Scruffy reads Sonic

SONIC THE HEDGEHOG #20: “DEADLIEST OF THE SPECIES: PROLOGUE”

TIMELINE: 3235 (1 YEAR AFTER SONIC #1)

Welcome back to ArchieSonic 101, where it’s finally time to focus on our lead female protagonist! Err… sort of, anyway. We’ll come back to that.

Poor Sally hasn’t really had any opportunity to shine yet in this series. The first time she really got any focus was a story where she intentionally got kidnapped in an attempt to sabotage Robotnik’s roboticizer. It wasn’t a bad plan, but because she decided to not share it with the rest of the team, they swooped in to “rescue” her from Robotropolis before she could carry it out. Other than the only other stories where she’s really been the protagonist were the one where Robotnik tried to marry her (gross!) after mistaking her for a witch, and the one where Robotnik tried to kidnap her and Bunnie with a fake shopping mall, because “lol girls are weak and are only good for being hostages” (also gross!). So all in all it’s not been a great track record for Sally, and the announcement that she was going to have her own three issue mini-series to take names and kick ass in was quite welcome. So let’s check out the backup story from Sonic #20 that I previously skipped and see how this all got started.

Hoo boy, I told you that Ken Penders’ love of James Bond would make its way into the series again. A lot of ‘90s kids (such as myself) probably didn’t get the shoutout to Goldfinger with the bird-hat infiltration method, but even I recognised the gun barrel logo. I wonder if Sally’s here to stop the smuggling of heroin-flavoured bananas.

This is a pretty cool action shot, I can’t lie. We’re off to a decent start here, obvious James Bond plagiarism aside.

Stealth infiltration, hacking access vents - this is starting to feel like a video game. Not a Sonic game, but something more in the stealth genre. Something like Hitman or… well, once again we come back to James Bond. But we also saw this kind of stuff in SatAM as well, so it doesn’t feel out of place here.

Proof that Sally is environmentally-friendly: she turns out the lights on her way out of the building. Buuuuuuut… considering that the building is set to explode in less than thirty seconds, it’s probably not necessary. Being energy-conscious is great and all, but I feel like her time would have been better spent getting away from the explosion. With a timer of less than thirty seconds, it’s not like a Swatbot would have had time to wander in, notice the lights were on and raise the alarm.

…oh. Oh no. Not him.

Class, it is my very great displeasure to present to you one of the most controversial characters in all of ArchieSonic. I’ll let him introduce himself.

I guess the James Bond overtones already in this story weren’t strong enough, because we now have this secret agent-type of ambiguous alignment strutting in to give Sally (and us, the readers) a headache. 

SONIC THE HEDGEHOG #23

TIMELINE: 3235 (1 YEAR AFTER SONIC #1)

Welcome back to ArchieSonic 101, my friends! One of the most fun relationships in the Sonic the Hedgehog mythos (in my opinion at least) is that of Sonic and Robotnik/Eggman. With the fierce rivalry and animosity between them, some of the most memorable moments across the franchise have been when the two of them were forced to team up against a greater threat. There’s the desperate rush to save the planet in Sonic Adventure 2, of course, as well as several team ups across the comics and games where they were trying to stop the Zeti from wiping out the planet. Much later in this very comic series Sonic and Eggman will call a truce to team up against Enerjak, and of course we had their team up just a few issues ago against Robo-Robotnik. So what incredibly powerful villain will they be joining forces against this time?

…ah. Interesting. Well, let’s have a look at the story, shall we?

I agree with Snively, that was a decent line from Robotnik. It would have been even if his aim didn’t suck.

Well that came out of nowhere!

Heh, “friends in high places.” I liked that one. Angelo’s on a roll with this story!

I believe this is the first appearance of aliens in this series? It certainly won’t be the last - even if you ignore the Black Arms and the Wisps, which are canon immigrants from the games, there are plenty of other alien races who will be popping up in future issues.

I like the detail of Robotnik having the exact same grin as on his book cover, just to prove that he was the writer and it’s a genuine, authentic product. If he really wanted a stamp of authenticity though, he should have gotten it approved by Oprah’s Book Club.

I think a lot of people in this situation would have said, “Oh, you want to kill the tyrannical dictator who enslaved our families and turned them into mindless robots? Awesome, can I buy you a beer?” Not these guys though. While I admire their compassion for others, I don’t know that it was the smart move here.

Well, there are worse places to be trapped, I guess. Unless you’re Robotnik, in which case this is like the ultimate nightmare.

Putting my amusement over the oath aside, Robotnik is accepted into the Freedom Fighters very easily. When other people sign up to join the Freedom Fighters, they have to go through a much more difficult training program. Amy Rose is an example of this - she wasn’t officially invited to become a Freedom Fighter until after proving herself in battle, and even after that she still underwent a lot of training. There’s another character who we haven’t met yet who also decided she wanted to be a Freedom Fighter, but after trying the training decided it wasn’t the right fit for her. And then of course at the time this issue came out, Princess Sally’s own mini series was in full swing. We’ll be getting to that after this issue, but without going into too much detail, several new characters are introduced in that mini-series who are also in training to become Freedom Fighters.

Anyway, I may have ranted a bit too long here. The point I’m getting at is that of all people, Dr. Robotnik is indoctrinated into the Freedom Fighters with no question of his loyalty and no testing of his capabilities. Now I know that Sonic was mostly just saying this as a joke and to get under Robotnik’s skin, and also potentially in the hopes of just getting Robotnik to cooperate with them so that they could stop worrying about him and concentrate on the main threat of Carheem. It’s a bit of a contrast between what was going on in Sally’s minis at the same time, but again, this is probably something I’m thinking too hard about.

Well it’s good to see that Sonic doesn’t just automatically trust Robotnik now that he’s supposedly a Freedom Fighter. Let’s be honest, they probably are expecting a double-cross, but it’s probably better to have Robotnik at least pretending to cooperate so that they can keep an eye on him.

Who Murdered Sonic the Hedgehog? Good thing we have ace detective Tails here to crack the case. If only famous investigative reporter Amy Rose was here too, but she hasn’t actually been introduced yet. She’s coming soon though!

Are you honestly telling me Rotor couldn’t have built this by himself? I see no reason why Robotnik had to be involved in its construction, aside from keeping up the charade of being a Freedom Fighter. For that matter, how did they manage to build this thing without Carheem noticing? I guess they must have waited until he’d fallen asleep or something.

Rotor is being entirely too modest - I bet he could figure out how to pilot this entire ship back to Mobius with no problems. He’d either direct his friends in pushing the right buttons or rig up a complicated pulley system to do it himself.

Also, the imagery of Snively being smothered by Tails is extremely funny to me.

I would say they have ants in their pants, but none of them actually wear pants…

The next few pages are just showing the winners of the contest from back in issue 14. Fun, but nothing that we really need to focus on.

