SSS12

Spaz/Harvo/Ray cover: Sonic and Knuckles on a monitor while Zonic gets in the first word.

Credits page: More Spaz/Harvo artwork which, I must say, I liked better than the cover art. What I can see of the drawings of Sally and Tails are really cute. I'll bet that the drawing of Julie-Su is just as cute, but Sonic's stepping all over her face.

"Turnabout Heroes"

Story: Ken Penders and Karl Bollers; Art: Jim Fry; Ink: Andrew Pepoy; Lettering: Jeff Powell; Color: Josh and Aimee Ray; Editorial: G-Force.

I think we could have figured out how to read the comic without Zonic's public service announcement, thank you.

Page 1: Mounds of exposition from Sonic to bring the reader up to speed on everything except why Sonic suddenly looks like Knuckles. Page 2: Mounds of exposition from Knuckles to bring the reader up to speed on everything except why Knuckles suddenly looks like Sonic. And with that, we know we are in the presence of the Ol' Switcheroo Plot. And just so the other side doesn't feel left out, Robotnik and Dimitri get to introduce themselves and throw in some exposition of their own.

But rather than run the risk of talking the reader to death, the action switches to the Freedom Fighter Special (Fry version) as it takes to the air to get to...well, it doesn't say WHAT their destination is exactly, nor does it matter much as the ship comes under attack by air-borne SWATbots and is forced to make an emergency landing. And to keep the symmetry going, Knuckles and Julie-Su pass the FFS en route to Mobitropolis as they're being pursued by Dark Legionnaires. The two teams mix it up briefly with the villains before Robotnik and Dimitri put in a holographic appearance and order the two heroes to surrender or else they can witness the deaths of their friends through each others' eyes. Without much room for bargaining, they agree.

The villains have a point to all this, fortunately: they need the Master Emerald to power the latest wonder weapon: the Chaos-Cannon, capable of metallicizing anything, and Knothole is as good a target as any. So the two adjourn to the Chaos Chamber. They're observed by Robotnik and Dimitri while in the act of removing the Chaos Emerald, but then suddenly at the crucial moment the villains lose their cable (a situation to which I can relate). The dastardly duo reel in their two fish, with the Emerald. When Dimitri tests the CC, however, it's revealed that exposure to the emerald returned Sonic and Knuckles to their normal bods, and the brief period when they weren't detectable to the villains was long enough for them to substitute a fake Emerald (courtesy of the Deus Ex Machina Fake Emerald Company, purveyors of fine costume jewelry). But then we learn that "Robotnik" was a robotic double and "Dimitri" was some kind of projection that fades away. So we're right back where we started from. BTW, I think that the fuzzy writing in the last Sonic word balloon is: "At least MY book didn't get canceled!" Ouch!

HEAD: This story was meant to be a marketing device; hence the unusual format. It ran as a series of horizontal strips in the weekly Comic Shop News, issues 619-632. CSN is a handout that's supposed to be available in local comic stores as a freebie, but nobody mentioned this to my local comic store which doesn't distribute it. In fact, I wonder what the percentage of stores is that does carry CSN.

As for the story itself, Ken Penders admitted that they needed a story that would have no impact on the comic continuity whatsoever. That was why he and Karl Bollers resorted to something as hoary as the Ol' Switcheroo Plot. Still, within the limitations involved, the story was engaging enough and showcased the characters adequately. Head Score: 8.

EYE: Fry still mainstreams the characters: they don't resemble the anime-influenced artwork that he's settled into in the Sonic comic. And he does a fair job with the Knuckles cast, the depiction of whom has now passed to Chris Allan. The strip format, however, prevents him from doing anything like fancy page layouts and the panels sometimes have a cramped feel to them as a result. Eye Score: 8.

HEART: Not much to go on here. In cartoons, an Ol' Switcheroo Plot is usually a pretext for two characters to experience the real hardships in one another's lives and thus to gain a little bit of empathy for the other. At the end of this story, that doesn't happen. Sonic and Knuckles end up arguing about which species is better. Which is pretty human behavior for a couple furries. Heart Score: 6.

"Zone Wars: Giant Robotno"

Story: Dan Slott; Script: Karl Bollers; Art: James Fry and Nelson Ribiero; Ink: Jim Amash; Lettering: Vickie Williams; Color: Josh and Aimee Ray; Editorial: G-Force.

As Sonic kicks back to recover from the previous story, this story opens in the same manner as Slott's "Zone Wars: Prelude" (SSS8): with a bow to a famous anime. In this case, Zonic shows up along with "Sallactor" and the cast of "Sonicaman: Chaos Ninja Team" from the "sentai zone." Now would be as good a time as any to explain the jokes to you as these are the ONLY jokes (aside from the fact that Sonic is using a Pokemon ball as a bobber) in what's going to be the grimmest Sonic story of all time.

