Sonic the Hedgehog #263 (October 2014)

Ben Bates cover: Sonic, Chaos, Amy, Rotor and bits of Dark Gaia beasties in a whirlpool layout. It’s pretty impressive even though Chaos’s presence on the cover constitutes a major spoiler.

“Waves of Change Part 4: Divine Waters”

Story: Ian Flynn; Art: Ryan Jampole; Ink: Terry Austin; Color: Gabriel Cassata; Lettering: John E. Workman; Assdistant Editor: Vincent Lovallo; Editor: Paul Kaminski: Editor-in-Chief: Victori Gorelick; Suits: Mike Pellerito and Jon Goldwater; Sega Licensing reps: Anthony Gaccione and Tyler Ham

When we last left Sonic and Rotor they were dueling with the Boss Level Dark Gaia monster as their air charms ran out and Sonic started going wolfhog. Before he can bite anybody he gets batted aside by the Boss which … snaps him out of wolfhog stage after two panels (the splash page opener counts as one).

As we leave Sonic and Rotor to die, Pearly informs Razor that Sonic and Rotor are running on empty, but he and Amy are a little preoccupied by a wave of Dark Gaia monsters.

Inside the shrine, we see Coral taking her problems straight to the top, and I would have given anything for her first word balloon to be “Are you there, Aquarius? It’s me, Coral.” If you don’t get that joke, you’ve been reading too many comic books and not enough young adult novels. Anyway, a literal deus ex machine shows up and apologizes for coming late to the party because the dark Gaia was too thick. Anyway, we get the first hint of setting things right by seeing Aquarius turn into a light bulb. This is followed by Chaos, last seen in the first Sonic Adventure game, covering Rotor and Sonic with air bubble domes before going one-on-one with the Boss. “He just hit the monster with the ocean,” Rotor explains, though how you can tell water from water in water isn’t explained. Striker is more impressed by Sonic’s connections than with how Chaos maintained his coherence underwater.

There follows a page of fighting against the Gaia guys before cutting to Coral with the awakened Aquarius. She also gets an earful of exposition from the deus (or rather, dea) ex machina in question, another veteran of the Sonic Adventure game, Tikal.

Coral then requests that Razor pull Pearly off the front lines and get her to the shrine on time, which means Now. Pearly is appropriately freaked and has a moment of Coral-style self-doubt, but Coral as much as tells her “Let’s do it to it.” With the three of them and Aquarius making watery world music, the Dark Gaians all go POMF like the Death Star. That means we cue the self-congratulatory sequence with the royals. Rotor sneaks in a panel of exposition explaining why the Dark Gaia pollution wasn’t Coral’s fault, but Queen Angelica is all gracious about it, apologizing to the surface dwellers and reinstating Coral.

The end? Not exactly. Tikal apologizes for her timing and started expositing like crazy. She explains that she’s been affected by the Dark Gaia and that Sonic needs the help of Light Gaia (aka Chip) to set things right, but she disappears as she tells Sonic she can’t help by giving him the location of the Gaia temples but does state that the “mystic melody” can help locate them. Sonic then checks in with Rotor who’s been harvesting power rings from the Chao wading pool. And they leave after a bit of trash talk between Sonic and Razor.

The end? No, not yet. This is a comic book, after all, and rather than a clean story ending there’s usually a tease to another story. We watch as an old hippie sloth named Moss (according to the Mobius Encyclopedia) does his Yoda impersonation and summarizing his training of Mighty who is now prepared to get back into the continuity. Ray, meanwhile, is busy making smores.

HEAD: OK, who had 2 panels in the “Sonic Goes Wolfhog” betting pool? This is really getting frustrating. Twice they’ve teased us with a Sonic transformation and twice they’ve pulled the plug before anything could happen. If you’re going to jerk the audience around like that, don’t be surprised if the readers start walking away. In the immortal words of Roger Ebert, “You can get the rug jerked out from under you only so many times before you realize the movie [in this case, “Double Take” from 2001] has the attention span of a gnat, and thinks you do, too.”

Ebert also diagnosed why the Dark Gaia beasties just disappeared. The same thing happened to members of The Hand in the movie based on the comic book “Elektra”: “they have contracted Movie Zombie’s Syndrome, which means they are fearsome and deadly until killed, at which point they dissolve into a cloud of … powder … Maybe this is simply to save Elektra the inconvenience of stepping over her victims in the middle of a fight.” And, in this case, it means there aren’t a lot of dead bodies cluttering up the comic and giving Archie Editorial fits.

