Sonic the Hedgehog #264 (November 2014)

Pat Spaziante cover: This is really a collaboration of sorts because the effectiveness and sly humor of the cover depends on the Tyson Hesse page art visible where Sonic the wolfhog shredded it and the visual contrast between smiley hedgehog and snarly wolfhog. In this case, the speech balloon with the line “Kitty’s got claws” couldn’t have been a coincidence. Since Sonic the wolfhog is a well-known property by now, Spaz needed a way to bring interest to it instead of just putting a face on the cover. The placement of the claw in the foreground feels like he’s trying too hard to do a 3D thing, but overall it’s a surprisingly effective cover.

“Control Part 1: Breaking Point”

Story: Ian Flynn; Art: Tyson Hesse; Ink: Tery Austin; Color: Gabriel Cassata; Lettering: John E. Workman; Assistant Editor: Vincent Lovallo; Editor: Paul Kaminski; Editor-in-Chief: Victor Gorelick; Suits: Mike Pellerito and John Goldwater; Sega licensing reps: Tyler Ham and Anthony Gaccione.

Another day, another continent, another bot nipping at Sonic’s heels. Though the E113 is a quadruped and theoretically based on a jaguar (given that this is taking place in Soumerca), I can’t see the resemblance myself. The plan was to lure the bot past Sally and Amy Rose where, at the very least, it would get hammered, and I don’t mean from consuming too many margaritas. But this bot has peripheral vision and takes a swipe at the girls. It doesn’t stop to finish the job on Sally and Amy, and they have plenty of time to deliver their lines. Sonic tries running up a nearby cliff but the E113 takes a shot at him, though Ray makes the save and Mighty delivers the coup de grace.

Pausing to contemplate a full-page ad for a My Little Pony ponybank, we move on to a one-page autopsy of the E113 at “the nearest Egg Army base.” “Egg Boss Thunderbolt,” whose silhouette reminds me of either Stitch or Toothless, raves on about sticking to the plan and destroying Sonic.

Sonic and Mighty are about to engage in the male bonding ritual of beating up on your friend when Sally and Amy Rose catch up with them. Amy Rose scolds Sonic for hogging all the fun while Mighty gives Sally a chance to supply exposition. Mighty then has a chance to demonstrate that he’s learned the abridged version of the Serenity Prayer.

Speaking of spiritual matters, back at Mighty and Ray’s the gang is introduced to Moss the Sloth. Sonic thinks that he’s a little on the lame-o side, but Moss diagnoses Sonic’s “raging spirit that dwells within him” and it’s as if he suddenly realizes that he’s spent the past 20-some years not wearing pants. As he then demonstrates that denial isn’t just a river in Efrika, Amy uses the Aquarius flute “mystic melody” to home in on a nearby Emerald. That’s the good news; the bad news is that that places it inside an Egg military base.

It’s all too easy that evening for Sonic, Amy and crew to break into the compound and take the bait. Thunderbolt springs the trap and goes into Obligatory Villain Monologue mode. He then starts jolting everybody in sight while Sonic finally, FINALLY, lets his inner beast out for a run. And possibly a snack.

HEAD: Up until this issue, Ian has been using the wolfhog plot point as a tease. It would be more accurate to call it a cheat.

In the Waves of Change arc and even before, Sonic started to go wolfhog only to pull back after a couple of panels, literally. If you go back to models of this kind of morphing, Lawrence Talbot in the Wolf Man movies and Bruce/David Banner in the Incredible Hulk franchise, that’s not an option. What makes the transition to a wolf or a hulking green humanoid part of the horror genre is the utter lack of control on the part of the person doing the transforming. He has neither choice nor control over what’s happening inside his own body. A full-blown alcoholic won’t just order himself one drink, tell the bartender to see what the boys in the back room will have, and call it a night. It’s the start of a long night or a lost weekend.

Ian Flynn cheats big time by implying that Sonic’s unleashing isn’t inevitable. Not even the game Sonic Unleashed went that far. When the moon comes out, Sonic goes full wolfhog. But Ian simply disregards the rules for the sake of the story. All that does is buy him time until the next installment. I wouldn’t make such a big deal of this except that this does happen to be the heart of the story. Otherwise, it’s just another “Sonic vs.” story.

And I mean it what I say it’s just another “Sonic vs.” story. Sonic goes up against a bot, defeats it, then goes up against the next bot. That’s pretty much every Sonic game right there.

The only real diversion/mystery left is who or what is Thunderbolt. And if your reaction is “He’s just another (ho-hum) Eggman flunky,” then that’s pretty much every Sonic comic story arc right there. I’m aware that the retcon is still sort of fresh, but Ian needs to turn this train around and he can’t count on the wolfhog plot point to save his narrative bacon forever. Hear Score: 5.

