jensen
©Archie Publications
©Sega of America

FINALLY, we start one of these insipid installments off with a decent cover. But, by this point, you could have Sonic picking his nose and you’d have more action than the last three covers combined. All of the previous covers had nothing but poses and portraits, ALL of them. This time, however, you have Sonic and the “Freedom Fighters In Name Only” leaping into action. And that’s it, really. I mean, there’s nothing else going on and it’s frankly forgettable. The only other thing I can note is the terrible coloring. I mean, seriously, while I don’t find Jacques D’Coolette particularly interesting, I do find it rather sad that the matching colors of the background and his fur make him almost invisible. I wish this BOOK was invisible. Also, while Argyle the Crocodile is a team member, his placement on the cover in an action-oriented picture is just… unnecessary. He’s “Mission Control,” not a field agent. Nowadays, that’s what Rotor does in the main book series, and you don’t even see him on covers anymore.

Peeling open the book, with great reluctance, we find ourselves looking at ‘Thirty years into the future… the remains of Castle Mobius, Angel Island,’ as opposed to “Right now… the remains of Archie’s credibility.” As you may remember from last issue, Shadow moped about being frozen in time for five years and forced to wear a cape and crown that neither AC/DC or KISS would be caught dead with. So, what does he do? Unleash an abomination against God and Nature to wipe out the planet with torrential floods, of course! Why not?! Huh. Where’s Noah’s Ark when you need it? So, yes, Perfect Tikhaos, the ‘spirit and god combined,’ goes on a rampage Old Testament style.

To stop them are – and I kid you not, folks, the next page literally has their names and descriptions in caption boxes – ‘Belle D’Coolette – The New Rabbot,’ ‘Jacques D’Coolette – Cyborg Swordsman,’ Lara-Su – Guardian of Angel Island,’ ‘Sonic the Hedgehog – King of Mobius,’ ‘Melody Prower – Speedy Songstress,’ and, last but certainly not the LEAST failure in the group, ‘Skye Prower – Skittish Would-Be Hero.’ Huh, and I figured it would have said, “Skye Prower – Already Wet Himself with Fear.” Seriously the little goofball is standing there, hiding behind his tails. His father, you know ­TAILS, was never this bad.

Hey, wait a minute… Jacques’s shirt… Last issue it was dark blue with a red trim, similar to his father’s army jacket. Now it’s all-pale blue? Oh my god! The colorist forgot what color his clothes were between issues! HOW DO YOU DO THAT?! So, yeah, pointless and repetitive caption boxes and forgotten color schemes. We’re set up for a hum-dinger of a conclusion to this “EPIC” storyline, aren’t we? Seriously, turn back NOW, while you still have a chance!

Forging ahead, Sonic reasonably asks, ‘Anybody got any idea what that thing is and why it’s wrecking my castle?’ Ooh, swing and a miss. Rather than sound annoyed and prepared to counter-attack, Sonic sounds whiny and clueless. I mean, one look at it and he can’t figure out at least what it MIGHT be, Sonic?

Jumping in on that vapid stupidity, Lara-Su says, ‘It’s Tikhaos… The poor dear…’

Ah, yeah. “The poor dear” just took out 53^rd Street and is working its way over to 4^th & Main. And you better get used to that incredibly stupid sympathetic opinion since Lara-Su’s going to hold that flight pattern until she augers our attention right into Mobius’ mantle.

Now, despite the fact that Sonic, you know, FOUGHT Perfect Chaos from Sonic Adventure 1, he momentarily forgets what it looked like. Because, of course, you’d forget the giant water dragon that nearly wiped out all civilization after about 30 years, right? Oops! Nope. Seems he remembers when he hears “Tikhaos.”

‘”Tikhaos?” As in “Tikal-Plus-Chaos”?’

‘Exactly.’

HA-HA-HA!! Oh my god! Did you see it, did you see it?! Yes! Lara-Su adjusts her glasses just like those lame scientists you see in a lot of sci-fi movies! Oh man! That’s a real knee-slapper. I can’t wait for her to say, “It appears that Godzilla is approaching the city!”

Sadly, they weren’t going for parody, folks. They’re being dead serious. With a heavy sigh, let’s DARE to continue.

‘You do not recall the Ixis Resurgence or the Elemental War?’

Do WHAT?? Jacque, what-what are you talking about??

‘No. I kind of wrote myself out of the timeline when I went back to fix it. Sue me.’

SIGH.

We’re going that route, aren’t we?

Oh-Kay! How many things are WRONG here?

First, while time-travel is entirely fictional and none of us may ever live to see it in action, it’s often standard in fiction that changes made in the past are such that we have all of the pertinent information made available to us in the audience; and in many cases to the protagonists as well. For instance, let’s look at the sci-fi/comedy film series Back to the Future, we all love that misadventure in time-travel, and it’s rather brilliantly done. Remember in the first film when Marty McFly returned to 1985, to find that he had altered the past so that his crappy, meager existence had been rewritten into a pretty decent, financially improved life? Yeah, he was shocked by the changes because, as Doc Brown so eloquently explained it in the sequel, he now existed in a “tangent” timeline that only he was aware of since he had been the cause of those changes. While thinking “fourth-dimensionally” can be rather difficult, as Marty quickly learned, it’s at least understandable and has some logic to it.

Now, Sonic has, also, altered his time-stream and it’s understandable that certain events would be different and he wouldn’t have witnessed them all. However, for him to be completely unaware of THESE things is just plain stupid. Even if he disappeared from the time-stream only to re-appear five years before the events depicted in this story-arc, you’d think that in FIVE YEARS he’d bother to get caught up on the NEW History he had inadvertently created through his tampering in the time-stream. Sure, “book-reading” is something “lame” that Sonic wouldn’t normally do. But, WHO WOULD BE DUMB ENOUGH NOT TO TRY TO FIGURE OUT WHAT HAD HAPPENED IN THE NEW TIME-STREAM??!! For crying out loud! Go to a library and check out a HISTORY BOOK! It is common knowledge stuff to the people around you and you wouldn’t be raising any eyebrows by doing some recreational reading!!

Second, while re-writing History is entirely hypothetical, major events usually play out the same, regardless of what else you might do. It’s called “destiny” for a reason, you know. Let’s look at another example of that: DC Comics’ classic Crisis on Infinite Earths. While the events of Infinite Earths led to the destruction of the entire multi-verse of the DC Comics Silver Age, it did not alter that many of the major historical events of the DC Universe that have and always will define it. Kal-El of Krypton still lands on Earth to become Superman, the death of his parents leads Bruce Wayne to become Batman, and the planet’s history unfolds as we always understood it as taking place; i.e. the discovery of America, World War II, the Roman Empire, the Middle Ages, et al. Sure, a few individual events and people are altered, but something like an “Elemental War” doesn’t just HAPPEN out of nowhere!

Third, if you DO have major historical events happen in the new time-stream… WHY AREN’T YOU WRITING STORIES ABOUT THEM?! While Ixis Naugus was never one of my favorite villains – mostly because he makes a bid to replace Robotnik both in the old Saturday morning Sonic the Hedgehog cartoon and in the main Archie Publications series of the same name – he is still far more interesting than Tikhaos could ever hope to be. I mean seriously, compare the schemes: Naugus once used his magic to possess the mind and body of King Max and institute an anti-robot campaign against all of the Mobians that had been roboticized during Robotnik’s reign and use political intrigue to cement his hold over the Mobian government; Shadow has just popped open Sealed Evil in a Can™ and splattered it all over the floor just because of a hissy-fit. None of this is dramatic, it’s Grade-A, FDA approved STUPID.

I’m not going to bother copying Lara-Su’s exposition on how Tikal “had” to fuse with Chaos to… Well, boring twit that she is, she doesn’t even explain WHY a fusion of Chaos and Tikal would have helped to do ANYTHING, since all it did was create ‘a very unstable being.’ Seriously! What GOOD did this do? None?! Then why did she “HAVE” to do this?! What’s even more incredulous is the fact that Lara says, ‘We had her sealed away for everyone’s protection.’ What, no attempt to separate them? Huh? Just “lock her/it” up and forget about it/them? Wow. You guys never learned much from your ancestors Pachacamac or Tikal, herself, did you? It’s like idiocy is genetic in you people.

Pachacamac: Hey, let’s challenge the water-god Chaos for control over the Chaos and Master Emeralds!

Knuckles: There’s Sonic, HE’s responsible for everything wrong with my life, usually emerald related!

Lara-Su: … (Pretty much everything she says and DOES.)

Really, I don’t understand WHY she had to be locked away, to begin with. Sure, she’s “unstable” when you GIVE HER TOO MUCH CHAOS ENERGY, but as we saw last issue, it’s not exactly something she has lying around in vast abundances of it, nor does she want that much, just enough to “sustain” her – I guess. She’s mostly peaceful and, if I’m not mistaken, Chaos was rendered happy and peaceful once Super Sonic laid the smack-down on him and Tikal had a few minutes to actually TALK to him. The only reason she’s a threat is because you’re SAYING she’s a threat, and I don’t really consider anything you have to say as very trustworthy, to begin with! None of this back-story makes any sense and, frankly, if you had trusted her and kept her source of chaos energy regulated, she might have been able to resist Shadow’s overdose in the last issue!

But, faster than you can say “spur of the moment climactic boss fight,” we cut away to Shadow. Yeah, remember him? I wish I couldn’t.

I’m going to spare you the following page that is loaded with mindless, pointless angst where, ONCE AGAIN, Shadow attributes all of this insipid cruelty to his memories of Maria Robotnik. Seriously?! SERIOUSLY?! No, no, you’ve beaten that horse to death and then you beat the carcass into dog food and therefore lost ALL rights to use that as an excuse: I’m talking to BOTH of you, Shadow, you AND the production staff. At NO point in any of this would Maria approve whatsoever, regardless of how well-intentioned your extremism may in fact be. That was the whole point of the dramatic revelation at the end of Sonic Adventure 2. Sure, it was melodramatic and was so ham-filled as to put a roast pig to shame, but at least it was consistent. Compare that to this kind of wanton cruelty and mayhem and what can you say? This is completely out of nowhere and never properly explained, demonstrated, or even entirely thought out. It just HAPPENS. Thankfully, Shadow leaves after this tirade.

I mean that, too: he’s just GONE. We don’t see him leave, we don’t see him even teleport, we just turn the page and he’s gone. He must have wisely snuck out of the comic while we’re forced to read an advertisement for Sonic the Hedgehog Archives Volume 11 and the Archie-Digital website. I mean, wouldn’t you if you’d been reduced to a stock villain who simply hurts people just because nobody wants to listens to you monologue about blond chicks that have been dead for nearly a hundred years? Also, again, while wearing that stupid cape-shoulder guard ensemble with an ugly tiara; and on a side-note, where did that bubble he was standing in come from? Was there a bubble icon-box from Sonic the Hedgehog 3 in the basement or has he been watching too much Sailor Moon? Given his costume, I’d say the latter.

So, back with the Freedom Failures, it’s decided that, considering the fact a monster is loose and the royal family is still in what’s left of the castle, Sonic opts to rescue said family, while he puts Lara-Su in charge of the team and the mission to stop Tikhaos.

‘M-me? You want me running the show?’

‘There’s nobody better Guardian.’

“…Seriously, there is NOBODY better to choose. I mean, I’ve got two horn-dog teenagers that can’t keep their hands off anything with a heartbeat, a pop-diva’s bratty daughter and her bed-wetting failure-son and a crocodile whose only attack capability would be to change the monster’s phone plan from Verizon to AT&T.”

With the leadership of the team in her hands, Lara comes up with a strategy that would make Napoleon jealous: ‘Jacque, Belle, I want you on frontal assault. Keep her from moving forward.’

Seriously?! You want them to launch a full-frontal assault against a water-dragon? Nice. They’re not your kids, after all. And, of course, they agree to this plan. Well, at least we know how they got their robotic limbs: they agree to attack otherworldly monsters head-on. Or, in laymen’s terms: they’re morons.

But, wait until you hear her next tactic, it would blow Alexander the Great’s mind: ‘Melody – Skye? Can I ask you guys to run interference?’

…

Wait, wait, wait…!

So, your master strategy for victory is that you’re trying to distract a monster from attacking the city, while using kids to distract the monster from the distraction?

…

AND WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO, GENERAL??!!

‘Freedom Fighters – Go!’

Ugh! Never mind!

Oh, and by the way, you are NOT Robin from the Teen Titans animated series. And, while I’m on the subject, Argyle, you’re NOT Oracle from the Birds of Prey comic book series. Seriously, Barbara Gordon does ten times more than you do and she’s in a wheelchair!

It’s at this point, we cut over to Sonic, because we don’t have ENOUGH going on, you know. As he said, Sonic’s coming to rescue his family: his friend since childhood and wife of five years and their two darling children. Oh, and Silver the Hedgehog is there, too. What dangers has Tikhaos unleashed upon them? Actually, there are none that I can see. Well, then surely they’re in danger of being crushed by falling debris, that’s the whole reason that Sonic came back for them, right? Uh, no, the ceiling is still mostly there, the floor is in perfect condition and they’re only missing a wall, through which Sonic enters. Good grief! Did anybody even stub their toe??

So, a short-lived reunion takes place and Silver comments, ‘I told you this would happen.’

Huh? What?? Hold that thought…

You mean what you said in Sonic Universe #6? Well, I hate to tell you, but… NO!! You said something vague about a “disaster” and that was it!

‘Pockets of civilization struggling against a global sea that seems to have a grudge…’

You tell us this NOW?? Twelve-ounce brain! You spent the better part of the evening talking vaguely about a great disaster of some sort or other and sum it all up in a single sentence that you just NOW tell us about??!! No wonder you’re constantly coming back to the past to PREVENT disasters, you obviously can’t stop them in the future! Although, it’s not that these people would have been much help, anyway, considering the fact that they FORGOT about King Shadow and Tikhaos being in their freaking root-cellar!

So, Sonic scoops up and carries Sally while Manik & Sonia use their inherited super-speed to exit the castle. Oh, and Silver levitates himself down.

‘Eee-hee-hee—EEEEEK!’

Whoa! Where did the Iron Queen come from?! Don’t tell me SHE’s in this mess!

Wait a minute…

OH… MY… GOD…

It’s Sally! You know, the woman who led a rebellion for years and – in this insane time-line – was married to a harsh dictator and did what she could to keep both her hopes and the hopes of her people up in the darkest of times shrieks like a schoolgirl when jumping out of a water-logged castle. Thanks guys, you’ve basically proven that she gets even lamer in the future.

We then get a page worth’s of “updates” from Argyle, telling us that the Echidna Security Team has begun evacuations of the city, and even the Island itself. He even says that the ‘damage has been pretty minimal so far – no injuries.’

…

HOW??!!

How is that even possible?? I mean LOOK at that panel! People are running for their lives and they are only a few feet away from the tidal wave heading for them! How are there not even a few people with swimmer’s ear?! I mean, even Sonic X was ballsy enough to show Sam Speed get caught in the original Perfect Chaos’s tidal wave and being rescued by civilians as he floated helplessly by the building they were in. Oh, but wait, he has an explanation for that: ‘That’s thanks to the Freedom Fighters. They’ve managed to stop her advance, but they’re doing all they can to not get killed out there.’ Again, I cite Sonic X that showed that Perfect Chaos was faced with the United Federation’s Air Force and Army and knocked them to the side, no problem; not to mention shooting down the Egg Carrier II. The only thing that FINALLY halted his destruction against the city was SUPER SONIC. Now, while it’s true that Perfect Tikhaos is SOMEHOW not as strong as Perfect Chaos, I’m not seeing how a handful of INEXPERIENCED would-be superheroes are doing better than an entire nation’s well-trained and well-equipped military.

‘Get this – the Dark Presence contacted me.’

“Yeah, they sent me a really rude text message and spammed me with a 1,000 offers to mortgage my house.”

‘They’ve renounced King Shadow…’

I CAN’T imagine WHY!

‘…And they’re helping with the evacuation efforts. They’ve also said they’ve freed Mister and Missus Prower, so our guys will have some back-up soon.’

What back-up?! One got gassed at the door and the other got herself captured with next to no resistance!

As for the losers in the field, Jacque gets rescued by Melody during the fight, thus repaying him for the same favor last issue. And, of course, he can’t say “thank you” without implications of being VERY interested in Melody. I don’t know whether to be disgusted because he might be older than her and thus a pedophile or offended by the overly frisky nature of these under-age kids.

Oh, and Skye can’t be left unsupervised for more than two seconds, so Belle has to rescue him as well.

As for their fearless leader, her final and most damaging strategy comes into play when she… tries to reason with Perfect Tikhaos. Oh, great… Okay, everybody! Take a guess as to what happens and then write it down on paper.

The answer is: She gets swatted like a fly.

So, if you wrote, “She tries to use her Chaos Control powers to siphon off some of the chaos energy that Shadow fed her back in issue #7, thus saving the world,” you’re obviously too smart to be reading this book. I mean, seriously, THAT is how DC’s superheroes were able to FINALLY defeat the villainous Anti-Monitor in Crisis on Infinite Earths, with the help of the heroic female Dr. Light who drained away the Anti-Monitor’s power so the other heroes could have a fighting chance. But, let’s move on.

Miles, sadly, saves Lara from being turned into a street-pancake and they go back to beating on “the poor dear.” To their credit, though, it’s better than what the Freedom Fighters of the past did against Monkey “He’s not evil!” Khan.

Speaking of the old farts, Mina arrives on the scene to pull her kids to safety. What follows is, frankly, something I had to say LAST issue, when this whole “Freedom Fighters of the Future” thing got going. Of course I’m referring to how the other kids’ parents would NOT be happy with their children being up to their armpits in battle and going along with Sonic’s hair-brain heroism. But, once dear old “Ma” gets everything understood, she’s more than glad to let them run RIGHT back into harm’s way with her.

“Remember kids! Never fight ancient evils without the proper adult supervision! After all, the family that battles together stays together.”

Oh, but what’s this! Jacque is about to get smashed into so much fuzzy quiche! Thank goodness, that’s ONE less annoying fan-character to deal with!

No, wait… Silver comes in and saves him from getting squashed. Seriously, can’t anyone be in danger of drowning or something? All this monster does is HIT stuff, that’s it. At least Perfect Chaos could, in case you forgot, summon tidal waves, water-spouts, shoot lasers and other such attacks. But, that’s a higher quality story, so we won’t see that here.

‘No one dies today. I’ll save my time… I’ll save the past… I will save everyone!’

Haw-haw! Wow. That’s worse than his actual dialogue from Sonic the Hedgehog for the Xbox 360. How uninspired and recycled. Tell me, did you get that from Terminator or Dragonball Z? And, if you’re concerned about saving time, don’t worry, Daylight Savings Time kicked in, so at least THAT is an hour given back to you. So, calm down, jeez.

Anyway, it doesn’t take the “heroes” long to realize that they’re NOT doing a very good job. You think?! That’s a shame really, because I could tell them that at the beginning of this book. So, they decide to repeat the ending of Sonic Adventure 1 and have Sonic ‘hit it in the brain like before.’ Yes, I’m quoting the book. Yes, it was Sonic’s KIDS who came up with the plan. Yes, this is flat-out retarded.

So, realizing he just needs to replay the final boss on an easier setting, Sonic rallies the team and dashes up Perfect Tikhaos’ back, going full-tilt, summoning the will power that has served him so well all these years, aided by the very kith and kin of friends who’ve seen him through the worst of times… HERE IT COMES!!

…

And he gets blasted by eye-beams. Well, at least Perfect Tikhaos DOES have lasers.

Sonic then wonders who is running past him, as he recovers from the blast.

Frankly, he should wonder why he isn’t hedgehog-vapor, but you couldn’t force logic into this wad of ink and paper if you had a logic-rifle with stupidity-piercing bullets.

Suddenly, none other than Manik and Sonia crash through Perfect Tikhaos’ brain, neutralizing the monster.

Seriously. That’s how the fight ends. That’s the climax.

The resolution is then some load of horse manure about Lara THEN deciding to siphon off the excess chaos energy to restore Tikhaos to something resembling normal. Sonic congratulates the team, Silver returns to the future, and the torch gets passed to the Future Freedom Fighters, while Lara reminds Argyle through the communicator that ‘you’re with us in spirit.’

“Sorry, though, about the fact that the writer or the editors, don't know how to spell your name, since it was Argyll, with two L’s last issue and now it’s suddenly Argyle with an E. That’s what you get for being a geek that stays on the computer all the time.”

…

AHEM!

So, that’s all four issues of “Mobius 30 Years Later.” With that being said…

DO YOU REALIZE HOW INSANELY IDIOTIC THIS ENTIRE STORY-ARC WAS???!!!

My god! The entire plot was the Dark Presence attacking the royal family, the Dark Presence releasing Shadow, Shadow releasing Tikhaos, and the Imitation Freedom Fighters taking it down. It’s the worst possible combination of fan-characters, Mobius 25-30 Years Later, and Sonic Adventure 1 & 2! And, in case you missed it, everything I said in this review was pretty much summed up in my LAST Sonic Universe review!

The New Freedom Fighters suck…

The plot is inconsequential and does nothing to engage the reader…

And, as per MY estimations, Manik and Sonia had the potential to save the day. They even SAY IT for crying out loud as they defeat Tikhaos! The fact that they FINALLY do so is not a dramatic plot point. It’s just dragging out the story unnecessarily and this raving lunacy could have been ended in three issues rather than going into four.

None of the characters are endearing, especially the older ones we’ve seen in action for years, let alone their poorly-written children, the art is passable at best, and because it’s a future story set in a timeline that’s different from the one we know it does nothing to forward any plot, build drama or move us to even CARE about Sonic Universe or the main Sonic the Hedgehog series. And, because it commits the grievous error of intentionally stretching the plot out for four books, when it could have ended in three, the entirety of Sonic Universe #8 is a waste of ink, time and paper. NOTHING that happens here deserves to be written or illustrated. It is, in a sense, a black hole for creative talent that does nothing but undoes what meager entertainment the other three books attempted to provide with the most anti-climactic ending imaginable.

But, guess what! We’re not through, yet!

Despite the fact that the main story is over, and despite the fact that there aren’t even any “To Be Continued” or “The End” credits anywhere, the story suddenly has an “Epilogue.” It is one page and one page only, and you’d BETTER assume that it’s the “present” timeline seen in the main Sonic the Hedgehog series; otherwise, you’d be confused as to why you’re seeing Dr. Finitevus appear in “Downunda,” at the “Crater Rim” from which Angel Island sprang from way back in the Tails mini-series and the back-up stories featuring Knuckles and the History of what was then called “The Floating Island.” And, he talks with somebody and that’s it. They just talk about seeing Angel Island coming over Downunda and how they have a plan that involves said floating landmass and Knuckles the Echidna. And as for whom Finitevus is talking to, we clearly see it is a platypus character. If it isn’t one of the Downunda Freedom Fighters turned rogue, then it’s ANOTHER new character! What does this page serve? Nothing, other than telling us Dr. Finitevus is involved and to come back for Sonic Universe #9. So, yes, it’s nothing but a FREAKING ADVERTISEMENT! THAT’S IT!!

Next is Off-Panel, with two lame jokes. Tikal and Chaos may have merged when Tikal tried to do a cannonball into a pool, only to hit Chaos… Ha-ha… And Silver and Sonic’s plans for an adventure are interrupted by Knuckles who demands that he FINALLY get some screen time in Sonic Universe. Oh, what wit. Seriously… what wit are these guys using to write these? None, they’re not using any wit? I thought so.

Finally, we’re at the Letters to the Editor page, thank God! I’m ready to coast on out of this comic and go find an aspirin for the headache this dangerous amount of insipid story-telling is giving me. As before, all of my comments are in red.

Dear Sonic Universe,

I’m a big fan of your comics. My favorite character is Shadow. He rocks!!! I was wondering, in Sonic Universe #5, why is Shadow such a harsh ruler? I know he’s a little cruel, but I thought he was supposed to protect the world from evil, not act evil.

Wow! A genuinely good question and I am GLAD someone else saw through how stupid his portrayal in this “alternate timeline” really is! Yeah, guys, what have you got to say about that?!

Hopefully this answered your question already! In this time-line, King Shadow got fed up being a nice guy and tried to force peace on the world.

Answered the question?! You dullard, it didn’t do anything! Oh, and as for the cop out explanation, you might as well NOT have explained it! At least then, you would have had the benefit of the doubt and went with vague mystery rather than bald-faced incompetence!! I mean, come on!! Like this kid said, he’s supposed to be “a little cruel,” and you call him a “nice guy?!” This fan has TONS more common sense than you do!!

And since when does Shadow like Sally? He doesn’t, and the feeling was mutual!

Kid, I’m really starting to like you.

King Shadow and Queen Sally’s marriage was purely political.

