Sonic Universe #38 (May 2012)

Peppers/Amash/Herms cover: “In the not-too-distant future/Sonic Two-Fifty….” Eh, forget it. More 3D hijinx as Omega takes on Metal Sonic and Metal Sally. Eggman, Orbot and Cubot do their homage to the denizens of the Satellite of Love. Needs more snark from the audience.

“Scrambled Part 2: Family”

Story: Ian Flynn; Art: Jamal Peppers; Ink: Jim Amash; Color: Steve Downer; Lettering: Jack Morelli; Editorial Assistant: Vincent Lovallo; Editor: Paul Kaminski; Editor-in-Chief: Victor Gorelick; Family Counselor: Mike Pellerito; Sega Licensing reps: Anthony Gaccione and Cindy Chau

Central City is under attack from … oh, I’m just going to say it, Eggman’s FAT-FAT Walkers, aka Egg-Camels. I think my name’s funnier. Two civilians, which is apparently all Central Casting can spare, take their cue from the series title and scramble.

Aboard the lead Camel, Dr. FAT-FAT himself has a mostly one-sided conversation with Hugo Brass who, in addition to having been legionized, also appears to have been lobotomized, given his extremely limited three-word vocabulary. What did Eggman expect from a “mindless minion,” Shakespeare?

It seems the point of this little exercise is that Eggy is still on Snively’s trail. This includes the comedy relief robots, and Cubot tries even harder to get laughs by switching his voice chip specs from Texas panhandle to Jersey shore. Anyway, Eggman sends the power couple of Sonic and Sally in with the rest of the roly-poly bots.

G.U.N. is keeping an eye on developments. Commander Tower deploys “spider and mantis troop.” It really doesn’t matter who or what they are because they promptly disappear from the story. And on loan from the Executive branch is our old pain in the oil pan, Omega. “Let us thank Eggman for a chance to destroy so many of his robots.” It’s still not as bad as “Great balls of cholesterol!”

Meanwhile, away from the action and working on a “deflective matrix” like any nerdy scientist in a situation like this, is Hope Kintobor. Unfortunately, she has company in the form of “that little traitor” and not-so-favorite relative, Snively. Since he is a relative, she is in no position to execute the Bobby Hill Maneuver, which consists of screaming “THAT’S MY PURSE! I DON’T KNOW YOU!” and then kicking your opponent in the groin. It really would have juiced up this story if she had. Snively grabs her by the ankle before she can hit the panic button and does some fast-talking to get her to listen. Big mistake, girlie. Snively tells Hope that he’s quit Robotnik Inc. and is on his way to spring Regina from the slammer. He then claims that the two of them are blood-related sibs, but he qualifies it with so many “maybe”s that the issue is as murky as it was before.

Meanwhile, as Omega continues shooting at the fatty in the FAT-FAT, badass Brass deploys the Egg Paladins: five brainwashed G.U.N. soldiers who look more like a boy band than a fighting unit. While the quintet harasses Omega and start taking the worse for the encounter, Eggy once more deploys Sonic and Sally to tag-team against Omega.

Back in the lab, Snively is still trying to sell Hope on the idea of joining him in springing Regina, which would make for a really complicated family dynamic. Would the former Iron Queen be Hope’s sister-in-law or surrogate mother or what? More importantly, Snively conveniently doesn’t tell her about his sweetie’s technomage tendencies. But then the Sniveler kills the deal by going into power-mad maniac mode, which kind of spoils the whole Hallmark moment he was trying to put across. Hope then demonstrates her killer face-palm abilities while denouncing Snively as “horrible, wretched … miserable, hateful, evil.” Tell us how you REALLY feel, girlfriend! Snively then counters with “second-rate, ungrateful brat;” if this scenario reminds any of you of family reunions you’ve ever attended, you might want to get therapy if you haven’t done so already. Hope then uses a “flame shield” which surrounds her with a fiery dome and then does what she started to do 9 pages ago and pushes the panic button. Snively takes off, and Hope figures it’s time to have a good cry.

Snively is pursued by a couple of G.U.N. fighter jets which are then punched out by Sonic and Sally. We also find out that Snively’s aircraft is being tracked. So just as before, Eggy calls the whole thing off and has everyone turn back instead of making one final push and actually accomplishing something. “That’s all part of the game, isn’t it?” he asks presciently. Besides, we’re nowhere near S250 yet.

As G.U.N. starts cleaning up after this disaster, we learn that Omega has really lousy people skills. Snively now thinks that Regina is his only shot, and Robotnik is back on his tail. “How many more hearts will be broken?” the concluding text box asks, sounding as if it had wandered in from an old “Teen Romance” comic.

