Sonic Universe #43 (October 2012)

Yardley!/Amash/Downer cover: “Covert Chaos” it says, with an emphasis on chaos. You have Silver, Shard, Larry, Geoff, and Castle Acorn. The composition is balanced well enough, but it still feels like a lot of separate elements with nothing to unify them. OK, Larry is ducking down to keep from getting blasted by Shard, but that’s about it.

“Unsung Heroes Part 3: Occupational Hazards!”

Story: Ian Flynn; Art: Tracy Yardley!; Ink: Jim Amash; Color: Steve Downer; Lettering: Jack Morelli; Assistant Editor: Vince Lovallo; Editor: Paul Kaminski; Editor-in-Chief: Victor Gorelick; Sorcerer’s Apprentice: Mike Pellerito; Sega licensing reps: Anthony Gaccione and Cindy Chau

In a one-page “Prelude” we find the Templars (about whom more later) at war with the Ixis order. Vale informs Mogul that the Albionites have turned against them. This will be on the midterm.

Tracy then jumps past the credits page, which is shoved to the last page of the story. We get a long-distance shot of Silver, Shard and Larry (collective call sign: the Three Stooges) emerging from the pit where they’d been trapped. Silver and Larry need to take a breather, literally, but Shard is unsympathetic until he realizes he could use some R and R (rest and recharging) himself. The only upside is that Geoff’s air board got bugged.

Geoff himself meets with Naugus, who explains his advanced case of butt-ugly as “a minor malady.” That minor malady looks like it would need as much facial work as both Elizabeth Taylor and Michael Jackson received lifetime. As far as reunifying the voices in his head, an effect of Eggman’s disrupting the space-time continuum, I don’t think Freud himself could help him very much. Geoff hands over Vale’s bones and asks Naugus for some exposition, which he promptly delivers. He intends to cast a hoodoo on the Acorn Council when they convene above them, apparently to take over their will and command the populace and thus rebuild the Ixis order, a prospect that has Naugus salivating with delight (Ewwww!).

Geoff manages to find his indignation instead of losing his lunch, declaring that Naugus is making himself worse than the Acorns. Naugus tells Geoff that he’s basically in this up to his baby blues and that there’s not a lot he can do about it. While Naugus begins practicing necromancy, Geoff goes fetal position on us.

Meanwhile, Harvey is chewing out the Three Stooges for letting Geoff get away. “He was a magical skunk,” Silver offers in response, in what by itself would be a candidate for Best Line of Dialogue. After more talk, the three take off for the pit where, at the bottom, they find Elias and the wolf girls (collective call sign: Two Misses And a Hit). The group spends the next 4 pages putting it all together, unaware that Geoff is a few feet away eavesdropping on the whole thing. His own attention, however, is fixed on Shard’s shard, which cues up some flashback of his own. The upshot is that, as far as Geoff is concerned, either Charles or Rotor is doing some double-dealing, and he’s sure he knows Who’s behind this.

Back at the group, most of them are looking for payback except Silver. He thinks that Geoff was a poor misguided soul who needs a good talking to. Elias initially doesn’t buy it, but eventually caves in and lets Silver take a meeting.

The meeting happens at the park, where Silver pretty much repeats himself, adding the cheap shot that Hershey would never have been a part of this (oh yeah, we’re STILL due a good explanation of what happened to her). It’s then Geoff’s turn to tell us what we already know about the impending incantation before walking away. This cues what’s supposed to be the final scene of this segment where the rest of the agents crawl out of the woodwork.

Back at HQ, Elias wrestles with going public to which Harry objects, his main goal being to keep people “happily oblivious.” And after a few hours of rest, the team suits up and confronts … the opening credits!

HEAD: There’s a good story in here; too bad they keep telling it over and over. First Naugus tells us about “casting one of the Order’s most potent spells,” then Harvey conjectures about the possible impending spell and “ancient totems,” then Larry guesses that Naugus is “putting together some kind of spell,” then Geoff confirms to Silver in the park that “Naugus is casting a spell tonight.” If I want to subject myself to this level of restating the obvious I’d watch a Dora the Explorer marathon on Nickelodeon. Changing the background scenery does nothing to minimize the redundancy.

Would it have been too much trouble to rethink the story? The scene in the park, for example, was totally unnecessary. Whatever new information Geoff imparted could have been delivered right there in the cave. Geoff could have emerged from his hiding place doing a slow clap (how Ian would pull that off is his problem), he and Silver would have their conversation, after which Geoff sinks back into the shadows and when someone shines a light on him he’s gone. It accomplishes the same thing and reminds us that Geoff’s not just in this story to react to Naugus but that he’s got some magical skills of his own. He’s a “magical skunk,” remember? It’s just a matter of adding a little Show to the Tell.

