Sonic the Hedgehog #259 (June 2014)

Variant Sega/Vincent Lovallo cover: generic Sonic.

“The Chase: Part 2”

Story: Ian Flynn; Layout: Tracy Yardley!; Art: Evan Stanley; Ink: Terry Austin; Color: Steve Downer; Lettering: John E. Workman; Assistant Editor: Vincent Lovallo; Editor: Paul Kaminski; Editor-in-Chief: Victor Gorelick; Suits: Mike Pellerito and Jon Goldwater; Sega Licensing rep: Anthony Gaccione.

Last time, Sonic’s reunion with Uncle Chuck and Prof. Pickle (called “Brilliant but a doof” … excuse me, that should be “aloof”) was rudely interrupted by an E-106 security bot. By the perverse logic of the comic, this shouldn’t take long, though Sonic would appreciate some back-up.

Speaking of perverse logic, in the next car Sally, Amy and Rotor discover a foosball table. That’s it. That’s comic relief for this comic in the new continuity, I suppose. Ian then helpfully reminds us they’re on a runaway train which gets the plot back on the rails. Not that Tails, Bunnie and Antoine are having an easier time of it dealing with swarming badniks in the air. When the train takes a curve Uncle Chuck get knocked out. This gets Sonic upset enough that he almost goes wolfhog until Amy Rose shows up and does his job for him. Still, the two of them team up to slow down the bot while Rotor takes a moment to connect with his inner geek as he and Sally put in an appearance. With one last love tap of the bot from Amy Rose, they exit and Sonic takes a flying leap with Amy to catch a plane. In mid-air.

Back on Sky Patrol, all the Professor cares about is their having lost his research notes and Uncle Chuck’s samples. Being a good pedant, however, he remembers most of it and proceeds to bore everyone in sight by yammering on about how this sort of background destruction of the planet happens every ten thousand years according to the Gaia scroll. All you need to do is spread the Chaos Emeralds out at seven temples located around the globe. In case anybody missed the point that he’s just recapped the back story of a video game that’s been on the market for six years (Sonic Unleashed), the artwork on this splash page also displays the Light Gaia who helps keep things in balance. Yes, Chip, or as I like to call him the “fuzzy little chocoholic,” will be making his appearance at some point. But for now, the comic establishes that Eggman would indeed have an interest in manipulating the Chaos Emeralds and their placement in the temples, and Pickle has only sorta figured out the locations of two of the seven. This is gonna be a long story arc, kids.

And now is a good time to allude to the wolfhog tendencies that Sonic has been exhibiting, linking them to the Dark Gaia counterpart. Sonic is in serious denial however, and Sally is sure Sonic is holding out on her. Even though I got an Editorial-approved SonAmy vibe on the train during the bot battle, Sonic and Sally just know each other too well.

We then cut to the runaway train plot point which comes to a halt at the Rail Canyon bullet station without so much as jumping the rails. Eggman is sharp enough to notice that something is wrong and orders his bot minions to take inventory. Though he lost the badniks and the provisions and the foosball table and the hostages, he did get the Giai scroll so the plot, like the train, is still on the rails. We also get a plot teaser disguised as a credit cookie that the first temple is being used as an Egg Base in Mazuri, dba Efrika. What are the odds?

HEAD: Sonic Unleashed was a mix of a Sonic platformer with a fight game when Sonic was in wolfhog mode with RPG zombies thrown in. The trouble was, the platform fans didn’t appreciate how the action slowed to a crawl to accommodate the fight scenes. The same thing is going on here except that the story slows to a crawl to accommodate the massive amount of back story Ian has to set up. If we’re lucky, he won’t have to repeat himself and recap the game as the story progresses. However, given his tendency to repeat plot details in case some noob is buying into the comic for the first time, I’m hot holding out hope.

The real problem here, though, is that the back story is also an old story, available from anyone who played the game since it came out six years ago. They would instantly have recognized Chip in the Pickle splash page. Archie Editorial and/or Sega must be working on the assumption that since the game is that old the comic’s core audience either wouldn’t know the particulars, wouldn’t care, of wouldn’t know how to use the Internet to find out what’s coming. That’s pretty typical thinking for a comic that was created in the 1940s and really hasn’t evolved that much since then.