EYE: I don’t know where “Bravest Warriors” is available, but Tyson Hesse’s artwork for that bears a strong resemblance to the art of “Adventure Time.” And in what seems to be a prerequisite for working on Sonic these days, he’s also done art for Mega Man.

He has a great grasp of gestures, and his drawing of Amy Rose picking up the psychic scent of the Chaos Emerald is very impressive. I tend to look at small moments in a story, such as the Amy Rose and the Sonic-Mighty dude-off, rather than the large production numbers such as “springing the trap” and the wolfhog transformation sequence. Like I said, very impressive. Eye Score: 10.

HEART: Sonic isn’t often the Heart focus in a story. It wasn’t always that way. Way back before the retcon Sonic had to deal with his roboticized parents, experienced some bumps in his relationship with Tails, got abused by Sally when Editorial lost control of that relationship, and so on. Now that the wolfhog plot point has finally managed to crawl into the spotlight, Sonic has ironically become the Heart focus.

As already mentioned, Sonic has no choice over going wolfhog because, like Bruce Banner, his emotions are the trigger. And all the anger management classes in the world can’t stop you from feeling what you feel.

At some point in 2015 Disney-Pixar will release “Inside-Out.” The bare-bones plot of the story couldn’t be simpler: a family moves to California from the Midwest and the daughter Riley has to adapt to a new home and school. The same basic outline was used by Neil Gaiman in his “Coraline.” The catch here is that Riley is the host of personified emotions: Joy, Anger, Fear, Sorrow, and Disgust (which I guess is related to Snark). These five personifications of her emotions guide her through the process of adapting.

This sounds like Child Psychology 101 and limiting Riley to only 5 emotions may have been an editorial decision to keep things from getting too complicated. Still, anger is a legitimate emotion that almost all people feel. When that (or any) emotion goes out of control, it’s terrifying because you’re supposed to be able to deal with your feelings before they become bigger than you.

But Sonic now has to work harder at his legendary coolness to compensate, and there were signs he’d already lost his own battle. Sonic may have thought his wolfhog tendency were under control; try telling that to Sally and Amy Rose who have had their suspicions. Now he’s out of the closet.

It’ll be interesting to see what changes in terms of his relationships with his friends. Having seen this side of him, will they even be able to handle it? I can only hope that Ian will write this with some degree of honesty that he’ll stop playing games with the wolfhogism, and decides whether Sonic stays with the Freedom Fighters or makes like David Banner and goes into a self-imposed exile. That was no problem in “Sonic Unleashed” because Sonic had no friends who could be freaked out by Sonic’s changes; it was just Sonic and Chip. Even within the retcon, Sonic’s had too much history. There’s just too much potential for collateral damage by a feral Sonic. Can Sally ever trust him again, or Amy Rose for that matter? That would probably be good news for Archie Editorial who seem never to have warmed up to the notion of Sonic having a love life. Heart Score: 8.

“A Nice Day to Start Again”

Story: Benjamin Bailey and Joey Esposito; Art: James Fry; Ink: Terry Austin; Color: Gabriel Cassata; Lettering: John E. Workman

Elsewhere in Soumerca, Bunnie and Antoine are searching for Chaos Emeralds from the air but the sight of a flooded village below gets their attention. What especially attracts them is a pair of honeymooners who are getting more than they paid for. As Bunnie plucks the pair from their watery predicament, Antoine’s fly-by brings him too close to a billboard that conveniently (or inconveniently) starts to totter. Oh snap! Or Ker-Snap in this case. Either way, it’s an easily-alluded threat with Ant’s skyboard. Bunnie, meanwhile, distracted by Antoine’s close call doesn’t notice an approaching flock of flickie birds. Bride and groom are left hanging on to a nearby flagpole after Bunnie drops them in midair, the bride’s grip slips, Antoine makes the save and while Bunnie supplies the groom who was last seen dangling from that flag pole, Antoine states that the energy signature is an energy shadow and the MacGuffin for this story is a dud.

We then cut away to Ant and Bunnie reflecting on their own situation. Bunnie starts losing it at the prospect of almost losing Antoine again (see Sonic #234’s “Unthinkable”) with Antoine assuring her “I’m not going anywhere. Not without you, my love.” Awwww.

HEAD: Benjamin Bailey and Joey Esposito have worked in comics separately (“Uncaged,” “Grim Leaper,” “Archer and Armstrong”) and as a team (“Captain Ultimate”). Bailey’s “Uncaged” has been summarized as “’Die Hard’ In A Zoo,” which explains the action-heavy plot of this 5-page story. It doesn’t exactly pause to catch its breath until page 5 when the honeymooners have been rescued and they cue the feel-good ending.

