Sonic the Hedgehog #238 (August 2012)

Tracy Yardley!/Terry Austin/Matt Herms cover: It’s Sonic vs. Mecha Sally, Amy Rose vs. Eggman, and Tails vs. Drako. It all looks good enough, and there’s a nice balance involving this number of characters on one cover. One of Sally’s blades gives me the impression that Tracy Yardley! has been watching too many overhyped 3D movies. The gimmick works no better on the cover of a comic book than on an insufficiently-lighted movie screen.

And then there’s Sonic. I’m sorry, but his facial expression just kills what otherwise would have been an acceptable cover. Amy Rose and Tails both look angry enough, but I don’t know what emotion Sonic was supposed to be conveying. Yes, he’s probably still suffering from mixed feelings in every fight against Sally since her mecha conversion. But this is seriously overdone and unfocused, a bad combination. This is the worst facial expression on a Sonic comic cover since the infamous S49 where Dulcy wore an expression that left me thinking she was suffering from terminal constipation. Sonic’s expression alone makes this a contender for Worst Cover Art of 2012.

“Loyalty Part 2: Dire Choices”

Story: Ian Flynn; Art: Steven Butler; Ink: Terry Austin; Color: Matt Herms; Lettering: John E. Workman; Assistant Editor: Vincent Lovallo; Editor: Paul Kaminski; Editor-in-Chief: Victor Gorelick; Howlin’ Wolf: Mike Pellerito; Sega Licensing reps: Anthon Gaccione and Cindy Chau

Last time we left Lupe in Eggman’s body shop for some extreme detailing when word comes in that Sonic is on his way with not a whole lot of the repairing and refueling accomplished. Eggy leaves Lupe up on the rack for the time being.

Outside, Sonic and his crew storm the base and make short work of the guards until Razorklaw shows up demanding a one-on-one with Sonic. Inside, Lupe faces the grim fate of being bored to death by Drako. She gives him a reality check, which is enough of a distraction to let him get clocked by Lyco. Drako had committed the fashion faux pas of wearing the cat queen’s royal threads. She retrieves them but decides to wait until after the escape before she does her little turn on the catwalk.

Tails has just finished installing a tracking device on the Death Egg when Sally shows up. She bats T-Pup aside and gets the same treatment from Tails. This might have bogged down into a lot of one-on-one fighting and dialogue except that the Stand By To Launch order goes out. Sal then spells out their options which really boil down to one option: to forget about her and clear out. They agree pretty quickly and the group catches up to Sonic.

Sally hooks up to Eggy who’s bemoaning the setback, but all it takes is for Sally to say “Divide and conquer” to give Eggy an idea. Meanwhile, Sonic has brought Hathor to a group of Felidae and wolves who form a Coalition of the Useless since it looks like the few baddies who were chasing them go into retreat mode.

That pretty much leaves Hathor and Lupe to patch things up despite a thick base coat of animal animosity. Sonic declines an invitation to chill because they need to track Eggman. After they take off, Lupe recruits Lyco and Leeta for Harvey Who’s team, which explains their appearance in Sonic Universe.

HEAD: Honestly, was there any doubt that Sonic and the gang would pull this one out? That’s not really an issue in this comic, where the expected is par for the course. So it comes down to how the expected comes to pass. With a single exception in this story, it’s still the same old same old: Sonic and his crew fight the minions and Robotnik runs away. We don’t even get to see the Death Egg fly away this time.

There’s only one interesting bit in the story. When Tails is “battling” Sally and they get a one-minute warning, she does something that I don’t recall her doing in any earlier installments: she reasons with Tails and company. Wouldn’t it have been simpler to break off the fight and leave the Mobians to their fate? To me this is either padding out the story by Ian Flynn or else a very juicy clue that Sally is not lost to us but is instead playing her part. More on this in the Heart section.

I hate to say this, but this story arc is losing momentum. There have been upticks, such as when Antoine got blown up (even if he didn’t die as a result). But one of the big issues with an extended story arc is pacing, and the pacing is beginning to slip. It can always pick up, but repeating the same basic shtick isn’t the way to do it. The world-building details about Felidae culture might be interesting but they do nothing to move the story forward; it’s just padding. This is getting old. Head Score: 5.

EYE: Steven Butler’s work is best summed up in the flying kick by one of the wolf twins on page [3]. It’s very dramatic, and very effective. Eye Score: 10.

HEART: The more I think about it, the more I’m convinced that Sally had only one motive for warning Tails and the others to get going: some part of her, despite being mechafied, still cares about them.

This is the kind of clue I’ve been looking for ever since Sal let herself get zapped. There is precedent in the Sonicverse for this, of course; when Sonic’s Uncle Chuck, who’ll be putting in an appearance in the back story, was roboticized, he was able to eventually regain control of his mind and work undercover for the resistance. So it’s definitely not a stretch to hope that Ian’s taken a page from that playbook. Heart Score: 8.

“Foundation Work”

Story: Ian Flynn; Art: Evan Stanley; Ink: Terry Austin; Color: Matt Herms; Lettering: John E. Workman

In order to blow the dust off her protocols, Nicole takes a hand at upgrading the HQ for the alt.FreedomFighters, which is now literally an underground organization. That should come as no surprise since hedgehogs, even roboticized ones such as Uncle Chuck, are burrowing animals. Harvey Who, for one, loves what she’s done with the place. But a guided tour of the facility isn’t the point of this back story. It exists mainly to build a word wall out of back stories for Shard and Uncle Chuck. Then for dessert, we learn how a klutz such as Larry Lynx made it onto the team.