“I mean, yeah, it was pretty much a done deal. Conservatives loved them as a power couple, because Sally’s royal prestige wowed them while Shadow’s cruel dictatorship made them feel safe. Even liberals loved them! Come on, he’s black and she’s popular with the people. They’ve been called the Mobian Obamas!”

Do you think you guys can make a movie about Sonic and maybe include some new characters?

Sonic’s biggest fan,
Charity C.
Richmond, KY

I KNEW I liked this kid for some reason! …And by that, I mean because she’s from Kentucky, of course, not because she claims to be “Sonic’s biggest fan.” Seriously, how do you measure that quality? Anybody got a yardstick?!

…Oh and one more thing: WHOO! KENTUCKY!! GO BIG BLUE!!!

There’s a big difference between making a hit comic (Aha-ha-ha-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!!!!) and making a movie. (“Yeah, it’s hard to draw on video cassettes. People still use video cassettes, right??”) That’s all up to SEGA.

And thank God it is! I wouldn’t trust you bozos to hold a television remote, let alone script and produce a movie!

Dear My Sonic Universe,

(Kiss up…)

Awesome new series! (Pffft…) I’m glad Silver the Hedgehog is back. (When did he ever leave?? Seriously! He pretty much comes and goes as he pleases!) I’ve been wondering if the villains from the Sonic the Hedgehog X-Box 360 game, Iblis or Mephiles, will make their comic book appearance?

Hopefully, never, while Mephiles can claim to be the only person to KILL SONIC THE HEDGEHOG, he was pretty dog-gone annoying and the whole plot for his game was utterly confusing and best left “reset” out of existence. You know it’s a bad game when even THE GAME ITSELF pretends it never happened.

Mephiles and Iblis were both halves of the sun-god Solaris, and that got snuffed out in a time paradox. But time-travel can cause some funny things, so you never know!

Uh-huh. Back to the Future was funny. Even the scenarios in Metal Gear Solid that involved those well-known time paradoxes were funny. You guys? NO!!

I want to ask you guys: in the “30 Years Later” arc Shadow used to be king, I want to know where Rouge and Omega are. If everyone from the present is there, then where are they?

Safely hiding, trying to preserve what dignity they have left in this franchise.

There are tons of characters from the present that we’ve not seen in the future. (And let’s keep it that way.) If you want to see more future-set stories, write in and let us know! (You better NOT!) Maybe we can find out what happened to the rest of Team Dark.

No need: Rouge took the amassed wealth she had stolen over the years and moved to a secluded island, where Omega serves as her butler-slash-vending machine.

My final question is will you guys do a “Sonic Riders” story arc? After Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity I’ve been wanting to see Sonic’s team race the Babylon Rogues. I hope you guys publish this in an issue.

See ya!
Michael S.
Euless, TX

Again, Mike, no need; they’ve already had two games dedicated to them and Archie even did a TWO-part mini story in the back of the main series. Tastefully done and just about all that I wanted to see of them in this comic, anyway. Seriously, they’re okay, but pretty “one-trick ponies” material if I may say so.

There are no plans for a full story arc, (You better believe that makes me happy!) but you never know when that trio of rogues might speed by again! (And now, you made me sad. Jerk.)

Dear My Sonic Universe,

(You sicken me…)

I so love your comics! (Okay, it’s people like you that are a problem.) I feel so bad for Lara-Su, though. (I suppose someone should.) Sonic’s kids are the cutest little terrors I’ve ever seen! (Hey! What about the mogwai from Gremlins?) Is Rouge coming in an issue soon? I wonder what she’s doing in the future.

P.S. your comics are so funny! Not kidding!

Child, please, please, PLEASE, would you seek immediate help from someone? It’s hard to put a light-hearted humorous slant on brooding psycho-paths and out of control water-monsters.

From a Shadow and Rouge fanatic,
Allison K.
Pinkey, Michigan

Okay, okay, I’ll admit, living in a town called “Pinkey, Michigan,” is a bit humorous. But, seriously, that other detail explains your unfounded sense of humor: you’re a fanatic of two of the most morally ambiguous characters in the book. REALLY! Please, get help!

Another request for future-Rouge! We might just have to do that.

NO-NO-NO-NO!! For the love all that’s good and decent, NOOOOO-

Keep writing in and letting us know what you want in Your Sonic Universe!

-OOOOOOOOOOOO!!

Okay, seriously. Do I need to explain, any more, how terrible this book is? How utterly pointless this story-arc was? Why, if you get the chance, you should avoid this comic like the plague? No? Good! Then you know very well why I gladly throw Sonic Universe # 8 in the trash can with a big fat 1 out of 5.

Next Week: Come back and see me mentally abuse myself with the rancid tale contained in Sonic the Hedgehog # 205.

…Oh and did anybody notice how Melody was fawning over Jacque in one panel, while at the same time, Belle had her arm around Skye?? Yeah. Apparently, Sonic’s infamous “Good Touch, Bad Touch” public service announcement doesn’t exist in this universe. I’ve got my eye on you freaks!

Ding-ding-ding-ding-ding!!

Ladies and gentleman, welcome to the boxing event of the season! A titanic struggle between one book’s ability to utterly fail and one man’s ability to read through it!

In this corner, the reigning Sonic comic of September 2009 and clocking in at two hundred and four issues: Sonic the Hedgehog!

In that corner, fresh from his review of one of the worst comic books he’s ever read that stars Sega’s mascot and weighing in at two hundred and ten pounds of geeky flab: C.S. Bernard!

Who will win?!

Let’s get ready to grumble!!

GeeKY News Presents: Sonic the Hedgehog #204

“Heavy is the Head, Part Two: Iron Khan”
Writer: Ian Flynn
Pencils: Steven Butler
Editor-in-Chief: Victor Gorelick
©Archie Publications
©Sega of America

Right off the bat, we’re given a reminder as to why Tracy Yardley shouldn’t be turned loose with cover art. As with Sonic the Hedgehog #203, this book has its cover-art done by the incomparable Patrick “Spaz” Spaziante and is several levels above the bland cover to Sonic Universe #7. Of course, at the same time, we’re given another “superdickery” treatment. But, given how awesome the image is, it’s a bit more forgivable.

The shot is of Monkey Khan and Sonic the Hedgehog locked in combat in the sky as lightning flashes all around them. The action is engaging and eye-grabbing. It really makes you want to read the story inside… you poor sucker. Regardless, it’s a good visual and, if you read the previous issue, does bring you to wonder about the fate of Monkey Khan, who is being forced into this fight against his will. Again, if you didn’t know that, but knew about Monkey Khan, you’d be the victim of superdickery and wondering in shock and awe why the simian warrior is behaving in such a way. Really, though, this kind of thing is par for the course with him; but more on that later.

The only thing that really ruins the cover is the tagline just over Khan’s head: ‘My enemy, my friend. SONIC vs. MONKEY KHAN!’ So… what? He’s Sonic “frienemy?” Huh. Sounds like America’s relationship with Iraq and Afghanistan. After reading that, you should wonder if you may have made a mistake in picking this comic up. Guess what, you’re right!

Flipping the book open, our first things that annoy us are the same problems that annoy anyone reading these books today. By that, I’m referring to the introduction, recap and cast of characters pictures scattered all over the page. It’s a useless clutter and throws out so little information as to be more confusing than helpful. Let’s take it by the numbers:

The introduction says, ‘Welcome to the planet Mobius – a world unique and beyond what you know from the SEGA games! Where Sonic and the heroic Freedom Fighters work to save the world from the forces of evil!’

As veteran readers will tell you, back when the games had no plot, Archie and Sega of America were actually being kind enough to provide readers with a narrative that would make a comic book possible. Unfortunately, though, Sega of Japan (the corporate headquarters for the entire company) decided that, rather than cater to North American and European fans, they’d eventually create their own narrative separate from the ones created by their localized branch offices. Nice. That’s just the thing to do if you want to alienate regional tastes and set up an antagonistic mindset between the product’s fans and its producers, not to mention between fans themselves, endlessly arguing about “what is canon” and what isn’t. It gets even more confusing when you find out that there are Japanese fans of the American comic and they have no problem in reconciling these differences.

I hate this fandom.

Now, let’s read the recap. ‘The story so far: Doctor Eggman has lost his mind!’

“That’s right! All doomsday devices must go! Hurry, hurry, hurry or you’ll miss these great prices! We’re not eggs-agerating!

‘Now the Iron Queen rules the Eggman Empire with her four ninja clans! Monkey Khan has come to help, but has fallen under the control of the Iron Queen’s technomagic!’

You know, it’s bad enough that Sega of Japan said “Push off!” to Western fans of their game franchise, but this is downright stupid on the part of the Archie Publications Sonic staff. Why replace Dr. Eggman as the central villain? This was never a good idea. It was understandable to have lesser villains and comic-exclusive characters to pose as additional threats, but to outright replace him makes no sense. Even the most recent games produced by Sega of Japan don’t outright replace Eggman. Usually, by the end of the games, the storyline’s plot gets hijacked by some other bad guy, but usually, only because Eggman set the entire plot in motion from the beginning. Even games like Sonic & the Secret Rings and Sonic & the Black Knight can be overlooked, since they’re sideline adventures that take place in fantasy settings, basically giving Eggman “the day off.”

This on the other hand is just plain stupid, since it’s replacing him as the main threat of the series and elevates a character that’s never been seen anywhere outside Archie Publications to the role of the arch-nemesis. More egregious is the fact that she was seen once, years ago in Sonic the Hedgehog #60 (more on that later). This kind of change not only shoves a classic villain to the sidelines, but it makes the differences between the games and comics even more radical and exacerbates the negative feelings between publisher and its fanbase! Who would think any of this is a good idea?! In a room full of editors and the writers, you can only be dumbfounded by everyone coming to the conclusion that this was a “good” plot development. I know I’ve complained about this before, but frankly it needs to be complained about, over and over again so long as this is the status quo.

As for the cast of characters, let’s just look at who we’ve got. Monkey Khan and Sonic are naturally in the story; no surprise. Regina’s there, too, along with Snively; again, nothing too far outside our understanding of the plot so far. Aw, no! Rory, Snaggle and Sasha are back?! To do what?! … Aw! It’s going to be a half-hearted Aesop story, isn’t it? You guys are weak! I hate the cast of characters panels! This isn’t a play, it isn’t a script. It’s a comic! I mean, seriously, do you need half the freaking page to post an irrelevant listing of characters? Seriously?!

Oh, forget it! Let’s just get to the story itself.

No surprise, Monkey Khan has been brainwashed and is ready to fight back against the Freedom Fighters and the just now arriving Chaotix. But, chattering chimpanzees!  Look at him!

His eyes are glowing red, electronic nerve-endings and circuitry are visible underneath his skin and fur and his hair has gained two white streaks through it, on either side of his head! What? Did he go to the same guy that does Earth-2 Superman’s hair, or the one that does the hair for Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four?

Anyway, getting past Freaky Khan, we realize just how stupid this page layout is. We’ve already talked about how the recap and cast of character things clutter up the page. Well, the actual layout of the panels itself finishes dropping the IQ Meter down to zero. On the left hand of the page, you have Psychedelic Khan floating on a storm cloud in all his mind-controlled glory, with a dialogue bubble that seems to come from nowhere.

‘Ken! Listen to me! You have to fight her control!’

“Sorry; but I can’t hear you while over my diabolical monologue!”

What’s up with that word balloon?! It’s there then the tail just drops into inky blackness. It’s only after you look to your right in the next panel that you realize that it’s Princess Sally trying to talk Monkey Evil down. What’s up that?! You have two separate panels and you put both word balloons in just one of them?! Maybe it was just a necessity, since the panel with Sally and the rest have the comic’s credits literally wedged in amongst them. Or… maybe, just hear me out, it’s because you’ve got the stupidest page layout available after cluttering it up with useless trivia!!

Now, as I said, Sally tries to talk Khan down after he gets a dose of evil injected into him. Frankly, that’s a bad move. As we saw in Sonic Universe #7, whenever a female tries to be reasonable with an insane male in these books, it just leads to a smack-down. Meat-head Khan simply replies to Sally’s entreaties with, ‘I am the divine weapon of the Iron Dominion.’ Oh, that’s a good sign. Next, he dive-bombs the Chaotix and the Freedom Fighters on his cloud! However, what turns this fugitive from the Matrix into a walking can of instant-awesome is the horrifically cheesy villain-speak he spurts out from page one until the end. Specifically:

‘AND I AM GLORIOUS!’

…

Seriously?! Oh, man! That took me forever to stop laughing about. I mean, holy cow! We’ve apparently crossed our wires with the WWE or something here! It’s hilarious! I mean seriously, think about it: you have a glowing cybernetic monkey on a cloud smashing into a group of people and shouting “And I am glorious!” at the top of his lungs. It sounds like either a start-up or the punch-line for the funniest joke you’ve ever heard.

I LOVE EVIL MONKEY KHAN!

And do you know what’s even better? He’s going after the orphans, next!

Oh.

Wait.

Sonic saves them.

Boo. We’re just determined to have that Aesop, aren’t we?

Notice Sonic’s first words upon re-entering his own comic, ‘Why does it feel like all I’m doing today is snatching people up and carrying them around?’ See? Even he realizes how unimportant he is to the plot. After he confirms that Bunnie is okay and resting back at Freedom Fighter HQ, he immediately: asks if the kids were throwing rocks at him again, like in #203.

…Seriously? You’re not at all concerned with the fact he’s glowing and riding a storm cloud and tried to kill the kids just now?

Well, one of the kids simply says, ‘He turned evil!’ To which Sally says, ‘He’s not evil!’

Wow, Princess, he sure could have fooled me. I agree with Antoine over there, who looks like he’s cussing under his breath. Sally then gives Sonic a rundown of the situation. We’re then given a shot of the surprisingly evil-looking yet “not evil!” Kills-You Khan as he motions for Sonic to come fight him. (Thanks WWE!) Sonic decides to contain Khan, to which Sally requests, ‘Don’t… Don’t hurt him!’ I whole-heartedly share Sonic’s one brief moment of intelligence in this book, ‘”Don’t hurt him,” she says.’

Now comes first of the absolute stupidest things that this book does, even stupider than everything I’ve already talked about: referencing older issues. The first thing that is very, very stupid about that is that only now are we referencing problems that should have been touched on in #203. For instance, Sonic refers back to #60, from years back in real-time, when Monkey Khan was put under the Iron Queen’s spell once before. Using the way back machine, we scoop up a copy of #60.

Long story short, the entire plot revolved around Sonic and Tails coming to a secluded village threatened by a mountain of flames that made living near it a sweltering nightmare, drying up water supplies and risking death by exposure and heat-exhaustion. Sonic and Tails offer to save the day by going to fight the Iron King and Iron Queen for possession of a mystical fan that could extinguish the mountain. Along the way, they bump into Monkey Khan who was, of course, mesmerized by the Iron Queen. In a fight to the death, Sonic and Khan beat each other around a while and came close to seeing Sonic destroyed by the (literally) wild-eyed simian. Tails, however, saves the day by smashing the Queen’s staff. Khan snapped out of his trance and joined Sonic and Tails in battling the Iron King, extinguishing the mountain and sending the would-be tyrants into retreat.

Frankly, it was a one-shot story that acted as filler in the couple years that the original “Robotnik” character was destroyed by the Ultimate Annihilator and the new “Eggman” model took over as the primary antagonist. While I freely admit it was very text-heavy, it was far more humorous thanks to the writers’ ability to write bad jokes, but tell them in a humorous fashion and was willing to use words such as “blood-thirsty lunatic,” “murderer,” and (my personal favorite) “hellacious.” Yes! A Sonic the Hedgehog book used a phrase containing the root word “hell!” Sadly, they misspelled it “hellatious,” but still… I don’t care who you are, anybody willing to let “hellacious” into a comic aimed at kids deserves a pat on the back for being that audacious.

So, when I actually have to sit through this load of slop in #203, I’m far from impressed and find myself yearning for the older days of the comic. Thanks, guys. Depress me some more, why don’t you?

…Now, you understand why referencing back all those years ago is a bad idea.

Looking at Monkey Khan’s present fight with Sonic (boy he’s in a rut), Sonic tries some warrior-therapy with him by dodging his attacks and, like Sally, trying to reason with him. This apparently makes him “girlie” enough for Khan to finally land a kick on him. Frankly, the more I see of this totally psychotic Killer Khan, the more I like him. Still, Sonic is just unable to reach him, because the Iron Queen declares, ‘You’re wasting your time dearie! His cybernetics are too extensive! My control is absolute!’

And, honestly, I believe her. Not once does this guy flinch or offer the least bit of willpower to resist, nor did he in #60. Yes, truly his is the iron-will and an ultimate force for good. You’d think he’d get tired of all this mind-control or something, because this would count as his third time on the brain-drain express.

This reminds me of another “blast from the past.” Sonic: Mecha Madness. This one stands out for the fact that, in Sonic the Hedgehog #39, Dr. Robotnik realized his long sought after goal of capturing and roboticizing Sonic the Hedgehog himself. And while, admittedly, it was an excuse to really tug some extra drama out of the reader and, thus, some extra money out of them for a 48-Page Special (once a staple of the series), it was good drama. With, far better art, I might add. Here, Sonic’s will-power as actually able to override Dr. Robotnik’s roboticization software and allowed him to assert control over himself in two key moments. The first being when he cannot bring himself to shoot and kill an easily in-range Miles “Tails” Prower. And the second being when, after Knuckles the Echidna allows himself to be roboticized in order to defeat Sonic, Sonic willingly bore the brunt of a nuclear blast in order to spare Knuckles the full force of the explosion. These were poignant moments, though a little melodramatic, and really sold us on the idea that, deep down, Sonic will always be committed to the cause of good.

Compare this internal struggle to that of Monkey Khan in Sonic the Hedgehog #60, #92 (where in a rage, he attacks Sonic and some innocent civilians) and #203-204. Yeah. He is all-hero, isn’t he?

Oh. And notice the Iron Queen’s face during her tirade: good Lord, she looks like Barbie riding through Malibu; I’m more annoyed than fearful. Next she’ll be up for the swimsuit portion of the contest.

…Actually, that is something I’d rather see, now that I think about it.

Anyway, somehow during the fight and the Iron Queen’s gloating, Sonic decides that he has a plan.

Okay… sure. Let’s go with that.

He quickly confers with Sally about how Khan originally got his power-ring crown. This happened in Sonic the Hedgehog #55. This was also Khan’s big debut: where the first thing he did was attack Sonic and Antoine, kidnap Sally, and show up at the last minute to save Sonic and Antoine from a group of robots.

…Why are we supposed to like him, again??

With that throwaway reference accomplished, he says he’s going to swing by the lake of rings near the city.

‘Perfect! Stall him…’

“Yeah! Stall the lightning-wielding super-cyborg while I, the only other person with a super-power, run away.” Our ‘hero,’ ladies and gentlemen!

Unfortunately, Khan (a much smarter villain than he is a hero) attacks the two while they talk. That’s when Antoine D’Coolette appears and blocks Khan’s staff.

…

Wait? What?! Holy cow! Did I read that right?

Yes! Antoine swoops in to save the day! Boy, what little bit of character development he’s received over the years is really paying off! Not only does the Francophone coyote leap in Khan’s way and engage him in staff to sword combat, he also starts pointing out Khan’s hero-self’s stupidity.

‘You tell us nothing useful about ze enemy or that you are ze liability… and if I lose my wife, eet is because of you!’

…Oh my god! Antoine, you’re amazing, you’re spectacular… You’re… COOL! You’ll probably be new favorite character out of…

Oh.

Wait.

He’s downed in the next panel. I guess that’s what I get for actually enjoying something.

But, wait! Here comes Sally, herself! Yeah! She’s been at the hero game just as long as the rest of the team.  Surely, her fleet-footed agility and years of combat training both as a child and into her teenage years will pay off. I mean, she’s tough enough that she doesn’t carry weapons or make use of special abilities and is able to spar with the bad guys just as much as Sonic or Bunnie. So, it’s no surprise that…

She attacks in one panel and is downed in the next.

GAH!!

Quit making the good guys look so weak! They’re supposed to be a superhero squad! I mean, sure, they’re not the Avengers or the Justice League, but come on! These people are supposed to be capable of battling doomsday machines and monsters! And you can’t hide behind the idea that “because” they don’t have superpowers per se, they’re not capable of fighting Khan! Batman, the Question, Hawkeye, and the Punisher don’t have superpowers either; at best, they have high-tech gadgets. The rest of the time, they utilize tactics and skills that allow them to fight… doomsday machines and monsters!

The only thing I can really comment on after this insanity is the fact that the artwork makes a bizarre leap where, in one panel Sally is in the middle of a flying kick to Monkey Khan’s head, then he responds with his most devastating attack… knocking her off her feet with his staff in the very next panel.

…

I HATE THIS BOOK! IT’S ALMOST AS BAD AS SONIC UNIVERSE #7!!

I mean, look at the panel where she falls over. It’s ridiculous. She’s even flailing her arms like she took a misstep on the curb of a sidewalk or something. I guess it’s just a lame excuse to get a shot of Sally’s buttocks as she flies through the air. The only thing it has in its favor is Super-Psycho Khan.

‘All for the glory of the Queen!’

Ah. Thanks, Evil Khan. You really know how to make my day a little bit brighter. You’re really the only thing worth reading in this book.

I would get hopeful for Vector the Crocodile and Mighty the Armadillo when they, on the next page, try to take out the “He’s not evil!” monkey. They have the “brilliant” idea of jumping on him. Because, yeah, that always works doesn’t it? Needless to say it’s utterly futile; like the book’s efforts to entertain. Khan simply flies off trying to peel his would-be assailants off with wind-resistance. Realizing he should, I don’t know, actually do something Mighty goes to deck the cloud jockey with a super-strength punch. But, being East Asian in original, “Wishes He Was Sun Wu-Khan” does the annoying thing of calling his attack, ‘Tumultuous Thunderclap of the Enraged!’ Needless to say this frightens Vector and Mighty who both call out, ‘Uh-oh…’

Hey, just be glad he didn’t call out “Flying Feces of the Furious,” or you would have been hit by electrified monkey droppings.

Speaking of rancid excrement, we cut over to Sonic as he’s standing next to the lake of rings, waiting for a power ring to pop up. As he quickly paces in circles, Nicole tells him that it will take time for her to convert enough of the nuclear fallout from Robotropolis into the energy needed for a power ring. I’d say it would, considering that nuclear fallout doesn’t generate power. I mean, otherwise, Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Chernobyl would really be cashing solving any future energy crises. But, if I bothered to explain any of the whole “Robotropolis was obliterated by nuclear missiles” stuff, it would lead into a really long story about the weirdness associated with the comic these days that I don’t feel like going into. And, by this point, since he apparently doesn’t know how cybernetic technology should work (see my Sonic the Hedgehog #203 review), Ian is going to have to accept a failing grade in nuclear physics as well.

Sure, you could accuse me of nitpicking on a sci-fi/fantasy story. But, at least Star Trek did its homework. Plain and simple: there’s got to be some basis in reality for us to make proper use of our suspension of disbelief. Trust me. As things stand these days, I suspend my disbelief for extensive amounts of time to simply convince myself to pick up these bad comics.

Anyway, seeing that Vector and Mighty make gorgeous daylight fireworks after they’re blasted away by the Monkey of Mass Destruction, Nicole decides to re-route some power to the ring-generator in the lake.

“I’m giving it all she’s got Sonic!”

But, before you can say “cliché,” Monkey Khan swoops in, aiming his power staff at Sonic, shouting, ‘Prepare for judgment, worm!’ This is not to be confused with, “Now, you die!” or “Surrender, fool!”

What follows is frankly, the stupidest thing yet.

Oh, of course, as the plot inevitably dictates, Sonic is saved “at the last minute” by the power ring that pops up out of the water with an onomatopoeia of the classic “ring collection” sound effect from the Sega games. Hey, at least they’re showing a little effort. But, then, we’re given useless narration by somebody we don’t know about or care about.

‘The power ring. Made by science or magic, it is energy given form.’

Uh-huh. And?

‘The power of the ring can enhance strength, grant insight, or empower one’s deepest wish.’

And, if you collect a hundred, you get an extra life! What’s your point?! If you’re the least bit familiar with Sonic the Hedgehog, you should know this stuff already. There’s no point to this explanation; none. Instead, it distracts from the action. Which, to be honest, might be a good thing. Because this is the most anti-climactic fight I’ve ever seen in this book. I mean, sure, the first time wasn’t very different in #60, what with Tails simply smashing the Iron Queen’s staff to break her hold on Monkey Khan. But, at least he had to genuinely attack someone and keep the suspense going. Not, simply place a tiara power-ring on someone’s head and snap them out of a “kill everyone” mindset.

…Wait.

What?!