Now we’re getting into the really good stuff. Angelo Decesare and Dave Manak pulled double duty on this issue, doing both the cover story and the backup story. And honestly? This one is probably my favourite Decesare story!

So at first glance this seems like a typical, “Haha, cowardly Antoine being funny comic relief,” story, but there’s a bit more than that here. Antoine is clearly terrified of the idea of going anywhere near Robotropolis, and yet he quickly puts that aside in favour of satisfying his own pride and ego, as well as impressing Tails. My God, could this be actual character development for Antoine? I think it might be!

Bunnie closing the door on Tails is pretty funny too. It reminds me of that episode of SatAM where Antoine was telling an exaggerated story of facing down Robotnik by himself to everyone, and everyone got so annoyed by his obviously fabricated exploits that they all just walked away one by one until his only remaining audience member was a captivated Tails.

Antoine’s character feels written just perfectly in this scene - I can practically hear Rob Paulsen’s voice saying these lines in my head!

It is extremely convenient that this ladder was here, running all the way up the side of the building.

Sooooo… how’s Antoine going to get back down?

Credit to Robotnik - a lot of other dictators would have just rolled over and gone back to sleep, but he hauled himself out of bed to make sure the job got done right. There was an episode of SatAM where he got out of bed to confront the Freedom Fighters too, and Sonic narrowly avoided getting roboticized that time.

I absolutely love this ending. During the entire story Antoine seemed like he had no idea he had a guardian angel watching over him, but clearly he’s smarter than we were led to believe. And what’s this, hints of a possible romance between him and Bunnie? This is adorable!

This was another fun issue - as I said earlier, I always enjoy it when Sonic and Robotnik have to work together even though Sonic knows Robotnik is likely to stab him in the back at the first opportunity. And the Antoine story was an absolute delight - the last time he got his own story was that hot air balloon one from issue 15, and that one didn’t leave an impact on me. This time it was great to see him get a win for once, considering he’s usually the designated buttmonkey/comic relief. It felt very authentic to the character as well, being (seemingly) oblivious to the danger around him. 

SONIC THE HEDGEHOG #22

TIMELINE: 3235 (1 YEAR AFTER SONIC #1)

Welcome back to ArchieSonic 101, where we are apparently in need of a new antagonist! As you may recall, in the last issue we saw Robotnik try to play God and create the ultimate, unkillable robot that would learn from each encounter with Sonic until it was able to kill him. 

…you might say that backfired on him. So where will the series go with Robotnik absolutely and completely gone?

…oh.

I mean, well of course they’re not going to kill off the main villain of the entire series! Not yet, anyway. Maybe later, as a treat. But for now let’s have a look at this issue and see what convoluted way they come up with to un-kill Robotnik.

We’ve got the same team from last issue to finish this story arc - Penders and Spaziante. And we seem to be starting off with the potential future again - a few pages later we’ll find out this is definitely an alternate timeline though, not the future of the characters we’ve been following. 

The scaling on this page is a little weird. Robotnik first appears at his usual size, but then in the next panel he’s a giant head (or possibly a Big Giant Head, for any 3rd Rock from the Sun fans reading this) looming over Sonic. Weird.

I would very much like to hear more about this final battle that resulted in "Kaput!", wouldn’t you?

Okay, so while we already met Robo-Robotnik back in Sonic #19, this seems to be another variant of that character from an alternate timeline. There’s some debate among the fanbase about this, not to mention the various writers of the series. While Ken Penders says this is the same Robo-Robotnik, I’m inclined to agree with future writer Ian Flynn, whose position is that the Robo-Robotniks in issues 19 and 22 are different characters. The Robo-Robotnik of issue 19 turned the Freedom Fighters of his universe into cyborgs and then later wiped them all out with the exception of Cyborg Sonic. However this universe that we're seeing has a Sonic and Sally that are alive and well, not cyborgs, and who were both present for the defeat of this Robo-Robotnik.

Is it just me, or is Robotnik giving a pep talk to… himself… almost heartwarming?

Oh look, it’s yet another story involving the entire Freedom Fighter team except for Bunnie! Why? Because ArchieSonic hates you, that’s why. Yes, you specifically. No, not you - a little to the right. Yes, that one. You, ArchieSonic hates you.

Last issue Snively seemed genuinely upset at his boss and mentor’s (would we call Robotnik a mentor to him?) supposed death. Now with some time to get over the shock, it looks like he’s mostly just upset that he is struggling to keep things running due to Robotnik’s lack of trust in him. 

This is just so incredibly petty. Robotnik is the very definition of a sore loser.

Why can’t a duck be a princess too? That’s just blatant discrimination.

For some reason, this reminds me of a SatAM episode. Specifically, Warp Sonic: “You didn’t mean right, right?” “Right!” “You meant left, right?” “Er, right!”

Oh look, Robotnik left something to Snively in his will: a laser blast to the face! I guess it’d be cheaper than your standard nosejob…

It must have been quite a shock for Robotnik to see one of his own Swatbots turn on him. On the other hand, E.V.E’s betrayal must still be pretty fresh in his memory. Maybe that’s why he was able to react so quickly.

Considering how Snively will turn against him later in the series, Robotnik’s distrust in Snively feels justified. But then you have to wonder, if Robotnik had trusted in Snively and they’d had a better relationship, would Snively have betrayed him?

I feel like after today Sally would have drilled a new evacuation plan into the team for the next time they were in Robotropolis.

I can’t fault this strategy. “I only spared you because it suits my purposes right now, but I can finish you whenever and wherever I want, LOL.”

I feel like Robotnik saying there has been no loss isn’t entirely accurate. His rampaging army probably did a lot of damage to Robotropolis, and presumably he would need to take the time to upload a patch to all of them to prevent them going back into Operation Wasteland mode when he powered them back up. In all honesty this probably would have been a great time for the Freedom Fighters to go on the offensive, but alas, that didn’t happen. Maybe they decided to go home to fetch Bunnie first, who knows?

Our secondary story for this issue boldly lies to us! The title says, “Sonic the Hedgehog in:” but Sonic technically doesn't appear in this story!

 See? Sonic isn’t actually in this story, we just get an expy called Sir Runalot. Am I being pedantic? Yes, yes I am. Am I going to stop? No, no I’m not.

Also, front-facing Sally scares me.

Hehe, I always giggle at that turkey joke. But seriously, Mortail. Boundaries and personal space. Learn ‘em. I’m sure Sir Runalot doesn’t need your assistance in “romancing the fair maiden.” …at least, I certainly hope he doesn’t.

Apparently cosplay was a thing even all the way back in medieval times.

Haha, okay, okay. Angelo Decasare has written a lot of good jokes in this story, but Robotnik on a stick pony takes the cake. Well done to both him and Dave Manak for this beautiful image!

This is a weird adaptation of Sonic and the Black Knight.

See, this is why you shouldn’t let kids drink soda right before bed time.