The sentai or "task force" TV show is a genre on Japanese television. They're usually identified by the fact that the heroes are a team of distinct (read: "stereotyped") personalities wearing color-coded skin-tight uniforms. Although the first live-action sentai series was 1975's "Go Ranger" (trans.: "Five Ranger") the concept was actually born three years earlier with the 1972 animated series "Science Ninja Team Gatchaman." All the elements of the genre were in that show: the uniforms, the powerful vehicles, the use of a combination of fancy weaponry and martial arts moves to save the Earth from alien invasion. As well as the stock characters on display on page 3: the Leader (Sonic), the Hot-Headed Second-In-Command (Knuckles), the Big Guy (Rotor), the Girl (Amy Rose), and the Kid (Tails). Not a bad bit of casting here, actually, considering that unlike the two incarnations of "Science Ninja Team Gatchaman" that attempted to find an audience in the U.S. [under the names "Battle of the Planets" (1978) and "G-Force" (1986)] the Leader was NOT the straight arrow that the dubs made him out to be but had at least as much attitude as Sonic himself.

But it was as live action series that the sentai shows really took off in Japan. They never broke new ground from one show to the next, slavishly adhering to the tried and true formula. And it was Toei TV's sixteenth sentai show, "Zyuranger" (which ran from 1992-1993) that was purchased by Saban, sliced and diced and intercut with American footage and served up in the U.S. as "Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers" (P'tui!). I'll admit to having a certain grudge against the show because when the show was at its peak of popularity the Saturday morning version that ran on Fox for the 1994-95 season knocked every other SatAM show running against it off the air, including the second season of "Sonic the Hedgehog."

Which probably helps explain why rather than join in the fun and games, Sonic begins to show himself the door. He then reminds Zonic that he's been there and done that in "Zone Wars: Prelude" and doesn't have any enthusiasm for recycling the joke. Just as Sonic's on the verge of telling Zonic that he can take his job and shove it up his alternate reality, a call comes in for Zonic and he more or less sweet-talks Sonic into taking the case. At this point, Zonic and Dan Slott lose interest in the sentai zone fugitives altogether. For all we know they're still on Mobius Prime, appearing in a production of Luigi Pirandello's "Six Characters In Search Of An Author."

As for Sonic, he finds himself zoned onto a Mobius where...

OK, I've had to put up with a LOT of crap from the Sonic creatives over the years. I've endured bad artwork, plot holes that could swallow the MiR Space Station, spelling errors that would never have gotten past my fifth grade teacher, Sega's heavy-handedness in dictating how to portray Sonic, even the death of Sally in "Endgame." But not since "Battle Royal" was I as moved to forsake the comic altogether as I was when I first laid eyes on page 7. For literally within a few months of Bunnie's finest portrayal in "Upgrade" (SSS11) she's been morphed into a mutant monster rampaging through an alternate Mobitropolis like Godzilla through Tokyo. To me (an admitted Bunnie fanboy) this is NOT an homage to the giant lizard genre or even an acceptable joke. This is just sick!

Sonic is understandably shocked at the prospect of taking down...well, since "Pokemon" is a contraction of "pocket monster" I'll call her "Bunniemon" for the duration. Equally shocking is Zonic's declaration that "Good and evil are relative concepts in other zones." Even when Kanterovich and Penders created the Antisonic and his world in "When Hedgehogs Collide" (S11) they NEVER pushed the outside of the moral envelope THAT hard! But Sonic revs up and traps Bunniemon in a move inspired by Joel Chandler Harris's account of B'rer Rabbit and the Tar Baby. You can't beat the classics.

As the hyoomon populace makes with the general acclaim, Sonic meets the Robotnik of this zone: J. Kintobor, "ruler of Kintopolis," who supplies the exposition. It isn't pretty:

Seems that in attempting to harness the power of the Chaos Emerald, Dr. K opened a Door That Hyoomon Was Never Meant to Open when he used Knothole Island as a test site. Once the Chaos Emerald was split, the furry (non-hyoomon) inhabitants of the island all morphed into monsters and began trashing the city like Japanese actors in rubber suits. Kintobor professes not to know why they did so, but reports that introducing a "robo-virus" to stop them managed to halt Chuckmon but pretty much petered out halfway through the job when it came to Bunniemon. So Dan Slott gets points for trying to explain why a benign Robotnik would partially roboticize Bunnie, but still loses points for morphing Bunnie into Bunniemon. The only thing that will stop the rampage of the monsters, Dr. K declares, is to retrieve the remnants of the split Chaos Emerald and used them to power some mecha giant robots to keep the monsters in check. Devoting his energies to reversing the effects of the "fallout" from the Chaos Emerald never seems to have occurred to the good doctor. But it's like the troops used to say in Vietnam: When you're up to your ass in alligators, it's difficult to remember that your initial objective was to drain the swamp.