If you’re going to have a deus ex machina save your butt in this comic, it might as well be an actual deity. Though referred to as a spirit, Tikal in the first Sonic Adventure game was also what they used to call a “g-g-g-g-ghost!” in the old Scooby Doo cartoons. To me, the last bit of art in that game’s closing explains her fate: she and Chaos are shown surrounded by the Chao in what can only be described as a family portrait.

She might have remained there had Archie not decided to retcon the comic. As part of the transition, Ian consigned a vast number of older characters and plot lines to retcon limbo, the political reasons for which I won’t rehash here. That left the continuity short-handed. Fortunately, Sega was pleased to volunteer game characters to flesh out the comic story lines. This meant that moving this story arc underwater and tying in the business with the Aquarius cult gave Chaos and Tikal a reason to intervene. The bad news is it made no sense in terms of the Sonic Unleashed story line and the wolfhog business. Sonic made several attempts to morph, both of which were wasted as comic book teases and were quickly abandoned after 2 panels. I hope I’m not the only one who felt this was an insult.

Like any deus ex machina, the Dark Gaia beasts were swiftly dispatched by divine intervention (if you can call Tikal a deity). The various defenders of the water world put up a good fight but were ultimately pretty useless. Even Sonic and Rotor ended up taking a back seat in this one. Not that I mind seeing the ladies showing the boys how it’s done. Think of this as a “Raiders of the Lost Ark” ending without the melting Nazis.

At least Queen Angelica isn’t acting like she’s got her undies in a bunch this time; I guess we’re supposed to attribute the change of mood to the absence of Dark Gaia pollution, though King Puff looks as clueless as ever. There are some minor bits of business involving Pearly and Razor’s pet Chao, and it’s too soon to think of the reintroduction of Mighty as anything but the vaguest of teases.

It helps to reread this as a story arc about Coral and her crisis of confidence, with Sonic the titular hero relegated to a minor role. Sonic can’t really function in a watery environment, as his teased near-drowning demonstrated, nor did his going wolfhog manage to get traction. It really comes down to when Coral’s prayer would be answered and how. This is actually an improvement for the comic over the past.

Efforts to inject some religious elements in the comic weren’t always successful. The first portrayals of the trinity of the Ancient Walkers were a joke. Ken Penders, an admitted lapsed Catholic, tried introducing hints of echidna religious rituals and of an Aurora cult, but the results were rather wishy-washy. Ian seems to have draped a lot of religious trappings on the Chao plot line from Sonic Adventure, where they were regarded as tourist attractions in their playpen at the Station Square hotel while functioning as a Tamagotchi-like minigame. That would have gone the way of the Aurora cult except that Ian did something Ken Penders didn’t: he took the religious elements and centered them in Coral’s inability to get it right and regenerate Aquarius, though the eventual explanation that Dark Gaia pollution was the problem turned out to be pretty weak. Still, it managed to tie the story together quite well; I’ll have more to say on Coral in the Heart section. Head Score: 8.

EYE: It’s now Ryan Jampole’s turn to step in and wield whatever passes for a pencil these days. I’ve seen his deviantArt page and he’s already worked for the Man. Mega Man, that is. He also did the cover for this year’s Free Comic Book Day issue. My favorite panels are where Tikal, Coral, Pearly and Aquarius pose for what looks like a ‘70s album cover while making heavenly music, and the cast picture two pages later where Ryan does some experimentation with posture. Eye Score: 8.

HEART: Recently someone on My Little Pony: Friendship Is Fanbase over on Facebook asked why there wasn’t any comment when he posted a picture of his OC. My response to that was: “I need a story. Tell me a story and I’m there.”

The story Ian told here didn’t have a lot to do with Sonic and the gang. They were pretty much the fish out of water here as they reacted to the new environment, the Dark Gaia baddies and the alleged friends. That’s what this was for them: four issues of reacting instead of taking the initiative with occasional diversions such as almost drowning.

The story here, as I’ve said, is more about Coral than anything else, and it’s a pretty good story for any medium. Coral is a religious functionary. She goes through the routine of reviving Aquarius. Except one day it doesn’t work. Then bad things start happening and it still doesn’t work. As a result, she gets the blame and loses her position. More important, she loses faith not in Aquarius but in herself.