HEAD: This is a no-brainer, pure and simple: an excuse to work back stories into the narrative. Heaven knows Shard needed introduction, since the whole concept of a friendly Metal Sonic isn’t an everyday plot point. In this case, the reader definitely gets the short version, compressed into less than one page, which is a pity because Shard grew from one of the better stories to appear in the comic.

The original two-parter, “Heart of the Hedgehog,” appeared in mid-2000 and was written by Danny Fingeroth, who was NOT a regular Sonic writer such as Karl Bollers, Ken Penders and Mike Gallagher. He’s currently teaching online courses on writing comics and graphic novels, having worked for both DC and Marvel.

In “Heart of the Hedgehog,” Fingeroth gave us Sonic battling with yet another metallic counterpart, but the relationship between Sonic and Tails showed some heart that the comic usually didn’t depict. Likewise, the Metal Sonic in this case showed the same kind of ‘tude on display now, a dozen years later. Kudos to Ian for digging back into the past and recognizing some decent source material.

Speaking of source material, Larry Lynx dates back even farther, to issue #12. His shtick, however, remains the same: bad luck on order. Ian works to adapt Mike Gallagher’s jokey pretext, but it sort of feels awkward and forced. Then again, I think the way Larry’s luck runs is too convenient and stops short of doing serious damage to himself and/or others. His falling down into the glass tube was just an opener. Truly bad luck would be falling into the tube and damaging it in the process.

And Harry’s instant recognition of Larry does nothing to dissuade me from my Harry’s-The-Traitor theory. He knows too much and is too ready to plug Larry into the organizational matrix. I could be off-base here but I have to say it again, it just feels so contrived that Harvey is running the operation the way he does. Head Score: 7.

EYE: Evan Stanley’s artwork is good, and his drawing of Uncle Chuck at the top of page [5] shows some much-needed comic flair in this comic. Eye Score: 10.

HEART: If Danny Fingeroth brought anything to the comic back in 2000, it was the ability to inject some Heart into a story.

That’s always been the weakest part of writing for Archie. After watching animation, from classic Disney and Golden Age Cartoon Network in the 1990s through to “My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic,” I’ve learned that the best writing is a deft combination of action, humor, and Heart. And for whatever reason, writing for Archie has mostly involved action and humor only.

I honestly don’t know why that has to be the case. Heaven knows the Sonic continuity offers plenty of opportunity to work Heart into the story. To take one example, there was the “Trouble in Paradise” arc (Sonic Universe #17-20). There was action galore as Antoine, Bunnie and Tails found themselves impregnating the impregnable fortress of the Battle Bird Armada, and enough excuses for humor (c’mon, with Antoine in the cast there’d have to be some humor). But Heart? Aside from Tails rescuing Speedy after being beaten up by the original Angry Bird, there was not a whole lot. Would it have been that disruptive, that contrary to the Archie house style, to highlight the fact that Bunnie and Antoine were supposed to be on their honeymoon? Would it have killed Ian to show the two having some feelings for each other instead of filling up space for the sake of the plot? I’m not saying they should have swapped their on-the-beach tent for Tails’s hideaway workshop and hung out the DO NOT DISTURB sign to the tune of Steve Miller’s “Jungle Love,” but still! Actually, that wouldn’t have been such a bad idea. The last real Heart moment this comic has had was when Sally put herself in the crosshairs of the not-a-roboticizer. Even Bunnie’s bedside soliloquy to the comatose Antoine before abandoning the continuity for the time being was less about Heart and more about cramming in yet more exposition.

Contrast that fact with “Heart of the Hedgehog,” the Shard source material. You had two Heart situations: Sonic reassures Tails after the kid’s piloting skills show they need work, and Sonic and Tails being saved by Metal Sonic because, since this Metal Sonic is supposed to be like Sonic in every way, he’s also got decency and … well, I can’t say “humanity” so I’ll have to go back to “Watership Down” and borrow the word “animality.”

No Heart to spare here, though. Ian’s summary of “Heart of the Hedgehog” is so perfunctory that it’s essentially Heart-free. I know 5 pages doesn’t give writers a lot to work with, but again it reinforces the impression that Archie is quick to throw Heart overboard. And I fear that that’s never going to change given Archie’s corporate culture. Heart: 2.

SONIC SPIN: For reasons spelled out in the previous couple of paragraphs, I would be hard-pressed to say that readers are getting “the best” from Archie.

FAN ART: Sonic by Christopher, Sonic and Amy by William, and Blair’s rather impressionistic drawing of the rough year Sally’s been having.

FAN FUNNIES: Ash reminds Sonic, Lupe, and us that being a werehog seriously complicates things. I’m just surprised that Lupe didn’t join in and make it a duet.

OFF-PANEL: And we get another helping of love-crazy Amy.

SONIC-GRAMS: Zach is told we will see more of the Tails Doll of which he’s really really a fan, Editorial fudges on whether anybody else gets mecha-ized but my guess is they won’t, and he’s told that an Off-Panel collection is a cool idea although I think it’d probably work better as digital media than something in print. Kristy learns the difference between a compilation of previously-printed material (Sonic Select) and an over-hyped magazine which includes previously-published material (Sonic Super Special). She also gets a short version of the background of the Secret Freedom Fighters, who have pretty much taken over the franchise until Sonic 250.