Sonic Universe #67 (October 2014)

Yardley/Hunzeker cover: And it’s the return of the bait-and-switch cover. It promises a battle between Shadow and Knuckles and delivers nothing of the sort. Yes, it’s a comic book tradition but not one that I like.

“Total Eclipse Part 1: Uninvited Guests”

Story: Ian Flynn; 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 reps: Tyler Ham and Anthony Gaccione.

“We have begun our final approach to Angel Island. Please make sure your seat belts are fastened, your anger is extinguished, and your dialogue is in the exposition position. And thank you for flying Mamaroneck Airlines.”

The old line is that any landing you can walk away from is a good one, and considering Eclipse is trying to touch down on a planet coming apart at the seams (not that it makes any difference to the plot), he got off easy, even though tragically he lost some of his cargo of baby Arms. But enough survived that he thinks he can segue from day care to the revenge business.

Enter Team Dark, no relation to Dark Anything Else. Rouge is chatty and helps tee things up, which is for the best because Shadow specializes in silent glowering and Omega is his usual one-trick robo-pony self. But brought in to spice things up, broadcasting by tele-pod, is yet another survivor of the retcon, Dr. Julian Snively, now in GUN’s employ and sporting a load of chin fuzz that makes him look like Walter Wright from “Breaking Bad.” That doesn’t seem like much of a bump-up from his pre-retcon existence but we’ll get into that in the Head section.

Right off the bat, Snively clashes with Shadow over the mission. Snively wants to safeguard the Master Emerald while Shadow wants to find and kill Eclipse. But Rouge pulls rank and states that the real objective is to bring Knuckles into the story before anything else. Omega doesn’t say anything but he’s clearly down with killing anything.

A page of Segaland filler later, we find Knuckles doing his part to keep the exposition flowing. Relic then shows up with some more plant samples, and Knuckles’s anti-alien rhetoric makes Relic feel as welcome as a member of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus at a Tea Party rally. Knuckles tries to walk back his social faux pas while Relic runs off at the mouth. So that’s one embarrassing moment each. Just as they try to get the meeting back on the rails, Team Dark drops in. Knuckles vehemently does not want the foxy bat anywhere near his emerald hen house, but Rouge manages to turn Relic’s presence to her advantage and gets as close to what would be considered innuendo as Archie Comics would ever allow. Relic spanks Knuckles’s dreads and Rouge has a laugh.

Finally getting the story out of bed, Shadow is told that the Arms are back in the game which means that Eclipse is back as well. Knuckles zones out for half a page before he pretty much takes over the op. He assigns Relic to watch the Emerald with Fixit and Omega. Snively objects and when Rouge suggests that Shadow watch the Emerald instead, Shadow and Knuckles object in harmony. After the usual committee dynamics we’re left with Shadow guarding the Emerald with Snively, Relic and Fixit.

Eclipse, meanwhile, tells the baby Arms to be good and stay home in the wreckage while he goes to the store, a move that would get him busted for negligent parenting in the real world. Before he finds any food, he comes across Knuckles, Rouge and Omega as a rather chatty scouting party.

We cut back to the Emerald where Shadow doesn’t seem to get into the spirit of Relic’s small talk until Shadow starts tripping because Relic has grown an insect head and Snively now has a third eye and … And the penny drops as Shadow recognizes the head games as Eclipse’s calling card.

HEAD: This is as close as I can remember the comic coming to running a personality-based story instead of a plot-based one. As practiced here it has its strengths and weaknesses.

The weakest of the weaknesses are Fixit and Omega, which is to be expected. Omega has always been about maximum damage and minimum humanity; it was a one-note theme he played into the ground in Sonic Heroes and he never improved upon it. Fixit comes across as the ultimate sidekick bot who can’t do anything much without a lead from Relic. The sequence where the two droids have absolutely nothing to talk about after Fixit admits to being ungunned says it all. At least with C-3PO and R2-D2 you got solid entertainment value even from a one-sided conversation.

It used to be that Shadow was the captain of Team Dark and he knew how to bring the darkness. Now it seems he’s fixated on the Darks which makes him more focused but also less interesting. Yes, it feeds into the revenge thing and his going after Eclipse, but now he seems boxed into working against Eclipse. Granted that Batman went after a stable of villains, but hero-villain plots are subject to the law of diminishing returns: the more the story is retold and retold again, the older it gets.