I liked this issue! Robotnik being petty enough to have a secret doomsday contingency feels very authentic - it’s the whole, “If I’m going down, I’m taking you with me,” mentality. And the Tails and Sally story was fun and had a lot of good jokes. No complaints here!

SONIC THE HEDGEHOG #21

TIMELINE: 3235 (1 YEAR AFTER SONIC #1)

Welcome back to ArchieSonic 101, friendos! Today we’re going to look at one of the earliest Sonic works from a legend of the industry!

Patrick Spaziante is one of, if not the most prolific cover artist of ArchieSonic, credited for the covers of over 130 issues of Sonic the Hedgehog, 25 issues of Knuckles the Echidna, 6 forty-eight page specials, all 15 Sonic Super Specials, 3 sets of 3-issue mini series, and many, many others. While he is best known for his cover art he also did interior art for the series, some of which we already saw in the In Your Face! Special. Aside from Mecha Madness, this two issue arc is probably the most famous story he drew. Shall we give it a look?

We’re off to a strong start here with this fight scene between Sonic and the Swatbots. Spaziante always makes these fight scenes look so cool. Though not credited here for some reason, Ken Penders is the writer for this issue. This is his first time working on Sonic without his writing partner Mike Kanterovich, so let’s see how that goes.

Fair enough, sacrificing a few Swatbots for a test isn’t much of a loss when you have about a zillion of the things lying around.

You know, I never would have picked Robotnik as the type to outsource his work to an AI… (snorts) Nah, I can’t keep a straight face. I can totally picture him asking Grok to figure out the perfect way to eliminate his enemies. He’d probably also use Grok to create deepfakes of said enemies too, the creep. Come to think of it, maybe that’s where all that fanart of Sonic with bare feet comes from. :P 

Nice ambush, Sonic didn’t even see E.V.E. coming!

While this is generally good life advice, most of the time the consequences of wishing for something without really thinking it through doesn’t involve homicidal robots trying to blast you. …unless you’re Sonic.

Maybe it was the Wicked Wobot of the West?

Did… did Robotnik just make a joke at his own expense? That’s really not his style, but I don’t know how else to interpret that graphic on his monitor showing him with a peanut for a brain.

Ew, that looks like T-1000 goo, only yuckier and more viscous. Hmmm… would turning into a giant wasp have made the T-1000 more intimidating or just seem silly?

Err… what? Looks I need to break out this again:

“This bumblebee isn’t serving tuna.” What in God’s name is that even supposed to mean? Even by Penders’ usual standards, this sentence makes no sense at all.

What plan? “Attack first and ask questions never”? Still, credit to Sonic for putting all the pieces together. He’s not as dumb as he looks.

I think Robotnik really needs to update his security system. This isn’t the first time Sonic has just waltzed in here like the King of England.

…do you think Ken Penders watched Aladdin right before he wrote this script?

This is the fourth time Robotnik has explained that E.V.E. is pretty much unstoppable, and it’s starting to wear thin. We get it already!

So I guess this issue's title is a lie - it's called "3 Phases of E.V.E." and yet this is the fourth phase. Checkmate, idiots. :P

I quite like the way that Robotnik’s little science experiment went wrong. Having Sonic’s goodness win out over Robotnik’s evil is a pretty fun plot twist. I just don’t see how Robotnik is going to get out of this one!

…oh. I guess that’s how - he doesn’t get out of this one!

Do you think Sonic, Tails and Snively rehearsed syncronising that line?

Wait, what about Sonic’s goodness overpowering Robotnik’s evil in E.V.E? Why does she still want to murderise him? But once again Sonic proves that he can be pretty smart when he wants to be. Using nothing but reason, he manages to talk E.V.E. out of zapping him into the great beyond right alongside Robotnik.

Snively is having a day.

Snively’s feelings towards Robotnik were very different back in the old days. It’s going to be interesting watching that change over time. Because of course Robotnik isn’t gone for good.

Wow, what a debut for Patrick Spaziante! While not his first work on the series, this was his first time doing both cover art and a full interior story. Not only did he get to draw a bunch of cool fight scenes, but he even got to draw Robotnik being vaporised! This issue obviously isn't his best work, as he would improve significantly over the years, but it's still a really strong beginning for his work on the series. I like the story too, with Robotnik falling to mostly his own hubris. 

SONIC THE HEDGEHOG #20: “THAT’S THE SPIRIT!”

TIMELINE: 3235 (1 YEAR AFTER SONIC #1)

Welcome back to ArchieSonic 101, my friends! I’m splitting up today’s issue again, so we’ll only be looking at the cover story in this lesson. And what happens in this cover story, you ask? Well…

Soooo… I guess this is the final issue of Sonic the Hedgehog, huh? Pffft, as if. xD However when my fellow reviewer @robotnikholmescomicblog (go check out his video essays on YouTube, they’re really good!) covered this issue himself, he pointed out that if anything, this cover felt like it was marking the passing of Sonic SatAM, whose final episode aired right around the time this comic came out. Coincidence or conspiracy, who can say for sure? Anyway, let’s have a look at what the story behind this distressing cover is…

Fair enough to Sonic for enjoying their time together on the rope. Every week it's usually just Sally by herself on the rope.

Sally’s got a point - they got in here awfully easily, sailing past all those previous guards without being noticed. And now there’s no guards at all? That does seem suspicious.

“Oh no, it’s the consequences of my own actions again!”

I’m not sure Sonic would have been able to escape even if he hadn’t tripped. Surely Robotnik would have made sure when he was preparing this trap that the steel doors were spindash-proof?

Oh no, Sonic is totes dead for real, you guys! …but why do Tails and Rotor have red eyes in that middle panel? They hadn’t even started crying yet.

…huh. That’s a neat trick.

Huh. Maybe they actually did kill him off? That would be a twist.

I wonder what was more traumatic for Sonic - coming to the conclusion that he was a ghost or seeing that godawful statue of himself.

I kinda wish Sonic’s foot had gone right through that rock and then he would have fallen on his butt. Wait, if that happened he probably would have fallen right through the ground… hey wait, how is he not falling through the ground already if he’s intangible? Oh no, I think I strained my brain...

Okay, so I’m not an expert or anything, but my understanding is that this is not how antimatter works at all. When antimatter comes into contact with anything made of matter (which is pretty much everything), it explodes. Violently.

Antimatter doesn’t turn people invisible or intangible or anything like that. Other fictional appearances of antimatter make a bit more sense - I believe it’s used to fuel warp drives in Star Trek, and in Dan Brown’s novel Angels & Demons, scientists were studying it with the hope of turning it into a new energy source.

To be fair, its incorrect use in this comic doesn’t really matter that much. I imagine that Angelo Decesare just needed some kind of phlebotinum for the story and decided that antimatter sounded as good as anything else.

I feel like if Sonic really had died, Robotnik probably would have shown up to the funeral playing Amazing Grace on a vuvuzela or a recorder or an accordion or something like that.

