Sonic Universe #62 (May 2004)

Yardley/Amash/Downer cover: noteworthy, but not for the Shadow-in-angry-hedgehog-mode design. That’s pretty routine. It’s possible to overanalyze something like this but the credits box doesn’t mention Jim Amash. And I can’t remember the last time Amash dated his work; he dates it “2013!” even though the issue came out the following year. The story of this cover art is probably more interesting than what’s between the covers.

“Shadowfall Part 4: A Matter of Survival”

Story: Ian Flynn; Art: Jamal Peppers; Ink: Jim Amash; Color: Matt Herms; Lettering: Jack Morelli; Assistant Editor: Vincent Lovallo; Editor: Paul Kaminski; Editor-in-Chief: Victor Gorelick; Suits: Mike Pellerito and Jon Goldwater; Sega Licensing rep: Anthony Gaccione.

We open with the main event: Shadow vs. Death; makes a great poster if you’re into that sort of thing. We get 2 pages of the fight sauced with a lot of dialogue. Death tries appealing to Shadow’s genetic heritage, while Shadow counters by following Rouge’s lead in the last issue and playing the Maria card. Shadow also doesn’t quite see Earth-or-whatever as a buffet/open bar the way the space aliens do.

Elsewhere, the uselessly-named Spider Troupe appears to have gotten over the effects of the neurotoxin to the extent that they can sort of walk and give exposition at the same time. As they beat a not-so-hasty retreat, Rouge and Omega aren’t getting through to Shadow, but they do find the nuclear device and, no surprise, Eclipse and a sub-Boss waiting for them. Omega solves the sub-Boss problem with a “Second Amendment solution,” which surprises Eclipse, who’d expected Shadow to defect. But rather than let the bomb be activated Eclipse powers up. Rouge’s advice is for Omega to keep him busy in the hope his energy wears off. So while they’re mixing it up she contacts the Spider guys and finds out that the activation code is SU062. Cute.

As for Eclipse, he goes into rant mode which hastens his power-down. Rouge tells Omega that playtime is over and they’d better motor.

Back at the main event, both Death and Shadow get an update from Eclipse and Rouge, respectively. Shadow, however, plays the macho card and tells Rouge to leave Death to him. Death, however, gets a splash page of ordering the Arms to slow down the Spiders. Since the larvae are on a shuttle, they’re not so much an issue. Eclipse still wants to rescue the situation but Death orders the Eye of Sauron to throw Eclipse into a shuttle and don’t even think about trying to tackle Shadow. This frees up Death and Shadow to finish the business between them, with Shadow wrapping things up with a Chaos Blast, which sounds like something you’d order at the local Dairy Queen.

Shadow gets the word that the rest of the Arms are folding with Death disposed of, and had better beat feet himself. Eclipse deduces the same when Eye flops down on him. Fast-forward through the escape and speculation until the comet blows up real good and, after the obligatory delay, Shadow FWASHes back with the rest of the team. After the equally obligatory show of mixed emotions by Rouge, we fast-forward some more to the inside back cover where we find that Eclipse is now Knuckles’s problem.

HEAD: In the 5^th Star Trek movie, Captain Kirk asks “What does God need with a starship?” Likewise, when the Shadow the Hedgehog game came out (unplayed by me), it raised some similar questions: What does Shadow the Ultimate Lifeform need with a handgun, a motorcycle, or space alien DNA?

Shadow had a perfectly reasonable provenance in Sonic Adventure 2: he was created by Gerald Robotnik. End of story. But never underestimate the ability of Sega to poison its own water supply.

In the New York Times of May 19, 2014, there appeared a review of a new book, "Console Wars" by Blake Harris. It deals with the business end of the feud between Sega and Nintendo as it played out during 1990-1995. There's not much about the games per se, it’s more about management than anything else, but I was stopped cold by this excerpt from the review:

"In other amusing chapters, the American and Japanese divisions of Sega bicker over whether Sonic, the video game hedgehog that a Sega of Japan employee dreamed up by putting the head of Felix the Cat on the body of Mickey Mouse, should have fangs, an electric guitar and a busty human girlfriend. The Americans win and all three elements are stricken."

Stricken they may have been, but Sega did not accept defeat. Each of these misbegotten notions later resurfaced. The fangs of course appeared in “Sonic Unleashed,” the electric guitar became part of the one-season series “Sonic Underground,” and the not-so-busty human girlfriend became Princess Elise in Sonic the Hedgehog (2006). All three had no real long-term effect on the Sonic continuity; Sonic ’06 came in for near-universal revulsion, old-school Sonic fans hated the change of pace, literally, when Sonic Unleashed turned into a fight game during the wolfhog sequences, and “Sonic Underground” failed to recaptured the magic of the SatAM Sonic.