Aw, naw! Monkey Khan’s broken out of his trance. He’s back to being melodramatic and whiny as opposed to melodramatic and awesome!

I HATE THIS BOOK!!

Wait a minute. Hold the phone.

If it took a new crown to break him out of the Iron Queen’s control, how was she able to take over his mind for #60?! I mean… It’s right there! Khan’s wearing the same crown he got in #55, which was mentioned by Sonic and Sally in this very same issue, and in #60 the Iron Queen had no problem in turning him into a “blood-thirsty lunatic” to unleash on Sonic and Tails!

ARGH!!

You idiots!

You have the books in your archives! Go dig them out! Explain things! I mean, I have MY copies of #55 and #60! And if you forgot which SHOE-BOX you’re keeping them in, pick up a copy of your own Sonic Selects trade paperback books that you’re reprinting the older comics in!! You can’t explain away continuity errors by simply saying “that’s how it works, now!”

THAT’S NOT STORY-TELLING!!

Oh… Look who I’m talking to. They can’t even keep their story straight from page-to-page, let alone book to book! That’s it! I’m done! Thank goodness this hunk of rubbish has reached its final stages or I’d just set it on fire now.

As Failure Khan returns to his former levels of suck, Sonic finally gets a little bit of his brain-power restored and comments, ‘This is why you were so angry when you saw us celebrating.’

Because he’s a jerk?

‘This is why you said there were no Freedom Fighters in the Dragon Kingdom.’

Because he’s a jerk.

‘This is why you got all bent out of shape when I ragged on you about being “King”.’

Holy…

BECAUSE HE’S A JERK YOU IDIOTIC ERINACID!!

‘Yes. It’s all my fault.’

See! He admits it!

Now, with the Freedom Fighters in disarray and many of them badly wounded or scattered, the Iron Queen reveals her true military genius and decides ‘That’s that, then!’

…What?

‘That’s it? We’re pulling out?’ Hey, yeah! Snively’s got a good point! Explain yourself, woman.

‘They know not to challenge me and all their faith in Monkey Fuzz is shattered.’

Well, I do appreciate your joining me in calling him names. But, I need some more details as to why you’d be breaking off an attack when you’re in a position of strength.

‘Now… Let’s go home.’

Say WHAT?! Snively! Come on, man! When Robotnik and then his alternate universe self were in charge, you were more than happy to call him stupid for this kind of ignorant overconfidence. Set this woman straight or call her a mean name behind her back! Be a man!

‘Mmm… Yes, dear.’

Oh, dude, you’re SO weak. The only reason you’re not seeing how she’s running this circus just like your uncle(s) is because she’s your girlfriend. You (I can’t believe I’m saying this) were “cooler” than this!

And, so, without anyone noticing them, Regina and Snively fly away.

I guess.

I mean, we don’t even see them leave.

They just vanish.

…Are they ninjas?

Meanwhile, as the Freedom “Not So Good at Fighting” Fighters regroup with Sonic and Khan at the ring-lake, I’ll spare you the three panel whine fest that Khan engages in about how he’s too weak, can’t be alone, blah-blah-blah, trying too hard to get us to sympathize with this character. Oh, and in the middle of his rambling pity party, there’s another caption box that references #55, again, for some of the details listed in Moaning Khan’s diatribe.

Oh, but wait, here comes Antoine to say something unnecessary I’m sure. Hey. Wait. He’s grabbing Khan by the vest and shouting, ‘So you choose now to be telling us?!’

…

‘Now zat my wife is nearly lost. Did you not theenk she would use you like that again?!’

Hey! Antoine’s getting cool, again! Awesome! Yeah, you tell him, man! This is all the same stuff I was saying last issue!

‘Antoine! Cool it!’

You stay out of this Sally!

‘No. He’s right.’

Ah-ha! See, see!  Antoine, Khan and I have this all figured out!

‘No, he’s not.’

Huh? Who dares…

OH NO!!

IT’S THE ORPHANS!!

HERE COMES THE AESOP!!

‘We lost our parents to Dr. Robotnik’s war. That’s how you lost your friends.’

…

‘Sometimes we felt like it was our fault. We’re too little and weak to help fight.’

Uh, Sasha? That’d be a good thing to say to someone who doesn’t wield an energy staff and controls thunder and lightning that is trying to cope with their lack of ability to help. There’s a difference between being too young and under-powered and being TOO STUPID AND OVER-POWERED.

‘But, Rosie says we all help in our own way. Um… So we have to help each other.’

“Um?” “UM?” What, did you forget your line?

‘And then we’re all strong because everyone else is.’

‘Yeah.’ Oh, that’s a great contribution there, Snaggle.

‘So we’ll be strong for you, and you have to be strong for us. Deal?’

‘…Deal.’

“Oh, dude, Khan, you should have totally just taken what was in the suitcase.”

Besides, what kind of guarantee are you going to get from shaking hands with a kid over some hollow pledge that won’t mean anything in the future? Oh, wait, it’s another reference to the games, “We’ll show that creep the real superpower of TEAM WORK!” Sorry, guys, but if it was lame in Sonic Heroes, it isn’t helping here; at all.

Oh and a hug from Sally. Wow. The inferred romance between her and Geoffrey St. John was more subtle. You guys are totally rushing things. I mean, friendships and trust aren’t built up that easily. Right, Antoine? You’re with me on this.

‘Can “I’m sorry,” be a start?’

NO, it cannot. Come on, Antoine, don’t accept that. He could have gotten New Mobotropolis wiped out earlier. I mean-

‘Oui. And I am sorry for my frosting-ness!’

Antoine?

You’re an idiot.

Come on, Sonic. Say something encouraging and uplifting to help us focus on something more inspiring.

‘I was about to say. Remember your old yellow streak?’

…Huh? What? You’re picking on Antoine? You’re being a jerk at a time like this?

‘Oui. I recall it all too well.’

‘Because I totally could bring it up right now.’

Dude! Sonic, shut up! Regardless of how poorly executed this “touching” scene is supposed to be, you’re completely ruining it!

‘I know.’

‘I’ve got a list.’

‘Stop eet.’

YES! PLEASE!! I mean, my god, Sonic! Like you have room to talk?! You, like, traded three, four blows with the guy then ran off to hang around a puddle waiting for a deus ex machina to pop out of it! Antoine did more in this book than you did!!

Thankfully, Sally shepherds the orphans back to the “Rarely used characters” bin. I mean, seriously. They got trotted out to put out some lame Aesop about trust. And that’s it. Mati from Captain Planet was more useful.

Really, this page is just entirely pointless to recap, since it’s basically Sonic instantly becoming all smiles again and not thinking the least little bit about the troubles they’ve been in, ready to go after the Iron Dominion. While I can see someone keeping their spirits up and the like, this borders on downright naiveté and overconfidence. Sure, Sonic has shown it before, but it was much better handled elsewhere. Here, it’s just annoying.

Oh. Wait. It’s not over, sadly enough.

‘Egg Dome – Detention Level.’

Oh, hey! A narration caption that actually does something, that’s a nice change in pace.

Snively, because he’s too blinded by the fact he’s got a hot girl interested in him, is bragging to his insane, rambling uncle outside his padded cell.

Yes Snively.  You’ve never taken over for Robotnik with aspirations of coming out over top Sonic and the good guys, before. Actually, no, you have. But, that’s conveniently forgotten for the time being. For his part, Eggman does a good job of rambling and drooling on himself.

Yes; classy. This is just what I envisioned should happen to one of the greatest villains of video game history. Oh, I just can’t wait to see Bowser in the “Retired Koopas Home,” now.

But, what’s this…?

Among his insane ramblings, Eggman mutters, ‘…cell block override authority epsilon-gamma-gamma…’

Gasp! Could this be…?

The cell-door is opening on its automatic hinges! Could it be?!

What does the final narration box say about this?

‘A tragedy has been revealed, and the next terror released! Will this be Doctor Robotnik’s Return? Come back next time for the beginning of… “On the Run!”’

…No.

I refuse to get my hopes up for this. If they were stupid enough to put Eggman in this shape and elevate the Iron Queen over him, then I don’t consider them smart enough to realize their own mistakes and correct them. And to prove that point, let’s read the back-up story.

“A Friend in Deed”
Writer: Ian Flynn
Pencils: Jamal Peppers
Colors: Matt Herms

When we last left Knuckles the Echidna, he was perched on the very edge of his aerial homeland of Angel Island. He had been put in this precarious position by none other than his teammate from the Chaotix, Espio the Chameleon. While a cliffhanger was a bit of an intense point to stop the previous story at, it is a successful marketing tool. And, we’re actually treated to in-depth, well-crafted dialogue that, for once, gets our interest and, for two solid pages has us on bated breath. In the final panel, after an intense stand-off and stare-down and an exchange of harsh words between these two former friends, who have fought side by side with each other against mad scientists, killer robots, renegade echidnas and vengeful dingoes, Espio hesitates on having to actually end the life of his once-comrade.

And…

That’s it.

Seriously. No more fighting and the action just washes away.

INSTEAD, we’re given three pages of exposition and Espio leaves.

THAT IS IT.

For all of the things handed out in the massive word-balloons, we’re left as confused as Knuckles whose life is spared and is handed a brand new “mystery,” for him to solve, the mystery being how to break the Espio’s allegiance to the Iron Queen.

So, there you have it. Five pages of let-down; while it does engage you at first, you’re left with a headache and the realization that this is going to be Knuckles’s adventure in Sonic Universe #9 through #12. While it counts as a prologue, it’s really just an advertisement, nothing more, nothing less. Worse, it’s MORE of Ian’s ret-cons, this time for Espio. While it worked for Scourge, just about every other ret-con and reimagining of this continuity has been a headache or heartache. Worst of all, none of it really has any bearing on the plots or stories. They’re nothing but superficial changes that don’t change the motivations or behaviors of the heroes or villains in any significant fashion. Espio’s temporary allegiance to the Iron Queen is going to be just that. In the end, he’s either going to be going “back to business as usual,” or it’ll be an excuse to write him out of the story for an unspecified amount of time.

All the purpose that this story served was to simply condense the trends of this book that are beating it into the ground into five changes: superficial changes, ret-cons and pointlessly long dialogue.

…And, of course, it didn’t have Evil Monkey Khan in it.

THAT IS IT.

Bland art, anti-climactic and a bad omen of more to come, that’s the long and short of this story. Go read… something, ANYTHING better than this. Even the nutritional facts on a can of soup; at least you’re getting something valuable out of it.

Oh, and then there’s the Letters to the Editor page, also known as “Sonic-Grams.” Unlike the pretentiousness of “My Sonic Universe,” I’m going to refer Sonic-Grams by its given name since, of course, it’s a long-standing tradition and I respect that enough to honor it. Let’s dive on in. Oh, and to help ease confusion, since there is already commentary among these letters, everything I will have to say will appear in red.

Hey out there in SONIC LAND!

Not to be confused with Disney Land; a much better place.

Before we start this issue’s letters we’d like to send a hearty thank you to everyone who sent in awesome “FAN FUNNIES” comic strips! They will be printed in issues of SONIC and SONIC UNIVERSE so keep an eye out for yours, and if you haven’t sent one in yet, get crackin’!

“Yeah, we need you to come up with jokes for free, while we get paid for posting them in the book!”

Dear Sonic Grams,
Congratulations. You guys have officially gotten me hooked on Sonic the Hedgehog.

Woo-hoo!

“Yes! Another unsuspecting kid’s wallet compromised! If he thinks he’s hooked, now, just wait until he picks up our next issue; laced with cocaine!!” Frankly, doing that is probably the ONLY way to improve this mess, since we’d be too stoned to notice how bad it is.

There are two things I don’t get though, (JUST two?!) and both involve issue #184 (which, by the way, was completely awesome!) (Are you kidding?). I noticed in that issue that Super Sonic was more green than yellow. Care to explain why? Does it have to do with the fact he got powered by the Master Emerald and not the Chaos Emeralds?

That was just the blue of the early evening reflecting off his yellow-gold body. Or your explanation works too. Whichever you prefer!

“Whichever you prefer,” also known as ‘The Shrug of God,’ where the writers dodge inconsequential questions with an answer like they just gave. And yes, this is an inconsequential question. I mean, who really cares? Really?

Second, in that issue, Locke sacrifices himself to revert Knuckles to his regular self. But, according to “Mobius: 25 Years Later,” in issue #143, Locke died because of medical reasons. What’s up with that?

Oh, you don’t want to open that can of worms.

Keep in mind that the storylines of the future are only possible developments. Events you see happening in the future may not happen that way in the present day.

… Told you so.

Yes, the “possible” future we continue to receive updates from. The same probable future that’s largely hated and confusing.

…Wait a minute. So, then, the answer to this question was another reminder of how circumstantial or uncertain the future is in the book’s continuity? Then this was nothing but ANOTHER inconsequential question!

YOU DOLTS!!

Putting this letter in here was entirely REDUNDANT!!

Still, I think the series is way beyond awesome. Can’t wait to see what you’re planning on throwing our way next!

Here’s a clue: “Flying Feces of the Furious!!”

Stay way past cool,

David H.
Huntsville, AL

Dear Sonic Grams,

I am the #1 fan of Sonic and I love the new issues. (Well, that’s two things wrong with that sentence.) I would love to see more of Tails. He’s awesome! I was wondering if we could hear more about his family tree? Like, did he have a brother or a sister? A mom or dad? Well, thank you for letting me get that off my chest.

You know, you’d think that for a “#1 fan of Sonic,” you’d figure that this kid would, one would imagine, know these things. I mean, he’s obviously been reading the book for a while. And we seem to get a good eyeful of the hopelessly oversized cast every other month. But, this letter wasn’t chosen for its relevancy. It’s going to be part of an advertisement; that, or drab factoids that, really, don’t mean much.

Yours truly,

Connor M.
Beaverton, OR

PS. Love the Off-Panel strip!

“PPS. Couldn’t you make it a little, I don’t know, better?”

More Tails, eh? We’ll see about that! (Oh, great, that’s a wonderful way to start a reply. I feel like I’m being threatened with Miles Prower, now.) As for his family, that’s already been revealed! (Here come the common-knowledge factoids.) Tails is the only child of Amadeus and Rosemary Prower. His father is a general in the army and will be showing up in a story this year! (There’s the advertisement.) His mother is a member of the Acorn Council and you’ll see her whenever the council gets together. (Though, you won’t be seeing that any time soon. They’re currently under investigation by United Federation for election fraud last year.) (And yes: I did that political joke just for me.) Tails also has a magical uncle Merlin who is currently travelling the world studying magic. (Translation: “We don’t like him, so he’s sitting on the ‘unused characters’ shelf.”)

Dear Sonic Grams,

I was thinking that you guys could put Sonic Unleashed, Sonic and the Black Knight and other Sonic games in Sonic Universe as stories instead of tie-ins. I was a great fan of Sonic Unleashed. (Easy little lady, the game was good at best; not great.) And is SEGA going to make a new television show for Sonic? I was thinking about that too.

Oh. Ha! I like that: as if she was writing this letter like a text-message to a friend. “C-U @ teh mall? <3 thinkn bout that 2.”

From,

Michelle S.
Modesto, CA

Well, that explains the valley-girl texting habit.

We’d like to do more with the game stories, Michelle, but sadly there are many factors that just don’t make it feasible. (Translation: “SEGA doesn’t like to let us have any fun. Not that we know what would be entertaining or a good story.) For now, the tie-ins are the way to go. (Translation: “Sit down and be quiet.”) As for a new animated series, we haven’t heard anything – but it sure would be cool! (Translation: “Duh! Blah-blah-blah-blah!!”)

Stay cool, Sonic fans!

It’s kind of hard to do that when I’m so angry at you I have steam coming out of my ears.

You don’t know how relieved I am to have this over with. Everything that’s good about this book is under-utilized or entirely passed over for less interesting things, the artwork continues to be bland and uninteresting and the only things that happen are meant to further some ret-cons; not any actual plot. If not for Monkey ’He’s not evil!’ Khan, I would completely fail this book. But, because I enjoy a good “Psycho-Electro” story, Sonic the Hedgehog #204 just barely qualifies for:

2 OUT OF 5.

Ding-ding-ding-ding! Winner by technical knock-out: C.S. Bernard!

Come back next week folks, as I review Superman/Batman: Public Enemies on blu-ray and DVD.

Also, don’t forget: Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games comes out for Nintendo Wii and DS & DSi this week in North America, October 13.

Another week, another report from yours truly; this time, however, we’re going to change things up a bit.

First, I think I can settle on a new name for this weekly journal: GeeKY News. Because, let’s face it, a lot of popular culture – especially what is featured in these reports – appeals to those of us who are referred to as geeks, nerds and “freaks.” And, as many may know, I’m a proud resident of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, often abbreviated as KY. So, yes, I am GeeKY; even more so for having come up with this name.

The second item on the agenda is that this review will not be featuring Sonic the Hedgehog #204, as the previous report stated. Instead, this will be all about Sonic Universe #7: quite possibly the worst book about Sonic the Hedgehog I have ever read. It’s so bad, that I will have to go more in-depth with it to prove just how terrible it truly is. If this new format works out, I may limit myself to one item at a time for future reports. Now, even though I really hate to, I have no choice but to go right ahead and dive into today’s report.

…Sadly, head first.

Sonic Universe #7

“Mobius: Thirty Years Later – What’s Old is New Again”
Writer: Ian Flynn
Pencils: Tracy Yardley!
Editor-in-Chief: Victor Gorelick
©Archie Publications
©Sega of America

First, let’s look at the cover to this book. Just as static as #6 was, it shows us Shadow trying to be menacing with glowing hands, but frankly, he’s in such a dimly lit area and his tiara and cape make him so non-threatening as to be unbelievable. Also, as we’ve learned, when Tracy Yardley does a cover, be ready to assume the exact opposite of what’s going on the cover is going on inside the book. By this, I mean Shadow will do next to nothing in this book. But, that’s getting ahead of ourselves; let’s just open this bad boy up and take a look inside.

Immediately, I am offended by everything on the first page. As with issue #6, this issue opens up with the most boring possible introduction. When we ended the previous issue, we were (supposedly) “shocked” to find that Lien-Da had revived King Shadow the Hedgehog. So, rather than pick up with anything dramatic, we, instead, open to Queen Sally Acorn carrying an unconscious Silver the Hedgehog and escorting her children to a panic room, to hide from the invading Dark Presence soldiers that had infiltrated the castle in the previous issue. Frankly, I envy Silver: he does not have to witness all of this. A two page conversation ensues, with Sonia Acorn talking with her mother about the fact they even have to flee to the panic room. I almost lose it here, since Sonia actually has the courage to want to go and confront the invaders herself, at all of five years old. While she may be a good mother, Sally continues to be a total drag by insisting that “the castle has been locked down. We need to get where it’s safe.”

Again, given that Sally was once a fairly capable combatant and still a sharp mind and she is now mother to twin super-speedsters by Sonic the Hedgehog, she should still be able to mount some form of resistance. But, thanks to plot-induced stupidity, she might as well have said, “No dear, the writers said we have to stand aside and let the other canonized fan-characters do something interesting.” I mean, come on woman! Your children are so fast as to make Lara-Su use her chaos control powers to corral them. And they can’t possibly handle the circus of fools called “the Dark Presence?” One could argue that their age and inexperience would be a liability. But, given the amateurs that actually come to save the day, I find that hard to believe! We’ll come to that later, though. With a sigh, let’s continue.

Oh, and notice that, even though there are three editors for this book, somehow there was an unexplained change in the arc’s name. It’s supposed to read “Mobius: 30 Years Later,” instead, for this issue it’s arbitrarily called “Sonic: 30 Years Later.” It’s just annoying to find that despite there being three editors we have that kind of error! True, this is all supposedly a possible future for the Sonic characters, but if you’re going to bother to tell us this story: be consistent! Oh, why do I even say that? Nothing is consistent around here anymore! I guess the logic is that, if we continue talking about this future enough, and subtly change the name to Sonic then the fans will buy it as a canonical future. …The only people who would fall for this are the writers and editors themselves.

Meanwhile, at the residence of a certain Argyll Crocodile, son of Chaotix leader Vector the Crocodile, King Sonic the Hedgehog, Lara-Su and Skye & Melody Prower, gather together to prepare a strike team to retake the castle. We immediately get the low-down that the old-guard members of the Freedom Fighters and Chaotix are too far away to call in for an immediate counter-strike against the Dark Presence. …Dramatically convenient… But, don’t worry! Argyll has some friends waiting in the wings to help in this situation. …Whom we won’t see just yet.

That’s because we’re forced flip over to King Shadow being revived from his five-year suspended animation. We’re given a “team evil” recap of the past five years in this story’s history, which we’ve been hearing about continuously. Again, the writers must believe that if we hear it over and over again, we’ll accept all this.

I know! Maybe if I click my heels three times, then this comic will go away! … Drat.

Back to it: when Shadow finds out that he’s been frozen in time for five years, he immediately declares, ‘Regaining control is not enough. The world must be punished for its inaction – for my disgrace.’

“Yes, they will pay for giving me this princess tiara and 1980’s shoulder guard.”

It’s at this point that I should point out that Shadow actually manages to get through the castle’s security system by simply using a security override. Why? That’s a nice little plot-hole you have to skip over, because it isn’t explained why. The reason this is annoying, of course, is that in five years of running this castle, no one has changed the security system since King Sonic and Queen Sally took over. This same thing happened earlier in the previous issue as well, when Lien-Da simply waltzed through the doors into Shadow’s holding area. Now, a couple times, the throwaway explanation that ‘We’ve been meaning to change the security system’ is used. But that makes even less sense! Why would you have a security system that the enemy can so easily circumnavigate and readily access any part of the castle they want?! The first order of business when you get a new house is to change the locks, let alone on a freaking castle!!

Apparently, when they enter the room, Shadow’s revenge scheme is so terrible that Lien-Da calls out, ‘N-no! Not with that!’

“No! Not your American Idol audition-tape! YouTube has suffered enough!”

Actually… the horrific doomsday plot is put off so we can turn to the first of many ads scattered throughout this book. What’s stupid is that it’s an ad for Sonic the Hedgehog, the other Archie Publications-licensed comic book. And, boy, what a bucket of blandness it is. It’s Sonic the Hedgehog, Monkey Khan and the Iron Queen on an all-white background – how eye-grabbing. The two heroes are poised in what we take to be the middle of freaking nowhere standing up to the Iron Queen, whose shadow is the only other thing we can see. And I love that, actually, because it just shows how absolutely bankrupt the artwork for this ad really is. Because, when you look at it, both Monkey Khan and the Iron Queen’s staffs are radiating their signature energy beams. What’s really impossible about this is that this energy has shadows. Yes, because light works that way. Good grief! Who’s in charge of the physics in this backwards world?! Bizarro Superman?!

If all of that isn’t annoying enough, it dares insult the reader further by having the tagline: ‘New war. New threats. …And one angry monkey. Sonic the Hedgehog.’ Are you kidding me?! Who picks up a copy of Sonic the Hedgehog looking for a monkey?! It’s insane! That book isn’t about Sonic the Hedgehog versus Dr. Ivo “Eggman” Robotnik anymore; it’s about Sun Wu-Kong versus Rita Repulsa! And who’s afraid of “one angry monkey,” anyway? I’m more afraid of an angry accountant. …Or an angry video game nerd. Either one’s more terrifying than one angry monkey! When I think of angry monkeys I either think of the flying monkeys from the Wizard of Oz or the ones that fling their feces at the zoo, not Sonic the Hedgehog! When I think Sonic the Hedgehog, I think Sonic the Hedgehog!

Quickly turning the page and going past another ad, we catch up to our spiky blue protagonist as he’s surprised to find Jacque D’Coolette & Belle D’Coolette, the children of his long-time friends Antoine & Bunnie D’Coolette, both of whom are cyborgs.

What?! Now how did that happen?!

Were these two born with cybernetic limbs or something? I didn’t know they were heritable traits. That would be a more acceptable explanation over anything else we could be given. For instance, if they were in some kind of accident, what kind of accident would it be that both of them would be damaged enough to require a Six Million Dollar Man style cybernetics surgery? And, given that this is the “future,” you’d think that the surgery to grow replacement limbs and body parts would be available to them. I mean we have skin-graft technology for crying out loud! Even Knuckles mentions this technology when he was asked about his cybernetic eye, being reminded he could have an organic one grown for him any time he wants. At least with him, he had a mildly plausible excuse for keeping a cybernetic eye since he kept it to forever remind him of the time he supposedly went crazy with chaos energy and tried to remake reality – again, something else that is part of this inane “possible” future.