I can’t tell if the Freedom Fighters are dressed as commandos or if they're just planning to take Robotnik down in a devastating rap battle.

Clearly no one told Robotnik that he needs to use salt to repel ghosts. He should have watched Supernatural!

Wait, Sonic knows how to fly a jet? I wouldn’t think it’d be very similar to flying a biplane, but then again what would I know? I’m certainly not a pilot.

Haha, I like this ending. The Elvis toupee is the icing on the cake.

This story is pretty fun. Sonic isn’t really given a lot of time to dwell on being, ‘dead,’ but considering what we’ll see later with Knuckles, that’s probably for the best. It’s touching to see the rest of the Freedom Fighters grieving for Sonic - even Antoine is upset at his passing, and he and Sonic don’t exactly get on very well at this stage in the series. Tails’ (almost) unshakable faith that Sonic is okay is very sweet, and his request for Sonic to ignore his letter if he is indeed dead is pretty funny. 

SONIC THE HEDGEHOG #19TIMELINE: 3235 (1 YEAR AFTER SONIC #1)

Welcome back to ArchieSonic 101, where the blue rats are plentiful - like, really plentiful. In fact, I don’t think any other issue of Sonic the Hedgehog better illustrates that point than this one…

Wow, there’s a lot to take in here. We’ve got pirate Sonic, devil Sonic, Terminator/cyborg Sonic, astronaut, viking, footballer, guitarist, mummy… and is that an Australian Sonic in the bottom right corner? I dunno, maybe he's just supposed to be Clint Eastwood. There is another Sonic in the issue later wearing a similar hat with a poncho. Well, I guess we’d better take a look at this issue and find out what this is all about.

I like to think that this cyborg Sonic speaks with a Schwarzenegger accent. Yes, even when he says, “Click! Wrrr…”

This page is mostly just a recap for people who hadn’t read Sonic #11 (like me at the time). 

I will be forever annoyed that we were robbed of getting a spinoff series about an entire team of cyborg Freedom Fighters, all with identical Schwarzenegger accents. Yes, even Sally and Bunnie. …actually, let’s give Bunnie Schwarzeneggar’s really bad American accent from the deleted scenes in Terminator 3.

Stop booing me, you know I’m right!

I bet Dave Manak (and later Art Mawhinney) had A LOT of fun drawing this issue.

Not gonna lie, I do like the shadow swatbot designs. The black looks a lot more intimidating.

It’s a bit weird that Robotnik has live surveillance footage of the Meeting of the Hedgehogs. You’d think the Freedom Fighters would have gathered everyone where Robotnik couldn’t keep tabs on them, but maybe they were so focused on Robo-Robotnik that they didn’t even consider the local Robotnik being a problem. And for once, he actually isn’t.

“Destroy your comic book and act out the action yourselves, because we don’t have enough page space to show this fight scene!”

Robotnik and Robo-Robotnik’s forces are equally matched, so of course Robotnik wins outright and apparently with no casualties! How did that happen? I dunno, you’re the one with the paper cut-outs. You figure it out!

Also, this may just be the earliest instance across all Sonic media of Sonic and Robotnik forming a temporary alliance. It goes about how you’d expect, honestly.

USE YOUR HARPOONS AND TOW CABLES

Robotnik: I despise these filthy Neutrals, Snively. With enemies you know where they stand, but with Neutrals, who knows? Snively: (weary sigh)

So yeah, two pages into their little alliance and Robotnik is already planning a betrayal. Can I get a show of hands - is anyone surprised? Anyone at all? Put your hand down, you know you’re lying.

Considering that Evil Sonic dresses like the Terminator, it seems fitting that he’s summoned in an effect that looks like Skynet’s time travel ball technology. Even though it should have incinerated all his clothing.

This is the second time in this issue that the editor’s asked us to vandalise this comic book. Maybe the colourist, Barry Grossman, just got too tired to finish this chapter? Unlike the pencillers, he did the entire issue.

Also, holy alternate art style, BatSonic! The second half of this story was drawn by Art Mawhinney rather than Dave Manak. Probably because this story took up the entire issue, rather than what the series usually does with two stories per issue. I've had to skip a few pages myself to squeeze this entire story into a single Tumblr post.

Okay, yeah. So this thing is basically just the Infinity Gauntlet.

Evil Sonic is just as big a chump as last time. He’s all attitude and no actual talent. Just in case you forgot, he was ambushed by the harmless animal buddies last time he showed up.

Weird - the giant's hand changed from being small enough to hold to something large enough for Robo-Robotnik to stand in. Neat trick. This giant’s hand may not be able to erase half the universe from existence, but transforming into a giant battle mech is still pretty cool.

The story is interrupted for yet another colouring page. This is a tribute to a famous comic cover featuring Batman and Robin, but I feel like this reference would have gone over the heads of most of the people who were picking up their coloured pencils for this page. 

I’m thinking Sally is not great at maths. It was a cute joke, but there should be ten times as many fingers to point as people to point them at. Also, I want to hear what Sonic Claus' idea for saving the day is.

Yada yada yada, the super power of teamwork, it's a staple of the Sonic mythos at this stage. Also, there’s an art error on this page - BatSonic’s eyes are visible under his mask, which hasn’t been the case in previous pages of this comic.

This is the perfect moment to attack, for sure. I feel like there’s a number of video game bosses like this, where you get an attack of opportunity when they’re in mid-stomp. But for the life of me I can’t think of any specific examples right now.

Man, they really wanted this issue to be interactive for the kids, huh? First we had the swatbot cut-outs, then multiple colouring pages, and now a Where’s Wally-esque page. It’s not the first time Sonic would try something like this though. I remember owning a book called Where's Sonic Now? back in the 90's.

And so Robo-Robotnik was defeated by the power of 10,000 spindashes! This won’t be the last time we see this character though. Or possibly an alternate version of him? It’s not 100% clear, but we’ll get back to that.

This plot point with the giant borg will come back later too. With a couple of unexpected guest appearances too!

This was one of those rare issues where the story took up the entire issue, rather than the issue having a cover story and a backup. And it feels like they needed that, because there’s a LOT in this one. Overall I mostly like this story, but even with it having the entire issue to tell the story it still feels a little rushed at times. We go from one Sonic variant showing up to a gazillion of them suddenly being there. The battle between the two Swatbot armies wasn’t even shown. The battle against Evil Sonic for the giant’s hand is over incredibly quickly, although that may be intentional just to point out once again what a chump Evil Sonic is. But the battle against Giant Borg ends almost as quickly, after Robotnik hyped up what a big threat it would be if it fell into Robo-Robotnik’s hands. The story may have been a bit better if it had been spread out across two issues instead of one, as that could have given a bit more page space to some of those things. They could have had issue 19 end on the cliffhanger of Robo-Robotnik getting the Giant Borg, and then spent more time showcasing the final battle in issue 20. What we got is fine, I guess. It’s no Into the Spider-verse though. :P 

SONIC THE HEDGEHOG IN YOUR FACE #1 (PART 2)

TIMELINE: 3235 (1 YEAR AFTER SONIC #1)

This is a continuation from part 1 of my review of this issue. Moving on!

