Sonic the Hedgehog #240 (October 2012)

Greg Horn cover: Amy Rose representin’, yo! Hey, Amy, the Eighties called, they want their background back.

“Heroes Part 2: For the People”

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; Fight Choreographer: Mike Pellerito

In the midst of the fight in the Feral Forest, Amy Rose discovers that her Internet connection is down. Tails then reconfigures T-Pup to act as a router.

Back on the Death Egg, Eggman is thinking that this should be a simple invasion, but that’s before the Death Egg bumps up against the force field. That doesn’t last long as the Tails Doll shuts down the electric generator. No sooner does Eggman deploy a landing party than Rotor and so-called Team Freedom go into action.

We miss the action in favor of watching Elias and the wolf twins escort Elias into Harvey Who’s presence, which means exposition and tedious 3-page introductions of the rest of the team members. We also get the spectacle of Harvey more or less shaming Elias into joining in the fun and games.

Back in town, Rotor discovers the limitations of sending a girl to do a big boy’s job, and reassigns Cream to directing traffic. Rotor has a bigger problem to worry about when Naugus shows up to blow back the invading robots with his magic. But he succeeds in awakening the voices in his head who then inform him that his shell is starting to mutate. So we finally get an explanation as to where Naugus’s case of butt-ugly is coming from. Rotor recognizes that Naugus is in no shape to help so he has Big evac him to the rear while he and Heavy keep up the resistance.

Back on the Death Egg, Eggman realizes that desperate times call for ridiculous measures and so he launches Team Metal, consisting of Metal Sonic, Metal Tails, and Metal Amy Rose. Why not, sure.

But as Rotor and his team engage Team Metal, Team Elias or whatever they’re called get some licks in themselves. In Larry’s case, he wanders around spreading bad karma, while Shard, Silver and Elias do the heavy lifting.

In this issue, Mecha-Sally literally phones it in, saying that the invasion is a failure, prompting Eggman to drop a hint or two about upcoming developments. Elias apologizes for opposing the idea of the teams, and Naugus comes up with the decision to hex the Council, only we don’t know that yet because this is a set-up for the Unsung Heroes arc currently running in Sonic Universe. Got it?

HEAD: This is the story Ian Flynn would do well to include on his resume as an example of Action and More Action. There’s running and flying, shooting and punching, and I know that for a lot of fans this is good enough. This is what they expect from a comic book.

It feels as if Ian is throwing everything onto the page, expecting it to keep the juice flowing. I reached this conclusion when the Tails Doll appeared, messed with the power, and disappeared. It served no other purpose.

I wanted to address this story in detail, but it is so mechanical and brain dead that it really doesn’t invite analysis. You read this story and it’s like watching a Michael Bay movie: you sit back and let it happen to you. There’s really no point in taking it apart and analyzing it. It does what it’s supposed to, accompanied by KRONGs and BRANKs and PIKOs and punches with no sound effects and bits of physical business that become more improbable with every turn of the page. The fact that Mecha-Sally can’t even be bothered to show herself except in a flash-back says it all. This story is, in every sense, a no-brainer, and who needs brains when you have Action and More Action. Head Score: 3.

EYE: Steven Butler is in the swing of things here and keeps the pace up, even in the 3-page boring part where we’re introduced to Elias’s team. Eye Score: 8.

HEART: n/a

SONIC SPIN: The big deal this month is that Team Metal is introduced; Paul Kaminski does not point out that their throw-down only lasts 6 pages and the team is then thrown out.

FAN ART: Abby does a movie poster layout drawing of Sonic, Tails and Amy, Gavin does the Tails Doll, and Owen goes whole ‘hog with Sonic, Silver and Amy.

FAN FUNNIES: Sky comes up with a Sonic-Silver race where, near as I can figure, Silver loses by crashing into the margin of the page. I assume the word being obscured by the enhanced word balloon in the second panel is CRASH.

OFF PANEL: Team Freedom makes a case against child soldiers, repeating the plot point that Cream has brought precious little to the party. It’s about what you’d expect from a boy’s comic where the archetypal strong female character, Sally, was a no-show in this issue.

SONIC GRAMS: Daniel from Caracas gushes about the level of Tracy Yardley!’s artwork being an inspiration for him, and asks about whether Sally’s mind was shut down due to her being mechafied. And wonder of wonders, Editorial admits that “Sally’s inner turmoil due to her roboticization is sorta [sic] hinted at here and there” in the story arc. So I wasn’t imagining things when Sally basically told Tails and the wolf girls “Stop fighting and save yourselves” a couple issues back. I think the term “inner turmoil” is a little over the top – of course this is Editorial talking – because we’re not allowed into Sally’s subroutines yet, but after the Actionfest of this issue I’ll take what I can get.