So in the scheme of things it doesn’t matter whether Shadow is part space alien or whether it even makes a lick of sense. If Sega wants to sell him as a space alien, Archie and its creative are just plain stuck with it.

The Shadow-Death match doesn’t really take off. It appears to be an excuse to get the two together in the same room so they can unload a boat full of exposition on each other before Shadow cuts the whole thing short with a Chaos Blast. Likewise the neurotoxin plot point seems to have evaporated; Spider Troupe is up and hobbling as if they were suffering from nothing more severe than hangovers. I’ll have more to say about Eclipse in the Heart section. Needless to say Earth/whatever has been saved from the evil space aliens, just like in a hundred schlocky movies from the 1950s. Head Score: 3.

EYE: Once more, deft artwork in a futile story. Jamal Peppers gets to trot out some major talent in the fight scene, in the blowing up of the Comet, and even in Death’s splash page. Eye Score: 8.

HEART: A past complaint I’ve had about this comic is that the writers totally botch it when they borrow from another source. Examples are Ken Penders in Sonic 151’s “Chaos Emeralds Are Forever” and Mike Gallagher’s “Freedom Fighters of the Galaxy: Part 1” (S103). It led me to formulate the following rule: If you’re going to borrow from another source, do something with the stolen goods.

In the case of Eclipse, we have a character rife with possibility. He’s a bad Knuckles extract, with a lot of Mephiles thrown into the design, but the one thing that sets him apart, that makes him a potentially interesting character, is blown off: the fact that he’s not wired into the hive mind.

The concept dates back to Olaf Stapledon’s 1930 sci-fi novel Last and First Men, which appeared at a time when hive minds were in the process of coalescing in Germany, Italy, the Soviet Union, and Japan, among other places. In a totalitarian culture, they don’t take too kindly to dissidents.

And that was where I hoped Ian Flynn would go with Eclipse. He’s the only one in the Comet/hive who’s not wired into the plan; he’s going along for the ride without any apparent dissent. That makes him useful as an enemy of Shadow, but that’s all.

If, however, Eclipse had safely harbored any reservations about the mission, instead of simply disagreeing about tactics exemplified by his last-second pleading to salvage the plan when the Comet faced nuclear annihilation, this could have been a whole new comic book. Ian was stuck with keeping Eclipse safely in the alien camp, but what if Eclipse himself wasn’t? How would Rouge have dealt with Eclipse coming to her not as a rampaging hulk but as someone who wants to leave the Arms? Personally I think Rouge would be stopped cold.

That’s a real possibility in this story. If Eclipse isn’t plugged into the hive mind he has the freedom to dissent, to step away from Death and the alien agenda. Alas, Eclipse is never allowed the freedom his situation could very easily support. And I fear Ian won’t play on this freedom when Eclipse meets up with Knuckles.

To me, Eclipse is a metaphor for the new reality at Archie Comics where Sega is effectively co-creating the Sonic comic books. He has the freedom to do his own thing, but doesn’t seem to fully appreciate it and certainly is in no hurry to declare his independence. He’s stuck with being an alien pawn even though he has the ability to decline; it’s a role he’s being forced to play. I hope this isn’t how editorial decisions are being made. Heart Score: 3.

FAN ART: Me and my Shadows, as drawn by Isaiah, Braden and Gregory, with Mephilese by Dustin on the side.

OFF PANEL: I read this and thought “Maybe Archie could sent someone in an Omega suit to counsel kids the next time there’s a school shooting.” My God, what are these people thinking!?

FAN MAIL: Jack wants to know what happened to the villains who were lost in the reset; Editorial hints that Nack and Bomb (both Sega creations) will be back. Both Silver and Eclipse, we are told, will be back as well. Personally, I hope Scourge died. Horribly. Jared wants to know what happened to the other space aliens, and there were a boatload of them who put in appearances during the Tossed In Space arc (S126-129). Once again Editorial blows a lot of smoke about how “not all characters from the different iterations of the Sonic series have carried over into the main comic. However, there is a possibility that you could see some familiar faces popping up soon.” Looks to me like Editorial handed Jared’s letter off to Legal to answer. Ironically, these kind of questions will continue to pop up so long as Archie insists on reprinting the older Sonic stories that bear witness to what the comic used to be and not necessarily to what Sega may have in mind. Talk about a house divided.