Our final story for this issue focuses on Tails, and is written and drawn by the original artist of the Sonic mini-series, Scott Shaw! But didn’t Tails already have his first solo story back in issue #4? 

My continuity nerdism is showing, isn't it? Oh well. Let's see how this story goes.

If I had a nickel for every time Tails encountered a frog and someone comedically fell over, I’d have two nickels. 

Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice.

Oh GOD, I feel seen and/or shamed. 32 years later, and the fan discourse is still exactly like this. :P 

“Do you think people would really do that? Go to a fan convention and lie?!”

Tails should sell the movie rights to this. I’d watch it.

“Oh no, the consequences of my actions are here again!”

Is this special the first time we’ve seen violence done against Tails in the series? By the bad guys, at least? Most of the other times he’s been stunned or hurt it was self-inflicted by not watching where he was going. But in this issue he’s been attacked twice - getting knocked out of the sky by the griffin in the first story and now getting slapped around by Robotnik himself. That’s pretty rough for a kid - by my calculations he’s only about ten or eleven years old at this stage? And this isn’t the last time we’re going to see him get slapped around like this. Indeed, future slappings will be even more traumatic.

I quite like this plan, it’s clever and has a Beach Boys reference!

Tails gets his first major win in this comic series! It’s not quite as memorable as his defeat of the Egg Walker in Sonic Adventure (which never happens in the comics, for shame), but it’s a decent start!

In Your Face is pretty good, I think. Confusion over Forbidden Zones and robotic monsters aside, I think the Sally story is decent, allowing her to show her insight (against the last monster, at least) as well as introducing Nicole. The Mirror Zone story didn’t really interest me, but the Tails one was fun. Overall this was a solid beginning for the 48 page specials.

SONIC THE HEDGEHOG IN YOUR FACE #1 (PART 1)

TIMELINE: 3235 (1 YEAR AFTER SONIC #1)

Welcome back to ArchieSonic 101, where today we’ll be looking at the very first Sonic 48 page special! 

Haha, it’s funny because Sonic never shuts up. The centrepiece of this issue is the conclusion of the Princess Sally’s Crusade storyline, but there’s a couple of other stories to look at too. Shall we just jump into it?

Our story begins with a sparring session between Sonic and Sally, but after the recent loss of her mentor, Sally is understandably distracted.

Despite Sally already wearing this vest in one scene from Sonic #18, this is apparently when she first gets it. So why did I set this story after the (2nd) phony wedding story then? Because a future issue will say that’s the order these stories happened in, so I guess I’ll roll with it. We’ll just say Sally wearing her vest in issue 18 was just an art error. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

I don’t know if we really needed an origin story for Sally’s vest - if we’d seen her just start wearing it in issue 18 without any explanation I don’t think we would have questioned it. But if we did need an explanation for where it came from, this works just as well as anything else. Making it a gift from her deceased mentor gives it a bit more meaningful.

Did you forget about that mysterious orb that fell from the sky? Everything that happened with Julayla kind of took priority over it, but now we’re finally getting back to it. So, surprise! The orb was actually Nicole, Sally’s handheld computer from SatAM! You may recall that we saw a Nicole show up in that one lost story featuring the return of Universalamander, but this is the real Nicole’s canon debut in this series.

Haha, Nicole is sassy. Seriously though, what was Sonic trying to accomplish here, shaking her like a soda can he was planning to prank someone with?

Sally tries to go off on a dangerous mission all by herself, but the other Freedom Fighters aren’t going to let her go it alone. How did they know she was going to try and sneak off by herself? Don’t worry about it.

It’s a little unusual to see the entire group piling into the pre-Tornado like a clown car - usually it’s just Sonic and Tails. It’s also the first time we’ve seen Rotor as pilot for the plane. It seems that half of the core Freedom Fighters are pilots now - over half if you include Sonic, who we haven’t actually seen piloting the plane yet in this series.

I’m sorry, did you say BURY your chutes? Geeze, how long do you think that would take? This ground doesn’t exactly look like the easiest place to dig in either. I guess Sonic could theoretically burrow into the ground to make a hole for the chutes, but that would make a lot of noise. It’s no wonder the Swatbots spotted them when they were concealed behind the rocks, rather than highly visible in the air when they were coming down. Makes sense to me!

Do you think this is the same Forbidden Zone from SatAM? The one that was the "resting" place of the evil wizard Lazar?

It’s safe to assume that Lazar doesn’t exist in the ArchieSonic continuity, but I remember getting confused as a kid reading this, trying to figure out if there were multiple Forbidden Zones, or if there was only one Forbidden Zone that contained both a comatose evil wizard and (spoiler alert) all the various monsters we’re about to see.

This cyclops is a bit of a mystery. Sally said that even Robotnik fears the Forbidden Zone, implying that none of his forces would be stationed beyond that initial checkpoint we previously saw. And yet here we have a clearly robotic monster standing sentry.

But… shouldn’t the Freedom Fighters moving again in that last panel have reactivated the cyclops' motion sensors? Does this make any sense at all?

Woo, go Tails! You can do i- oh, he’s already been defeated. Never mind.

Tails is the Chosen King of England! Get the hell outta here, Charles, you’ve been usurped!

Wait, the griffin was a robot too? How many robots are there in this Forbidden Zone? Is that two-headed dinosaur a robot? Am I a robot?!

Ahh, the two doors/two guards riddle. This is a classic, although it has been memed to death…

As you can see, the trick to this riddle isn’t in figuring out which guard tells the truth and which one lies - that’s irrelevant. All you need to do is figure out which is the correct door. Props to Sally for thinking this one through.

I feel like Sonic is going to lie awake for weeks trying to figure out which head is which. At any rate, I hope there's some good loot in that chest, after all the dungeon-crawling they did to get to it. You want some kind of magical item with a +3 buff, minimum.

Holy crap, the Freedom Fighters got old! And Bunnie looks strangely naked without her robotic legs, that’s kinda weird.

Whoa, Sonic and Sally have kids. Kids who both have super speed! I do not envy the couple, being parents to these two sounds exhausting.

This future of the Freedom Fighters will later be dubbed “Light Mobius,” or “Mobius X Years Later.” We’ll be seeing a lot more of this possible future in future issues. Oh boy, will we ever be seeing more of it. 

Aside from the introduction of Nicole, this special is also notable for the introduction of an artist, the legendary Patrick Spaziante! On top of doing the art for the crazy-good Mecha Madness arc, Spaziante is also well known for being the cover artist for ArchieSonic for a major chunk of the 90’s through to the mid 00’s. He’s credited with doing cover art for every single ArchieSonic milestone issue (every 25th issue) and has even done cover art for the series’ successor, IDWSonic. The man’s a machine!