And don’t for a minute try to explain to me that these two chose to become cyborgs of their own accord. Given that Bunnie has always lived with her robotic limbs like most amputees forced to wear prosthetics, she has always lamented her lot, but still soldiered on and made the most of it. On the whole, this is a mature way of talking with kids about those who have had vicious, maiming accidents and who, thanks to their courage to persevere, are far from handicapped and more than willing to help out just like anyone else. But, with these two, if you’re saying they chose to have cybernetics installed then you’re not just being condescending… you’re being stupid! After all, Bunnie wouldn’t want her kids to willingly “modify” their bodies in such a way, just like any amputee parent wouldn’t want their child to have a similar loss of limbs.

Worse, as we continue to – somehow – read this page, we find out that both of them are ridiculously flirty. Granted, given Bunnie’s flirtations with many a young boy in her day and Antoine’s mooning over Sally in the past, a pair of similarly passionate children would make a little sense. But, given this is their debut appearance, seeing this characteristic right off the bat makes them come off as a little sleazy. And, even though I despise jokes like this, I reluctantly have to wonder whether or not these two are a little closer than just “brother and sister,” if you know what I mean. Though, frankly, if I was them, and these were my only two books, I’d probably be hitting on anything with a pulse myself. Oh well, in spite of the aura of weirdness and failure surrounding these two, Sonic’s more than glad to recruit them to his “new” Freedom Fighter unit. Don’t worry, though, in case you were thinking this was getting a little too high brow, we’ve got another surprise.

Not wanting to be left out, the fan-character Prower children are all set to go into the field with this ragtag band so they can help save their parents. Because, yes, that’s just what we need to complete the entire “Not-Freedom Fighter” action figure set. Don’t get me wrong, though, I kind of liked Melody and Skye when I first saw them, since their character designs are fairly decent and are in keeping with their purported parents’ designs. That “like” was turned to “hate” the minute I read the single panel where they announce their intentions to join the team.

Melody, given she inherited all of the manliness of her father and mother apparently, does a very poor impersonation of a white girl badly pretending to be a black girl. With the infamous “triple-snap” of her fingers she says, ‘Excuse me… We’re going to help rescue our parents, too! Right Skye?’ To which her brother timidly responds, ‘R-right. Right! We’re coming with you. If that’s okay with you.’ Are you kidding me?! A young Tails would be insulted by this kind of behavior. And he’s the boy’s father. Oh well, I’d be embarrassed to show my face to the world too if I was a boy named “Skye.”

Continuing with this comedy of editorial errors, after Argyll says he can play mission control for the team, Sonic proudly declares, “All right then! Freedom Fighters! Let’s do it to it!”

…

You know, once upon a time, that catchphrase really was something “cool” and worthwhile to listen to – in the 1990s. To some extent, it’s still kind of nostalgic and brings back a few fond memories of weekend mornings when we little youngsters were all set to watch a weekly episode of the Sonic the Hedgehog Saturday morning cartoon series. But, that’s a thin line to walk on, given that sentimentality doesn’t get you far in changing cultural times. Now, normally, you can save face by simply being confident and daring enough to continue to use outdated or abnormal slang. After all, just look at the character Lobo from DC Comics. …Or, don’t, actually. He’s a bad role-model for kids. He’s still awesome though! Unfortunately, the blue hedgehog Sonic is undercut in his familiar catch-phrase by his annoying new sidekicks commenting on his slang, unlike the albino Czarnian Lobo, who would have shot these kids by now. Instead, Sonic’s mildly cool moment – hard to see how he can be cool when he’s wearing a copy of Shadow’s death-metal fairy princess costume – is squashed by Lara-Su and Argyll commenting, ‘I told you he says it!’ and ‘I know! I’m geeking out!’

That’s my job mister! Not to mention the job of countless other losers that are, for reasons unknown, still reading this hunk of garbage.

Thankfully, another scene change interrupts this loser convention and we cut back over to King Shadow who is summoning a creature called Tikhaos.

…

…

Sorry folks, but I must warn you that this is where the book reaches its weirdest. Hard to believe, I know.

Apparently, somewhere along the 30 year time-line we’re looking at, Tikal and Chaos must have decided to change their relationship from “just friends, trapped in the Master Emerald” to “parents of the worst abomination against God and Nature anyone has ever seen.” I kid you not; Shadow the Hedgehog is calling upon a fused energy being that possesses qualities of both Tikal the Echidna and Chaos, “the god of destruction.” I cannot describe to you the nightmares that this creature has given me from the first moment I laid eyes on it. And no, the fact that it’s a watery, mutant love-child of an anthropomorphic echidna and a vengeful water god is not what really gets me. That’s just the cake. It’s fact that it’s the watery, mutant love-child of an anthropomorphic echidna and a vengeful water god that sounds like a crack-fiend going into withdrawal that’s the icing. Just read some of its dialogue:

‘It has been so long since I’ve had company. So very lonely. So very hungry…’

“Please… Just a little chaos energy…”

…

“Come on baby, I’m jonesin’ really bad. Just a little bit of meth. I’ll do anything.”

Oh, I’m sure that the writers were going for a creepy monster. But, this isn’t the creepy they were hoping to get. This is more like the drug addicts you can bump into a night in the wrong areas of the park, creepy but totally unappealing.

Lien-Da, realizing by now that she may have made a mistake in releasing Shadow, decides to talk the disgruntled hedgehog down. Of course, first we have to let another ad break up the pacing of the scene before she can get right down to business of reasoning with her superior. Ultimately, reasoning with him proves to be a mistake, since the genocidal hedgehog responds to her entreaties by crushing the arm-band device that prevents her from being affected by the temporal shift that made this alternate future possible. As a result, time shifts for her as well and she is phased out of this aberration in the comic’s own both the space-time continuum and comic books in general. Sadly, this took out the only character I was kind of rooting for the whole time.

No, Lien-Da! Come back! Take me with you! Maybe we can quantum leap back to a period when this comic didn’t suck and set right that which went wrong!

As Lien-Da does the time-warp (Yeah!!), Shadow decides to continue his plan, while the artist forgot to draw his cape and shoulder guard into the bottom panel. I’d call it a mistake, but it makes him look better without it.

We cut back to the heroes who are, for once, doing something interesting. Sonic, Jacque and Belle storm the front gates and take the Dark Presence by surprise. This is, of course, done while we receive unnecessary narration boxes to remind us that this is “Castle Mobius – Front Gates,” as opposed to “Castle Mobius – Loading Zone,” and that “The Dark Eyes” are “Spies for the Dark Presence” as opposed to “Black Eyed Peas” who are “far more entertaining.” At the same time, Lara, Skye and Melody make a silent entry to a tower window opposite to Sonic’s main assault. While Melody uses super-speed to scale the walls, Lara simply levitates up (boy, doesn’t her father wish he could do that?) and Skye clumsily “flies” up with all the grace of an out of control toy helicopter. Lara criticizes him for apparently “showboating,” but Melody plays Captain Obvious and tells Lara that ‘He’s still learning to fly! He can’t do it like dad does!’

Trust me lady, he can’t do anything “like dad does.” Which will really disappoint his parents when they find out Skye won’t be able to give them grand-children, either.

Inside the castle, Lara shows all the expertise of a woman who’s been raised by Knuckles the Echidna and Julie-Su and instructed by the Chaotix, Angel Island’s premier super-group. What’s her plan for taking out a room full of armed spies who have taken control of the castle’s security systems and directing the operations of the ground-forces operating inside the castle? Does she and Melody use speed and surprise to overpower the guards before they can sound an alarm? Does she use chaos control to immobilize them all before they can even think of moving?

No! None of that! That’s too “predictable,” instead with all the wisdom imparted from her father – the same one who’s been tricked by Eggman on countless occasions – she let’s Skye fly into the room. His inability to fly straight causes him to collide into and incapacitate every single guard there before anyone can even think to pull a gun or sound the alarm. Because, since he has no control over his flight pattern, he can readily hit every single guard in the room without missing one and giving them a split-second to react, like well-trained soldiers should be. Needless to say this is a laugh riot, since it shows that even the littlest, least experience of us can take down well-trained, highly motivated mercenaries through the sheer power of comic relief.

With the central security control room taken, Sonic’s strike team is granted safe passage into the castle’s hallways. At the same time, however, Argyll relays information that something or other may be going on in the castle’s catacombs.

Don’t you love it when you’re five steps ahead of the heroes? That totally doesn’t make them look, you know, stupid or anything.

Oh, and two more ads later…

Lara, being the big bag of usefulness that she is, is unable to find out what exactly is going on in the catacombs, thanks to her brilliant idea of sending Skye in to whirlybird the enemy into submission. Similarly, when Skye is (again) unable to match his father’s technical skills so as to use another monitor to patch into the catacombs’ security cameras and is incapable of shutting down the still-active security grid, Lara switches it off with all of the style of her father: she punches it.

Again, why aren’t Sonic’s kids helping? I mean, if the failure brigade is doing so swimmingly, why can’t the other super-speedsters have a hand in this? What, because they’re royalty? “We must preserve the dynasty” and all that? While that may be a valid argument in the real world, where kids their age don’t have super-powers, in a comic book like this one, any such pretenses are just silly. This is similar, to me, of how people thought that, with the establishment of the Kingdom of Acorn in Knothole Village, Sally should forego her battlefield duties and settle into the role of heir-apparent and civil administrator. While I can appreciate the logical arguments of this position, understand that, if you take a look at actual human history, there have been countless warrior dynasties that have sent the heirs to the throne into battlefields, from the time of Ancient Egypt to today. Further, given that Sally is (or at least was) good enough to spar with Sonic in the past, and that Lara-Su had to use chaos control to contain her super-speedster children, these three could do just as much as Tails’ kids, plus Knuckles’ daughter and Bunnie & Antoine’s horn-dog youngsters.

On top of that, what makes all of these kids so expendable? One is the Guardian of Angel Island and the rest are the children of high-ranking dignitaries, celebrities and officers in the world regime! Besides that, what would Sonic have to say to their parents if he got them killed playing cavalier heroes?

“Oh, hey, Tails, sorry about Skye and all, but, seriously, you were dodging bullets ten times better than he did at his age. What’s really cruel, though, is that they dressed him up in a little girl’s dress when they shot him. Again, I am so sorry, totally my bad. Will a fruit-basket and a humorous ‘Sorry your only son died’ card work?

“Still, at least you and Mina are still young! Though, if I were you, I’d try harder with kid number three. And quick, too, Mina is older than you and that biological clock is ticking away.”

Shouldering on with this insane drabble, Argyll is able to patch Sonic through to Sally in the panic-room. And we’re given visual proof that the royal family is safe and that Silver is just now recovering from his plot-induced incapacitation, because God knows we were on pins and needles about whether or not they had reached the green-room of a late-night talk-show. While Sonic asks if the panic room has monitors, his follow-up question about the catacombs is entirely irrelevant when he asks, ‘What else is down there?’ Sally, with all the style of a soccer-mom reading off a grocery list informs us that the catacombs house threats such as ‘E-107 Theta, the Anarchy-Beryl Bomb, and…’ Again, even though there are security monitors and cameras that could show what Shadow is up to, nobody uses them.

By the way, I love Manik’s question on that same page: “Where did you find Freedom Fighters?!” Sonic never answers that, and I don’t blame him, I’d be embarrassed to if I had to say, “In the backroom of a nerdy crocodile’s house,” too.

Now, before we flip back over to Shadow being the usual jerk he is in this future, I should like to remind folks, again, that this is one of the things I hate about this story-arc: everyone is completely ignorant of just how much danger they are in. Nobody had thought twice about Shadow in the last issue, whatsoever. And, again, rather than being concerned, Sally’s just idly listing off the possible world-ending doomsday devices and creatures that live right in her basement! I would say it’s her and Sonic’s basement, but apparently, his whole being King-Consort means he’s not privy to such information. After all, Sonic’s own children by this woman have her family name: Acorn. If you go ahead and try to say that by being “merely” King-Consort to Queen Sally their children must be recognized as her children, why is it that Sonic himself gets to lord over lands and people? He was never a prince (unless you count Sonic Underground, which we’re not), he’s only been knighted, twice, and his parents are merely in good standing with the monarchy. Similarly, if Shadow married her, we know that was just for the sake of trying to legitimatize his reign, since, you know, he conquered the planet all by himself. Apparently, despite being the one who wears the crown, Sally doesn’t get to do anything or be important beyond hanging off the arm of whichever man is in charge.

…And don’t say it’s because of some misogynistic, patriarchal laws! Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth II for the win, punks!

Regaining my composure and calling upon God to give me the strength to see this through, we notice that Shadow is prepared to do just what he’s planned to do. FINALLY! We’ve gone this long and he’s just now ready to end the world? Good grief, most other villains would have been thwarted by now and it would be the end of the comic! Instead, Shadow removes one of his energy inhibitor rings from his wrists and informs his soldiers that it doesn’t matter that Sonic has liberated the castle. He then starts feeding chaos energy to Tikhaos. By the way, I love his expressions throughout all of this since he has all the panache of a pimp or a drug connection. Sorry, but the imagery of drug addictions and the generally dependent behavior of this abomination of nature work so well here.

Unfortunately for Tikhaos, Shadow decides to overdose the hapless monstrosity and it starts screaming, ‘No! Too much! Too much!!’

“No, don’t charge that blu-ray player to my Master Card, it’s too much!!”

‘Not again! Losing control!’

“Don’t worry.  She says that every time there’s an all-you-can-eat buffet at the local sushi bar.”

Anyway, as Tikhaos starts growing and mutating, the rather astute Dark Presence soldiers flee out the door. I love their lines:

‘Forget this! I didn’t sign up for this!’

“Yeah! I don’t care if he did promise universal health-care within four years!”

‘Dark Presence fall back! Evacuate the island!’

“Finally, someone I can agree with, evacuate the island… then the comic!”

‘King Shadow’s going to destroy us all!’

“Nope, too late for that; the writer’s have already destroyed this shipwreck of a story.”

Shock and horror! Tikhaos has transformed into… Two more ads! NO!!

As King Sonic and the “Not-Really-Freedom Fighters” run past the two ad pages, they’re surprised to find the remaining forces of the Dark Presence running past them. As a tremor rocks the castle, Lara-Su stupidly asks, ‘You’re a veteran hero, sire. Is that a good sign?’

“Not really. When you get my age, your bowels don’t work the way they should. Really, I should have gotten a more balanced diet other than 24/7 chili-dogs.”

Sonic said something else, but that’s just as good.

But, faster than you can say “onomatopoeia,” the floor breaks apart with a thunderous ‘KRAK!’ and the heroes are sent scrambling for ways to get airborne. While Jacque lifts Melody out of harm’s way, and I swear he looks like he’s copping a feel, Belle grabs Sonic and Lara, for once, shows some wisdom and carries the anthropomorphic aerial demolition derby that is Skye to safety.

Finally, the heroes come face to face with Shadow’s ultimate revenge scheme! They are left awestruck at the sight of:

Perfect Tikhaos!

…

…

WHAT?!

That’s it?! All we’re doing is combing Sonic Adventure, Sonic Adventure 2 and the Archie-licensed Sonic the Hedgehog book?!

Well, of course. After all, everyone loved it when Archie adapted the Sonic Adventure plotline to their comic. …Right?

“Oh, please, please. Let them combine this with Sonic the Comic so that somebody unpopular will die. …Preferably all of them!”

Still, everything on this page is just as offensive as everything on the first page. First, as I said, it’s nothing but copy and pasting the storylines of the Adventure series into one very lame book. Second, notice the narration to describe this thing, as if it can be described: ‘Perfect Tikhaos: Overpowered spirit bound to a god.’

“Curse you, Xenu! How many worlds must you destroy?!”

Then, finally, there’s the caption box in the bottom right corner: ‘Talk about being thrown into the deep end! Can the Freedom Fighters triumph, or will their first mission be their last? Come back for the exciting final chapter next moth!’

That’s two very bad jokes right there. One made by Sonic, which I’m not going to repeat because it’s such a failure, and one made in the caption box. But, what really takes the cake is the fact that we’re still dignifying these fan-characters with the name of the original cast. What’s really grating is that they’re just called “The Freedom Fighters,” as if they’ve been so all along. Imagine how far backwards that Marv Wolfman had to bend to get his The NEW Teen Titans stories written? I mean, every cover had to have the word “new” emblazoned into the title of the series and always in all caps. This was to make it clear that with the addition of Starfire, Raven, Cyborg and Beast Boy, the series was different from the preceding one which only contained Robin, Kid Flash, Speedy, Aqualad and Wonder Girl. And, frankly, was one of the most popular comics of the 1980s. Compare those characters with these darling little additions. There is no comparison. Largely because, there’s nothing to build on! We’re three books into a four-book story-arc and we’ve seen jack squat from these people!

What’s worse is the predictability of all this. Even though we expect them to win, the Freedom Fighters (as depicted here) will have a cakewalk in store for them. Sure, we have this absurd fusion-character of Tikal and Chaos to deal with, but it can be safely surmised that things will go smoothly given that the upcoming issue is the last book in a four-book series. And, despite having two major threats on their hands, one has only presented itself as a true threat by issue’s end, and the other one has done nothing beyond talk a lot and activate the other threat. This grates on the reader’s nerves even more!

Remember how Shadow started out as a fairly evil, if traumatized character, but realized the error in his ways and, barring a fairly convoluted (some might say contrived) survival, began to make amends by working with those he once endangered? What made him even more compelling was that, as an anti-hero, he often provided a darker foil to Sonic’s “great hero,” role. As such, this worked in a style comparable to Batman and Superman and Punisher and Spider-Man; the latter similarities being stronger than the former, naturally. This being said, it opened a vast array of possibilities of Shadow being someone unique in this cast of characters: at times being just as bad as the villains, but sometimes being a hero as great as or greater than Sonic, by struggling with deeper emotional problems that made being that hero all the more difficult. This is often what his fans cite as being the reason for their admiration of the troubled immortal.

Now… Imagine how stupid it is for him to suddenly got total Snidely Whiplash and conquer the planet, without even explaining why this would happen! For the second telling of “Mobius: 25 Years Later,” after the monumental time-shift that ended the first run, this was nothing but a cheap cop-out to set up a dystopian future, with Shadow supplanting the more likely threat of Eggman. And, if that isn’t insulting enough, we were given an arc dedicated to Shadow immediately before “Mobius: 30 Years Later.” Talk about toying with your emotions! One month, we’re expected to sympathize with Shadow, a lot. Sonic Universe #1-4 gave us a storyline where Shadow is constantly regretting past decisions, mourning the loss of allies in the battle for good and generally showcasing a mindset and emotional state that shows a troubled and self-doubting being that’s struggling with the decision to be good.

What happened, man?! Did you have an “evil relapse” or fall off the “goody-good wagon?!”

And don’t get me started on how this future storyline features Shadow still associating his tyrannical and cruel reign with a distorted idea that Maria Robotnik, the young lady over whom Shadow has perpetual loss and abandonment issues, would approve of all this stupidity. How many more times do we have to have it proven that she wouldn’t approve of this?!

There is nothing redeeming between the front and back covers of this book. And to prove that, let’s go a few steps further and look at the book’s follow-up materials: “Off-Panel” and the Letters to the Editor page.

Simply put, “Off-Panel” has been around for years in Archie’s books. The point is to put Sonic in humorous situations, even going so far as to break the fourth wall and include the actual staff that work on the book Sometimes the strips were terrible, but some were genuinely humorous. More often than not, they were nice to have simply because they provided closure to the book and give us a few cheap laughs. As you can imagine, however, in this instance of wretched story-telling the strips aren’t all that funny.

In the first strip, Sonic and Manik are playing checkers. Needless to say, it’s a cheap “King me” joke at the end when Manik wins. Wow. …Bazooka Joe is funnier!

The second strip features Lien-Da in an “alternate ending” for Sonic Universe #6. Here, she finds Shadow inside a giant refrigerator, stuffed inside the vegetable crisper with the peas. When he says, ‘They will pay dearly for this indignity,’ I can only hope he’s talking about the writers and artist who drew such asinine strips. If anything, this self-parody insults me. I mean… come on! It’s my job to trash this book.

The real kick in the teeth, though, comes with the announcement that fans can write in to “Off-Panel” and submit their own comic strips. While this would suggest a heart-felt effort to reach out to fans, it’s absurdly stupid in the fact that, despite resurrecting this tradition for Sonic Universe, it’s being turned over to the fans. Again, on the surface, this is inviting fan input, but really it’s just lazy. Though, really, I’d say there are any number of fans who could do much better than these rejects for bubble-gum wrapping!

Oh, and there’s another ad next to “Off-Panel.” This one’s annoying for the fact that it’s a cut-out page that can be sent away for back-issues and subscriptions to the Archie-licensed Sonic books. If you were to cut it out, you’d lose the page that gives the dramatic reveal of Perfect Tikhaos. In short, it’s basically saying that other books are more interesting than the giant water-monster on the opposite of the page. Finally! Something that both I and the editors can agree upon!

The last thing, thank Heavens, in Sonic Universe is the Letters to the Editor page, otherwise called “My Sonic Universe.” I’m not even going to dignify it with that name, though. It’s just stupid. I don’t claim this warped reality as mine as a fan, nor do I like the idea of the writers and editors getting the ego-stroking satisfaction of granting them their own universe. If anything, this is a record of their insane ramblings and poor storytelling. So, let’s get to those letters. Oh, by the way, I’m going to recreate the text in a way similar to that found in the actual Letters page.

It looks like you folks are really enjoying our look into the future already!

Already?! You’ve talked about this twice in the main series; this is now our third look into the future! How short of an attention span do you think we have?!

Let’s see what else some of you have had to say about Your Sonic Universe!

Hi, this is Leon,

Hi, Leon! Didn’t you think we’d be able to guess who this was with the “From” header attached to the email?

I am a big fan of Sonic Universe, but I have just one question:

Ha! Just one?!

Are you guys going to make a Sonic Universe story with Team Chaotix? Leon H. (Sent via email: sonic@archiecomics.com)

Well, isn’t that nice? A little advertisement tucked away inside someone’s email; classy, guys, really classy.

You’ll definitely be seeing some of the Chaotix in action when the next saga in Sonic Universe starts up!

Oh, so you basically chose this email to act as a complete advertisement, eh? You know, folks, given the Information Age’s availability of, you know, information, you’d think that he could just wiki or google the answer to his question. He obviously has access to a computer. Still, it’s just shameless of the editors to plug their book by selecting emails and letters like this. So, yes, there are more of these types of things on this page. Next!

Dear Masters of the “Universe,”

Oh no, you didn’t just make a He-Man reference and stroke these guys’ egos at the same time, did you? …Of course you did.

It would be soooo awesome if you made a 4-issue saga about Silver the Hedgehog.

Not a bad idea. It’d be more interesting than this garbage.

He’s my favorite character and I feel like he didn’t get his fill in the main series.

Wow, that’s brave of you to say that, given the fact you can count Silver the Hedgehog fans on one hand. Nothing against him, though. Frankly, I think this kid’s got a very good point about him.

Also great work on the comics.

…

Because I live in the UK, it is very hard to find them, so I have to order them every month.

You live in the United Kingdom? Why are you reading this book, then?! You’d be better off with back issues of your own country’s book: Sonic the Comic. It’s far more intelligent than this. Shucks! Previous issues of this same comic book series were more intelligent than this!

I’m sure your millions of fans would like to see Silver again.

Millions of fans?! The only way this trash would have millions of fans was if you took into account that, of six billion people on the planet, you scraped together to tally up the book’s readership. And I think you’d still have trouble getting an even million!

You guys are way past cool! Jenny S. (Grimsby, UK)

That’s only because they don’t have sense enough to get in out of the cold, Jenny.

Well, you’re seeing a little bit of Silver now, as we look into ‘Mobius: 30 Years Later!’

Yes, very little. He’s been asleep most of the time; lucky him.

But maybe Silver should get a story all to himself?

Again, notice our peerless editors forgot to put a comma after ‘But.’

You fans should write in and let us know what you think!

Finally, we get a response that makes sense and requests that the fans make meaningful contributions to the storyline.  Unfortunately, it’s a hollow move since, as I mentioned earlier, you’re not going to see that many people writing in on Silver’s behalf. Next!

Dear “My Sonic Universe,”

I’d hold using that stupid title against you, but since you used quotation marks, I stand by your skepticism of how effect said title actually is.

Hello! I just want to say your comics are awesome! The Sonic Universe series is really funny; Omega is one of my favorite characters!

“And sugar is my favorite food!”

Every time he speaks and destroys his foes, I imagine him talking gangsta’-like.

That’s not a misprint or correction on my part. This kid actually wrote this. Frankly, that’s too proper a way of talking about Ebonics. Like any proper dialect, Ebonics prides itself on its lack of formalism, as it should. This kid is either whiter than Wonder Bread, or is actually 35.

He’s so cool!

Honestly? This kid’s scaring me. He thinks this series is funny, which it’s not; loves the killer-robot; and thinks that robot talks like a street criminal from Harlem, which he doesn’t.

