Sonic the Blog

Since this is my secondary blog (should have been my primary lol, but what are you gonna do), I may as well put the link to my primary here

Before the story ends, we do get a nice little resolve with Errol changing his mind on snitching, considering how much Tails actually helped him out. This is another instance of Tails kinda being rewarded for his lies, but honestly this time he earned it somewhat, since he wasn’t just on the defence this time around.

So, now that we’re at the end of this four-parter, what do I think? Honestly…meh.

It’s definitely not the worst story, but it’s not amazing either. Not all that much actually happens, and I think the four page format is somewhat to blame, but let’s look back? Tails and Errol go to the Land Beyond, to look for Shirob, the third Enchanter King who was presumed dead but recent evidence revealed was alive. They fight some demons, fall down a cliff and Tails lets some stupid Grimace monster bump his head on the ceiling and knock himself out. It’s revealed that Trogg used to be Shirob. Trogg punches Tails once and then the story basically ends. Yeah, it’s honestly pretty uneventful in retrospect.

I honestly think that it would have been a much smarter idea for Kitching to have combined this story and the previous two parter into one large six-page story, and this is my idea, at the risk of sounding like an armchair writer who knows better than Nigel Kitching:

Tails is summoned to the Nameless Zone and we get all the exposition about how he’s been lying about being the hero of Mobius and the Enchanter Kings have summoned him for a large mission to retrieve the third Enchanter King, who was presumed dead for many years

Errol is introduced and is rightfully skeptical of the whole story. The two leave for the Land Beyond and the battle with the demons happen, where Errol learns that Tails isn’t a fighter.

After some fights in the caves, the two find Shirob tied up with the Grimace monster lurking behind him. Tails lures Grimace away from Errol and Shirob, causing him to fall into a huge pit, and when the two think Tails has sacrificed himself, he flies out.

Tails and Errol are lead into Trogg’s trap, where he reveals his dark past TM. This is our introduction to Trogg. He reveals he's always wanted to kill Errol so he can send his demon army into the Nameless Zone.

Tails at this point knows that fighting is the only option. He flies up, distracting the two demons holding Errol at knifepoint, which allows Errol to attack Trogg. Trogg gets the upper hand on Errol, but he’s not paying attention to Tails, who smacks Trogg on the back of the head with his sword.

Enraged, Trogg throws Tails to the floor and as all looks lost, it’s revealed that Trogg’s evil magic only allows him to fight at full strength for a short time, so he begins to lose his power. Errol takes this opportunity to knock out the guards while Trogg is lamenting at his lost opportunity, and him and Tails find their way back to the surface.

We then cut back to the Enchanter King’s room, where Errol is about to snitch on Tails, but instead commends Tails for his bravery. Everybody in the room congratulates Tails on his heroism, while Tails silently hopes that he never has to return.

Just as Tails returns to Mobius, we get a funny scene of Sonic going "good job, you stayed out of my way for once! So what were you doing kid, just taking a long nap?" And Tails winking to the audience or whatever

It’s not a high work of fiction or anything, but I think this would have been a much nicer way to introduce the Nameless Zone. Even so, it doesn’t address the fact that Errol really doesn’t have much of a personality at all. Trogg himself is pretty empty of character outside of just being evil as well.

I’ve complained about it before, but I’ll say it again: the art leaves a lot to be desired. It’s technically well drawn but the characters are pretty blegh. Trogg and his army don’t look like anything you’d expect in a Sonic comic, and the Nameless Zone characters are all Tails with some minor adjustments made. The Enchanter Kings are Tails but tall and old, with complicated clothes. Errol is Tails but really muscular and with a big sword. It reminds me unfortunately of those infamous Ken Penders stories where every character was Knuckles with a few differing details.  

Just as it seems that Tails and Errol are about to meet their end, one of the Enchanter King’s portals appears at the perfect time for them to escape. Gee, isn’t that convenient

Tails finally has had enough of all this BS and charges Trogg, which is actually a pretty big moment for him. If you don’t remember, the first time Tails met Trogg, he had to be repeatedly persuaded to even land a hit on him.

So Sonic’s cavalier attitude goes just as you’d expect and the two are encased in a big pink glass ball, just in time for Grimer and some Troopers to find them and give a good evil speech

Meanwhile Robotnik is about to hatch. What will he look like??

So a LOT happened in this story, honestly even more than I remembered. We get introduced to TWO major characters, Amy and Grimer, and we’re essentially introduced to a third, the Kintobor Computer. We get to see Johnny Lightfoot on the front lines and with a fancy outfit for the first time, we see the Egg Fortress for the first time, AND we get Robotnik transforming into his new appearance. God, that’s a lot to introduce in seven pages!