Spaziante (I’m not comfortable using his nickname as it’s considered a slur where I come from) has a decent start in this issue, both writing and drawing this two page story as well as a couple of pin-up pages. The story is kinda… eh. It’s just Sonic and Tails chasing a Swatbot with a secret message and having backwards dialogue because they're in the Mirror Zone. But the art is good at least! Spaziante will really get to strut his stuff in a couple of issues we’ll be looking at soon, which have lots of cool action scenes.

SONIC THE HEDGEHOG #18, “WEDDING BELL BLUES!”

TIMELINE: 3235 (1 YEAR AFTER SONIC #1)

Welcome back to ArchieSonic 101, my friends! Last time we were here we had a look at the backup story in Sonic #18, and today we’re turning our attention to the main story.

Well, if the title of this story didn’t fill you with dread, then I’d like to think that the cover will. Are we really doing this again, after the fake VR wedding they had just two issues earlier?

The wedding is already off to a rocky start here. Antoine hijinks aside, isn’t it bad luck to see the bride in her dress prior to the ceremony?

Everyone in this room is an animal, Sally.  Also, of all the things to make a comeback in later issues, would you believe it was that sign in the bottom panel?

It’s funny - last issue we saw that Sonic had a Robotnik dart board, and here we see Robotnik has a Sonic dartboard. At the end of the day, are these two really so different?

Well yes. For starters, Robotnik’s aim is terrible.

Oh look, it’s Sally’s iconic blue vest from the second season of SatAM, making its unofficial debut in the comics. Why unofficial? More on that soon. The real question here is: why does Bat Brain have a German accent all of a sudden? I don't remember it having that in previous issues.

No, no, no! Shadow dresses up like Batman, Sonic dresses up like the Flash!

See?!

At this rate, Sonic won’t even have to lift a finger. All the robots are going to accidentally destroy each other.

Ahh, there’s nothing like a dramatic objection in the middle of a wedding. It's a classic trope.

There’s some good jokes on this page. Sonic’s one in the first panel made me giggle, but Sally looks like she wants a divorce already. But honestly, Willis - “holy sanctuary”? It’s a barn!

After several more pages of action, Sonic gets the bright idea that maybe they should evacuate. Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time…

If Sonic had swung on that rope in the third panel just a split second sooner, he would have gotten lasered somewhere extremely painful. Let's just say that his and Sally's future kidswould not have become a thing.

Have Penders and/or Kanterovich really never been at a wedding where people applauded? Traditionally that would happen at the end of the ceremony, when the couple is introduced in their new titles.

So let me see if I have the sequence of events right here. In issue 16 the story pretty much opened on Sonic and Sally’s wedding, but then the rug was pulled out from under us. “Psyche! It wasn’t real!” Then two issues later, they do the same thing all over again? I have two questions: #1, Why? And #2, No seriously, why?

Don’t get me wrong, there were some good jokes and decent action scenes in this story, but I just don’t see why the writers decided to have two fake weddings for Sonic and Sally, in almost back-to-back issues no less! Were they lazy coming up with ideas, and decided to just revisit an idea from issue 16 from a different angle? Or were they possibly trying to troll the shippers? ...eh, probably not to be honest. I know the shipping community wasn’t anywhere near as vocal back in 1994 - especially before the internet was really a thing - but they were still out there. It’s far from the trolliest thing Penders has ever written, but it’s just a bewildering choice to me.

SONIC THE HEDGEHOG #18, “IN THE STILL OF THE NIGHT: PRINCESS SALLY’S CRUSADE, PART 2”

TIMELINE: 3235 (1 YEAR AFTER SONIC #1)

Welcome back to ArchieSonic 101, where some of the characters who are NOT called Sonic the Hedgehog are getting a little time in the spotlight! Today we’re going to continue the Princess Sally storyline from issue #17. I won’t show the cover for this issue yet, since it’s based on the other story in this issue, not this one. So let’s just jump straight into the story!

This story marks the debut of Rosie, Sally’s old nanny and a canon immigrant from SatAM. She was a very minor character in SatAM - I believe she only appeared in the Blast to the Past two-parter. Considering she was also in the Sonic Kids stories we’ve already looked at, it’s fair to say she’s a lot more prominent in Archie than she was in the cartoon (even though she’s still a fairly minor character).

Sally’s clearly on a mission. What could Rosie have possibly told her?

This issue also marks the first appearance of Sally’s mentor Julayla, a comic-original character who we also saw in the Sonic Kids specials. It looks like this may also be her final appearance though, because she’s clearly not doing so hot.

Part 1 of this story in the previous issue gave us the new canon of Robotnik’s takeover and this issue builds on that a little. Confusingly, Sally looks to be about the same age in Julayla’s flashback as she is in the present day, rather than being a child during Robotnik’s coup. Maybe they hadn’t gone for the full SatAM history retcon yet? Comic books are confusing.

PRINCESS ASSAULTS DYING ELDERLY TEACHER NOT CLICKBAIT

The story ends on this quiet, tender moment between Sonic and Sally. I quite like this page - it shows Sonic being softer and more caring than we have ever seen him be prior to this point. No quips, no displays of his speed, he just gives Sally this quiet moment and supports her in her grief. It’s a nice moment between the two of them.

It’s a little hard to get invested in Julayla as a character, considering that this is the first time we’ve ever met her and she only shows up for a few pages before dying. I remember first reading this story and originally thinking, “Who is this person again?” But that doesn’t matter so much because the story is of course about Sally, and how the death of this person she obviously has a deep bond with affects her. We don’t really need to know who Julayla was herself, just what she meant to Sally.

SONIC THE HEDGEHOG #17

TIMELINE: 3235 (1 YEAR AFTER SONIC #1)

Welcome back to ArchieSonic 101, friendos! We have a very interesting issue today, so let’s just jump straight into it.

Hmmmm. A giant ape, high above the city with a damsel clenched tightly in its fist? I feel like I’ve seen that somewhere before…

…nah, I’ve got nothing. Maybe I’m just imagining it.

Oh look, Sonic is using his speed to show off and not letting anyone play with him. This feels like the opening of a typical Mike Gallagher story, but surprise! It was actually written by Mike Kanterovich and Ken Penders!

“Skoal” Island, giant footprints… I feel like this all should be ringing a bell, but I just can’t place it…

I find the younger Robotnik’s mustache very funny for some reason. Maybe it’s because it reminds me of these floating face enemies from Super Mario Land 2?

The resemblance is uncanny, no?

It feels like we’re mixing our monster movies in this story. That whole, “You got your chocolate in my peanut butter,” thing, you know?

This is what happens when you don’t chip your pets.

GONG!