I just want to know if y’all/SEGA are going to make a darker Sonic series like the “grown-up” game Shadow the Hedgehog.

Hey, this is interesting, not only because he quit using exclamation marks like comas, but because that’s an interesting thought.

They gave Shadow guns, then gave Sonic a sword, and made him transform into a werehog.

While those are controversial decisions, you do have to admit that they required a little bit of maturity and some spine, actually.

I like the improvements of the games, but I’m just wondering, what’s next? Terrance C. (Sumrall, MS)

You know, Terry, I like the cut of your jib and that does deserves some serious thought. I know I’ve been wondering what happened to the drama in this comic series.

While the comics will sometimes have their ‘darker’ moments, we’re really more interested in telling fun stories.

…

You can have fun with a little bit of an edge, but you can’t really be all grim-and-gritty and still be accessible to everyone.

…

We’re sure you’ll like where we go with things, though!

Say, what?! Are you kidding me?! Have you morons ever watched an episode of Batman: The Animated Series or Samurai Jack?! Or Gargoyles?! Or how about the show this comic was partly inspired by: Sonic the Hedgehog?! If this comic has an edge, it’s the ones on the pages. And I don’t even think you could get a paper-cut from them! You’re lame, bland, losers! And, on top of that, you’ve just condescended to a reader that actually took the time to realize just how soft and silly you’ve made this series into! Terry! Go spend your money on issues of Spider-Man or Batman; you’d be better off! Because, if Sonic Universe #7 is any indication, they’re just going to keep grinding  this hunk of junk further into a candy-coated paste! Next!!

My Sonic Universe,

I said cut that out!!

I would just like to congratulate you on an awesome comic series!

And I would just like to congratulate you on having terrifyingly bad judgment.

I’ve only read the first Sonic Universe, but it was great!

Better quit while you’re ahead, son.

Right now I’m looking forward to reading #3!

I’m looking forward to your Ritalin prescription getting refilled.

I hear Gamma & Omega star in it! Gamma is one of my favorite characters, in fact, I’m going to get a Gamma action figure soon.

Uh-oh, he used a period. He must have wet himself at the thought of his action figure coming soon and had to calm down.

I think it’s great you’re bringing Gamma & Omega in.

Oh boy… He should have already been prepared for this given Sonic Adventure’s ending. But, didn’t anyone tell him what happens to Gamma?

It’ about time Omega got his cut of the comic action! I also like how you’re devoting every 3-5 issues to a certain character.

Yes, both of those things are good. But, it’d be nice if they actually did something with all of it!

Is it true Knuckles is going to get his own story at issue #9? Can’t Wait! Joshua W. (sent via email)

Of course he is. Otherwise they wouldn’t have chosen your email to advertise with.

You hear right, Joshua!

See?

Knuckles will be having his own adventure to wrap up 2009!

Oh, that’s nice. Now, man up and tell him you kill one of his favorite characters! Come on! Do it!!

And we’re out of space! See you next time!

Dude, you’re total wimp.

And, with those words, I cannot think of a better way to close up my review of Sonic Universe #7. It’s inane, insane, and totally without a brain. It goes without saying that nothing, and I mean nothing, can save this book from getting a score higher than it deserves: 1 out of 5.

Ladies and Gentlemen (and everyone else), I’m dreadfully sorry for not updating last week. It’s been slow in popular culture news in my areas of expertise, so I had very, very little to work with. Instead, I only had some things to address via an editorial I wrote. I hope the lateness in it’s coming and the brevity of what I have to say, are overlooked in favor of what you will hopefully find to be an entertaining read. Take this as a peace offering.

First, I’d like to simply remind everyone reading that Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story is now available in North America, as of September 14, 2009. Meanwhile, Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games has yet to be released. Though, be sure to click the hyperlink and give the site a quick glance, since it has updated periodically since my previous article. Look for new events, characters, and story details. Meanwhile, work continues ever steadily on New Super Mario Bros. Wii, Super Mario Galaxy 2 and Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing; watch the new trailer posted at Sega for their latest Sega All-Stars game.

Second, clear a spot in your DVD and Blu-Ray collections, because Superman/Batman: Public Enemies is only a short while from release: September 29, 2009. Check out the latest updates and materials! Also, learn to fear the dark in all new ways as the titanic clash between the Black Lanterns and the forces of light struggle for the fate of the universe in DC Comics’ latest crossover event: Blackest Night. The dead will rise.

Now, with formalities out of the way, I’d like to borrow your attention for the previously mentioned short editorial, my first, for this journal. Whereas I’ve brought you my opinions on new releases and upcoming events, I would like, now, to give you my opinions on a trend in one of my favorite comic books that has been causing me grief.

The Artwork of Archie Publications’ Sonic the Hedgehog (and Sonic Universe) Series

Right off the bat, I should make it clear that, in my previous review for Sonic the Hedgehog #203, I made a grave mistake. Without thoroughly reading over the credits page, I accidentally attributed #203’s artwork to the wrong artist. If you had bothered to take the time to read it, unlike me, you would have noticed that the penciler for #203 was Steven Butler. I should sincerely apologize to both Butler and Tracey Yardley for that mistake. Unfortunately, though, this does illustrate a point that I was making with my commentary on the current state of Sonic the Hedgehog’s artwork.

Of the current artistry staff, Steven Butler has been around a fairly long time. Not as long as Patrick Spaziante, but certainly longer than Tracey Yardley. Butler actually got started back some years ago, when very popular artists like Dawn Best and Jay Axer were still on the scene. If I can gush a moment, I cannot tell you how much I love the work done by Best or Axer. Though Best rarely does work for Archie, these days, and Axer has gone off to do work for an independent publisher, Angry Viking Press, I can say that they were among my favorite artists to work on the book. Mostly because there’s just so much effort and detail put into their work. They’re very talented and very popular with many, many people thanks to their studied use of depths, line-art, anatomy, and all the little intricacies that professional art critics can spend much more time on than I can. Needless to say, it’s a joy to look at both of their works whether colored or uncolored. It was among these people that Butler got his start and, in all honesty, I found myself making comparisons between his work and Dawn Best’s when I first saw it. Though it was more simplified than Best’s, it was certainly reminiscent of her work in style and flow.

These days, though, Butler’s style has become very much like Yardley’s. Frankly, Butler doesn’t show much of a stylistic evolution between some of his earlier work and this recent bit of oddness in #203. Still, there’s just something “off;” to prove that, I again refer back to the opening pages of #203. The worst thing that grabbed my eye is still the panel with Monkey Khan ranting into the sky, while Sonic is lying on his back and asking a stupid question (page 5, panel 2). There’s just so much wrong with that panel! The pose, the dialogue, image progression, you name it, it’s wrong. When one flips back to some of Butler’s earlier work, this kind of bizarreness never happened, or if it did, it was very rare. To some extent, this can be blamed on the script direction hammered out by head-writer Ian Flynn. But, even then, the image still has a static nature to it. That’s very bad, considering that Khan is (so ineffectually) having a dramatic outburst. It really grinds on the nerves to see someone with so much potential when he started on the book… immediately plateau after getting that start. Though, to be fair, this may not be Butler’s fault (at least not entirely). For that matter, Yardley may be more innocent than one would think, as well.

As it is, in the past decade Sega has moved heaven and earth to assert total control over everything Sonic-related. While this is, in theory, perfectly logical and a genuine legal right of theirs it has, more often than not, led to some rather dramatic upsets for many fans of the Sonic franchise. The most notorious example was the dismissal of the voice-actors who worked on the Sonic Adventure series, Sonic Heroes, Sonic Shuffle, and the Sonic Advance series, widely regarded as some of the best voices to portray Sega’s flagship characters, with the 4K!ds actors who worked exclusively on the translated version of the Sonic X anime. Over time, there have also been numerous other little faults and foibles on the part of Sega to ensure a total, lockstep uniformity to everything Sonic-related, including spin-off media.

It has been noted that the Japanese character models of Sonic are what all the different companies licensed to sell the franchise are required to use. In the past, this has been interpreted very liberally on the part of the various license holders in North America and Europe. However, it would seem that a stricter interpretation has prevailed and caused an across the board mimicry of the official Sonic artwork from Sega. I can safely declare that, in looking at the Japanese anime Sonic X, the American comic book Sonic X, and much of the recent artwork prevalent for Sonic the Hedgehog, I see very little if any variation or differentiation. With that said, I find this horrific.

If I am correct and Sega has made it mandatory for all licensed Sonic media to copy the artwork that their in-house artists dictate (from Japan), I owe a very large apology to Steven Butler, Tracey Yardley, and Jamal Pepper. You probably noticed I haven’t mentioned Pepper in the article, so far. That’s because, once again, I accredited his work to Yardley as well! Good grief! It’s like they’re passing a textbook-manual on Sonic art amongst themselves! Which I believe is how things work for the art-staff, now! Three individuals, without much individual variation screams that they are either too like-minded for comfort or they have their pencils horribly restricted. While uniformity is nice and stable, there is such a thing as individualization and it provides a chance for new ideas and innovation. While I’m far from crying out for a return to the artwork of Ron Lim (sorry, he just wasn’t cut out for Sonic the Hedgehog, apparently), I’m certainly requesting a little change-up in the artistry.

The real soul crusher is the fact that much of the inspiration for Sonic’s artwork was the 1920’s era of cartoons, such as Mickey Mouse, Felix the Cat and Bosko. I’ve heard time and again from people that Sonic looks best when drawn in a light-hearted or whimsical manner and they usually point to The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog as being the ideal style and depiction for Sonic. To which I can only say that when compared to some of the stories told in the Sonic the Hedgehog comic book series, Fleetway’s Sonic the Comic, the Sonic Adventure series, the Saturday morning cartoon Sonic the Hedgehog, and the anime Sonic X, The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog is largely forgettable or leaves no lasting impression. I like that show, I like most all Sonic materials, but I like some more than others.  Further, if we are going to be slapstick, the official artwork for licensed Sonic artists does not work well with it.

More importantly, just as when I was a kid, I want my adventure stories to have more thought and seriousness to it than constant, episodic slapstick with little central plot. This would come off as a hypocrisy from me, though, because Mickey Mouse, Felix and Bosko were episodic comedies with little over-arching plot. But, that was their point, vaudevillian comedy without the trappings of an adventure. The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, while fun, simply does not stand up to the Saturday morning Sonic the Hedgehog by comparison. Further, I’d like to make it clear that while Sonic X is the more predominant animated series in popular consciousness right now, because it’s fresher in our collective psyche, it has constant throwbacks to the cartoons and comics that came before it. The inclusion of a trio of robot helpers for Dr. Eggman is a direct reference to the robots from Adventures, while the Thorndyke family members act as stand-ins for the Freedom Fighters from the Saturday morning series.

My ultimate point is that the time of artistic variation was one of the best for Archie’s Sonic book. While the artists were required to meet certain guidelines, they were allowed to be inventive and go about things in their own way. Frankly, I think that while the official Sega of Japan artwork is okay… I have to admit it is just plain bland. That’s right: bland. The reason for that is that more often than not, the Sonic characters are shown in poses or simply standing around in one fashion or another. There’s little action and certainly little charm. Now, when things actually get exciting and some action is shown, things improve, somewhat. But, when you toss in script-writing like Ian Flynn’s, you’re doomed to tedium. This is horrible when you think of the fact that Sonic is constantly billed as being fast-paced and exciting. No, it’s not. Not when drawn according a universal image standard (a passable one at best) and scripted by writers who fail to entertain more than they succeed. It’s too simplified to be taken seriously and too structured to be humorous. In short, the time is ripe for a change: to something either more cartoon-like or more serious. The current artwork and depictions of Sonic the Hedgehog in 2-Dimensional artwork is far too bland and gravely lacking in imagination. I don’t know where this change can or will come from; but we must escape this artistic Dark Age and give new perspective to our dear little blue friend.

Thank you for your time.

Next Week: We can’t seem to leave Sonic the Hedgehog alone; nor should we. Next time, I take up issue #204 of Sonic the Hedgehog and issue #7 of Sonic Universe and give them the scathing review they so richly deserve. See you then!

Plans, plans, plans… They always have their plans. But, the problem with their plan is that when you take an insane person to the asylum, you’re just taking him home. The very place he knows best.

-Joker, Batman: Arkham Asylum

And with those words from a professional mass-murdering psychopath, I feel the mood is set for a proper review of DC Comics and Warner Bros.’ latest multi-platform game, produced in association with Rocksteady and Eidos.

Batman: Arkham Asylum (Xbox 360)

It’s a typical night for the Batman as the game’s story begins; another showdown with the criminal clown known as the Joker and another return to Gotham City’s premier institution for the treatment of his kind, The Elizabeth Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane, located on an island in Gotham Bay. Arriving at the Asylum, Batman is unsettled by Joker’s seemingly weak resistance and easy surrender and requests to accompany Joker on his way to lock-up. After sharing his concerns with Commissioner James Gordon and Warden Quincy Sharp, Batman is horrified to see Joker escape custody and flee into the Asylum’s corridors. Giving chase, Batman is assisted via radio by Oracle, Commissioner Gordon’s daughter Barbara Gordon, the former Batgirl. It doesn’t take long for Batman to find out that, with the escape of dozens of other inmates, Joker’s efforts aren’t a mere escape attempt. No, as he emerges from the Intensive Treatment Building, he finds that Joker is using the inmates as his personal army to take control of the island, section by section. In the midst of this, Gordon is kidnapped and held prisoner by Joker’s right-hand henchwoman Harley Quinn while Joker threatens Gotham City with a series of bombs planted around the city.

Though Batman puts forth a tremendous effort to help defend buildings and staff, Joker’s criminal army continues its violent campaign to seize the entire island – and act out a larger scheme that Batman has yet to deduce – as quickly as possible. When he enters the Medical Building, Batman meets Dr. Penelope Young, an Arkham psychiatrist and pharmaceutical-psychologist whom the Joker has targeted specifically for unknown reasons. After rescuing Dr. Young and several other medical staff, Batman continues his search for Gordon. He finds Gordon in the basement area of the Medical Building. He is horrified, however, to find that Gordon is murdered and he is unable to contact Oracle to give her the bad news. As he goes to investigate the morgue, Batman is confronted by the undead corpses of his parents: Thomas and Martha Wayne. He is then immediately assaulted by Dr. Jonathan Crane, aka Scarecrow. Surviving the ordeal, Batman is relieved to find that his terrors were hallucinations brought on by Crane pumping his patented fear toxin into the basement. Soon after, Batman locates and rescues Gordon from Harley Quinn, only to find himself face to face with the masked mercenary simply known as Bane. After a grueling battle with the super-strong, Venom-fueled killer, Batman manages to defeat Bane in hand-to-hand combat and delivers a final blow with the Batmobile, sending both car and criminal into the bay.

With Gordon rescued Batman sends the veteran crime-fighter back to the mainland to deal with the bomb threat and keep public order. Meanwhile, Batman travels to a Batcave he has established on Arkham Island. This secondary base of operations was established on Arkham Island just in case of a mass-uprising such as the one he’s being confronted with. After resting and refitting, Batman contemplates the clues that have emerged thus far. At the Medical Building, he found out that Dr. Young had been draining Bane’s Venom from his body. Further, Dr. Young had been experimenting with the chemical and producing a new derivative from it: Titan. Her hope is to use the compound to create a new medical procedure that will cure Gotham’s worst villains, but it instead creates an instantaneous Venom-like transformation in the patients. Horrified, Young quit her experiments and attempted to resign shortly before the events depicted in the game. As Batman works his way back to the surface through the old sewer system, Oracle uses her computer hacking and research skills to reveal that Young had been fooled by Joker who had used his connections and money to contribute to her experiments. When Young realized that it was Joker funding her research and what her formula could do, she attempted to pay back his money and flee Gotham before he could kill her for failure to comply.

Emerging from the sewers, Batman finds the island is all but under Joker’s control as he makes his way to Arkham Mansion, the administrative building for the Asylum. There, he finds several of the security personnel held hostage and that Dr. Young has been captured once again. Working his way through the mansion and rescuing the surviving guards, he goes to rescue Dr. Young from Victor Zsasz, the mentally and physically scarred serial killer. Along the way, he is once more assaulted by Scarecrow, whose gas causes a nightmarish flashback to the night that his parents were gunned down by a street-criminal. Regaining his wits, Batman confronts and defeats Zsasz. With Zsasz incapacitated, Dr. Young agrees to help stop Joker by providing Batman with the security codes to circumvent the Island’s defenses, which the Joker has turned against Batman and the security staff. Unfortunately, when Young goes to access the wall-safe that contains the codes, she is killed by a bomb left by the Joker. Batman is rendered unconscious by the blast.

When he reawakens he is confronted by Harley Quinn, who has taken Warden Sharp hostage, and her thugs. Leaving the scene with Sharp, Harley unleashes her thugs against Batman. After dealing with them, he quickly pursues Quinn who has taken Sharp to the Asylum’s Penitentiary. There, he continues relief efforts to rescue trapped guards and take down marauding criminals. He eventually rescues Sharp and takes his security clearance card to access most of the Penitentiary’s holding areas. Along the way, he is troubled to find that Joker and Harley have released the remaining inmates in the Penitentiary, including eco-terrorist, woman-plant hybrid Poison Ivy. He finally locates Quinn, who sends waves of thugs at Batman, but is crushed to see the dark detective subdue them all and tries to defeat Batman herself. Though an impressive gymnast and a capable fighter, she finds she is far from Batman’s skill levels and quickly and easily subdued. Taking her security clearance card, he’s granted access to any and all area he needs to enter.

Picking up on Joker’s trail, Batman follows the clown prince of crime to the island’s Botanical Gardens. Dispatching with more inmates and rescuing more hostages, Batman tracks down Joker in a hidden laboratory. His arch-nemesis then uses some of his first batch of perfected Titan serum to attack Batman with two inmates who are transformed into vicious monsters. After a near-fatal encounter with the monster-men, Batman finds that Dr. Young had used plants in the Botanical Gardens to bio-engineer the Titan serum. He then realizes the surest means of creating an antidote would be to find a plant that could counter its organic structure. Naturally, he seeks out Poison Ivy. The seductive and violent plant-woman, after a bit of interrogation, says that an antidote could be formed from spores of a fungus that grows in the sewers below Intensive Treatment, where cannibal Killer Croc is kept. Batman then advances to the sewers. However, before he can leave the Gardens, he finds out all too quickly that Joker has injected Poison Ivy with the Titan serum. Because of her mutated physiology, however, the Titan effects manifest themselves through her ability to control plant-life. Her powers are enhanced to the point that she begins to cover the entire island with venomous plant pods that emit a deadly neurotoxin that will kill anyone that sets foot near them. Batman’s search for an antidote is now accelerated.

Re-entering the criminal-infested Intensive Treatment building, Batman battles his way down into its depths and toward the sewers. Along the way, Batman is yet again put under Scarecrow’s influence. Here, the game actually breaks the fourth-wall and confuses the player. The game pretends to glitch as though it has crashed, then “reboot” back to the opening cut-scenes. The opening is corrupted so that Batman is being brought to the Asylum and Joker is escorting him. Surrounded by Zsasz, Harley Quinn, Joker and Scarecrow, Batman is shot and killed. The player is then advised to “use the middle control-stick to avoid Joker’s gun-fire.” Selecting “Retry,” continues the game and Batman confronts Scarecrow in person once more. Retaining his sanity, Batman pursues Scarecrow into the sewer system where the latter is snatched away by Killer Croc and his fate is left a mystery.

Batman forges on into the sewer system area that acts as Croc’s lair and prison cell. After multiple encounters with Croc, Batman secures enough spore samples to engineer an antidote. He flees the area, though, when Croc gives chase. Tricking Croc, Batman detonates strategically placed explosives that plunge the mad cannibal into a deep crevice. He quickly returns to the Batcave and begins manufacturing the antidote. While he is successful in making a small batch of the antidote, he is prevented from making more as Poison Ivy’s plants creep into the hidden base and wreak havoc on the equipment there. To stop Ivy, Batman journeys through the sewer system, once more. He fights Joker’s thugs and defuses an attempt to flood Gotham Bay with toxic waste leftover from the Titan project. Fighting his way to the surface, Batman makes his way to the Gardens for a showdown with the enhanced Poison Ivy.

At the Gardens, Batman is taunted by Ivy, who uses her seductive plant pheromones to mesmerize surviving inmates and guards to fight Batman for her. When he confronts Ivy herself, she takes control of an immense plant-pod that fires toxic spores at him, while trying to crush him with thorn-covered vines and sending waves of mind-controlled attackers at him. Killing Ivy’s monster-plant, Batman renders the eco-terrorist unconscious, which breaks her hold on the men she has duped into her services and causes her mutant plants across the island to wither and die. The Garden’s greenhouse area collapses and Batman flees by gliding through a collapsing window.

Outside the Gardens, Batman is signaled by fireworks and announcements that Joker is waiting for him near the Penitentiary. After battling a small army of thugs, Batman comes for Joker, himself. However, before he can apprehend Joker, the madman reveals that he has taken Gordon hostage, once more. The police that had offered to transfer Gordon back to the mainland were, in fact, working for Joker. Joker pulls out a dart-gun loaded with Titan serum to shoot Gordon, but Batman selflessly leaps into its path. Joker, delighted, is positive that Batman will succumb to the violence-inducing drug and transform into a monster, himself. Instead, however, Batman’s sheer force of will keeps his body from mutating. Furious, Joker throws a tantrum and turns the gun on himself and injects the Titan formula into his own body.

As news and police helicopters begin to approach Arkham Island, once it is discovered that the bomb threats were only a ruse to divert attention away from the Asylum, the citizens at home and the police on the scene are aghast to see a monster-sized Joker emerge from the Penitentiary’s roof with Batman and Gordon at his mercy. Joker insists that Batman surrender himself to the Titan serum and transform in order to save himself from Joker’s super-strength. Instead, he uses the antidote on himself, to which the super-charged lunatic scoffs and thrashes him. Beating Batman down, Joker sends his henchmen to finish him off while he himself goes to grandstand to the police and reporters hovering overhead. However, Batman rallies himself and systematically defeats the army of thugs and counter-attacks Joker. Using skill and tactics to subdue Joker’s raw strength, Batman rigs an explosive charge to his fist and punches Joker hard enough to detonate it. The full effect of the blast nearly knocks out every single tooth in Joker’s mouth and sends his mutated body flying into a high-voltage power grid.

The final cut-scenes of the game show the game’s conclusion. Landing parties of SWAT teams and regular police storm the island and soon restore law and order, thanks in large part to Batman reducing the strength and numbers of the criminals that has left them too weak to resist. The inmates, criminals and madmen are rounded up and returned to their cells. Most notable among the recaptures are a sobbing Harley Quinn, a comatose Poison Ivy, and Joker who is no longer under the Titan serum’s effects, shrunken back to normal and so badly hurt that he is left a giggling, toothless, incoherent wreck. A happy reunion between Gordon and Batman is cut short, however, as a police dispatch informs them both that Two-Face has begun his own crime-spree on the mainland and is at large. Not ready to quit for the night, Batman signals the Batwing to come pick him up and take him back to the city.

After the credits roll, the Batwing flies over Gotham Bay. In the waters, a single crate of the Titan formula floats along quietly. It is then grabbed by one of three villains that were unaccounted for in the round-up on the island. Depending on your actions in the game, it is Scarecrow, Bane or Killer Croc who seizes the crate and drags it underwater.

Opinions: I loved this game. That’s the long and short of it. Everything about this game was expertly planned and wonderfully executed, which is very notable for a Batman licensed game. It is universally agreed that at least until Lego Batman, any and all games about the DC character are low-quality, most being outright terrible. Batman: Arkham Asylum finally breaks the “curse” on Batman games.

First, many people had great expectations for this game; with very good reasons. As it stands, Batman has enjoyed a veritable renaissance in the last few years. As I noted in the Green Lantern: First Flight review, Batman Begins initiated this resurgence for Batman in media outside the licensed comic books. Last year, The Dark Knight hit theaters and gave us reason to once again believe that Batman transcends his original medium. This year, Batman: Arkham Asylum gives us reason to enjoy taking up the role of the Caped Crusader himself and waging war against Gotham City’s worst villains. And that’s only reasonable as the game developers put forth every effort to make Arkham Asylum a truly memorable experience.

