Sonic Universe #69 (December 2014)

Yardley!/Amash/Hunzeker cover: Knuckles may have only “had one job” but he’s been doing it since Sonic #11 so Editorial should lighten up. As for the alien quartet and the lightning in the background, nobody is paying much attention there.

“Total Eclipse Part 3: Shadow Boxing”

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: Tyler Ham and Anthony Gaccione

A hush falls over the crowd of … well, 5 characters as Knuckles and Shadow square off to pound each other like bull elks in heat, with the Master Emerald as the object of their affections. Rouge is looking like “Guys! Typical!” Snively, who came out of the villain closet last issue, is waiting on developments. Relic looks as if she forgotten her line. Omega and Fixit, the two robots, look like two robots.

Shadow leads with a right to the jaw, followed by a punch to the gut by Knuckles. Then Shadow demonstrates his minor bob-and-weave abilities before FWASHing out of the ring. He orders Rouge and Omega to fall back while he commits exposition, explaining that he plans to warp himself and the Master Emerald separately. The ladies, Rouge and Relic, each protest, while Snively the two-faced is all in favor of his kyping the M.E. But on the next page, Knuckles takes advantage of the momentary chaos to deliver a right to the head. Then he tosses Shadow out of the ring and gives chase.

Since the combatants have left the arena, the attention shifts to the audience. Relic delivers a threat worthy of Twilight Sparkle: “I’ve read about many forms of martial arts!” Snively wants Omega to just take the M.E. but his desire is countermanded by Rouge who realizes what nobody else seems to have: that Eclipse is fueling the fight.

Ian then abandons all subtlety by showing a ghostly Eclipse doing just that to Shadow. I guess one of the cardinal rules of writing for comic books is “Always underestimate the intelligence of the audience.”

As for Eclipse in the flesh (or whatever passes for it in his case), he has a heart-warming reunion (or whatever passes for a heart in his case) with the baby Dark Arms, who have thoughtfully been provided with name tags by Editorial. Despite their happiness that Daddy’s home, Eclipse apologizes that he didn’t get any take-out from the McShrine on Angel Island. The kids, however, remind Eclipse that it’s Take Your Adopted Alien Spawn To Work Day and want to go see where Daddy beats up on comic book characters. And with the help of a flashback, Eclipse warms to the idea.

As for Shadow and Knuckles, the latter manages to deflect Shadow before the Ultimate Life Form puts Knuckles in a one-handed Ultimate Choke Hold. We then get a page of Knuckles’s life flashing before his eyes in the form of numerous stills from cut scenes from his games. This gives him the motivation he needs to break Shadow’s hold by a close-quarter kick to the head followed by a spin-dash. Shadow tries the same maneuver but is bro-blocked. Then the two give each other the Ultimate Bro-Fist. Knuckles taunts Shadow by comparing him to Sonic the Faker, which really gets Shadow angry. But Knuckles, who’s nowhere near as big of a bonehead as he’s portrayed in the Sonic Boom continuity, quickly gets the hang of Shadow’s jab-and-FWASH strategy.

Back at the Shrine, Relic is chewing out Omega for dissing Fixit, and Rouge is deflating Snively’s … ego, let’s say. Just then, Eclipse and the kids show up, and school’s back in.

Seems that Eclipse knows he can link up with the Alien Babies and (where have I heard this before?) enhance his powers accordingly. By using blocky Blurk he makes himself bullet-proof and performs a much-appreciated battery-ectomy on Omega. Then switching to the pterodactyl-like Cregal his arms become wings and he kicks Rouge in mid-air, apparently dislocating her arm. Landing on the Island, he uses the eel-like Cyzer to acquire a laser-arm with which to threaten Relic. That results in no payoff as far as Eclipse is concerned but Snively is loving the show so far. But Eclipse still intimidates the two ladies into telling him what he wants to know so he tells the kids that they’re going to get the loot and scoot. Snively objects to being out of the loop and Eclipse finally demonstrates the laser arm by blasting Snively’s receiver.

So here’s the situation: Omega is in need of repairs, Fixit can’t fix it, Rouge is in too much pain to do much more than deliver exposition, Relic admits that she’s pretty useless in situations like this, Snively is off the air, and Knuckles and Shadow are too busy pounding on each other to notice that they’ve fallen into Azure Lake and face a soggy fate. And we don’t know what power the spherical Rhygenta can bestow; for the comic’s sake, maybe its power is the Magic of Retcon.

HEAD: Having just come away from S266’s “Ambushed!: Part 1” I needed to read a story where something actually happened. In that story, there was a lot of exposition when Sonic and Moss weren’t swinging together; I don’t care how that sounds, I’m not changing it. The ambush itself wasn’t anything to brag about: three characters jumped by three robots.