Aaaaaaaaand that’s a potential lawsuit from Universal Studios. Okay, probably not - this one single issue of a comic book series probably would have been beneath their notice. But let’s not forget that Universal once tried to sue Nintendo for copyright infringement because of Donkey Kong.

Robotnik sure got King Gong on his side surprisingly easily. It makes you wonder if things might have gone smoother in those King Kong movies if the humans had just rocked up to Skull Island with a massive supply of bananas.

It feels a bit odd to have Sonic be the one worrying about what Robotnik is up to, rather than Sally. You’d also think Sonic would be just itching for Robotnik to attack, considering how bored he was at the beginning of the issue.

Robotnik does seem like the type who would spend hours at Bunnings or Home Depot, looking for parts for all his little DIY projects around the house. I think he’d get along well with my dad in that regard. :P 

Pfft. Those are rookie numbers, Antoine. First-biggest, can you even imagine? I’m willing to bet that’s the second-biggest robot ape that the likes of Guybrush Threepwood or Maxwell Smart have ever seen.

Well, who didn’t see this coming from a mile away? Props to Sally for going on the offensive though. I mean, for all the good it did.

Credit where it’s due - Sonic refusing to get knocked out because he doesn’t have time for it is extremely funny to me!

Are there any Sally x King Gong shippers out there? It wouldn’t surprise me - Hot Skitty on Wailord Action is a thing in the Pokemon universe, so why not this? I’d bet there’s at least one fanfic out there about Sally being seduced by Robotnik’s giant Gong. :P 

Universal really didn’t sue over this? Really?

It’s interesting seeing Antoine as the Tornado’s pilot here instead of Tails, but I guess they needed Tails to fly Sally to safety. While Antoine would be seen as a regular pilot for the team in later issues, I believe this is the first time we’ve seen him pilot something more complex than a hot air balloon.

What do you think that green stuff is that Sonic was shooting at King Gong? Grease? Slime? Raw sewage? Ugh, just imagine how the conversation between the villains would have gone afterwards:

Robotnik: “T’was beauty that killed the beast.” Snively: “Actually sir, it was raw sewage. Look, he’s covered in it.” Robotnik: “...”

Oh boy, now we’re getting into something a bit different than what we’ve had so far. But guys, you need to get your story straight. In the last story Sally and Sonic implied they were already dating, so what’s going on here?

Well well well, we have a small lore drop here! Moving away from the origin presented in Sonic mini #0, the new canon has retconned it into something more like SatAM’s, which was largely established in their Blast to the Past two-part episode.

Okay, can someone please explain to me why the writers hate Bunnie so much in this comic series? Where even is she right now? All these absences are really starting to add up. The only time we’ve seen her in the last two issues was in two panels when she was Sally’s maid of honour for her VR wedding last issue. And considering that we didn’t even see her imprisoned like the other Freedom Fighters, we don’t know if that was the real Bunnie’s subconscious or just a VR construct of her, like Uncle Chuck.

Woof, that bottom left panel of Sally looks a bit rough. I think a change of dialogue is needed here:

SONIC THE HEDGEHOG #16

TIMELINE: 3235 (1 YEAR AFTER SONIC #1)

Welcome back to ArchieSonic 101, my friends! It’s been awhile, eh? My apologies for the long break between updates while I was on vacation. In hindsight I probably should have stuck to only releasing two reviews per week rather than three, but never mind. I’m back home now and ready to look at some new comics with you all. And in fact, today marks the beginning of a new module!

MODULE 2: AN ONGOING NARRATIVE? IN MY SONIC COMICS?

While we technically won’t get to a multi-issue story arc until next issue, we’re starting the new module here because this issue has a couple of  important milestones. For starters, this issue marks the first appearance of Sally in her SatAM colour scheme of having red hair and brown fur. And secondly?

Issue #16 is the first Sonic comic I ever owned! Prior to this issue, while I’d loved watching SatAM I’d been completely unaware of the comic book series. But while I was on vacation in the States in 1994, I came across this in a store and thus my 20+ year relationship with the series began.

It’s also worth noting that we are finally back to having covers that actually are reflective of the issues’ story content. While we previously got the occasional non-joke cover in the past, from this point onwards the story-based covers become the standard. But what led to this intriguing cover? Did Robotnik shrink the Freedom Fighters again, but successfully capture them this time? Let’s take a look at the issue and find out!

…oh. It’s over? Robotnik has been permanently defeated, entirely off panel? Gee, and it felt like the series was only just starting to finally kick off…

Well that escalated quickly.

We didn’t get to see Sonic and Sally’s relationship develop at all past mild flirting, but just jumped straight to the wedding instead? Okay then, I guess. Also, these two are still only 15 years old. And you thought that Disney princesses married young…

Oh, thank God. Sonic and Sally aren’t really getting married, this is all just some kind of weird Robotnik plot. 

Maybe it’s partially because the Adventures badniks are here, but this feels like the kind of trap Robotnik’s forces would have tried to use against Sonic in AoStH. The plot twist here is that the trap actually worked! Adventures Sonic would have seen this trap coming a mile away. …and then probably still tried to get the chilli dogs anyway.

So I think that the real question here isn’t why Robotnik doesn’t just kill the Freedom Fighters, but why he’s bothering to give them a happy virtual reality. He said it’s to prevent them from questioning their reality and trying to escape, but if there’s one thing I learned from The Matrix, it’s that people won’t accept the concept of living in a perfect utopia. Besides, wouldn’t Robotnik get more of a kick out of making them miserable?

Whoa, this got trippy very quickly. Why are they suddenly trapped in a Salvador Dali painting?

But never mind, look who's here! It’s the return of possibly my favourite character from SatAM, Uncle Chuck! He doesn’t get a whole lot to do in this issue, but have patience - he’ll be getting his true comeback in a later issue.

This is pretty much coming back to what I said earlier about people not accepting a perfect utopia because they can’t believe it to be real. Interestingly, Sonic seems to be the only one able to see through this false reality, while the others are perfectly happy to stay here.

That one panel of Sally and Antoine raises a LOT of questions here. Is Sally actually interested in Antoine, in some secret, hidden corner of her mind? Is Antoine’s will overriding her own? Is the VR’s goal of keeping everyone happy just changing Sally’s wants and desires to keep her passive? What is even going on?

Huh, it looks like Sonic has regenerated into David Tenant’s 10th Doctor, over 10 years before that was even a thing. 

This may have actually been a reference to Max Headroom though.

You want to know how badly I’ve suffered brainrot from this series? Even to this day, “Better than Disneyland!” is an occasional catchphrase for me. I usually break it out during bumpy car rides.

Bringing this back to The Matrix again, I do like how Sonic was able to take control of the VR system by realising that there was no spoon. :P 

Is this the first instance of Ken Penders working his love of James Bond into the comic? I honestly don’t remember if we’ve seen it happen prior to this, but we’ll definitely be seeing it again in upcoming issues.

Robotnik’s interrogation rack also does double duty when he’s in the mood for a barbeque. It’s very efficient!

