Sonic the Hedgehog #261 (August 2014)

Ben Bates cover: Razor prepares to mix it up with “Captain Striker the mantis shrimp.” And Sonic, in the foreground, figures now would be a good time to test underwater running.

This cover symbolizes the central dilemma of this story arc: Sonic finds himself in a situation where he has neither the opportunity nor the capability to actually do something, in particular his specialty which is being fast. He’s essentially a guest star in his own comic book.

“Waves of Change Part 2: Current Events”

Story: Ian Flynn; Art: Jennifer Hernandez; Ink: Terry Austin; Color: Color: Gabriel Cassata; 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

Turns out the “company” from last installment consists of the aforementioned Capt. Striker and some extra guards, so the threat level takes something of a dive. There follows some exposition about Razor’s alignment with Coral and Striker’s feelings about the same. Coral appears and gets another helping of hating, this time from Striker. Before the guards can arrest her, Sonic steps in and is as heroic as he can be in these surroundings, letting Striker know that it would be better all around if he accompanied Coral and stayed in the picture. Well, it is his comic book.

En route, Razor lets it be known that since the planet started breaking up the waters have gotten murkier, the citizens are being unpleasant, and real estate values have dropped. Amy Rose’s optimism infects Sonic on their way to meeting the “royal whoevers.” When they meet up with them, things start to go downhill.

The royals are King Puff and Queen Angelica. The former is a pufferfish whose cousin, fugu, is on permanent display as part of the Triple Dog Dare menu at your local sushi joint. The latter is not an angelfish but an anglerfish. There was one of those in “Finding Nemo” and it was all teeth and that phosphorescent dangle ball in its face; it was for me the scariest thing in that movie, aside from the psycho kid Darla. Angelica, who does most of the talking, is prepared to blame Coral for everything that’s gone haywire but Sonic intervenes. As Angelica and Pearly build a two-story story using parallel expositions, Sonic tries to intervene without much success. In particular, it’s Sonic’s insistence on bringing up the fracturing of the planet that riles the Royals, and why Ian feels compelled to return to it issue after issue is a mystery to me. Upon learning about Aquarius’s continuing dormancy, the monarchs go medieval and Angelica fires Coral. There’s my argument: keep church and state separate. Coral is given until morning to pack up and clear out of the temple, and the Freedom Fighters are up against the same check-out time.

The prevailing bad vibes pit Sonic and Rotor against each other. Amy is all for taking in Coral but Razor would just as soon relocate and insists that it’s a package deal: both or none. Coral begins to fall apart at a quicker rate. And all this time, at the rate of one panel per page, the DayGlo nasties are advancing on the city. With Striker and the guards finding themselves busy all of a sudden, Sonic finally joins the party. Invading bad guys: that he understands.

HEAD: Striker may not look like much, but there’s way more to the mantis shrimp than what Ian was able to fit into the story. Check out http://theoatmeal.com/comics/mantis_shrimp for the page named “Why the mantis shrimp is my new favorite animal.” You have to read it to believe it.

Anybody who plays chess will recognize the dynamic of the Royals. On the chessboard, the king only moves one space at a time while the queen’s moves are far more limitless. The same can be said for the dialogue of the Royals. The queen does most of the talking here, and since the first time we hear the king he’s quoting the Earl of Lemongrab from “Adventure Time,” maybe it’s just as well.

The story itself, unfortunately, moves at a king’s pace. Once again Action and More Action is put on hold in favor of Talk and More Talk. This would be a good thing if the characters had anything interesting to say, but much of the dialogue consists of rehashing the story to date and of making the same points over and over. There have been earthquakes, the waters have been getting murkier, Coral’s lost her touch with Aquarius, and Sonic and friends aren’t particularly welcome. OK, we get it!

Still, I’m not yet sure if any of this relates to the Dark Gaia factor. That seems to be where this story is heading. But let’s not get carried away, Ian; if too many characters get exposed to the Dark Gaia the way Sonic did, it would become ridiculous. Then we’d need a new overall title, such as Night Of The Living Wolfhogs.

And where is Ian going with the references to “spirits?” It may be too soon to tell, but the earlier dissonance between the quasi-religious nature of the shrine and Rotor’s rationality symbolizes the tightrope Ian and Archie Editorial are walking here. And all this even before Chip makes his entrance.

There’s really no development here in this part of the story; the situation that was established in the previous issue simply becomes moreso. And Sonic keeps himself in check at times when Amy is the one being rigorously honest. Yes, this is the development phase of the story; I just wish there’s been more development to go along with it. Head Score: 5.

EYE: I knew I’d seen Jennifer Hernandez’s work before! It was only when she’d posted a portrait of some of the characters in this story on her deviantArt page that I realized this was the artist better known by me as chibi-jen-hen, her dA handle.

Once again, my favorite panel is one where dialogue isn’t that important. Sonic is speaking but the focus of Amy Rose and Razor is on Coral, who’s just been sacked. You really have to feel sorry for the poor kid. Great artwork when the dialogue balloons don’t get in the way. Eye Score: 10.