What sold many people on this enterprise were the names that were called out to help make this game. Veteran script-writer Paul Dini, who was credited with doing much of the work for the DC Animated Universe programs Batman: The Animated Series and Batman Beyond, was called in to write the game’s storyline. Even more important was the fact that a good number of the voice-actors from Batman: The Animated Series were asked to reprise their animated roles. Fan favorites Kevin Conroy (Batman), Mark Hamill (Joker) and Arleen Sorkin (Harley Quinn) had worked with the creators of the DCAU for years and were all too happy to return to try their hands at video game adaptations of their former character-roles. Needless to say, Dini, Conroy, Hamill and Sorkin haven’t lost their skills and execute their roles expertly. The characterizations for Batman, Joker and Harley are wonderful and you find yourself laughing and cringing at Joker and Harley and empowered and uplifted by Batman, as one should be. That’s not to belittle the work of the other voice-actors, including Cree Summer (Dr. Young) and Tom Kane (Warden Sharp and Commissioner Gordon). Both are voice-actors with years of experience under their belts and their talents shine through in their respective roles.

The second great thing about this game is the gameplay itself. The developers at Rocksteady and Eidos were quick to tell us about “Free-Flow Combat,” whereby careful taps of the “attack button” will send you flying fist and feet first into an opponent. When this is combined with quick presses of the “counter button” when an attacker is sneaking up behind you to strike, you chain together a series of blows that will systematically devastate the waves of inmates that are sent your way. Add in the “special” moves that become available further into the game and you truly are left in awe of Batman’s impressive combat skills. Of course, that’s only one half of Batman’s abilities.

“Predator style” gameplay makes up the other half of your missions. When confronted with roomfuls of henchmen armed with rifles and shotguns, Batman will require a more subtle approach to systematically close-in and defeat each and every one of his targets. From sneaking up behind enemies and smothering them into submission, to tying them up to helplessly dangle from the ceiling, Batman’s close-quarter combat skills will have adult killers, armed with guns, shaking in fear. But, no Batman experience is complete without impressive gadgetry and detective skills.

Batman’s arsenal consists of his trademark batarangs as well as zip-lines, electronic code-breakers, explosive gel, grappling hooks and the iconic bat-suit equipped with impressive sensory and audio equipment. Whereas a number of these gadgets are needed for combat, others will allow you to access hidden areas and keep track of enemies. The most impressive (and useful) device is Batman’s cowl, which is equipped with his communications link to Oracle and scanners that allow him to find things that most people wouldn’t be able to see. When you enter “detective mode,” as the scanning mode is called, you are given a visual scan of everything around you. While this is useful for picking up trails to follow the villains, it provides invaluable service as an enemy detector. Though they think they are safe behind walls and in secret passageways, Joker’s henchmen fall prey to detective mode’s ability to let you see potential threats long before they see you. As such, you’ll be able to plan attacks and counter-attacks in advance and take out gangs of enemies in quick succession.

Third is the Asylum itself. Arkham Asylum has gone down in comic book history as one of the most dangerous places on earth and this game gives you reason to believe this from personal experience. From building to building, to the people who work there, Arkham is its own little world of madness and depravity. It is no wonder that Joker tries to trap Batman here and finish their epic battling once and for all. The environment is old and very intimidating, from the run-down equipment to the specially “decorated” cells where the inmates lay down at night. As an island unto itself, Arkham has believable and established limits that give you lots of room to explore, but keeps the developers from arbitrarily setting “invisible walls” in your path limited only by the plot. Thanks to its age and expansiveness, Arkham is littered with hidden relics and mementos of the asylum’s past. There’s even something to be said for the tragic folk who are caught in the cross-fire. They are engaging people, some of whom are taken straight from the comics, and do what they can to assist you. So, it does tug at your heart to see any of them perish in spite of their valiant efforts.

As you explore the island, you will be challenged by Edward Nigma, better known as the Riddler. Riddler compromises your radio frequencies and throws down a gauntlet declaring that the items he’s hidden around the island are impossible to find. These items include things from simple “Riddler trophies,” to personal interview tapes from the inmates housed at Arkham. Personally, I loved the interviews, which are scattered around the island. From them, you will hear the chilling opinions and terrifying crimes committed by Gotham City’s most notorious psychopaths. These add greater depth and personality to the foes you face, beyond simple people that you have to beat in combat. Another challenge put forth by Riddler is a scavenger hunt, where you try to find hidden question mark symbols in bizarre and hard to reach areas. These unlock additional items and challenges. But, another portion of the hunt is made up of finding items pertaining to Arkham’s inmates. As you explore, you will come across such things as Scarface the puppet, Penguin’s umbrellas and Catwoman’s mask and gloves. When you find these items, you will be granted access to biographies that describe literally dozens of Batman’s foes. The list of villains runs the gambit from famous criminals such as Two-Face and Black Mask to more obscure enemies such as the Ratcatcher and Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum. It goes without saying that I thoroughly enjoyed this aspect as it was a clever way of reviewing the history of Batman’s rogues’ gallery and a potential introductory course for people getting a first-time experience with the Caped Crusader. This, when combined with the “Spirit of Arkham” logs you discover, give us a look back into the Batman mythos’s long history and makes frequent references back to the comics, specifically Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth and Arkham Asylum: Hell on Earth. Not to mention minor throwbacks to lesser stories and graphic novels.

There is no real reason to pass this game up. It’s a must for anyone with a PC, Playstation 3 or XBox 360, if not to own, then to rent. Whether you’re a Batman fan or not, Arkham Asylum will be well worth the money spent to get to play it. If I have any complaints they are two minor personal opinions.

First, once you play through the game the first time, there’s very little replay value beyond getting to go back through the story mode and re-watching some of your favorite cut-scenes. Similarly, the added challenge modes are just the same combat and predator missions you already played through during story mode. Even then, however, it’s only a minor issue and playing through story mode once is a satisfying and rewarding experience.

Second, and this is purely subjective, there’s the final boss. While I did expect a showdown with Joker, I expected something more than what I got. I didn’t like the character design for Joker’s transformed state and I expected something more than him simply injecting himself with Titan serum and sending his goons to finish you. While he does try to attack you, it’s not for very long and only requires that you be quick to jump out of his path. From there, you’re simply confronted by wave after wave of inmates, something you’ve been putting up with throughout the game. If not for the ending cut scenes that tell the game’s satisfying resolution, I would have been entirely soured by the climax.

In spite of two minor flaws, which do cost it points with me, I can safely declare that Batman: Arkham Asylum is a brilliant game and something I recommend that everyone play. That’s why I think it has more than earned an impressive 4 out of 5.

Official Website

Next Week: Be ready for a dose of news updates and latest goings on as I bring you some of my latest reports on popular culture and my opinions on it. See you then!

Once again, I return with a review and, once again, it’s all about Archie Publications’ on-going Sonic the Hedgehog line of comic books. This week, I’ll be reviewing the August issues of both Sonic the Hedgehog #203 and Sonic Universe #6. Since we’re picking up where the series last left off in July, I see no real reason to dally on any other details. So, let’s hop on in.

Sonic the Hedgehog #203

“Heavy is the Head, Part One: Surprise Visit”

“The Story So Far:” is that with Eggman’s descent into madness, the notorious Iron Queen has taken over the remainder of his imperial forces and has marshaled these and her own against the Republic of Acorn; defeating Sonic and Monkey Khan in the previous issue.

The story proper begins with Khan being harassed by Rory, Snaggle and Sasha, three orphans that reside within New Mobotropolis. Sonic arrives and quells their rock-throwing and shouts. In short order, while Sonic tells the children that they should not bother him, in spite of his earlier aggressions in #201, they in turn point out that Sonic’s actions were nowhere near exemplary either, leaving him at a loss for words. Khan fills the gap and sincerely apologizes to the children for his perceived wickedness. Sonic, surprised by such calm and benevolent behavior from someone as hot-headed and aggressive as Monkey Khan has shown himself to be, decides to question him about it. Sonic even takes the opportunity to be playful and friendly, as only he would with his rough-housing and derogatory jokes. Khan is far from pleased with the effort as he rebukes Sonic for his poor humor and his lack of understanding. When he goes into these details, though, his rage subsides and he is left guilt-ridden for his failings, both in the eyes of his own people and in the face of the Iron Dominion in the previous issue. Their conversation is interrupted by Nicole who announces that the Iron Queen and Snively are attacking the city personally. Sonic, aware that the city’s defense shield has cut the two of them off from their main army and left them severely out-numbered, decides that today’s battle will be a “nice reversal of yesterday.” In spite of Sonic’s high optimism, Khan runs away from the two, much to Sonic’s surprise.

At the assault point, the Iron Queen and Snively are reviewing the city from hover-pods. Princess Sally and the Freedom Fighters arrive on the scene to warn them that if they do not surrender, they will be taken by force. Unimpressed, the villains do not acquiesce. Sally orders Bunnie D’Coolette and Tails to open their counter-attack. As the two go on the offensive, the Queen waves her staff and Bunnie’s robotic arm extends and gut-punches Tails, immediately incapacitating him. The Queen reveals to the Mobians that her magic allows her take control of any and all electronics (as noted in #202), including Bunnie’s robotic limbs. Using them against the Freedom Fighters, the techno-mage wreaks havoc on the team. Sonic arrives and manages to help Bunnie steer her out of control cybernetics into a specially constructed cell that Nicole hastily assembled from nanobots to contain her raw strength. Unfortunately, it does not last long as the Queen uses Bunnie’s built-in arm cannon to blast the cell to pieces.

During the chaos, Khan helps to save the orphans from a stray laser blast. In turn the kids beg Monkey Khan to help the Freedom Fighters and that they need his lightning powers to save Bunnie and defeat the Iron Queen. He is reluctant to join the fight, in spite of the fierce sounds of battle and the children’s sobbing pleas. At ground zero of the conflict, the Iron Queen deduces that Bunnie’s robotics draw power from her biological life-forces and that over-use of her rockets and blaster will soon kill her. Uninterested in the fact that this will result in Bunnie’s demise, the Queen pushes the cyber-girl to continue the offensive. The Freedom Fighters, reeling, call for reinforcements from the Chaotix; though Sally specifically says not to call in Julie-Su, due to her own cybernetic components. It is at this crucial moment that Monkey Khan arrives and rescues Bunnie from the Queen’s control with a well-placed lightning bolt to her staff. As Sonic speeds away to put Bunnie far out of the Queen’s reach, Khan faces her and Snively directly. His fight is cut short, however, when Snively snatches his power ring crown. Without it, he is susceptible to the Queen’s magic. To the Freedom Fighters’ horror and just as the Chaotix arrive on the scene, Monkey Khan’s cybernetic systems are compromised from head to foot and his mind falls under the will of the Iron Queen.

The story is to be continued in #204.

“Friend in Deed, Part One”

In the follow-up story, Knuckles the Echidna, guardian of the Master Emerald and all of Angel Island, is at the Master Emerald shrine contemplating the recent news that Espio the Chameleon has betrayed the Chaotix and joined the Iron Dominion. During his meditations, he is alerted to someone else’s presence; it is Espio. A tense silence is only broken for a moment as the two greet each other. A short dialogue is exchanged where Knuckles mentions “rumors” as to Espio’s recent alliance shift. Espio defends his actions as “duty” owed to the “Bride of the Four Houses.” Knuckles asks if Espio is referring to the Iron Queen, the ninja hesitates a moment and replies that he is “not allowed to say.” Stating that the Master Emerald is the most powerful magical item on the planet, sure to attract would-be conquerors, he chides Espio by saying that he wished he had “a friend to help protect it.” Espio’s only response is, “Too bad for you.” A fight ensues as he, in the same breath, lets fly with a shuriken and goes on the offensive. When Knuckles dodges his attacks, Espio leaps from the shrine and feints a retreat. Knuckles pursues him, but is taken off-guard and grabbed by his dreadlocks. In one quick motion, Espio shifts Knuckles to the edge of the Island’s “shore” high above the ocean below and brandishes another shuriken for a stabbing attack.

As with the primary story, this one is to be continued in #204 as well.

Opinion: With a heavy heart, I have to again chastise this series for its sub-par standards, even for a children’s comic. At least, that’s how I feel about the primary story. As regards the second story, it actually pulls out of the usual rut that the Archie-licensed Sonic the Hedgehog comics have fallen into, but more on that in a moment.

First, I want to address the art in the book, again. As I noted earlier, Tracey Yardley is, by far, more popular than previous artists such as Ron Lim, who suffered very bad responses from many of the book’s fans. And, he deserves that popularity. The one pet-peeve, though, that’s sure to rile your nerves is the continued underwhelming emotional response that he’s called upon to convey according to the script. To demonstrate this let’s look at the cover-page as this issue breaks from the usual norm and brings back veteran Sonic the Hedgehog cover-artist Patrick “Spaz” Spaziante. Out of the many artists who have worked with Archie in producing the Sonic the Hedgehog comic book, “Spaz” has been around longer than anyone else, dating his work back to the 1990s. When one compares this single cover done by “Spaz” to the entire artwork done within the book itself, there really is no comparison. Though, to be fair, Spaz’s cover-art for this issue is aided by a more lush and detailed color-scheme. Further, he only had to do the one cover, whereas Yardley had to space his work out over an entire book; still, every once in a rare while, you get story-art from Spaz, too. #98 is very popular for the fact it both has Spaz’s artwork for the main story and is also Archie’s tie-in with Sonic Adventure 2, which came out around the same time for the Sega Dreamcast. So, there is little reason to hold back criticism of Yardley in favor of Spaziante.

Further, the cover counts as a classic example of “Superdickery.” This is a popular term that refers to comics (primarily the Silver Age of comic books) that feature a scene of the hero (or heroes) behaving in a less than heroic fashion. This can range from anything such as giving up their powers and responsibilities to full-fledged super-villainous actions. This is a simple, though not always effective, way of catching a prospective buyer’s eye. The idea being that, if a beloved character is suddenly acting in a dangerous or neglectful fashion, their fan(s) will want to find out what would cause such a dramatic change. In this case, Bunnie Rabbot D’Coolette is clearly shown maliciously threatening Sonic the Hedgehog as she pins him with one foot and prepares to blast him with her arm cannon, while Monkey Khan is seen flying in from the upper-left background to hopefully rescue Sonic. We’re even posed the following question in big red letters: BUNNIE GONE BAD?! Needless to say, this is a very eye-grabbing image. However, when stacked against the actual story, our curiosity is quickly punished. Mostly for the fact that, in traditional superdickery fashion, Bunnie is under the control of an outside influence and far from responsible for her actions.

As to the story itself, the writing is ridiculously impotent. The first thing that should annoy someone is the “Cast of Characters” line-up at the first page’s bottom. This has become a staple of the book that, really, doesn’t lend any help to anyone. While it does introduce a potential first-reader to the cast, it also gives away too much information. Namely, everyone featured in these is automatically guaranteed a prime spot in the story and takes away any mystery as to whom or what will show up. It’s a spoon-feeding of information that insults even a kid’s intelligence. Worst, in this issue, we’re reminded that Monkey Khan is, in spite of his fleshy exterior, a cyborg at heart – literally. This in all honesty should be a dead giveaway with what is about to happen; especially if you remember the previous issue, where the Iron Queen explains the nature of her powers: control of electronic machinery via manipulation of electronic signals; the same can be said about Bunnie’s above behavior by the way. As for the Iron Queen, it’s exasperating to find out that her given name is actually Regina Ferrum, which is Latin for “Iron Queen.” While I admit that many other villains get away with having a “significant name,” such as Batman villain Mr. Freeze, whose real name is Victor Fries (pronounced “freeze”) or Marvel arch-fiend Dr. Doom whose real name is Victor von Doom; there is no real effort put into this at all, it’s the exact same name only translated into another language.

While still on the subject of Monkey Khan, I’d like to address the seriously poor lack of effort put into the character this issue; primarily, his mood swings. They are bad. They are high-school drama bad. He goes from subdued humility to seething anger to bellowing rage to guilt-ridden disgust in three continuous pages during one conversation. On top of which, we’re treated to a wall of text that really doesn’t belong in a comic book. All of which, again, is poorly conveyed by the artwork. It has to be seen to be believed. The text shifts from one thing he’s yelling about to another with all of the action limited to one single panel at a time. He even starts yelling at the sky about his bad luck, while Sonic interrupts with his trademark cluelessness, and is still shown as bellowing out of control. It’s comical – in the bad way.

When the Iron Queen and Snively show up to attack, Monkey Khan is shown as being scared. This, of course, goes back to why I hate the cast of character introductions. We know that the Iron Queen manipulates electronics; we know that Monkey Khan is a cyborg and the cast of characters listing reminds us of this. For anyone whose attention span is longer than five minutes, they know why he would be afraid and why he should be fleeing the area.   Naturally, because the script says so, Sonic doesn’t know. Worse, when Rory, Snaggle and Sasha (who apparently only get let out of the orphanage to lamely contribute to a plot these days) beg for Monkey Khan to join the fight, he suffers from similar plot-induced stupidity and goes off to fight completely ignoring the very obvious and very valid reasons for not fighting. While one could argue that Khan was instrumental to saving the Freedom Fighters as a whole, if not Bunnie alone from being drained of her “life-force,” the risk of putting his fully cybernetic body at the Iron Queen’s disposal far outweighed the benefits. Not to mention it is just plain embarrassing that Snively removes the one thing that protects him from evil mind-control.

As a side-note to the techno-mage topic, I am entirely annoyed to have it stated that Bunnie’s robotic limbs are “fueled” by her organic “life-force.” Apparently, The Six-Million Dollar Man star-character Steve Austin and Teen Titans member Victor Stone don’t realize how lucky they are to be cyborgs that actually have batteries built into their cybernetic components. For those not in the know, Bunnie’s limbs were never stated as being vulnerable to overuse. This is something else that Ian has brought along with him as part of his tenure as chief-writer. Worst, Bunnie actually uses certified robotic components these days thanks to a surgery she underwent quite a few issues ago (not to mention several years back in the real world). How it can be said that her rockets and arm cannon are somehow fueled by her biological functions is completely beyond science-fiction and a real logic breaker if given even a moment’s thought. The only reason I mention this is that this is not the first time Ian has written this in as a weakness for Bunnie, nor is it a very good one considering that it goes beyond even basic cyborg fiction. Worst, he adds it in years after Bunnie’s “upgrades.” One would think that a battery would have fit in nicely amongst those structural changes. This all might be, though, his way of limiting Bunnie’s strength after the infamous issue where she actually destroyed an entire aircraft carrier by simply flying through it with a series of punches. Even then, it’s a pitiful attempt to retroactively “fix” her super-strength advantage.

All in all, it’s a badly written story with poorly executed illustrations. However, the final slap in the face comes with the follow-up story.

In total honesty, I like the follow-up story. Though, that’s entirely due to the fact that there is little dialogue used here. The focus is entirely on action, with more believable dialogue. This is a sharp contrast to the primary story where every panel contains at least a two-sentence paragraph. And, even during the fighting, someone has something to say. For this follow-up, though, Ian mercifully unties Yardley’s hands so he can simply convey subtle emotion with the two former friends staring each other down before they begin to fight. Similarly, the action follows up nicely. The body movements are fluid, the actions direct. It actually washes the bad taste out of your mouth from the initial story. Though, at the same time, it sharpens just how poorly some of these stories can be written and illustrated by the same people. Far from being the norm, it’s more of a rare exception, both here in the main series and in the accompanying series Sonic Universe.

In sum, for Sonic the Hedgehog #203, I can only say that a decent “betrayal of trust” story posted at the end of a badly written book comes too little too late to save it from getting a 1 out of 5.

Sonic Universe #6

“Mobius 30 Years Later: Dark Siege”

Following the events from earlier in the day (Sonic Universe #5), Silver the Hedgehog is granted an evening audience with King Sonic and Queen Sally. Though they talk of the missile attack launched by the Dark Presence, led by fugitive Lien-Da, Silver directs the conversation to a more serious matter: a coming crisis that will end the celebrated five years of peace that Mobius has mostly enjoyed and devastate the planet for generations to come, reaching the future time-period that Silver hails from. The conversation then shifts back to the Dark Presence, who may or may not be the cause of the coming cataclysm. First and foremost, Silver wants to learn as much as he can about Lien-Da.

At that exact moment, so does Lara-Su, daughter of Knuckles the Echidna and Julie-Su. She has come knocking at the door of her decrepit-cyborg ancestor Dimitri and wants to interview Lien-Da’s son: Rutan. Though, given the bad relations of their intertwined families – Lien-Da is Lara’s aunt on her mother’s side – Rutan is unwilling to cooperate and only Dimitri’s arrival on the scene prevents an altercation. Dimitri, apparently much wiser from his lengthy quarrel with his brother and his brother’s descendants, is mournful of the possibility the family feuding will reignite. Separating the youths, he talks with his great-niece of several generations removed. He calms and counsels her, affirming that Lien-Da has not come to his home for quite some time and that Lara had done wrong in coming to his home in anger, saying that she was only out for revenge and not the justice that her position as acting guardian of Angel Island would dictate. Apologetic, Lara receives her distant great-uncle’s opinions kindly and the two discuss recent events.

Back at the royal palace, Silver suggests that the best course of action to prevent serious danger would be to summon the Freedom Fighters. An anxious king and queen inform Silver that, in the name of peace in spite of former King Shadow the Hedgehog’s harsh rule, Sally decommissioned the Freedom Fighters years ago, leaving Silver more distraught than before. However, Sonic does remind everyone that two former Freedom Fighters are on Angel Island: the Prowers.

Miles “Tails” Prower, however, is greeted at his hotel door by what he thinks is room service. In reality, it is a Dark Presence strike team that quickly immobilizes the two-tailed fox with knock-out gas. Acting on immediate instinct, Mina Mongoose Prower uses her super-speed to rush out of the room with her daughter Melody and son Skye under her arms. Safely outside, she tells them to quickly call the police while she runs back to deal with the attackers. She threatens the strike team, but is taken by surprise and gassed as well. Radioing their teammates, the strike force establishes a temporary holding area in the room, minus the Prower children. The other team signals they are ready to breach the royal palace.

Just as this second strike team is moving into action, Lara is returning from her fruitless interview. She spies the renegade echidna soldiers as they scurry across the courtyard and is prepared to attack, but changes her plans when she remembers that rushing into action earlier that day almost killed the royal family. Opting for covert tactics – taught to her by “Uncle” Espio – she slinks into the shadows to trail the squad.

In the royal chambers, Silver, Sally and Sonic are finalizing their plan of operations just as a maid enters. After offering refreshments, she asks if it wasn’t Silver who had saved the King’s life. To which he (humbly) confirms. For his troubles, the maid blasts him with a gas-gun concealed with her serving tray. Sonic instantly disarms her and turns the gun on her. With the assailant incapacitated, Sonic tells Sally to take Silver, wake the children and hide themselves in the palace panic room while he goes out to deal with the expected sneak-attack. Sally is against this, though, reprimanding the aged hero for his rash decision to go running into battle as though he were still a teenager. A short argument is touched off, but quickly ended by the two realizing the importance of safe-guarding the children and holding onto the Kingdom. It is then ended with a kiss as Sonic dashes off in pursuit of enemy agents, while Sally carries Silver away. Sonic is surprised, and a little disappointed, to find that Lara-Su has already taken down the intruders. Though, he catches a “break” and manages save Lara from a still active infiltrator. Though, their victory is short lived as the hijacked palace security system comes online and targets Sonic and Lara. They are chased from the castle by automated laser-fire, but decide it is for the best since Sally, Silver and the children are locked away where the Dark Presence cannot reach them and they are free to formulate a counter-attack. Outside the palace, they find Skye and Melody running down a nearby street. Still looking for a police officer, the children are quick to tell Sonic and Lara what happened to their parents. Though the children are in tears and Lara is overwhelmed by their loss of the castle, Sonic rallies the youngsters and says that they just need a little time and a few extra resources and they’ll be more than ready to liberate the castle and rescue the elder Prowers. Their first move is to set-up operations with Argyle, Vector the Crocodile’s son.

In the palace throne room, however, Lien-Da is unconcerned with the king, her niece and the Prower offspring. Instead, satisfied with what may or may not turn out to be temporary control of the palace and the detainment of Mr. and Mrs. Prower, she moves onto her third phase of action. Summoning a squad, armed with a Chaos Siphon, she moves to the inner sanctum of the castle, deep underground. Circumventing the security, she reminds her soldiers that the present regime may be peaceful for the time being, but it lacks the willpower to maintain stability indefinitely. No, she is determined that only one force, only one person is capable of instilling the discipline needed for Mobius to hold together. Using the Chaos Siphon, Lien-Da deactivates a secluded and little-known about containment unit. In order to do what must be done, Lien-Da and the Dark Presence release King Shadow from his suspended animation.

The story is to be continued in Sonic Universe #7.

Opinion: I hate this storyline, I really do. Again, it’s such a load of bunk and any serious reader of Sonic the Hedgehog comics from Archie Publications should see that. But, we’ll dive into that in a moment.