“Shadow Boxing” has much more than Shadow and boxing going on. A good deal of the story is of course taken up with Shadow and Knuckles listening to their male imperatives and pounding on each other, with a little encouragement on Shadow’s part from Eclipse, who’s the real star of the story. Instead of lots of exposition from Rouge and Relic, they actually do bring some of their personalities to the story instead of the clichéd ranting of Eggman and Thunderbolt.

I have some questions about the fusion of Eclipse and his four alien youngsters, the biggest one being “Isn’t this just a Mega Man gimmick ripoff?” The premise of Mega Man is only slightly more complex than Sonic being fast: Mega Man defeats a robot and then absorbs its abilities. Here the baby Arms offer them up to their caretaker, which puts a maternal spin on the concept. At least there’s one Arm unaccounted for, and I hope in the next installment that its ability comes as an unpleasant surprise to Eclipse, who’s had it way too easy in this story. Comic books should be at least as messy and unpredictable as real life.

Given Archie Comic’s track record, though, I’m not holding my breath. I thought about that business with Vale’s bones in the Unsung Heroes arc (SU 41-44). I had high hopes that with Naugus doing some kind of hoodoo we’d get a spectacular set piece of the supernatural gone very wrong, like the climax of “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” Silly me; it, along with a subplot about the copy of a Mobian constitution, were both McGuffins driving an otherwise forgettable story. I hate to think that’s going to happen here.

The two focal points of the story are Knuckles vs. Shadow and Eclipse and his trick alien babies. The former is a fight between two guys; been there, done that thousands of times in comic books. And the net result here is a colossal waste of time and pages. Eclipse and the baby Arms, despite the obvious bow to Mega Man, has a certain charm about it since Eclipse has bonded with the Arms and they with him. It’s a sweet concept and it manages to lift Sonic Universe out of the boy’s comic rut, at least until Eclipse begins weaponizing their talents. Head Score: 8.

EYE: Tracy Yardley’s artwork serves the story well since it’s called on to portray not only the Knuckles-Shadow fight but some nice reaction shots from the others. Snively is handicapped by being seen only on a video monitor which negates any real depiction of his body language, something that’s not a problem for Relic as she auditions for yet another remake of “The Karate Kid.” Eye Score: 10.

HEART: I’ve pointed out before that Konrad Lorenz, the anthropologist who discovered that being with large eyes, particularly infants of numerous species, elicit feelings of affection and thus qualifying Lorenz as the patron saint of moe, also demonstrated that newly-hatched ducklings will gravitate to the largest moving thing available and “adopt” it as their mother in a process called “imprinting.” This seems to have happened between Eclipse and the surviving Arms babies.

While the Mega Man gimmick is still pretty much on display, there’s a crucial difference in the panel where Eclipse returns to his ship saying “Please be okay … please be okay…” like a worried parent waiting for their teenager to pull into the driveway on prom night.

At the other end of the spectrum is Thunderbolt. Though she’s a she, and an exemplar that Eggman is an equal opportunity tyrant, she’s also been “unsexed” in the best Lady Macbeth tradition. Jamal Peppers has not exactly gone out of his way to make her feminine. Instead of giving her curves, she is a curve; she’s a tennis ball in an Eggman costume. And she’s got her Rant function dialed up to eleven, except when she’s being shouted at by the boss.

I’m not saying that Archie should turn her into a housewife, considering their track record with housewives in the Sonic comics. In fact, Archie Editorial has consistently goofed up any sign of domesticity and whiffed at attempts to portray the parents of any of the characters (Sonic, Tails, Sally). So it almost stands to reason that we get Eclipse acting all paternal about his alien babies.

I say “almost” because then Eclipse shows an ulterior motive: exploiting his kids’ abilities to snatch the Master Emerald. That kind of thing pretty much blows a hole in his application to be in the running for Father of the Year, though it perfectly qualifies him to appear in a comic book. As I said, I only hope that whatever ability the last alien baby has I hope it’s a major disappointment to him. Heart Score: 7.

FAN ART: Sidney contributes a 4-frame gag about Eclipse’s getting ragged by Shadow for being a babysitter until some of the other alien babies start nomming on Shadow; other portraits by Matthew and Tyana; and Elina depicts the Eclipse-Shadow rematch.

OFF-PANEL: other possible alien baby abilities include yoga (though it would have been funnier as ballet; maybe the alien’s name was Billy Elliot), grammar (particularly the abuse and misuse of homophones on the Internet) and ... I’m sorry, but the curling joke doesn’t work. You don’t play curling with hockey sticks (or walking sticks based on the curve of that thing which Eclipse is holding) but with brooms to sweep the ice ahead of the curling stone.

FAN MAIL: Lucas has a one-sentence gush. Grace gushes for considerably longer. Sonal, only slightly less long. Either they’re not getting s lot of fan mail or else the editors are really insecure and need to use the letters page to do a little ego-stroking.