Sonic's idea is to use one of the doc's mecha, "Giant Robotno," to do the job. Sonic will control the bot from the inside using remote control gauntlets to operate the machine while running on a treadmill to power it. Landing on the island, he's met by a welcoming committee of Tailsmon, Knucklesmon, Amy Rosemon, Rotormon and Sallymon. The search for the emerald fragments located "in the monsters' lair" (according to Kintobor) has to be postponed as Sonic proceeds to loosen some teeth. Nearing exhaustion, Sonic doesn't have to look that hard because one of the halves comes to him...embedded in the chest of Julesmon. Looks like Dr, K's information was a tad faulty.

And here's where Dan Slott takes the comic to a whole 'nother level. For while trying to fend off the attacks of Julesmon, Sonic makes a purely reflexive move that RIPS THE CHAOS EMERALD OUT OF JULESMON'S CHEST! Whereupon Julesmon collapses and dies! Archie studiously avoids using the D-word in the story, but from the way that Sonic and Sonicmon (who shows up after the fight is over and Sonic roars off with the emerald fragment) carry on (dry-eyed, of course, to show that Sega's still in control here) we don't have much reason to think otherwise. It's not as if we see Julesmon walking away from the encounter with minor cuts and bruises.

Sonic puts up with the victory celebration long enough for Zonic to show up and ask him if he needs a lift back home. Sonic is more than a little peeved at having to play this one by ear and takes Zonic to task for setting him up to commit patricide-by-proxy. I know I said earlier that "You can't beat the classics," but lifting a plot point from "Oedipus Rex" [i.e., that the hero was fated to kill his own father] wasn't exactly what I had in mind. Whereupon Zonic reveals the plot point hidden from Sonic since "Zone Wars: Prelude" before splitting. Anyone who considers this a happy ending hasn't been paying attention.

HEAD: "Thought-provoking" isn't a term I use very often about a Sonic story, but it describes "Zone Wars: Giant Robotno" perfectly. This is a great bit of writing. I don't know if the business with the Gotchaman parody in the beginning was meant as self-parody, lampooning "Zone Wars: Prelude," but it certainly works on that level. Slott has also thought through the twists and turns of the alternate reality Sonic is forced to operate in. Dan Slott has come up with a powerful, well-written story. I hate it, but that doesn't stop it from being a powerful, well-written story. Head Score: 10.

EYE: The results of the Fry-Ribiero collaboration appear to favor the latter over the former. Fry's artwork is unashamedly Japanese in its influence, and it's worked for me. But somehow or other, while everything is on model and even the monster characters are well-drawn, the small touches that identify Fry's artwork got lost somewhere. And of course, even two artists working together can't overcome the heavy hand of Segamon: given one of the most emotion-laden plot points ever to appear in a Sonic comic the artists STILL can't depict Sonic (or Sonicmon) displaying the most appropriate emotional response. Eye Score: 9.

HEART: Dan Slott has developed what seems to be an unmistakable philosophy with which he approaches his writing and which is reflected IN his writing. To fully appreciate it, I'll be making references to both of his Sonic contributions [this story and "Zone Wars: Prelude"] as well as to a gem of a story that he wrote for Dexter's Laboratory #4, "Meanwhile...."

Just as the more established Sonic writers have each developed their own recognizable styles, Dan Slott is no exception. Perhaps the most conspicuous aspect of Slott's work is a preoccupation with man (and beast) as being in the control of a Fate that is beyond their knowing or comprehension. Sonic's "destiny [is] to become the most pivotal hero of all time and space" [ZW:P, 8:4 - "Zone Wars: Prelude, page 8, panel 4]. The comic book that Dexter retrieves from the Fifth Dimension contains "my predetermined fate" [M, 16:2-3]. Even Zonic plays the zone cop because "I've got no choice - it's my sworn duty" [ZW:GR, 5:1]. Thus Dan Slott comes out in the open not as a mere Determinist, which could leave room for the intervention of providence (divine or otherwise) in human/animal affairs, but as a hard-core believer in Fatalism, defined in one source (Attwater's Catholic Dictionary) as "the doctrine that all effects are produced by a blind necessity" which thus leaves no room for the exercise of free will. And as I argued in my review of "Ultimatum" (S60), it's hard to wage a war of liberation if it can be argued that Robotnik's takeover of Mobius Prime might itself be the "predetermined fate" of Mobius. Blows your motivation right out of the water. No point in Sonic even getting out of bed, let alone going out and kicking bot butt. After all, "you can't change fate" [M: 22:6].