First, I’d like to direct attention to the cover-art once again. Nothing illustrates my point of comparing Yardley’s art with some of his colleague’s better than looking at this and comparing it to Sonic the Hedgehog #203. Even though the cover was purposely misleading for #203, the cover for Sonic Universe #6 is downright boring. It’s nothing but a simple “portrait” style picture of King Sonic sitting on the royal throne, waving at the reader. It’s downright dull. Even for Yardley, this is a boring cover. He has had his moments in the past, but this is one of his worst. Nor do we really see much improvement the moment we flip the book open to its first page. But, you can come to expect that, really. So, I can’t really bring any new information on the story-art. That being said, let’s hit that script I dodged a moment ago.

Immediately, let’s look at the opening narration to the book,

“Welcome to the Planet Mobius – a world unique and beyond what you know from the SEGA games! We look 30 years into the future of Sonic to see what might come to be!”

The first sentence is the new obligatory opener that gets put in every issue and has become standard. It really is annoying simply because, it lacks the style and seriousness of the former days where the history of the book was better explained in a full-page spread. While it may have been tedious, it was certainly more enlightening to a first time reader. This current introduction is simply useless. It flings a random factoid at you and expects you to go your merry way. And, once again, I reiterate how stupid it is to continue the story premise posted in the second sentence. For a probable future, it is grating to read an ongoing storyline that picks up in the wake of “Mobius: 25 Years Later.” So, with this terrible start, let’s hit rock bottom.

Primarily, the worst part of this issue is the long-winded dialogue and talk heavy panels. The book opens, not with us picking up exactly where #5 ended, at the palace during the day in the wake of a missile attack, but at night, several hours later as if Silver is over for a simple social call. Again, this is the unfortunate norm for the book these days. From there, any time there’s any action it’s either entirely bypassed or cut short by someone either getting hit on the head or gassed and being rendered unconscious. The reader should sympathize with that. In the meantime, everyone is yelling at everyone else or talking about “the good old days.” Admittedly, I think everyone misses the good old days, especially the readers. At least, so far as the very tedious heroes are concerned.

I mentioned in a previous review that Lien-Da would have been more compelling if her character was written more consistently and her well-intentioned extremism was better flushed out. But, for what very little we get of it, she’s automatically far more compelling to the reader than any of the heroes. Sadly, then, you find yourself rooting more for the villains (or anti-villains as the case may be) than you do for the supposed protagonists of the story. This may or may not be due to a possible preference that Ian shows for the Echidna characters from Knuckles’s storylines and the scarlet echidna’s short-lived comic book series. When it comes to the Knuckles related material, Ian apparently puts forth greater effort in story-telling and, as in the back-up story to Sonic the Hedgehog #203, allows for greater depth. This may or may not prove to be truthful observations when Sonic Universe # 9 hits the stores, since that issue will begin another arc dedicated to Knuckles’s niche in the Archie-based books.

Now, stack this against her heroic counterpart, Sally Acorn and, to a lesser extent, Mina Mongoose. Neither of them do anything. They’re not active in the plot (the story, not Lien-Da’s conspiracy), they don’t do or say anything relevant, and their two most exciting scenes end with one carrying an unconscious Silver away and the other easily being overpowered. Admittedly, both women would be in their forties, in the proposed time period, but so is Lien-Da. Of course, nobody really looks like they are in their forties. Regardless, Sally, a very experienced combatant, and Mina, a super-speedster, are utterly impotent. Not to mention Mina’s status as a “former Freedom Fighter” is just about as confusing as Pluto’s planetary status. While she did technically join, she didn’t last for very long and what few times she did anything important it was as volunteer and rarely as an active team member.

For now, I can only say that the biggest problem with Sonic Universe #6 is King Shadow, himself. At no point in time was it ever stated that Shadow had indeed been locked up in Castle Mobius. So, when the Dark Presence shows up at the castle to free him from suspended animation, it comes as a rather shocking surprise. Sadly, not in the suspenseful shocking manner that makes for good storytelling, no, it’s more in the range of an annoying twist ending. Even more frustrating is the complete dismissal that the heroes have toward the notion of Shadow being revived. Again, there’s no foreshadowing, no sense of urgency given to us beyond that of rescuing Mr. and Mrs. Prower and retaking the castle. It might be implied, but if that is the case, it’s so subtle as to be near invisible.

Somewhat insulting is the fact that when he is released from suspended animation, he’s still wearing his crown and robe from his tenure as king. While, true, he was frozen in time by Lara-Su (something I’m still not impressed with), I don’t think that meant his crown and robe were essentially welded to his body or that anyone would leave them on him. He even takes it off himself during his fight with Sonic five years earlier. What? Did someone put it back on him?? Obviously, it seems that Ian not only fails to properly explain cybernetics to his readers, he also fails to manage temporal physics. I wouldn’t harp on this so much if it weren’t for the fact that, being fresh from suspended animation, still having a crown makes Shadow look silly rather than imposing. This may have more to do with the lack of aesthetic appeal in the crown itself. It’s gaudy along with the cape-shoulder guard combination. I sorely miss the regalia worn by the Acorn Kings, Max and Elias. At least the crown(s) they wore before Ian and Yardley’s arrival on the scene.

There really is nothing I can add to this sadly executed book that a person has to slog their way through to read. So, it’s obvious that Archie’s Sonic franchise completely fails to entertain in both of its August publications. For that, Sonic Universe #6 closes us out with a doubly disappointing 1 out of 5.

Next Week: Discover what it truly means to be the Dark Knight as I take you inside Gotham’s infamous madhouse for my review of Batman: Arkham Asylum.

This week, ladies and gentlefolk, I return to give the story and a review of G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra; but, first, a short history.

G.I. Joe, as a franchise, started out as a line of toys and action figures, not unlike Transformers, both of which were produced by the American toy conglomerate: Hasbro. Whereas Transformers was all about a war of intergalactic proportions between the Autobots and Decepticons, two races of robotic warriors that disguise themselves as common, everyday vehicles and machines on Earth, all the while battling for control of the universe; the story of G.I. Joe was more “human.” G.I. Joe, instead, focused on two covert groups that battled for control of the planet, through super-science and espionage. The heroes were, of course, G.I. Joe; though, truthfully, that side of the franchise was established sometime in the 1960s. The franchise wouldn’t really pick up, though, until the 1980s, when G.I. Joe was given a recurring threat and enemy in the form of the wicked Cobra forces, “a terrorist organization bent on ruling the world.” The franchise then exploded into an animated series, a comic book series, and a revamped toy-line that adapted this new premise into the figures, themselves.

In America, G.I. Joe was, in fact, a secret covert operations group funded by the United States government, whose only objective was to defend the free world from Cobra. In the comics and cartoon, this translated into Cobra devising a bizarre super-weapon with which they intended to conquer the world, leading to a clash with G.I. Joe from locales ranging from the United States to far off and exotic places around the globe. This simple and straightforward storytelling made the franchise a super-hit within the United States and around the world. Though, to better fit different nationalities’ expectations, the back-story of the protagonists was sometimes changed to depict G.I. Joe as an international peace-keeping force, rather than a purely American one. With just a few cosmetic changes, it didn’t take long for the franchise to catch on internationally. Unfortunately, good things don’t last forever, so it was inevitable that it hit its snags and eventual downfall with the close of the 80s. Though various attempts to revitalize it were made through the 90s with further animated programs and other comic books, nothing seemed to top the franchise’s golden years in the 1980s. In order to correct this situation, Hasbro approved the recent film that came out earlier this month.

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra

The movie opens with the history of the McCullen Clan of Scotland; as it turns out, the patriarch of the clan was caught selling weaponry to both the French and English in a recent series of wars. To punish him, he is arrested and has an iron mask forged onto his face to mark him with the shame of his crimes. The film then cuts to the present as his descendant, James McCullen XXIV of the MARS weapons company is announcing the completion of four new super-missile warheads armed with nanological weaponry: Nanomites, microscopic robots that can devour metal and devastate whole cities. The weapons are to be turned over to NATO for transport. Of the soldiers assigned to the task force set to transport the warheads, we are introduced to two especially: Duke and Ripcord.

Unfortunately, the vehicle convoy is ambushed by a hi-tech jump-jet fighter plane that attacks the vehicles with shock-blast weaponry. Among the attackers is a female spy, whom Duke recognizes from his past, a woman named Anna, also known as “the Baroness.” Duke and Ripcord manage to survive the assault and are only rescued by the swift intervention of a third group of soldiers. Though untrusting of them at first, Duke comes to learn that they are members of G.I. Joe, an elite task force comprised of the best and brightest soldiers from around the world, the specific detachment that rescues the two are codenamed “the Alpha Dogs.” Among their ranks are Snake Eyes, a mute ninja of incredible skill; Scarlett, a genius-level field agent armed with a hi-tech crossbow that grants her perfect shooting accuracy against any opponent; Heavy Duty, a field commander known for his extensive and brilliant use of powerful guns and explosives; and Breaker, a communications and computer expert that can gather intelligence and use it to devastating effect. They are led by General Hawk, a world class tactician and strategist. The team takes the two soldiers and the warheads back to the Pit, a secret military outpost based under the Egyptian desert.

We soon learn that McCullen was the man behind the ambush and has used NATO’s financial support to develop the nanomite war-heads. He intends to use the weapons to get revenge against the world for his ancestor’s disgrace and to destroy international stability so that the world will be forced to seek out new leadership. Using a tracking device hidden in with the warheads, McCullen dispatches the Baroness to steal them from the Pit. This time, she is sent with a mercenary ninja named Storm Shadow to accomplish the mission. We’re also introduced to Zartan a master of disguise and espionage agent for hire. Meanwhile, Duke and Ripcord demand an opportunity to go into action with the Joes to avenge their fallen comrades and to uphold their honor that they would protect the warheads. As they are inducted and trained to serve with the team, we are given snippets of Duke’s past and his connection to the Baroness. It turns out that he was, in fact, engaged to her. But, when her brother, Rex, dies on a combat mission while with Duke, their relationship falls apart and she begins a descent into a criminal life of mercenary work. At the same time, Ripcord’s attempts to woo Scarlett are futile in the face of her stern rejections.

In the meantime, we are shown more of MARS’s nano-tech research and development as McCullen has a series of super-soldiers demonstrated for him. His chief scientist explains that a different model of the nanomite robots has been prepared and injected into a team of soldiers who will be completely loyal to their leader, immune to poison, unaffected by moral or ethical hesitation and impervious to fear. In point of fact, becoming biological robots themselves; the new class of soldier being called Neo-Vipers.

Later, the Baroness, Storm Shadow, Zartan and a contingent of Neo-Vipers tunnel into the Pit and steal the missile warheads. During the attack, General Hawk is wounded, and the main Joe team and Duke and Ripcord are unable to stop the theft of the warheads. As a result, the team is sent scrambling to find any lead on where the warheads will be heading. Successful in their mission, Storm Shadow and Baroness are ordered to proceed with the next phase in McCullen’s plan, while Zartan is treated with nanomites to alter his appearance for a separate mission, though personally insuring his free-will after the treatment by destroying the mind-altering program.

Tracking the Baroness’s personal history, they find out that she had married a physicist named Daniel de Cobray of Paris and that she intends to activate the warheads’ nanomite payloads with his laboratory’s particle accelerator. They arrive in Paris too late to stop this and the murder of de Cobray once the weapons are active. Attempting to recapture the warheads, the Joes engage Baroness and Storm Shadow in a lengthy chase through the streets of Paris. Though their vehicle is immobilized by a train, Baroness and Storm Shadow survive to launch one warhead at the Eifel Tower, their target all along. Duke is able to catch up with them and deactivate the nanomites, but not before they destroy the Eifel Tower and several vehicles and buildings around it, at least saving most of Paris. He is then taken prisoner by the duo.

The rest of the G.I. Joe team is captured by French authorities and blamed for the missile attack. They are saved from imprisonment through the intercession of General Hawk, who’s still recovering from his wounds. Though they are free to go, the team and its individual members are permanently banned from French soil for the rest of their lives. Further, the individual members of the team are meant to return back to their individual countries of origin. But, thanks to Breaker’s intelligence gathering skills, they have enough clues to locate McCullen’s base of operations at the North Pole. Knowing this, Hawk bends the rules of their recall to their home nations and gives them time enough to go on a mission to rescue Duke and capture or destroy the three remaining war-heads.

On their way to the North Pole, as Duke and Baroness talk, Storm Shadow reminisces on his rivalry with fellow ninja Snake Eyes. It is revealed that Snake Eyes, as a boy, snuck into the dojo that Storm Shadow attended as its best student. Snake Eyes is caught stealing food by the young Storm Shadow and engages in an intense fight. The fight is only ended by the dojo’s sensei that sees promise in Snake Eyes. Over time, the sensei comes to favor Snake Eyes over Storm Shadow, driving the former star student into deeper pits of jealousy. Ultimately, overcome with envious hatred, Storm Shadow kills the old sensei and flees the dojo, embarking on his assassin’s career. Arriving in the Arctic, Duke manages to reactivate the tracking device among the warheads and leads G.I. Joe to the facility hidden underwater. They arrive too late, however, to stop the launch of three missiles armed with the warheads. To their luck, though, they are able to shoot down one missile before it gains enough speed to become unstoppable by most conventional anti-missile defenses.

As the Joes scramble to down the remaining missiles, Duke is horrified and infuriated to find out that his supposedly dead friend and teammate Rex is, in fact, McCullen’s maimed and disfigured science officer. Further, McCullen reveals that, as really nothing more than a businessman, he’s only partnered with Rex and that the entire plot is Rex’s, not his. Rex reveals that though he was horribly scarred and disfigured, the explosion believed to have killed him did everything but. The mission that he and Duke went on together gave Rex the opportunity to find out about nano-bot technology through a deranged scientist named Dr. Mindbender. After he survived the blast, Rex went into hiding and began experimenting with his first nanomites. Finding his sister Anna distraught and depressed by his apparent death and her failed relationship with Duke, Rex exposed her to the nanomites and shaped her body and will to act as a personal agent for his purposes. He then explains he intends to do the same to Duke. Before this can happen, though, Baroness overcomes her brainwashing and attacks Rex, saving Duke. With her “Anna” persona restored, Duke has a showdown with Rex and McCullen over a nanomite control device that Rex threatens to kill Anna with, if Duke doesn’t surrender.

While the Alpha Dogs infiltrate the facility for the means to take out the remaining missiles, General Hawk orders a full-frontal assault on McCullen’s under-water facility with a fleet of combat mini-subs. At the same time, fearing for the American President’s safety, as one of the nanomite missiles is heading for Washington D.C., the Secret Service sequesters him in an underground bunker. Further, Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow engage in a battle that Storm Shadow intends to make their final clash.

Ultimately, Duke manages to rescue Anna from Rex and McCullen, forcing Rex to drop the control device and deflects McCullen’s flame-thrower weapon back at the arms dealer. With Anna saved the two give chase to the fleeing villains. Meanwhile, Ripcord shoots down both missiles and saves Moscow as well as Washington D.C. The tide of battle turns in favor of the Joes’ undersea flotilla as well and forces McCullen’s mini-sub fleet to retreat. Rex, determined to strike back, initiates a self-destruct sequence that will destroy the underwater facility and crush the Joes’ ships and men under tons of ice and steel. He then flees with the badly burned McCullen in their own mini-sub. Though Anna and Duke are able to pursue, they are unable to follow the exact path as Rex and McCullen. It is at this time that Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow end their battle, with Snake Eyes fatally wounding Storm Shadow and the latter ninjitsu master falling into the arctic waters.

Thinking that they have managed to escape, Rex then injects McCullen with a batch of nanomites which he uses to repair the third-degree burns inflicted to his head. The nanomites do this by transforming McCullen’s severely damaged skin into a living metal, instead of flesh and blood. McCullen is shocked by this and laments that he has, in effect, been marked just like his ancestor years before. Furious, he tries to attack Rex, but is stopped when Rex produces a control device that restrains his body. Rex then declares that he will take this defeat as the opportunity to step forward as the future ruler of the earth, using McCullen’s business empire and his nanomite technological advancements to lead a new organization as the “Cobra Commander.” He also gives McCullen a new name, a name applied to his ancestor centuries ago, Destro; to the French this meant, “Destroyer of Nations.”

All of Cobra Commander’s explanations are cut short, though, as Duke and Anna, as well as the entire G.I. Joe squadron of mini-subs arrive to encircle and capture the two. Cobra Commander and Destro are last seen being imprisoned aboard a high-security aircraft carrier that acts as a traditional carrier, as well as a mobile base of operations. Duke, meanwhile oversees a diagnostic of Anna’s nanomites, hoping that they can be isolated and purged from her body. Though doctors are honest in saying that Cobra Commander’s nanomites will be highly difficult to remove, they’re optimistic in thinking that it will not be impossible. Duke and Anna then reconcile with each other.

At the White House, the American President is updated on G.I. Joe’s success and congratulated for a clear-headed handling of the overall crisis and making it through the fiasco unharmed. Left in the Oval Office to himself, he casually begins whistling “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow,” the favorite tune of Zartan. We’re left realizing that the entire plan to destroy the world’s major cities with nanomite warheads was a red-herring to cover up Zartan’s secret mission to ambush the President in his security bunker and for Zartan to take his place. Thus, Cobra Commander’s prophetic threat to Duke is assured, “This is only the beginning!”

Opinion: I was highly disappointed in this film. Though, in all fairness, I had low expectations to begin with. Still, even then G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra managed to fall below those standards.

My main complaints lie in the stark contrasts to the 80s animated series and the 2009 film. While, true, this may be a case of the “Nostalgia Goggles” getting in the way, I can say that what the cartoon show had in plot and simplicity, it lost in terms of animation quality and several other little foibles. The animation was good, but I can be among the first to say that it is fairly far from “timeless” and shows its age when watched today. Further, the animated version wasn’t afraid to indulge in camp and bizarre humor. The film, however, while becoming more serious and focused on stellar special effects loses the main thing that the 80s show was able to maintain: its charm. Many of us who were kids when the show was on the air have grown up and we often ridicule the show for its over the top good versus evil simplicity and its infantile ways with warfare and battle. But, we still adore it for giving us that very thing: a chance to play “soldier.”

The main reason that the film is such a far cry from the animated version is due to the director. Director Stephen Sommers went on record as saying that he initially wanted to make a movie based on the hi-tech weaponry that we may see deployed in combat zones within the next 25 to 50 years. Hasbro, at that point, offered to let him do that very thing with their G.I. Joe action-figure franchise, largely due to its hi-tech weapons approach to warfare. Unfortunately, Rise of Cobra shows us that Sommers only used G.I. Joe in name only and vaguely borrowed from the franchise’s storyline. Rejecting the show as simply being too campy, he even went so far as to tell Lee Byung-hun – the actor who played Storm Shadow – not to try to watch old episodes, so as to keep from being influenced by Storm Shadow’s portrayal there. Still, he did borrow some elements to act as a small homage to previous incarnations of the franchise. Unfortunately, when “Yo Joe!” and “Knowing is half the battle…” are used, veteran fans will more likely wince in annoyance than smile with a knowing grin.

Costume designs were a huge upset to me. The all-black super-soldier uniforms of the Joes as well as the character designs for Cobra were uninspiring and disappointing. Though I recognize that the “grunts” for both Cobra and G.I. Joe would look ridiculous in uniforms inspired by the cartoon series, the newer ones were not as artistically creative as the animators had dared to be. Further, the Alpha Dog and Cobra High Command character designs were just plain terrible. Even Snake Eyes, whose portrayal by martial artist Ray Park was actually very good and one of very few saving graces in the film, looked ridiculous with a face mask that featured an anatomically molded mouth and a pair of lips built into it.

The two worst offenders though were the main antagonists: Destro and Cobra Commander. In most of the animated and comic book portrayals, Destro’s metallic “head” was clearly explained as being a mask; often being a cybernetics-enhanced construct that fit his head so neatly and evenly that the lips and eyes moved in perfect synch with his own. The portrayal given in the film is simply rankling to one’s sense of style and character design; in much the same way that many fans were disappointed with Dr. Doom’s armor being portrayed as the effects of cosmic rays on his body, turning his flesh into a metallic “skin” in the first Fantastic Four film from 2005.

Now, while Cobra Commander has never had his true face clearly or consistently portrayed in the various media he’s appeared in, everyone can agree that the most iconic thing you remember about him are his two masks: a hood emblazoned with the Cobra insignia and a battle helmet with a full facial-obscuring visor built into it. Both were rejected by Sommers. The reason given for choosing not to use the former was fear that it “resembled the Ku Klux Klan” hoods.

…

This, among many other changes to the storyline itself, shows the crews’ inability to take risks. Plainly and simply, if you are going to make a villain who’s both feared and hated, it would be better to use something reminiscent of a controversial enemy. After all, George Lucas freely and openly talked of how Darth Vader’s famous helmet was based on and inspired by the military helmets of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. Instead, Sommers and crew went for “mediocre” and came up with a villain who barely lives up to that kind of standard.  Both Cobra Commander’s face mask and later his helmet – not based on the classic models – were unnecessary departures into artistic crudity. For the most part, I sat through the film half-thinking he was Cobra’s resident mad-scientist, Dr. Mindbender, due largely to the mask.

Most annoying was the continued use of the nanomites. They were used to explain/do everything for Cobra and MARS. They could destroy cities, make super-soldiers, brainwash Anna into the Baroness, and various other things. In short, it was abusing a plot-device, badly. Similarly, the Baroness was a fully loyal member of Cobra, as well as Destro’s lover, not a brainwashed pawn in the larger scheme of things. Likewise, Zartan’s only super-human ability was traditionally turning “invisible” in a fashion similar to a chameleon, thus complementing the snake-lizard theme of Cobra’s organization. His disguises were made through use of prosthetics and make-up, not a genuine shape-shifting ability. Granted, this might not have worked so well with the film’s conclusion, but we were beating the nanomite horse to death and beyond by that point.

As far as acting went, one can say they were satisfied, but only just that. No one’s performance was memorable or encouraging. The starring heroes, Duke and Ripcord, were largely forgettable or annoying at times. The former was played by Channing Tatum, known for the film Stop-Loss. It’s noted that Tatum was opposed to the role, initially, because he felt that G.I. Joe glorifies war, something that did not sit well with the starring actor of the afore-mentioned anti-war film. However, he accepted the role when he read the script and compared it more to a super-hero film than a war film. To say the least, his initial reaction should have scared the casting director away immediately. While not necessarily a war film, the G.I. Joe’s core material is based in language we’re familiar with from the “War on Terror.” Cobra is repeatedly described as “a ruthless terrorist organization determined to rule the world,” through the use of super-powerful weapons of mass destruction. Terrorism was as touchy a subject in the 1980s as it is in the 2000s and there’s no escaping that. The insistence of changing the above core characteristics or ignoring them leaves any G.I. Joe film impotent.

Meanwhile, casting Marlon Wayans seemed like a good move at the time, since Wayans had declared himself a fan of the G.I. Joe franchise. And, one can see that he made the effort to give his role life. But, perhaps, he tried too hard, since many of his scenes were stock comic-relief and goofy. Nor was the Ripcord character’s romance with Scarlett all that sensible. In many ways, while some fans were disappointed not to see popular Joe character Gung-Ho on the Joe team, I was disappointed to not see Shipwreck, the comic-relief character from the animated series who was a perfect blend of a salt-water “crank” with a loveable sense of humor. I actually took Ripcord’s role as a stand-in for Shipwreck. Needless to say, I didn’t buy it. Beyond that, though, I can’t really congratulate any of the actors in the film, or the writers for that matter, any more than would be required for an “adequate” film, at best.

On the whole, the movie was bad and barely redeemable, though it does have its few glimmers of good points; the overall plot being one of them. In the grand tradition of spy vs. spy and military covert ops, the film at least has a worthy evil scheme, which ties together nicely in the end. To that extent, one would have preferred to see just what Sommers would have come up with if he had not used the G.I. Joe franchise and been more original. It goes without saying that one would expect much better storytelling from the man who directed the trilogy of The Mummy films. That’s why it’s such a bitter disappointment to see the lack-luster film that prefers to play with gadgets rather than build solid characters that we got.

Stephen… get out of our toy box and give us back our action figures.

Next Week: I revisit the world of Archie Comics to take a quick look at Sonic the Hedgehog #203 and Sonic Universe #6.

As you may have noticed a veritable bundle of updates have been made to my LiveJournal.  This is largely due to several complicating factors that prevented this last week.  Now that said complications are dealt with, I'm prepared to update with some news and reviews that have been long overdue.  This week’s news is mostly reviews, however.  Given that the previous entry brought us the man, the myth, the plumber: Mario, we’re going to have a go at his former-rival turned business partner: Sonic the Hedgehog. Of course, Sonic’s last batch of games came and went. Instead, let’s talk comic books. Yes. This week, we review the “latest” issues of Archie Comics’ ongoing Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic Universe series of books. So, let’s get a running start… curl up… and “enjoy a good book.”