Given the magnitude of the disaster that has befallen their world, it’s no surprise that Bunnie and Antoine need to focus on the generic newlyweds. First they’re plucked from the drink, fly into a cloud of flickies, are stranded on a flagpole, are separated and then reunited. That’s about as much or more action than Sonic sees in some issues. And Bunnie and Antoine are kept on the move rescuing them. Well, they’re certainly living up to Ian Flynn’s Action and More Action credo.

But it’s the happy ending (more about which in the Heart section) that really shows the action movie roots of this story. I remember thinking that the ending of “Total Recall,” with Arnold and Rachel Ticotin, was kind of lame, though nowhere near as bad as the ending of “Altered States.” That’s understandable; given the kind of action movies coming out these days, it can be hard to turn on a dime and change the mood when the action stops. And the feel good ending here works as well as it does in the action film genre as a whole. The difference here is that Bunnie and Antoine don’t only have a history with each other but the readers as well. But that’s something best left to the Heart section. Head Score: 8.

EYE: Jim Fry is a veteran not only of numerous Marvel comics but of Sonic as well (e.g., Sonic #163). So there’s no faulting his work here. His page work is busy without feeling too claustrophobic, and his comfort with drawing furries obviously shows. Eye Score: 9.

HEART: I know the writers wanted the last page to work, and I know the artists wanted it to work. And it worked. But as it did so I couldn’t escape the one nagging thought: “They did it better in ‘The Incredibles’.”

I’m thinking of the scene where the family of superheroes reaches the city and prepares to confront the killer robot when Mr. Incredible tells his wife, the former Elastigirl, that he’s doing this solo. The scene was so well-written it deserves to be quoted in full:

Mr. Incredible: Wait here and stay hidden. I'm going in.

Elastigirl: While what? I watch helplessly from the sidelines? I don't think so.

Mr. Incredible: I'm asking you to wait with the kids.

Elastigirl: And I'm telling you, not a chance. You're my husband, I'm with you - for better or worse.

Mr. Incredible: I have to do this alone.

Elastigirl: What is this to you? Playtime?

Mr. Incredible: No.

Elastigirl: So you can be Mr. Incredible again?

Mr. Incredible: No!

Elastigirl: Then what? What is it?

Mr. Incredible: I'm not...

Elastigirl: Not what?

Mr. Incredible: Not... I'm not strong enough.

Elastigirl: Strong enough? And this will make you stronger?

Mr. Incredible: Yes. No!

Elastigirl: That's what this is? Some sort of work out?

Mr. Incredible: [shouts] I can't lose you again![calms down] I can't. Not again. I'm not s-strong enough.

Elastigirl: [kisses him] If we work together, you won't have to be.

Mr. Incredible: I don't know what will happen...

Elastigirl: Hey, c'mon. We're superheroes. What could happen?

I know Bailey, Esposito and Fry only had one page to work with, and the frame of Antoine cupping Bunnie’s cheek is the kind of tender gesture we don’t see very often in this comic. Still, the Flying Off Into The Sunset panel at the end is more dramatic than emotionally satisfying. In the film they kept Mr. and Mrs. Incredible in close-up and only pulled away when it was time for the action to resume.

Aside from the gender switch when comparing the story with “The Incredibles” where it’s Mr. Incredible who needs comforting and emotional grounding instead of his wife, there’s no real reason the comic story couldn’t have ended in a hug instead of a flyoff. That it didn’t end in a kiss is no surprise for someone who’s been reading the comic for about as long as it’s been in existence. I wouldn’t be surprised if Bailey, Esposito and Fry started out with a more romantic finish but then were reined in by Archie Editorial. The emotional neutering of the characters has been going on for so long it can’t be anything other than a facet of the Archie house style.

This is not to take anything away from the creative who were able to do what they could within the strictures. It’s a great story within the limits, but Archie is never going to transcend those limits and make this comic far more than it is, even though the retcon itself gave them the opportunity to do just that. Heart Score: 10.

FAN ART: Abban draws a side-by-side of Sonic and Sonic, hedgehog and wolfhog; Pamela does a drawing of Uncle Chuck boosting a Chaos Emerald with an assist from his wolfhog nephew; Gary draws Sonic; and Vanessa does a cast picture of the “Waves of Change” story arc.

OFF-PANEL: Ian turns part of the Sonic Unleashed canon, that Sonic’s arms can grow ridiculously long, into an excuse to be a little silly.

SONIC GRAMS: Travis wants to know if Snively is coming back and is told to check the other title; asks about the Pumpkin Hill Zone’s origin and gets a non-answer; and is told only that there is a Sonic movie in development. Kristy wants to know why it took so long to work Sonic Unleashed into the mix and when a Sonic Boom comic will be coming out. That’s a story worth telling in itself but Archie Comics never likes having anyone outside the company all up in their business.