What we’re looking at here is someone’s very elaborate idea of a fanfic expansion. Ian has taken the story elements of Sonic Unleashed and is writing a fanfic involving all the other Freedom Fighters who played no part whatsoever in the game. Yes, Tails and Amy Rose figured in the game but not as playables. That means they have to have things to do while Sonic focuses on the things he does in the game itself: run as Sonic and fight as the wolfhog when he’s not interacting with Chip.

There’s no doubt that Ian can make the elongated version of the story work or that the readers won’t be discouraged by the length, since the fans already proved how much they are willing to endure with the Sonic-Mega Man crossover. Of course, here we have a combination of an inflated cast and a well-known plot so, ironically, Ian will have to work harder to maintain reader interest than if he were writing something original.

Up to now it’s been ridiculously easy. The runaway train, which was supposed to generate some kind of suspense, had no payoff whatsoever. It even arrived at its destination on time. The badnik horde was eventually dispatched. The E-106 kept Sonic busy but that was about it. And once more Sonic going wolfhog was no more than a tease which got run into the ground in the development section of the story. There’s even the danger that Ian is going to turn that part of the story into an Idiot Plot because Sonic, like a macho idiot, won’t confess that OK maybe he is showing some side effects from huffing Dark Gaia. But that’s not going to happen because otherwise that might impact on the wolfhog gimmick.

And don’t even get me started on the post-credit scene, aka Easter egg or credit cookie. All it accomplished was to set up a story in an upcoming issue, if not the next one. They could have done the same thing with an over-written text box.

Memo to Ian Flynn: there’s a difference between being aloof and being a douchebag, and making Prof. Pickle the latter does not translate into his being the former. Since I’m hopeless with the game Sonic Unleashed I checked a number of wikis and Prof. Pickle has a much better reputation than what passes for “character development” at this point. I can only hope that he retreats into the background and we don’t have to deal with him too much. Head Score: 5.

EYE: Evan Stanley can’t help but keep Prof. Pickle on model since he apparently has only one facial expression. Everyone else is well done. Eye Score: 10.

HEART: The closest they get to Heart here is more like a tease: Sonic playing dumb when it comes to being effected by the Uncle Chuck science project and Sally not buying it. I sincerely hope that this two-step isn’t going to be trotted out too often. For one thing, it is guaranteed to get boring. The same thing happened in the Treasure Team Tango arc where Blaze’s continually declaiming about the dire fate of her world if she doesn’t recover the Sol Emeralds was run into the ground and didn’t help the story at all.

Then, too, this means taking an effective character, Sally, and reducing her to something of a nag. And she’s been through too much in the course of this comic to be dumbed down like this. That may be Sega’s take on things; keep in mind the only female Sonic has had physical contact with in this story arc is Amy Rose. It’s still too early in the retcon to make a statement one way or the other, but I get a sneaking suspicion that if anybody wants to keep the Sonic-Sally flame alive, they’re going to have to rely on the numberless examples of fan art and fan fiction and not even bother with the comic books. Heart Score: 3.

FAN ART: Katrina draws Bunnie, Kassi draws Super Sonic, Sandro draws Sonic in pursuit of bling, and Will draws Rotor posing with a wrench, and I’m just asking for trouble if I say anything else about that drawing.

OFF PANEL: The old school badniks from “Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog” take some railroad puns and run them into the ground for the benefit of the new guys.

FAN MAIL: One letter: Jordan wants to know about Knuckles and the Chaotix “and the rest of the characters that have gone missing.” Editorial’s answer to the last point is the equivalent of “No comment.” He also asks if this is going to be like the Sonic Unleashed game; translation: “Should I even bother reading this?” Editorial hastens to state that “There will definitely be some strong similarities but also a lot of differences” without going into detail. Editorial also seems to be under the illusion that Prof. Pickle will be some kind of a fan draw. They better get Chip onstage in a big hurry if they think the aloof doof is going to do more for this comic than be another exposition machine.