HEART: No big surprise that Coral and her trials are the emotional heart of the story. And it’s no surprise that she’s on a one-way trip to the unemployment line.

It’s one thing for Coral to be having a bad day, and another one to surround her with other characters whose only purpose in this story is to make her life even more miserable. I can sort of explain Queen Angelica’s situation but King Puff functions as comic relief more than anything else, which was the problem with Mrs. Puff on Spongebob Squarepants. Some species just bring nothing to the party.

The problem with anchoring the story emotionally with Coral is that everybody else is stranded. The surface-dwellers aren’t given any options until the last splash page, and even though they’re supposed to be the heroes here Ian cuts their legs out from under them at every turn. Coral and Pearly were the only characters who showed hem anything like friendship to Sonic, Amy Rose, and Rotor. Razor was slow to warm up to them. Everybody else has been piling on the bad attitude express. At this rate we’re not going to be returning to this neighborhood in any sequels. Heart Score: 7.

“The Light in the Dark: Part 2”

Story: Aleah Baker; Art: Evan Stanley; Ink: Terry Austin; Color: Gabriel Cassata; Lettering: John E. Workman

Think of Elsa’s ice palace from “Frozen” and you’ll get an idea of what Evan Stanley is going for in this story. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Besides, it’s easier to explain it in those terms than calling it “the inside of a giant geode” as Tails does. But Sally knows she only has 5 pages to work with so in we go.

Sally hands Nicole off to Tails to track the emerald. She then becomes very pensive, but it’s only the calm before a wordstorm from Tails chatting up Nicole. Nicole is in total Vulcan mode diagnosing the cave as a selenite deposit with a Chaos emerald in it. So that’s one down.

Tails brings the emerald back to the others where it turns out that Sally’s been thinking it would be a shame to let Eggman’s bots tear the place apart. When Nicole tries to get her to focus on the mission, Sally uses a power ring to get Nicole to look at the cavern rather than just sense it. Having seen it with her own (virtual) eyes, Nicole agrees that the cavern shouldn’t be trashed. But the downtime for the bots has run out and Sally wants to leave Eggman a calling card.

HEAD: It’s taken long enough, but a story has appeared in the comic that finally begins to approach Renae de Liz’s “Stargazing” in terms of impact. Instead of being another Mission: Impossible variation, we have Sally doing some big-picture gazing and letting Nicole catch the vision. More about the implications in the Heart section.

I’m not sure how Sally is going to play this, but she’s planning some kind of in-your-face response for Eggman to let him know he’s lost the first round of this Easter egg hunt. Usually it’s Sonic who gets to mess up Eggman’s vibe after thwarting his plan because he can afford to hit and run, emphasis on run.

I really don’t want to indulge in stereotyping, but I can’t help but notice that both this story and “Stargazing” were written by women. That Aleah Baker doesn’t feel the need to practice the Action And More Action credo of her husband is obvious. Even if the bots weren’t coming back online, I want to see where this is going, which is the point of storytelling. Head Score: 9.

EYE: Evan Stanley takes time, on the first and last pages, to work in some views of the cavern; since she’s limited by the 5-page budget, she couldn’t bust loose with a proper splash page. And her drawing of Sally weighing her options is very well done. I wish she’d been able to figure out a similar drawing of Nicole; maybe seeing only the back of her head is just as well. We get to project our own notion of her reaction. Eye Score: 9.

HEART: You don’t want to miss what Aleah Baker did here, showing the two sides of Nicole. It’s easy to dismiss the difference between her resident form when she’s in Sally’s handheld and her virtual form. This story makes it clear that the latter is no mere projection.

As an app, if you will, she was perfectly capable of sensing what the cave was and of determining its mineral composition. But it was only in her Mobian form that she was able to “see” the cavern and not just perceive it. I’ve mentioned the difference before as something that came up in an old “Astro Boy” episode from the 1960s, which tells you how far ahead of the curve Osamu Tezuka was.

It was also telling that Sally didn’t argue with Nicole; she knew she’d have to experience it. And, to a lesser extent, so did we. That’s a major bit of psychology there and I’m glad it found its way into this comic. Like I said, it’s been a long time since “Stargazing” appeared but Aleah Baker reminds us of what that story accomplished beyond embellishing a character who had been no more than a disembodied voice. Heart Score: 10.

FAN ART: Colleen draws Sonic in the upcoming “Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric”; Heather draws Amy Rose, Jonathan does an angry Super Sonic, and Barry draws the good old SatAM crew; I love the expression on Tails, BTW.

OFF-PANEL: A grab bag of three one-panel gags. Really noteworthy is Adam Bryce Thomas’s artwork in the third panel, demonstrating that while dialogue can help sell a gag, sometimes it isn’t necessary.

SONIC-GRAMS: Patrick wants more robots and aliens, and is pretty much told that the Editors aren’t through with Eclipse yet. Sonic Anon just gushes.