This is undoubtedly the best individual strip in STC so far. Despite so much new stuff being thrown at the audience, never does it become overwhelming, or feel like the story is bogged down with exposition, or anything of the sort. Kitching really was a master at introducing new elements and making them immediately feel like an organic part of the story. Nothing has to be sat down and explained at length, everything new just fits and feels relevant. And even besides all the new stuff, the story itself is great, with Sonic and Johnny just one foot behind Robotnik’s forces the whole time and consequently running into a trap. We get some small yet great character moments from both Sonic and Robotnik, and even though Johnny has always been a bit bland, you definitely get a feeling of determination from him. Unlike Tails or Porker who are more nervous characters, Johnny is always Sonic’s primary backup when involved in a story. Frankly, he’s a badass.

Richard Elson’s art as usual is fantastic, and becomes more energetic with every new issue he’s in. Sonic in particular looks amazing, every panel he’s in is dripping with raw energy. His side characters are still a bit bizarre looking as usual, but that’s just one of those things you have to accept.

Oh look, another page crammed with stuff to talk about!

So here’s our first look in a long while at Dr. Kintobor’s former lab, which has become Sonic’s main base. It looks much larger now, with monitors all over the walls and a much less claustrophobic room. The Kintobor computer (which first appeared in a different form in Issue 6) makes it’s first “real” debut here. Unlike in Issue 6, where Sonic told Tails the computer only projected Kintobor’s face to make “the darn thing easier to use”, now the computer actually has the personality of Kintobor, and everybody talks to it as if it’s actually Kintobor himself, which is a bit morbid when you think about it. I mean, Kintobor in the most technical sense is still alive, but he may as well be dead as far as Sonic and friends is concerned. Anyways, the Kintobor computer’s main task throughout the rest of the magazine’s run is to be the intel character monitoring everything Robotnik is doing, similar to Uncle Chuck in SatAM, except if he was a big weird floating head of a “dead” scientist.

Alright, remember when I was kinda building up a few issues ago that Robotnik’s constant grimace was getting old? Well apparently, Nigel Kitching and Richard Elson did as well, because they directly address this in the form of…his public image branch? Who are some random boomer looking guys who never appear again? Robotnik throws these clowns out with the fair point that he doesn’t give a shit what he looks like because he’s already a maniacal dictator. And that in itself is worth some analysis, because unlike Eggman, whose convinced that the world has yet to recognize his genius and therefore wants to remake the world in his image, or SatAM/Archie Robotnik, who seems more to care more about eradicating all life than anything else, STC Robotnik’s main goal is primarily to make everybody’s life a living hell through whatever means possible. And that’s likely because, as we know, he’s literally made of evil energy.

He’s a homunculus of the evil energy contained in the Chaos Emeralds and a rotten egg, and he uses that latter component to literally encase himself in a fucking egg so he can hatch with a renewed appearance. Yeah, Robotnik is freaking WEIRD.

We also get some other introductions on this page. The first is the Egg Fortress, which is Robotnik’s main base of operations, and was alluded to way back in Issue 4. Then we have the badnik clerk running the front desk, who I think appears a couple more times but is quickly forgotten. Perhaps her husk was left to rot when Robotnik abandoned the Egg Fortress later on. I like her design, it’s cute with the large bow-tie and the short haircut. Oh, yeah, and then there’s Grimer. Wait, who?

So, his story begins when Kitching was under the impression that he would have to use the characters from SatAM, and thus he was in preparation to use Snively, Robotnik’s main lackey in SatAM and Archie. It turns out though that he would soon learn the opposite; Fleetway did not have the right to use Snively!

God, that’s an awesome pose. I practically learned how to draw Sonic from this very panel, so it’s kinda important to me

Really, again with the Bob Beaky disguise?? This is the third time Sonic's used it, absolutely nobody should be fooled by it by now. I'm convinced that Sonic only wears it to epically throw it off.

Also, this is the first time we see Johnny Lightfoot with the red jacket and blue jeans that he’d become synonymous with, and his staff weapon. Just like Porker Lewis, Johnny’s height has increased substantially, and his proportions are a bit more human, though unlike at the contemporary designs at Archie, Johnny still looks like a Sonic character and not somebody’s Fur Affinity OC. I find it funny that this sequence implies Johnny walks around naked and only puts on the outfit when fighting. Most of the animals at this point are naked so it’s not that much of a deal, but it has some implications down the line when just about everybody (besides the basic trio of Sonic Tails and Knuckles) is dressed up like a human.  