Even more unbelievable than Slott's Fatalism is his moral relativism, and I'm not just saying this because I want Bill (Book of Virtues) Bennet's job; I don't! I have enough trouble keeping my own life from jumping the rails without having to tell complete strangers how to conduct their lives. My concern is that when Slott (through Zonic) asserts that "good and evil are relative concepts in other zones" [ZW:GR, 8:1] I find myself asking why Mobius Prime should be exempt? Answer: there's no logical reason. And without a definite "good" and "evil," the whole notion of Sonic's being a "hero" evaporates. Because heroism has to be ABOUT something, and the reason for heroism gets lost in a morally relative universe. It's no accident that "Zone Wars: Giant Robotno" is set while Sonic was taking some R&R. If Zonic had dropped in while Sonic was, say, trying to prevent Tails from being roboticized, Slott's brand of Fatalism would be something of a hard sell. Sonic would be more concerned with rescuing his little bro than in sitting still long enough to listen to Zonic's ramblings. Which brings up yet another reason why Slott's world view simply has no place in the Sonicverse.

I remember watching a Miss Universe Pageant some years ago. I know, I know, it looks like I've gone seriously off-topic here but trust me: I AM going somewhere with this. I remember it because one of the celebrity judges was none other than Michael Dorn, Worf in the Star Trek franchise. I also remember the cosmic question he asked during the Let's See How Well You Can Think On Your Feet Question And Answer Competition: Dorn asked the contestant (whose country shall remain nameless) to speculate on what life would be life if science ever managed to cheat death and humans could achieve immortality. The contestant totally flubbed the question, stating that such a thing isn't possible (she didn't make the final cut). But to this day, I remember the answer I formulated while watching her flail around and which I still believe to be a good answer:

"There's no doubt that it would be fascinating to watch how politics and history and technology develop over several centuries, but it can be a problem especially if you're the only one who gets to live forever. You'd be making friends but then you'd have to watch them grow old and die. Then you'd make new friends only to have to watch THEM grow old and die. That kind of thing can mean a lot of wear and tear on the heart after a century or two. So rather than thinking in terms of immortality, it's better to find love and meaning in the finite lives we DO have."

REBUTTAL: "Spielberg eats this stuff up!" Yakko Warner

I can't help but contrast this story with "Upgrade." Zonic would have been the LAST person Bunnie needed to see while she was considering the options that Dr. Quack had set before her. And what could Zonic tell her, that it's her predetermined fate to be consigned to a partly mechanical body for the rest of her days? I think that Bunnie would prefer to find meaning and support in Antoine's arms rather than Zonic's philosophy of life.

"Zone Wars: Giant Robotno" is, in the end, a well-written story by someone who doesn't truly care about the characters and doesn't expect the readers to care all that much, either. Dan Slott may have an understanding of the continuity, he may get the dialogue right, but his philosophical outlook is, quite simply, fatal to the entire continuity and everyone in it. Such an approach might work in a muscle-and-spandex book, where the situations and characters are larger than life. It even works in Dexter's Laboratory because the inherent meaninglessness of Slott's philosophy perfectly compliments the absurdity of a continuity where the title character is somehow the only one who speaks vaudeville German to show that he has a mind-bogglingly high IQ. "Sonic the Hedgehog" falls into neither category, and thus Slott's typical approach to storytelling turns to poison.

Finally, I have to ask: what was Justin Gabrie thinking when he green-lighted this story? That Slott looks at the world the way he does and expresses it in his stories is an artistic decision and well within his rights; that this actually saw the light of day in an issue of

"Sonic the Hedgehog" was an editorial decision and the Freditor has to be held responsible. I can only imagine that Slott must have sold Archie a package of Sonic stories, sight unseen, and they were pretty much forced to run them for lack of anything else available. But no amount of ironing by Karl Bollers could possibly smooth out all the wrinkles in this story. Heart Score (on a scale of 1 to 10): -4.

Off-Panel: No comment.

Sonic-Grams: The briefest of explanations about "Turnabout Heroes" and SSS13 (an SA tie-in with cover art on display). No room for letters, Fan Art, Pro Art, or even the 10 end-notes that should have followed "Zone Wars: Giant Robotno." But, hey, that's what dictionaries are for, kids.