Still, there are plenty of other characters here to step into the limelight. Snively is the big surprise. The last we saw of him, he was languishing in a stasis pod/prison for daring to plot against Eggman while bringing Princess Regina Iron Fan in on the plot. But the retcon has never been the epitome of rational development, so if the comic wants to resurrect Snively, turn him into a GUN scientist and outfit him with cartoon hillbilly chin whiskers, there isn’t a heck of a lot anybody can do about it.

Knuckles, for his part, seems to think that he is back in his old comic book. He’s definitely left his “Sonic’s fremisis” (friendly nemesis) image behind and enjoys a pretty good rapport with Relic. But he’s still uber-possessive of the Master Emerald, especially with Rouge in town.

Relic has downplayed her Indiana Jones ambitions but still acts like a proper British nanny; Eclipse should hire her to look after his Dark sprouts. Her bout of insecurity after Knuckles’s xenophobic rant was actually kind of charming. I’ll admit that I’m a sucker for characters with weaknesses, and I don’t mean superficial stuff like Superman’s relationship to kryptonite. Likewise her being played by Rouge brought some actual comic relief to the comic. Unfortunately, these isolated bits of business are a sign that Relic has yet to find her voice. She’s playing off other characters instead of being a character in her own right. Here’s hoping Ian can remedy that.

Eclipse is a surprise with his solicitude toward the infant Arms after appearing in a story arc all about neurotoxin, nuclear weapons, and carnivorous space aliens. His tenderness toward the survivors is touching, until he turns on a dime and is suddenly all about getting revenge. It’s not that much of a stretch; those who are evil know how to give good gifts to their children, as the Good Book says. It’ll be interesting to see if Ian can integrate these two aspects of Eclipse’s personality instead of simply featuring them in succession.

So far, this is simply a set-up story; Ian brings the characters onstage, sets up the dynamics, and gets down to business in the next installment. The primary plot point is Shadow versus Eclipse; how Snively and Mary Poppins ... er, Relic fit into this remains to be seen. Then there are Rouge, Knuckles and Omega to fold into the recipe. I’m just hoping that a story this rich in characters ends up making sense, but it’s a good start. Head Score: 8.

EYE: Kudos to Tracy Yardley for overcoming one of the hazards of comic book illustration: what to do with an absence of background. He could have left the background behind Knuckles and Relic blank on page [9]; instead, he backs them up with the kind of clouds you see in Maxfield Parrish prints or Mamoru Hosoda anime. Considering that the conversation is happening on the floating island, it makes perfect sense. The rest of his artwork is excellent as usual. Eye Score: 10.

HEART: The irony here is that Eclipse is the most emotionally engaging character in the book because his babysitting bit plays so much against type for a comic book villain. Relic runs a close second with her insecurity at Knuckles’s xenophobia and then her shifting of gears when Rouge does some suggestive teasing. The rest of the cast, even Snively 2.0, are dialed back so severely they hardly register.

What I’m afraid of is Relic failing to find her voice. She’s the most memorable character the comic has introduced in a while, and yes I’m including Eclipse because comic book villains are literally a dime a dozen. She has yet to show the kind of breakout potential of some characters such as Marine and Coral, and I hope she doesn’t get shunted off to the side. Heart Score: 8.

FAN ART: Eclipse in pencil … lots of pencil … by Charles, Knuckles and Shadow by Tina, Eclipse again by Jasmine, and I’ll have to admit I have no idea what Elias drew.

OFF-PANEL: I can totally relate to this one. After I have the directions to someplace and have been there a couple of times, I usually rely on landmarks to tell me where I am. But retcons can really mess with that sort of thing.

FAN MAIL: Mallory gushes about some of the guys in the cast, then counts off the issues in her collection. And that’s all she brings to the party. Kate wants to see Silver get back in the game. Mark is glad to see Chip in the context of the game he more or less inspired, and he wants Eclipse to survive the story arc. Please, Mark. Comic book villains are harder to kill off than silverfish.