Also this is one of the earlier instances we get of Sonic being a bit more astute than he is in other continuities. He immediately knows that this weapon is meant as a distraction to maim the Emerald Hill Folk and immediately springs into action

Here’s our first time seeing the Emerald Hill Zone since issue 9, and Robotnik’s Troopers are raiding a certain somebody’s house. And that somebody is…

She’s here

This is our introduction to probably the best incarnation of the character to exist, and one of the most badass female characters to appear in 1990s children’s media, or maybe children’s media full stop.

While she’s still crushing hard on Sonic here, this cutesier persona and appearance will very quickly drop away, and she’ll start proving herself as a capable fighter and leader in just a couple issues, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

We can at least discuss her appearance, which is based off that well-known concept art for Sonic CD, which we saw several issues back:

This must have been the only art that was widely available at the time, because we all know that Amy Rose was meant to have the same pattern of spines as Sonic:

Okay, it’s time for the main event here. Poster Mags 1 and 2 were just promotional material and the like, but #3 has a new Sonic strip.

Honestly, I forgot what the strip in this one was even about. I was looking forward to reading it to see if it was a forgotten gem from the comic's early years, and uh

Oh no no no no noooo it’s this one

Yeah, so this is an explicit racial caricature in a Sonic comic for little kids. Like, there’s no excusing or defending it, it’s about as in your face as you can get

And very sadly, it was the work of Nigel Kitching and Mike Hadley. I don’t know if Hadley was solely responsible for the appearance of this guy, or if Kitching had any input, but does it even matter? If you read the story, it’s clear Kitching wrote the character as a black stereotype, so it was already pretty bad before Hadley even put his pen on the paper. I’ve never heard Kitching discuss this strip anywhere, and I really hope it’s because he’s ashamed of it. It’s undoubtedly the worst thing he’s ever contributed to STC, and probably the worst thing he’s ever done. I almost wish I forgot about this one entirely because this is the only real blemish I can think of on Kitching’s reputation. And it goes without saying, but Mike Hadley should have known better to have drawn this rubbish.

Should we even discuss the plot of this one? No, I’m not going to. I’ll leave a link to the Grabber Zone scans if you want to tear it apart yourself, but I’m not bothering. I’m going to save you the five or six posts I could make going “oh isn’t this wacky, those boomers amirite?”, because it doesn’t even deserve that, and I’m not going to further exploit some racist nonsense to fish for likes or reblogs. Fuck that.

The Rodgriguez art on the back is nice, but that’s it for Poster Mag #3. The sooner this thing is out of my sight, the better.

This one is the least interesting out of the first three, as the only thing of note is an ok guide to the 8-bit game Sonic Chaos, which along with CD, were the most recent games

We’ll cover the first one in this post:

This one is interesting in that it goes into some depth on both of the Sonic TV shows that were beginning at the time of the Magazine’s release, and I’ll post it all here because it’s a nice little read

The first set of pages give a brief synopsis of the characters featuring in Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog (AoStH), which was the one with all the surrealist slapstick, although if you’re reading this blog you likely don’t need me to explain what AoStH is to you. It’s strange how Scratch gets a section to himself but Grounder doesn’t.

Then the second page spread has some of that interesting concept art of the predecessor to SatAM, and I’m somewhat surprised that they were still using these images for promotion so far into 1993, because at the point this was published, a kid could have turned on the Television and seen SatAM for themself. Hell, there’s finalized artwork for Snively, Antoine, and Bunnie, the character that Johnny Lightfoot would evolve into on the very next set of pages. Perhaps there wasn’t enough high-quality artwork from the late stages of SatAM’s production to be used, but still, it’s blatant false advertising.

The third page actually gives us some interesting tidbits on SatAM which were either completely retconned later. Antoine is said to have saved Sally in the past, presumably from Roboticization. That actually would have been an interesting plot point to have explored in an alternate version of SatAM, where it turns out that Antoine, the guy who is afraid of his own shadow and is a liability on every other mission was actually responsible for there being a freedom fighter resistance in the first place. But I don’t know if this was something that the writers of SatAM came up with or that the advertisers made up themselves. Rotor is still called Boomer and is a Sea Lion. Crabmeat and Buzzomber are said to be some of Robotnik’s main lackeys, just like how they were in Archie. Buzzbomber would only appear in one episode (the pilot which was still weird), and Crabmeat never appears in SatAM whatsoever.