And now, a bit of history. Before they became plot points in such diverse literary works as Dashiel Hammitt’s The Maltese Falcon and Dan Brown’s The daVinci Code, the Knights Templar were officially known as “The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon.” Founded around the year 1119, the Knights distinguished themselves as some of the most effective fighters during the Crusades. The order also had non-combatants in their ranks who became prominent builders and bankers in medieval Europe. Initially formed with the favor of the Church, they suffered a sharp decline as the Crusades turned into a quagmire. In 1307, King Philip IV of France, who according to one historian was itching to get his hands on the considerable assets of the order, arrested and put to death a number of its members on charged ranging from the trumped-up to the spurious; a compliant Pope Clement V disbanded the order in 1312, thus bestowing an air of legitimacy on the King’s suppression of the order. This doesn’t have much of anything to do with wizard elites, but if Ian is going to throw the name of the Templars into the mix we’re entitled to know enough to separate the factual from the fanciful.

Under other circumstances, Geoff would have signed and sealed his death warrant by saying “NO!” to Naugus. At the very least, Naugus would start shopping for a new apprentice while looking to dispose of Geoff at the first opportunity. But Archie isn’t about to even hint at such a possibility, thus diminishing Naugus’s cred. The comic is content to depict him as being cartoon-crazy (c.f. Rosy) as opposed to being possibly homicidal and out-and-out evil. Again, I consider this a pulled punch on Archie’s part as well as a missed opportunity for the comic to acknowledge post-CCA realities.

The impending spell Naugus seeks to cast is the centerpiece of this story, which isn’t a problem. The problem is we’re beaten over the head with it to such an extent that everything else fades into the background. The characters have to work twice as hard to make half as much of an impression. It’s not that they don’t try; Geoff especially is given some prime material to work with here, but there doesn’t seem to be much follow-through. His fetal freak-out tried to be a good set-up for his meeting with Silver in the park, but the meeting itself felt all wrong; Geoff came off as phony and self-serving, even when giving Silver something he could use. Compared to the two previous issues, there’s not a lot of action here, and such action as there is (the group getting suited up) is oversold. This is clearly a development story but at 20 pages (minus the “Previously” page and including the credits) this is thin soup. Head Score: 6.

EYE: Tracy Yardley!’s work is spot-on, as usual, though the lines under Geoff’s eyes to show the psychic wear and tear he’s undergoing is a bit of an overstatement. It’s nowhere near as extreme, however, as Naugus’s case of butt-ugly. Eye Score: 10.

HEART: As I said, Archie Comics still owes it to us to come clean as to what exactly happened to Hershey. It’s called “closure.”

This wouldn’t be a big deal if the character in question was an anonymous nobody, but when you do your job as a writer and as a result the readers actually care about a character, you owe them something. This isn’t an issue that can be swept under the Loose Continuity rug indefinitely. As morbid as it may sound to spell things out, the readers can handle it.

Speaking of character demises, it would almost be a disappointment if Naugus didn’t at least try to kill off Geoff at some point, whether in this story arc or in a subsequent one. There’s certainly a precedent for this sort of thing, the prime example being Voldemort’s killing off of Severus Snape once he’d outlived his usefulness. The Naugus/Geoff relationship is pretty much in the same position as the Voldemort/Snape relationship, though in this issue Naugus wimps out after Geoff blows up at him. Geoff and the readers, however, probably know that he’s burning through his second chances.

For the record, Who’s decision to go with the “happily oblivious” approach makes me suspect him more than ever. And yes, I know he’s supposed to be in the covert ops business. But we’ve seen that fall apart too often in real life, if only after the fact when the blood has been shed and the dust has settled (e.g. the killing of Osama bin Laden by SEAL Team 6). So, like Silver, I’ve got my pet theory and I’ll wait to see how it plays out in the run-up to S250. Heart Score: 7.

SONIC SPIN: Paul Kaminski argues that the Secret Freedom Fighters “work in the shadows and do whatever is necessary.” Yeah, well, so do the bad guys.

FAN ART: We’ve got Shard as rendered by Heather and Reginald, while Ashley gives us a pencil rendering of not-ugly Naugus.

FAN FUNNIES: Shard meets Metal Sonic and does the Darth Vader-and-Luke routine, courtesy of Juan.

OFF-PANEL: Bishie Naugus. No, just … no.

FAN MAIL: Chris wants to know the source of Silver’s power and some of his back story, and Editorial whiffs it. But they also apologize for Mammoth Mogul by way of explaining how Silver wound up with him as a mentor. It was put far more eloquently in the Harry Potter series when Hagrid declared that Dumbledore “believes in second chances.” And David is told that Silver first appeared in S194; now if they can only tweak him up a little and get him reunited with Blaze.