Sonic the Hedgehog #202

“Dangerous Territory”

In the most recent installment of what Guinness Book of Records calls “The Longest Running Comic Book Series Based on a Video Game,” Sonic the Hedgehog goes head to head with the latest threat posed by the Iron Dominion.

In the wake of Dr. Eggman’s psychotic breakdown and the destruction of the Eggman Empire, the Iron Dominion has swooped into the remains of New Megaopolis and instituted a merger with the remnants of Dr. Eggman’s forces and the Iron King and Queen’s warriors. To investigate, Sonic is sent out on reconnaisance duty alongside Monkey Khan, an ally with whom he’s not always been on the best of terms. The reluctant duo, though, are forced back to back when they find that the combined might of the Dark Egg Legion, the Yagyu Clan and the Iron King, himself, are too much to handle. Worst, Sonic is shocked to find that when Espio the Chameleon is in New Megaopolis it is on the side of the Iron Dominion. Though this betrayal of Sonic’s trust is not explained by a stone-cold Espio, Monkey Khan refers to Espio as being a member of the Shinobi Clan, something that Sonic is confused by until Espio goes on the attack.

Ultimately, the two heroes are unable to stave off the coalition they are up against and are forced to retreat. All of their information is then relayed back to King Elias, Princess Sally and Knuckles the Echidna back in New Mobotropolis. The mission only confirms what Monkey Khan had warned the Freedom Fighters about: rather than peace coming from Eggman’s defeat… Things are just as bad as ever.

“A Lonely Girl’s Story”

In order to better understand his ally’s personality and her ambitions, Snively asks for the Iron Queen’s history. To which she responds by explaining her tragic story.

Raised in the dominions of the Overlanders, Regina – the future Iron Queen – was taught the ways of techno-mages. For years, her training went well as she flourished and mastered the ancient arts of a syncretism that fused science and sorcery. However, as she grew into a young woman, her cult’s beliefs and practices attracted the scrutiny of the law. Deemed too dangerous for society, the “magitek” users were either killed or, as in pre-adolescent Regina’s case, exiled for life.

Unable to take refuge with her own kind, she was hounded by Mobians and driven into further despair. Eventually, furious at all civilizations, Regina vowed revenge for her cult and swore that all life would bow to her, Overlander and Mobian alike. She leaves off with her explanation that it was in the Dragon Kingdom that she met a local warlord named Jun Kun, her “ticket to a swift rise to power.” Though Snively has more questions, she leaves these off for another time.

Opinion: As a reader of Archie’s Sonic the Hedgehog for nearly two decades now, I can only say that I am not impressed with this story. Plainly and simply, head writer Ian Flynn and the editing team of Mike Pellitro and Victor Gorelick have entered a slump that leaves little room for the excitement and entertainment found in the series some years ago.

While one would argue this is because of my “nostalgia goggles,” I would be inclined to disagree. Sonic the Hedgehog #202 is just another catalogue of the fairly run-of-the-mill and mediocre stories that Ian has written for the better part of his tenure as writer. Very little is interesting or imaginative. Monkey Khan and the Iron Queen & King were never fan-favorites, or at the very least, lacked fan appeal so badly that few would want them pushed to the center stage of the hero and villain cast as is. I feel confident in saying that Monkey Khan – especially under Ian’s authorship – is more like a reject from the far superior Journey to the West saga and its modern counterpart, the Dragonball franchise than a benefit to the Sonic franchise. Similarly, the Iron Queen is little more than a clone of Rita Repulsa, both in character design and personality; though in the latter department, Rita was more endearing.

For the longest time, I was an apologist of Ian’s. But, in the past year, if it were possible, I would give him a total vote of “No Confidence” on behalf of the Sonic the Hedgehog readership. This is due to the uninspired and hammed up dialogue that he has made a staple of every book for the past few years, as well as the thin, pointless plots that have been going on book after book.

In this issue alone, we take time out to learn that Monkey Khan prefers the nickname “Ken.” Beyond a possible reference to former writer Ken Penders who wrote for Sonic the Hedgehog for years, this contributes nothing and fritters away a portion of the issue's panels.

While there are areas where he does give us an over-arching theme or interesting plot-point, he more often than not breezes over them and leaves many threads untied. Worst, though, has been his restructuring of several areas of the cast, both central and secondary. This has been both praised and lambasted for its ideas, the best of which has been the reinvention of Evil Sonic into Scourge the Hedgehog and the return to some of the basics that the comic series was founded upon. However, this system of reshuffling utterly breaks down with the removal of Doctor Eggman, Sonic’s all-time greatest nemesis, from the leadership of the “Eggman Empire,” the main threat in almost all Sonic games and the entire history of the comic book. This would be no different from replacing the Joker in the Batman mythos, Dr. Doom in the Fantastic Four and even Moriarty in the Sherlock Holmes novels. The blow is only sharpened by the fact that a rarely ever seen villain simply swoops in and takes over for the mad doctor.

Counterpoint to this, however, is the fact that the British Fleetway publication Sonic the Comic also saw Dr. Eggman’s descent into total madness. This was done in much darker and mature terms, with Eggman only becoming more psychopathic and dangerous. The method in which Ian and the staff at Archie handled it was far less impressive and limp-wristed. This is compounded by lead artist Tracey Yardley’s art-style. While rightly praised for clear backgrounds, proportional characters and an overall crisp style, Yardley continuously disappoints when it comes to his attempts showcasing the pathos and emotion that Ian fails to convey more times than not. In the long-run this is a serious disappointment from a penciler with so much promising talent.

In summation, I would give Sonic the Hedgehog #202 a meager 2 out of 5.

Sonic Universe #5

“Mobius: 30 Years Later – Five Years of Peace”

In the back-up series Sonic Universe, we are given a possible future storyline where after several years of King Shadow the Hedgehog’s reign, he is deposed by a ragtag team of heroes led by Sonic the Hedgehog and composed of Knuckles the Echidna and his daughter Lara-Su. With Shadow’s defeat, Sonic weds Queen Sally Acorn and sires two children by her, Sonia and Manic. This information, of course, is relayed to us by a random news anchorwoman.

The story proper begins shortly thereafter as King Sonic and Queen Sally go out for a romantic evening. Their children are entrusted with Lara-Su, a family friend and the only baby-sitter capable enough to both protect the children and rein them in when they get out of hand. Given that both of them possess Sonic’s super speed, this is understandable. While she is babysitting, we find out that Lara’s parents are acting as envoys to a peace summit with several nations. Unbeknowst to her, her aunt Lien-Da, leader of the renamed Dark Presence that formerly acted as King Shadow’s enforcers, has Lara-Su under close watch, with plans of striking the young echidna down, as well as several others for deposing King Shadow and ending his harsh, but ordered reign. This is only averted by her compassion for Sonic and Sally’s children, whom she does not want hurt in a surely violent assault.

The next day, an enormous crowd gathers at Castle Mobius on Angel Island to hear a speech set to be delivered by King Sonic. Among the crowd are Sonic’s old friends Miles “Tails” Prower and his wife Mina Prower, they are joined by their children Melody and Skye. In the crowd, they meet up with Lara and catch up on their goings-on. However, in that same crowd, lurking members of the Dark Presence carefully prepare a missile attack. As Sonic’s speech commences, Lara intercepts the assassins. After a short tussle, she manages to disarm them. Unfortunately, it’s far too late that she finds out the assassins are, in fact, a decoy team. Lien-Da, rocket-launcher at the ready, fires off a round that Lara is incapable of intercepting and roars over the crowds’ heads. Only at the last minute does Silver the Hedgehog appear and rescues the royal family from the projectile. He announces that he has come to the present in order to save his future.

Opinion: …

This is bad. I mean, this is a terrible story idea.

While the idea held some charm back when the original premise was called “Mobius: 25 Years Later,” the storyline and everything in it divided the readership just as much as several other scandalous storylines written before, during and after that story-arc. When it was finally put to bed, we were reassured that it was only a “possible future.” As such, we were given the opportunity to ignore the headaches that came with it and move on with our lives. Instead, here we are with five more years added onto it, and it’s still the same “possible future.” It’s re-opening a violently unnecessary wound. There’s nothing salvageable about this idea. Nothing.

Worse, for the fans who were constantly bickering about which female character was the best possible match for Sonic, non-Sally fans were rabid and insulted by the original “25 Years Later” saga. Since this directly stated that their hopeful romances with other female characters were rendered moot altogether. Saying it was a “possible” future did nothing to assuage tempers. Now, after laying the relationship drama to rest, we find it foisted on us once again. With Sonic and Sally married, once more, and with the same children they had in “25 Years Later.” Similarly, Tails and Mina are also still married, though this time the addition of their own children is a change from the other arc. What truly insults any passive reader’s intelligence, though, is the fact that in Sonic the Hedgehog #201, it is clearly implied that Ian plans to write out a potential love-triangle between Sonic, Monkey Khan and Sally, in the “present.” For all of the talk that Sonic and Sally are fated to be together, any and all love-triangles are instantly rendered void and any teenage-drama that was intended is immediately turned into a poorly contrived plot-gimmick.

Further, I do not particularly care for Lara-Su. I don’t. Whereas Shadow, arguably one of the most popular and more powerful characters in the Sonic franchise, was capable of beating down Sonic and a number of his allies in “Mobius: 25 Years Later,” Lara-Su immediately steps in and quickly defeats him, with the same Chaos Control powers that he possesses. Granted, Sonic is purportedly older (at least over 40 years old) at this point while Shadow is eternally young, there’s bound to be a mismatch of the two. However, Lara’s storylines were not endearing enough to cement her place among the most established and highest caliber cast-characters, let alone easily defeat one of the more prestigious and capable characters. By itself this would insult a passive reader's dignity.

While on the note of Chaos Control, Lara clearly demonstrates these Chaos Control powers to freeze Sonia and Manic so that she can put them to bed while babysitting them. However, she is completely incapable of stopping a missile later on in the same issue. This is sloppy, sloppy writing at its worst.

Further, Lien-Da makes it clear that she does not want to hurt Sonia and Manic because she feels they are “innocent” of the wrong-doings she lays at the main cast’s feet.  In many regards, this would make her a villain with a streak of nobility and thus more compelling to the reader.  Especially since she strongly implies that, in the wake of Shadow's dehtronement, she has been kept away from her own son. Yet, she herself is the one that fires a high-explosive missile at the balcony that Sonic, Sally and Sonia & Manic are standing on. Without even the least bit of explanation for these failings on the part of the characters, one must turn frustrated eyes back to the writer and editors.

Finally, add in Yardley’s usual artwork and the reader comes away entirely unsatisfied. It is no surprise, then, that I give this a well-deserved 1 out of 5.

Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story

Today, we start things off small, as we go with Nintendo’s adorable little pocket-pal.

No, not Pikachu!

That’s right: the Nintendo Duson this portable console, Mario engages in yet another quest, though ironically a bit more “unusual than usual.”Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story is another installment in the Mario & Luigi hand-held series exclusive to the DS and, of course, an RPG style game. In this caper, Mario and Luigi are forced to team-up with their arch-foe Bowser, in more ways than one, literally.

As the game opens, the Mushroom Kingdom is dealing with a medical crisis. What with all the T-Viruses in the air and Avian and Swine flu bugging us in the real world, the Mushroom Kingdom is impacted by a nasty disease of its own: “The Blorbs.”Fortunately for Mario, Luigi and Peach, they’re largely unaffected. However, the various toads and toadettes aren’t so lucky. Instead, “the Blorbs” cause the fungi-folk to bloat into helpless spheroids. During an emergency council-meeting, Bowser Koopa takes advantage of the crisis and attacks. Luckily, he is easily repulsed and driven back by the kingdom’s top adventurers: Mario & Luigi. Forced to retreat, Bowser is visited upon by a stranger that offers him a magical mushroom that, he is told, will help him win the day and beat back his foes and conquer the Mushroom Kingdom. Unfortunately for Bowser, and our heroes, the stranger is in fact Fawful, sidekick-villain to Cackletta from previous installments of Mario & Luigi. Upon the Koopa King’s eating the mushroom, Fawful gains control of Bowser, whom he dispatches back to the Mushroom Kingdom. Once he returns, Bowser uses newfound abilities gained from the mushroom. Like a vacuum cleaner, Bowser draws a breath so strong he is actually able to suck up Mario, Luigi and Peach, as well as the rest of the Mushroom Council. With things already in a sticky situation, Fawful makes his move and declares himself ruler of both the Mushroom and Koopa Kingdoms. It is only then that Bowser breaks Fawful’s hold over him and decides to retaliate. Meanwhile, the heroes find that they have been shrunken and placed deep inside Bowser’s belly.

With the heroes and villain stuck with each other in ways far beyond their liking, Mario and Luigi must, once more, team up with their recurring nemesis in order to defeat Fawful and to save both the Mushroom and Koopa Kingdoms. In order to do this, Mario and Luigi will assist Bowser from inside his body, while Bowser handles all the grunt work of fighting their mutual foes face to face. It’s a wild and wacky adventure as the three heroes do their best with what they have. Needless to say, it’s going to be a gross, but fun ride.

North Americans! Look for it September 14, 2009, while Europe and Australia should head to their local game stores later in October.

Opinion: While I’m still largely new to the DS console, I have found that, more often than not, Mario has been a steadily successful and fun character. Largely, this is due to Shigeru Miyamoto and his staff’s ability to take refuge in the sheer audacity that is the Mario franchise. Rather than tell us a “simple” story, they tell a simple story with the most off the wall ideas possible. And, when stacked against everything else the franchise has done, this more often than not done the job.

So far, little is shown of the game, though it has sold well in Japan. But, in many ways, a traditional Mario game is light on plot anyway. Likewise gameplay and control is always straightforward and uncomplicated. While the game series is beloved by children, the addictive nonsensical nature of the games make you come back for more and more, well into adulthood. Though I’ve never played any of the other Mario & Luigi DS games, I’m certainly looking forward to this game and am seriously considering it.

Official Website (Japanese)

The New Super Mario Bros. Wii

Though it got started on the DS, the next installment in the Mario franchise is going for the big leagues and heading for the Wii. That’s right; I’m talking about The New Super Mario Bros. Wii, the home-console sequel to the original The New Super Mario Bros. for the DS.

As is expected, King Morton Bowser Koopa has once again returned to plague the Mario Bros. and steal off with Princess Peach Toadstool in order to take control of the Mushroom Kingdom. In no time, Mario and Luigi spring into action to rescue the beloved sovereign of the ‘shrooms. However, things are going to go a little differently, this time around. While using 3D models, the game will return to its roots and be featured in a classic 2D side-scrolling gameplay. The bigger change, though, is that not one, not two, but four players will be able to go through the game in co-op mode to help each other along. While First and Second Player will be the titular Mario Bros. – both Mario and Luigi – Third and Fourth Player will hop, stomp and run alongside them as a pair of Toads scrambling along in order to help save Princess Peach. As such, the players will be able to piggyback with each other to reach higher places and pipes, and separate to tackle the trampling hordes of the Koopa Army. Also, the traditional arsenal of power-ups and bonuses will be present, with additions including a penguin costume and others. So, grab your Wii Remote and get set to save the Princess, all over again!

…To be released at the end of 2009.

Opinion: Again, with my limited experience in the handheld consoles of today, I never got to play the original The New Super Mario Bros. for DS. However, the 2.5D format and the time-honored traditions of Mario games has yet to disappoint, so I am certainly looking out for this game and, as with Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story, am seriously considering it. At the very least, it should help kill time whether by yourself or with your friends.

Official Webpage (Nintendo Website)

Super Mario Galaxy 2

Given all of the adventures already listed, one would wonder how Mario has the time or energy to return for yet another adventure! But, the plucky plumber is never one to lay down on the job. To round out his 2009 crusades and start the New Year off, Mario goes where Captain Kirk went many times before, but he, himself, went only once: Outer Space. That’s right! A much anticipated sequel to Super Mario Galaxy the game that grabbed everyone’s eye in 2007 has finally been announced.

Finding the Koopa-power and the resources enough to wage war on the Mushroom Kingdom, again, Bowser sets his sights on his perpetual and highly reluctant “future bride”, Princess Peach. Though, this is no ordinary fight, as Bowser again makes it a “War of the Worlds” and attacks from the coldness of space with his legions of Koopas, Goombas, and Boos, just to name his starting line-up. The wicked monarch assaults the Mushroom Kingdom and again carries Peach off as his potential queen and, again, his ambitions grow beyond just two kingdoms and grow to encompass an intergalactic empire that he and the Koopa Kingdom will rule over for all eternity. Thus, Mario is left with no choice but to dust off his astronaut skills and follow Bowser across galaxies and star systems in the hopes of defeating the Koopa King and rescuing Princess Peach. However, he’s not alone as we are confirmed that his trusty dinosaur companion Yoshi will journey where few have dared to tread and help save the universe. Thanks to Yoshi coming along, with his daring and magical digestive system, Mario will be granted extra benefits and powers as Yoshi gulps down power-ups and enemies. But, while Mario teams up with old friends and finds a few new ones, he is, as always, forced to confront the new inter-stellar beasties that Bowser has corralled into his Koopa Army and pointed in Mario’s direction. So, get ready to hop, skip, and soar across stars, around planets, and tread across asteroid belts as you take on Bowser for the fate of everything!…To be released early 2010.

Opinion: Out of all of the Mario games I’ve referenced today: get this one. The original Super Mario Galaxy is widely praised as a fun and exciting game. I myself stand by that opinion. The first game of this series truly was a treat as you were taken to far off exotic planets and galaxies, and introduced to new enemies and friends. The boss battles were always bold and fitting for the astral backdrop they had been juxtaposed to. As you battled Bowser, wrestled with Koopa Troopas and Goombas, and – of course – flew through space, you genuinely felt the battle for the cosmos and kept returning for more and more. The game was a masterpiece and deserving of praise. With similar but different qualities being worked into this sequel, there are few who will try to steer you away from this game, as it should be. This should prove to be a must-have for any Wii owner.

Official Mini-Site (Japanese)

Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games

In recent years, fans have gotten their chance to finally see the showdown between two of gaming’s greatest mascots and founders that they’ve always wanted to see: Mario Mario of Nintendo versus Sonic the Hedgehog of Sega. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Sonic and Mario – in proxy for Sega and Nintendo, respectively – had a long-standing rivalry for the best games and the bigger audiences. While most say that Sonic was ultimately bested by Nintendo’s swarthy Italian plumber with the end of Sega’s console line, the rivalry still rages on into this new millennium. With the arrival of Sonic on Nintendo’s GameCube, it was only a matter of time till the rivals of gaming would finally cross quill and monkey-wrench face-to-face. This finally happened in 2007 with the release of Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games, set in Beijing, China, just in time for the Olympics being held later in 2008. Many were thrilled with this development and were then pleased to see Sonic’s “true” battle against Mario take place in the much-anticipated Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Now, the rivalry is renewed once more this October, 2009.

Like its summer-time predecessor, Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games is a Nintendo exclusive, party-style game that takes advantage of the basic mechanics of both Nintendo’s Wii and DS consoles. The setting is, of course, Vancouver, Canada, for the Olympic Winter Games to be held there, next year in early 2010. And, of course, Teams Mario and Sonic will be bringing their own roster of teams back to duke it out, once more. Aside from the obvious choices of Mario and Sonic, we’ll get to the return of other popular characters such as Luigi and Bowser for Team Mario and Tails and Dr. Eggman for Team Sonic. However, new additions to the roster include the maniacal robot Metal Sonic and the less devious, but certainly titanic Donkey Kong from their respective gaming franchises.

For those of you with Wii consoles, current available sports and events include: Alpine Skiing, where you will race against your opponents to reach the finish line at the bottom of a snow-covered peak; Speed Skating, in which you will have to blaze around a frozen track to reach the finish line; and, no Winter Olympics held in Canada could be complete without the National Pastime Ice Hockey! Choose your sides as you and your teammates cross sticks and slap pucks against your friends or the CPU in a frozen battle of wits and stamina. Also, a new feature for Wii-users will be the addition of the Wii Balance Board. Already popular with the health-minded, the Balance Board has been useful for the at-home exercise game, Wii Fit. Now, the Balance Board will be used in this game to simulate the actual experiences of skiing, skating, and sledding to victory for you and your friends; just the thing for those of us living closer to the Equator!

DS and DSi owners have the following, confirmed, sports and events to look forward to: while you’re already familiar with Alpine Skiing, be prepared for other challenges in the form of Snowboard Cross, a sport that will require you to take to a snowboard as you rocket downhill to reach the goal; and Skeleton where you must dive head first down the slopes on sleds in another test of speed and nerves. As with the previous installment, thoughtful manipulation of the direction pad and stylus will be the key to victory and the means of bringing home that Olympic Gold.

However!

Be wary, Wii and DS users! It seems that with the addition of Donkey Kong and Metal Sonic, the bad guys of the respective game franchises feel strength in their numbers this time and have set their sights on the Gold with every intention of taking all of it for themselves! Wii owners will be challenged in the new “Festival Mode” where, in order to take home the trophies and medals, you have to face down “Boss” challenges that force you to confront rivals and foes from both Mario and Sonic’s pasts. Meanwhile, DS players will be allowed to take part in the “Adventure Tours” a story-based mission-mode where you not only have to win the gold, but save the very Olympic Games as well!

Opinions: I can safely say, folks, that while not very heavy on plot, spontaneous in occurrence and sometimes downright weird, the previous installment Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games was plain and simple “good, clean fun,” which, at their heart, is what the Olympic Games are about. Though underlying tensions of past rivalries were present, the Nintendo and Sega teams forgot all about them and engaged in good sportsmanship and simple fun, much like the nations of the world, themselves. The first installment wasn’t much for single-player fun, but it brought the laughs and the cheers when played in groups and encouraged you to really work your limbs in order to best your opponents, whether they are your next-door neighbor or just the CPU of your Wii or DS.

This being said, I feel confident in looking forward to this latest addition to what is now a two-part series of games. Though not very taxing mentally, the previous game pushed you physically to do your best. By all indications its sequel shouldn’t let you down if you’ve decided to come back for more of the same, with a different, wintry flavor. Also, the excitement should reach the tops of the snow-covered peaks with a more fleshed-out single-player experience that requires you to think fast to face the dangers posed by “Festival Mode” and “Adventure Tours.”  Look for it this October!

Official Website

Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing

The third in the SEGA All-Stars series of games, Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing puts you in the driver seat alongside some of the most popular characters of Sega’s greatest franchises. Aside from the titular hedgehog-hero Sonic, look for other heroes such as AiAi from the silly, but fun Super Monkey Ball games and Amigo from the musically inclined Samba de Amigo games.

This time, each character will bring their own driving skills to the track with their own specialized cars. While Sonic roars across the track in a sporty race-car, be sure to look for Tails’s car-airplane hybrid and be sure to watch out for the nefarious Dr. Eggman in his monster-trucking Eggmobile.   Other Sonic characters, as of yet, confirmed for this wild-ride are Amy Rose, Shadow the Hedgehog and Big the Cat.

Lastly, if you’re facing stiff competition, clear your path and roar to the winner’s circle with careful, but deliberate use of your “All-Star Move,” which will provide the player with a limited advantage over his or her driving opponent. If you’re Sonic, be prepared to blow all competition away with awesome might of the Super Sonic Transformation, where Sonic assumes his ultimate powers and leaves everyone else standing still. Likewise, AiAi users, relive your favorite Super Monkey Ball moments as you slip inside that game’s famous “Monkey Balls” and push everyone else to the curb as your roll to victory. More powers will be revealed with further details.

Little else is known about this game beyond the fact that it will be a multi-platform release available to all consoles with the only exception being the PSP. Estimated Release Date is Early 2010.

Opinions: I am not looking forward to this. The previous installment, Sega All-Stars Tennis, was not very enjoyable and not engaging. While this is purely from the Wii version’s perspective, I was not inclined to believe that the X-Box 360, PS3 or DS versions were much better. I am inclined to say, though, that this is an attempt to recreate some of the fun and enjoyment of the Mario Kart games. Unfortunately, while both lack any real plot or reason for heroes and villains to go kart-racing on the weekend, Sonic’s venture in this area is dampened by the mere fact that he is faster than most any vehicle, if not all vehicles. While we can understand while slow but steady Mario would hop into the seat of a go-kart, we’re left scratching our heads as to why Sonic the Hedgehog would even consider the idea.  Worse, this attempt was made years earlier with the little talked about and hard to like Sonic Drift series for the hand-held Sega console, the Game Gear. While surely more enjoyable than tennis, Sonic (not to mention several of his closest friends) still do not fit the mold of kart-racers.

While this is my opinion, be aware that “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure” and that this game could surely have its strong-points with many Sonic and Sega fans. So, one could, at the very least, consider keeping an eye out for this game.

…Not to mention, Sonic’s car is cool!

Official Website