 HEAD: I can only assume that while this is the same Hugo Brass who appeared in “Crouching Hedgehog, Hidden Dragon: Part 2” (S107), only legionized, the Egg Paladins are not a retooled version of Paladin Team Sigma Alpha-2. This was the same group that tried holding Sonic captive in the opening cut scene from the “Sonic Adventure 2” game, and some of them apparently didn’t survive their encounter with the dragon Zan in CHHD2. Then again, the damage they took was pretty ambiguous; nothing unusual in the way of death cheats. So these may be the same guys, I don’t know. It doesn’t matter anyway since they were only pulled into the story to distract Omega (and the readers) while Sonic and Sally were waiting in the wings.
 This story essentially has two stories going on: Robotnik on the attack with his droids, and Snively trying to sweet-talk Hope into turning to the Dark Side. Maybe it’s just me, but I found the former to be routine and forgettable, since it was just an exercise in violence Archie-style until Snively was flushed out into the open and the chase could resume. At one point, Sonic and Sally team up to beat on Omega, yet after a break to check out the Snively-Hope reunion, the Metals are playing defense at the Egg-Stache Flyer and Omega is doing the Black Knight routine from “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” for the benefit of the Egg Paladins. It’s definitely the weaker of the two stories.
 That leaves the reappearance of Hope which IMO is much more interesting. Honestly, ever since she resurfaced in the first story arc to run in Sonic Universe, I’d hoped to see more of her in this comic. Unfortunately she’s saddled with back-to-back-to-back stereotype roles. She starts as the Science Nerd working on a way to stop the invasion. Then, because it becomes a family drama, she’s cast as Luke Skywalker confronting Darth Vader and the Emperor Palpatine in “Return of the Jedi.” Finally, after she flares up at Snively (almost literally), she slips into the role of Pity Magnet, one that Sonic X fans have seen Chris Thorndyke play all too often.

This is a development-level story that doesn’t add much to the plot. As a matter of fact, even the drama between Snively and Hope is self-contained and feels like a rest stop on a road trip. The cast members, especially from G.U.N., get shoved onstage and then pulled back before they can accomplish much of anything. This story simply has no reason for being. If you were to read through the entire arc, you could just as well skip this installment completely. Head Score: 3.

EYE: Jamal Peppers does very good work here. It was especially important in the Hope-Snively sequence where they both get to stretch emotionally. Not every artist who’s worked for this comic could sell that kind of material; I’m not naming names. Steve Downer’s coloring is impressive during the flame shield sequence. Eye Score: 10.

HEART: Seeing Hope Kintobor again reminded me of how much Archie wasted her when she was in the comic before. The set-up was perfect: in a book with a main cast of furries, she was a lone human about the same as most of the cast but also the same age as the target audience. But she was woefully underutilized until she more or less disappeared from the narrative when Snively told her, in so many words, to get the hell out of Dodge before Eggman wasted Old Mobitropolis in S175. She managed to put in a curtain call to vent at Snively and to vow to avenge the loss of her furry friends by becoming an engineer. Seriously.

Archie didn’t bother to reintroduce the character when she popped up in the first issue of the first Sonic Universe arc. We would eventually learn that she’s gone to ground at a G.U.N. facility where she gets to play with their lethal toys such as Omega, and that she couldn’t bring herself to return to Mobitropolis because she blamed herself for not being with them during the aforementioned attack. This is as close to something as complex as survivor’s guilt as Archie will probably ever get.

While the portrayal of Hope is nicely complex, it’s unfortunately wasted on this story arc. Due to circumstances beyond my control, I’ve let the reviews slide for a while. It got so bad that I have the next two issues of this story arc waiting to be reviewed. And believe me when I tell you that Hope Kintobor never makes it to the final installment. That’s because after she’s left in this issue, she’s simply forgotten, as abandoned as she was by the Overlanders who later relocated to Station Square. Eggman’s comic relief robots, Snively, Regina, Brass; they all make it to the 4^th installment of this 4-parter. Hope, however, ultimately serves the thankless role of Poster Child for Loose Continuity. She serves as a reminder that Archie Editorial is aware of her existence and that’s about it. But according to the rules of Loose Continuity, “We’ll meet again/Don’t know where, don’t know when….” Heart Score: ultimately 3 for abandoning Hope.

Sonic Spin: aside from an early Spaz drawing of Hope, nothing of interest. And while it’s true that the arc closes strong, this story isn’t representative of its strengths. Paul Kaminski’s pushing the product, however, is very representative of his column.

Fan Art: What do you get when you cross Eggman and Doctor Octopus? Marco knows. Kenneth gives us Sonic and Tails, while Sadie gives us Team Sonic as Team Sonic Chibis.

Fan Funnies: Heather sees the Sonic-Amy relationship stepping up along with the horsepower.

Off Panel: Anyone with a vivid imagination and/or a dirty mind can come up with another script for this one. The drawings stand on their own.

Fan Mail: Two letters only. Liz asks if there are “issues about Cream the Rabbit;” frankly I think she has a number of issues but the comic really isn’t the place to discuss them. Editorial tries to explain the endurance of the Sonic/Sally ship but the reluctance to discuss it jumps off the page so he hands it off to a faux Sonic to discuss. Real romantic. As for Mark, he asks a serious question about the existence of a Moebian anti-Shadow but it gets lost in the dialogue by the amazing two-headed editor.