Sonic Universe No. 65 (August 2014)

Yardley!/Amash/Morelli/Herms cover: from last issue’s near-sublime cover we get this … thing that literally looks like an expressway pile-up in front of a comic con. Most of the cast of this story literally falls all over each other in pursuit of Chip. The only character who seems to be enjoying himself is Bean, and that’s never a good sign.

“The Great Chaos Caper Part 3: Chip Off The Old Emerald”

Story: Ian Flyn; Art: Tracy Yardley; 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.

Chip meets Team Chaotix down in the mines and thinks this is a cue for a chase scene. So do the Chaotix. This goes for three pages until Chip is cornered in a dead end and Knuckles reverts to type, tunnels through a wall, and tells the Chaotix to get a grip. Seems Chip is his responsibility and he’s supposed to be guarding the little guy instead of the Master Emerald.

This is a huge moment for Chip who happily wades into the swamps of exposition at the expense of the REAL introduction of the character in Sonic Unleashed. So Chip and the Chaotix set off with dayglo villains lurking close behind. And Chip promptly gets kidnapped by the Hooligans, which doesn’t say much for Knuckles’s skill set.

Time to cut away to Relic and Fixit out in the moonlight scoping a plant that’s all psychedelic thorny stalks and not a blossom in sight. Simply by Fixit-light, Relic is able to deduce that the soil has been deprived of nutrients. I actually picture her tasting it like an old school farmer. She then follows the same reasoning that led to the following immortal bit of dialogue from “Plan 9 from Outer Space”: “Inspector Clay is dead. Murdered. And SOMEONE’S responsible!” That someone may be Eclipse, playing Hide Behind the Mushroom.

Back in the mines, we get a page and a half of the same old same old fight scene until Knuckles changes gears by telling Chip to head straight up through the mines to the Floating Island. Another 1.5 pages of chase ensue until everyone runs into a Dark Gaia Titan which I’m pretty sure isn’t Beast Boy but is beastly enough. Knux tells Chip to book while they take on the titan. Nack, of course, has his own agenda which involves stealing the Emerald even if Chip comes along for the ride while Bean plays terrorist. I mean seriously, does Archie’s house standards permit characters to throw around WMDs along with one-liners?

So at the end of the story the Hooligans have made good their escape with Chip in custody, Knuckles and Chaotix are taking on the titan in a sealed chamber that’s filling up with water, and Relic didn’t really bring much to the party.

HEAD: Whatever cred Ian wanted to build for Relic in the first two installments of this story arc, it’s undercut here by his turning her into a Damsel in Distress. True, she doesn’t seem to know her status yet, and it’s a gross oversight on whoever cobbled together Fixit to have left out some kind of sensor to pick up on the presence of Eclipse, but then again they seem to have been relegated to sideshow status at this point, looking at strange plant life and tasting/testing dirt. In addition to being a kind of rodent, the term “pica” also refers to the compulsive eating of non-food items. In grade school I knew someone who developed a taste for pink erasers. Still, the character is looking particularly ill-served at this point.

And none moreso than Chip. He had a perfectly good intro in the video game, nicely paced so that you only gradually learned who he was and what his role in the crisis was. And because it was gradual it didn’t feel like you were being beaten over the head with him the way it does here. But that’s what happens when you’re riffing on a six-year-old video game. It’s like contriving to find out absolutely every present you’re going to get for Christmas, and then going through the galley slave work of acting surprised on Christmas morning when you open box after box of foregone conclusions.

Beyond that, there’s really nothing going on here. Relic is being stalked, there are a couple chase scenes, the villains snap up Chip, there’s a monster to try to raise some level of interest. I’ll be honest with you; as badly behind schedule I am in reviewing these comics, I have run out of the kind of fan love that I’ve relied on to get me through this title. I’m running on patience at this point because Ian is still feeling his way around the new continuity and trying to make it worth the effort. I just hope Ian can at least finish big and that both Sonic and Knuckles stay away from bodies of water; it’s a total drag on the characters. Head Score: 3.

EYE: The good news is, Tracy Yardley is in top form here. The bad news is, he’s stuck illustrating shtick. Eye Score: 9.

HEART: I had hoped that some kind of Heart would find its way into Chip’s intro. But when Ian is reduced to talking about ambrosia/amnesia I knew all hope of that was gone. He’s just too self-conscious to support any kind of pathos that made the game Chip interesting. He’s literally playing to the cheap seats. To the extent that I feel sorry for him at all, I feel sorry for his not being in a better story. And in the end, he’s reduced to being a prop, an extension of the Chaos Emerald which is the go-to McGuffin in this comic. Heart Score: n/a.

FAN ART: Mina does not draw Mina but instead draws Sonic, Knuckles and Blaze. Diego also draws Knuckles. Kristin draws Relic. And Kaitlynn gives us a double-scoop serving of Chip.

OFF-PANEL: Cliches do not get better with repetition. They don’t.

FAN MAIL: Editorial jerks Samuel around for wanting some dirt on the Sonic Boom adaptation. And if you don’t recognize that Eclipse is coming back into the continuity you weren’t paying attention during the Relic interlude. Kate wants to ship Knux and Relic, though Editorial claims she’s more interested in “ancient tech than boys.” This is an Archie comic, after all, which has been resisting any serious shipping or the flagship teens from Riverdale since before I was born. If there’s any shipping to be done, it’ll bubble up from the fanbase. Jamie is told about an impending fan art contest – polish off your tablets, people. And frankly, dear reader, I just don’t give a damn about Eclipse and the Arms. Eclipse on his own might be an interesting study of a lost soul with no hive mind to exploit. But since when has this comic tried to be interesting?