Sonic Universe #39 (June 2012)

Peppers/Amash/Downer cover art: they’re continuing the salute to cinema with a bow to a film that was released in 1970, which makes it way older than most of the readership: “Patton,” with sneak references to “Superman” and “Ghostbusters.” Sonic, meanwhile, represents the opening credits of his SatAM show.

“Scrambled Part 3: Line in the Sand”

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

After a one-page recap, the highlight of which is Snively getting beat up by a girl, we get another movie reference as Eggman and his robo-doofs Enter the Dragon Kingdom as the Raiju minions do their workout. That leaves Conquering Storm to carry the weight of exposition, since Eggy carries enough weight as he is. The comic relief bots only bring their accents, which in the case of Cubot has changed yet again to a retro pirate a la Robert Newton’s Long John Silver in the 1950 “Treasure Island” which went on to beget a thousand bad imitations, such as Cubot’s. Connie respectfully disagrees with Eggman’s demand that her clan be legionized. Eggman’s retort is simple: My way or the highway to the cemetery off-ramp. There’s been no sign of Jun Kun the Iron King, though that may have been him working as Iron Will the motivational minotaur in an episode of “My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.” Since Connie’s evasive answer about Snively went right past Eggy, he exits. And just in case anybody reading this is too dense to get it, Connie spells it out in the last panel.

Meanwhile, it’s lunch time for Regina in the Stormtop Slammer, the solitary confinement wing. Snively slips in and tasers the guard before dropping in unannounced on his sweetie. He doesn’t get a very warm welcome; having a bucket stuck to your butt doesn’t help. Whether or not the tea is warm and sweet, Rejayjay is bitter and boiling. Seems she didn’t take too kindly to Snively’s going back to the Doc after her reign sort of fell apart. Lacking a comeback in this situation, Sniveler leaves her in her cell just in time for Eggy and his crew to show up.

Li Yuen, the local lion dog elder, is confronted by Eggman’s robots, but he doesn’t get to do more than strike a heroic pose before the bots are zapped by Monkey Khan. Eggy then takes this chess game up a notch by playing his queen, or in this case his Princess. While the reunion with Sally catches Khan off-guard, Eggman turns his attention elsewhere. When the interrogation of the locals turns out to be easier than he thought…

We switch back to Khan and Sally. Khan tries the same “Fight it!” speech Sonic already tried, with the same results. Back at the well, Eggy is chatting up Regina while Khan and Sally continue their combat. At least until Sally conks.

Khan is more worried about voiding Sally’s warranty than anything else so he takes her to Eggman. Seems Sal’s primary power source is a power ring, one of which Khan uses for a crown. With as little reluctance as the page budget can afford, Khan hands his crown/ring over. Instead of Sally flashing 12:00 over and over and needing a few minutes to reinitialize, she comes up swinging and Eggy brainwashes Khan with a crown from his own collection.

So what happens when things get this bad? In a comic book with 4 pages left, they can only get worse. And they do.

Stompin’ like Godzilla through the trees, here comes Snively in an ancient mecha to spring Regina. That takes 2 pages, and setting up the cliffhanger ending takes one more.

HEAD: I’ve said it before but at the moment it REALLY bears repeating: there is no law that says a comic book arc has to be four stories long. OK, maybe the guys in Marketing believe it because it makes it easier for them to sell compilations when they’re of uniform length. But here we are at the third installment of a 4-part arc, a story which shows no impact of the previous story whatsoever. It was pointless, simply pointless.

But let’s move on. The Eggman is still making sure that the troops are in line, even as he’s being shadowed by his comedy relief bots. At least Conquering Storm keeps Eggy off-guard.

Looks like the course of Snively’s love life hit a speed bump at first. Can’t say as I’m surprised. To be fair, it was Sonic, Khan and the furries who got the better of her, especially in that they destabilized the regime back home before hitting the New Mobitropolis branch office. But that’s lost on Regina until Snively showed up with (and Paul Kaminski makes a passing reference to it in his column) the Iron Oni.

On the outside, the Iron Oni is no phoney. The oni is a devil/demon/ogre/troll in Japanese folklore. They have horns, claws, wild hair, and usually wear animal skin loin cloths. Maybe I.O. is wearing tiger stripe underwear under all that samurai plate armor.

As far as Regina is concerned, she demonstrates how to do a quick 180-degree turn when she recognizes that the Iron Oni is her ticket out of there. I’m not sure her commitment to Snively is anything long-term. I didn’t even get that impression during the Iron Dominion arc. Head: 7.

EYE: Jamal Peppers makes Connie look creepy with those circuit-board eyeballs. And other than the introduction of the Iron Oni, there’s really no new ground broken visually. Eye Score: 8.

HEART: Sadly enough, the only major Heart moment was when Eggman was declaiming all over himself about Snively’s alleged affection for Regina. Jamal Peppers gives her an emotional complexity that is otherwise totally undeserved. Considering what happened during the Iron Dominion arc, I don’t see the romance breaking any new ground.

There is one other Heart moment: the reunion/battle between Mecha-Sally and Khan. In this case, it looks more like a rematch than a reunion. Still, it feels as if Editorial is seriously trying to poison the Sonic/Sally well ahead of finally rubbing her out. Maybe. Then again, I haven’t been totally committed to where this story arc is going. Heart Score: 5.

Sonic-Spin: Editorial says nothing about the story arc. Fortunately, there are some microscopic sketches of the Iron Oni that are more interesting than the copy.

Fan Art: While Tommy gives us solo Sonic, Veronica provides an extended cast portrait. Isaac, however, reminds us that for the true fan the issue is Sally, even as Tails, Nicole and Sonic all reach out to her. That should have been blown up and made into the cover. Then again, I’ll bet I lost Editorial once I said “blown up.”

Fan Funnies: Hunter provides Snively with an alternative to invasion.

Off Panel: I hate to be the insurance agent getting the details on THIS claim. And I remember that, in one of the “Family Guy” installments goofing on “Star Wars,” Darth Vader’s space ship was tricked out with a Bush/Cheney bumper sticker.

Fan Mail: Adam, in the midst of running off at the mouth, tries to reconcile the curing of Bunnie with the fate of her kids in the Mobius: 30 Years Later arc. Once more, Editorial tries to walk away from one of the most successful story arcs to appear in this rag by calling it a merely possible future. Madeline gives a shout-out to last month’s cover and its salute to MST3K. BTW, if anyone’s planning to bring that back, how about closed captioning? And Leah is told Thrash and Dr. Finn will be returning soon. I found it more interesting that it averages out to like 6 pages a week in terms of artistic productivity. Does that even include the use of computer technology to produce comics nowadays? Or are Archie comics one of the few remaining … artisanal comic books bring churned out?