Sonic Universe #40 (July 2012)

Peppers, Amash, Downer cover: Well, it couldn’t last, mainly because they decided to go another direction rather than try to keep the Let’s Go To The Movies theme alive. So, instead of going for maybe an old school monster movie poster or some kind of Godzilla variation which would have fit in with the giant mecha battle theme, we get a reference to Capcom’s Street Fighter franchise. It’s Iron Oni vs. Dr. Eggman. Could be worse; they could have dressed Eggy up as El Gran Gordo and tried to run that past us one more time.

“Scrambled Part 4: In The Name Of Love”

Story: 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; Matchmaker Matchmaker: Mike Pellerito; Sega Licensing reps: Anthony Gaccione and Cindy Chau

We catch up with Eggman who’s caught up with Snively who has the Samurai oni and Regina. The best strategy Eggster can come up with is to stall, which in a comic book inevitably means “Send in the exposition.” The only part of the dialogue I can really relate to is Snively’s line “I could have bypassed the United Federation [and the useless interlude with Hope Kintobor] entirely!” But two pages is the limit for exposition here so Eggman sends in Khan, who could use a break from being attacked by Mecha Sally. BTW, despite the text box, Cubot does NOT have “a broken voice chip;” Editorial finally realized that the bit just wasn’t working and wants to move on.

Khan decides he’s not waiting around and juices the oni. This gives Regina the chance to overpower Khan and transform him into Iron Khan which if you ask me was entirely pointless. It still gives Sally someone to play with while Eggy beats feet and…

Finally we get Regina’s stupid horselaugh back in the picture. Seriously, the only way you can duplicate it is if you laugh and whinny at the same time. Hate it. Especially since it means we get another page of exposition thanks to the Snively and Regina Dialogues.

By the time Eggman catches up to Orbot and Cubot, they’re taking delivery of a pod from the Egg’stache: a battle bot which, like the oni, runs on old school marionette works without any electronics. It has all of the retro technology of steampunk and none of the style. So we get Eggman and Snively duking it out in proxy suits with this comic’s version of C3PO and R2-D2 supplying the alleged humor. Eggman then calls for his “omni-tool” which makes me think of one of those Cabela deals with everything from a screwdriver and pliers to a flashlight. Of course what Eggy has looks way more boring but apparently he knew which Tab A to remove from Slot B on the Iron Oni and it uber-conveniently falls apart. Equally conveniently, Sally powers down and Khan comes to his simian senses. Eggman then shows up to collect Sally and scoff at Khan’s speech. And he disposes of the villagers-as-prisoners subplot with equal ease.

And now for the denouement. Eggman decides that Regina should be sentenced to the company of Snively while they take over Brass’s old position and get to experience him as their subordinate. And lest anyone think he’s gone soft, we get two pages of “PSYCH!” Seems Snively is now imprisoned within a pod while one of his robo doubles from the first installment (remember them?) passes himself off as the real deal for Regina. We realize that this is all part of Eggman’s references to “the game.” Except that we as the readers also got played.

HEAD: In a grudging sort of way and despite the other faults of this story arc, this trick ending worked for me. It also pulled together the “play the game” references. That’s the good news.

There’s enough bad news to go around, and I’ve cited most of it as we’ve gone along. But there’s one new complication I really hate: Eggman’s line, “Now that I know that little turncoat Hope is with them, I can direct the Legion to single her out.” So along with every other misbegotten plot and subplot this comic has thrown down, we can now look forward to Hope being stalked by the Legion types. Ultimately the ONLY reason to bring Hope Kintobor into this story arc was to set up her being threatened. Yeah, bring the forces of evil to bear threatening a child. THAT’S entertainment! Mercifully, Hope herself demonstrated that she’s got some mad science skillz at her disposal. But, I don’t know, I’m pretty sure Ian can do better than threatening children.

There are a number of battles going on in this installment: namely Snively versus Eggman and Khan versus Sally. The latter doesn’t really move the story along except when one of them konks. Not a good reason to have a fight, if you ask me. And the comedy team of Orbot and Cubot are just taking up space at this point. It’s brought home by the fact that Ian has run out of ideas and more or less abandons the comedy voice chip deal with Cubot.

But if any one character in this story is supremely ill-used, it’s Hugo Brass. Given only one line to say over and over, he really has no purpose in this story other than to be replaced by Regina and her Snively boy-toy. If there was even a remote possibility that there was some light somewhere behind his eyepiece, the character would mean something. But that seems nowhere close to Ian’s intentions. As it stands, Brass is literally a prop, something that can be moved around like a stick of furniture. And there’s entirely too much of that sort of thing when it comes to comic book writing.

Just as there’s a lot of bad writing when it comes to all the background characters. Doesn’t matter if they’re from the Dragon Kingdom or Station Square or the suburbs of New Mobitropolis; they can be counted upon to do absolutely nothing while they’re captured and then released for no good reason. More props.

So at the end of a four-issue arc (which would have been better off as a three-issue arc without all the foofaraw involving Hope Kintbor), Snively has been put in his place in storage. And we all know how well that worked with the Floating Head of Dimitri. Head Score: 6.

EYE: What am I missing about Iron Khan with the black hair with white temples? It’s a distinctive enough look which I swear I’ve seen before, but I’m drawing a blank here. Unfortunately, it’s about the only memorable thing visually in this story. OK, except for the final shot of Snively under glass. Eye Score: 7.

HEART: Ian has taken one of the oldest story elements – that Love Conquers All – and guts it like a rainbow trout. That, more than the here-we-go-again fight scenes, is at the core of this story.

There are two love stories here, and both of them end badly. Khan’s love for Sally is no more capable of undoing her mecha state than Sonic’s; Ian’s not about to throw any crumbs our way at this point. Even the Snively-Regina romance is revealed, at the very end, to be a joke. Regina is perfectly happy to have a faux Snively that she can control through her techno-magick or whatever she calls it. Either she can’t see the difference or else she doesn’t care.

It used to be that, with love as a story element, you could count on it working for the good guys and supplying a somewhat satisfying finale. From “Beauty and the Beast” to “Shreck,” love meant something in a story. Not here, not now. To Eggman, it’s all about manipulation and weakness. No feel-good ending here. Nothing to see. Move along. Heart score: 2.

Sonic Spin: “There you have it.” And you can have it back.

Fan Art: Sadie has Sonic having fun on the ceiling, Hudson gives us the answer to the question “What do you get when you cross Omega and Eggman?”, and Brian gives us stupid strong Sonic in a Sonic-DBZ crossover. “The number of chili dogs is over nine thousand!” Sorry, best I could do.

Fan Funnies: Tyler gives us Snively and a generic Bomb Disarming Joke.

Off-Panel: Egg-stache morphs into Egg-brows. Oh, it’s not supposed to do that?

Fan Mail: Mason wants to know if Silver and Blaze will ever hook up. Short answer: “Who knows?” But hey, put me down for a couple pounds of that reunion. Sara does some gushing before asking just how many Metal Sonics Eggman has, anyway? She also wants to see a good ending to the Sally situation. Editorial isn’t giving and clues, however.