As I read this story and saw Coral hitting bottom after being sacked, I couldn’t help but think of the same thing happening to Sybil Trelawney after she was sacked by Dolores Umbridge in “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.” At least Sybil had Dumbledore to fall back on; he couldn’t stop her from being fired but he could keep her from being evicted from Hogwarts. Coral, though, seems to have fewer options. With no religious superiors to whom to appeal, she’s out there on her own until Tikal comes to her rescue.

As for Sonic and his crew, they’re trapped in the Action and More Action formula that Ian subscribed to even before the retcon. We aren’t that far into the brave new world but the presence of this story line is a refreshing change from the usual and a sign that Action and More Action is getting Tired and More Tired. Aside from the too-easy rescue of Coral, this was a great story element that unfortunately had to play second fiddle to the Attack of the Dark Gaia Beasties plot. Heart Score: 8.

“Consequences”

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

A couple of Egg bosses, Cassie and Clove, survey the damage caused by Sally and crew, confirming their identity by checking the security footage. Eggman is being rather Elsa about this telling the two “Let it go” and to await reassignment. He then commits exposition all over Orbot and Cubot letting them know that Sally used intelligence from the Death Egg to locate the Emerald. So Eggy blows in a call to Egg Boss Thunderbolt to arrange a trap.

HEAD: According to the Mobius Encyclopedia, Thunderbolt is a chinchilla in the service of Eggman. Since I’ve failed to keep up with the comics that need reviewing and have gotten seriously behind, I have to commit what’s probably a useless Spoiler by saying without giving any details that she’s something of a bad dudette.

The bad news is, we get more Orbot and Cubot. The good news is, we also get Cassie and Clove who have a lot more potential. Cassie is a cyber animal who bears something of a resemblance to SweetieBot, a cyber version of Sweetie Belle, Rarity’s little sister on “My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.” Cassie is no sweetie and appears to have only recently gotten the hang of her cybernetics.

Clove appears to be an antelope, bearing a strong resemblance to one of the mascots for the 2008 Olympics held in China as rendered by Tyson Tan. You can see a revised version of the artwork at http://tysontan.deviantart.com/art/Bei-Jing-Huan-Ying-Ni-71626914 . Specifically, Clove looks a lot like Ying Ying the Tibetan antelope and the mascot for the running games.

Together, I thought they might have potential to be a team on the order of a couple of cast members from “Law & Order,” with Clove as Detective Briscoe (Jerry Orbach) and Cassie as Detective Logan (Chris Noth). Unfortunately, I’m afraid that Ian will end up using them as incidental characters if he brings them back at all.

I haven’t mentioned the story yet because, let’s face it, there is none. After the “Light In the Dark” arc we get a one-off of Eggman summarizing the latest developments and giving Ian an excuse to commit massive exposition. Aside from teeing up Thunderbolt, there’s no new ground broken here. Not that I cared, really. I just hope we see more Cassie and Clove. Head Score: 4.

EYE: Good artwork by Evan Stanley, including the visual tease of Thunderbolt. She looks a little unstable as depicted in the final panel. Eye Score: 9.

HEART: Less Orbot and Cubot, more Cassie and Clove. Heart Score: n/a.

FAN ART: Amy on stilts (those are some loooong legs) by Barrington, Sonic by Justin, Bunnie by Sabrina, and Sonic in armor from Sonic and the Black Knight by Doy.

OFF-PANEL: about as close to an Eww as this feature will ever get. It’s an interesting quote from the SatAM series where Sonic did the same move in the episode “Sub-Sonic.”

SONIC-GRAMS: Samuel wants to see more of the undersea world and is told they’ll be back, doesn’t get a straight answer on which game will be adapted next though Editorial expresses a preference for Lost World (unplayed by me), and Editorial tries to generate some enthusiasm for Sonic Boom (presumably the comic, though the game Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyrica was recently described in Anime News Network as “a glitch-plagued monstrosity.)” Corinne wants to see WereSonic because “who doesn’t love the fluff?” She also loves the back story and seeing life outside the games; and Editorial finally says something that makes sense: “As long as there are Sonic comic fans there will always be Sonic comics.” That’s as close as they’ve ever come to saying “We need you more than you need us.”