This actually looks like quite a fun method of choosing chaos. As someone who uses a wheel himself on stream to choose characters or levels to play, I can get behind this.

I do have some questions about the underwater heist though. Why is Coconuts, a robot, wearing a diving helmet to breathe underwater? Why is he making blub-blub noises, despite that helmet? 

The questions continue! Why are expys of Winnie the Pooh, Eeyore and Owl here? Why is Antoine’s hair floating away? Why is Robotnik robbing an art gallery that he probably already owns, considering he controls most of the planet?

Apparently blowing up this random, unoccupied hill in the middle of nowhere counts as a mindless act of terrorism. I’ll agree with the mindless part, at least…

Oh hey, it’s a callback to the casino from issue #1! …it still doesn’t look anything like the Casino Night Zone.

An Oddjob hat? Your James Bond is showing again, Mr. Penders.

I’ve never really understood what the deal is with this random hole that suddenly opens up and Sonic falls into after quoting Sean Connery. Is it a hidden platform to transport his fried carcass down to Robotnik’s office or something?

Harvey Who is a neat little reveal. If you go back and look at the story again, you'll see that he was there the entire time, even when the wheel was delivered. I imagine that's why other Freedom Fighters that look like they transferred here from the 100 Acre Wood were also included - when he’s standing next to them, Harvey doesn’t stand out as much and we don’t question who this new guy is.

It feels like things are starting to change a bit with this issue. While the second story was more of the typical humour-based stories we’d come to expect at this point, the first one was a bit different. While it still had some funny moments it felt like it was trying to tell a more serious story. Paired with Sally’s new design, it feels like they were trying to match the tone of SatAM a bit more closely. I think this was a good move - if they’d kept going with nothing but joke stories, I doubt the series would have lasted too far beyond issue 25. Credit where credit is due - I can be nice to Penders when he deserves it. Those moments just may be far and few between. :P 

SONIC THE HEDGEHOG ARCHIVES #5, “EVERYTHING OLD IS NEWT AGAIN.”

TIMELINE: 3235 (1 YEAR AFTER SONIC #1)

Welcome back to ArchieSonic 101! Today will be our final class in module 1, and we’re going to be doing something a little different!

Yep, we’re not moving on to Sonic #16 just yet. Before we do that we need to have a look at Sonic Archives. Starting in 2006 - 13 years after Sonic #1 came out - Archie began publishing the Sonic Archives, a series of reprint collections that were a good way for newer fans of the series to read earlier issues that they may not have seen before. For the most part the Archives just collected the previous issues with no notable additional content (mostly just character backgrounds and stuff like that), but Sonic Archives #5 actually did something different and also gave us a story that had been written back in the 90’s and never actually published. Why? Well, we can get into that soon. For now let’s have a look at this rare, lost story!

Whooooa, what happened to the artwork here? Even though this was drawn by one of the two main artists from the early days of the ongoing series, this looks very different to how we’re used to seeing Dave Manak’s work. Compare this Robotnik to the one on the cover of the last issue we covered and the difference is pretty blatant.

I can't exactly put my finger on why the Robotnik from the story we're focusing on today looks different from the one on #15's cover or why I feel the quality isn't as good, but I definitely prefer Manak's art from the earlier issues.

I think it’s safe to say that this comic was not drawn in 1994. I didn’t think to actually check if the full explanation behind this lost story was in the issue itself before I went overseas, so unfortunately it is out of reach for me right now. Remind me to check and add an update when I get home. But I’m guessing that this old script from Mike Gallagher was dug up in 2007 and Dave Manak was commissioned to do the art for it. It’s also possible that this was drawn around 1997, when Manak’s art started dropping in quality (at least in my opinion) - compare it to this panel from Sonic #45, for instance.

That Robotnik looks pretty similar to the one from today's story. But while it’s possible that this was drawn in the late 90’s, the story content makes that unlikely. Let’s continue!

Well this is interesting - a rematch with the Universalamander? He was such a big threat in his last appearance that it warranted the debut of Super Sonic. I’m not sure why he was drawn to look like a live salamander here instead of a robot though.

If the differences in the art weren’t obvious enough before, it’s definitely easy to spot now. This just does not look good at all. Sonic in particular looks very... basic. It is interesting to note that Sally’s fur is brown now instead of pink like in previous issues. She's getting close to being her SatAM colours, although her hair is still black at this stage.

Thank you for stating the obvious, Rotor. I don’t suppose you guys want to do anything about it?

Oh wow, the Freedom Fighters are actually being allowed to join the fight this time (or at least Bunnie is), rather than letting Sonic do all the work. It’s just a shame the art is so… this. Universalamander looks alright, but just look at the Freedom Fighters in that last panel. It feels very rushed.

I guess it’s hard to look for the mossy side of a tree when there are no trees.

As anyone who lived through the second Bush administration knows, the phrase is actually, “Fool me once, shame on… shame on you. Fool me - you can’t get fooled again.” Also:

Am I the only one who thinks this looks like a Sonic Racing Crossworlds emoji? Perhaps Dave Manak was ahead of his time.

Okay, I can appreciate this page. Robotnik reversing the weakness that Sonic exploited last time is pretty clever, and then adding a pharmaceutical disclaimer to it is actually pretty funny. Why does Bat Brain suddenly have a mouth though? I don't recall ever seeing it drawn with a mouth in previous issues.

I wonder how long Sonic had to run in circles to find a familiar landmark, and how dizzy he got doing that.

So here’s the reason why this story likely wasn’t drawn in 1997, and probably also why it was originally not published - it features the debut of Nicole, Sally’s helpful AI computer who was always by her side in SatAM. We haven’t seen Nicole yet in the comics but she’s coming up soon, which is why I’m doing this story here at this point in the timeline. I’ll come back to this in a minute.

You can also see Sonic doing his Sonic CD super peel out move in the bottom panel, something he wouldn't use for the first time until issue #25.

Sergeant Rotor scares me.

And once again, as soon as Universalamander starts getting small, he reverts to being a flesh and blood lizard again rather than a robot. I don’t know if that was by design or the art just not being detailed enough to show his roboticness.

…is that a word? Roboticness? Probably not. Moving on!

Fun fact: if you squint reeeeeaally hard, you can actually see the microscopic Universalamander in the Quantum Realm in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.

…no, not really.

There’s a bit of debate in the ArchieSonic community about whether or not this lost story is actually canon as it seems to contradict the actual origin of Nicole, which we’ll be seeing soon in upcoming issues. That’s probably why this story wasn’t originally published - most likely the editorial staff decided to go in a different direction. For me personally, I feel that if you think of this story featuring a computer named Nicole and not the one we know and love, you can still count it as canon. It’s a Nicole, not the Nicole. They’re just two different computers, that’s all.

Oh, and I guess you'd also need to pretend not to notice Sonic using the super peel out too, if you want to count this story as canon.