#issue 71

this took forever but finally i get to see him!! spoilers ahead :3

first of all, amazing cover. jet and the gang look amazing just in that one snippet

extreme gear dodgeball... thats interesting, reminds me of the multiplayer modes in riders zg that was not racing but fun!

HOW DARE YOU MAKE MY BOY ANGRY wave helping jet focus is nice like in zero gravity 💚

the rouges being in shock is always so funny, im glad to see wave and storm join in on the fun 💚

WOAHHH LOL dang sonic's going hard!!

i now headcannon wave has a mindfullness youtube video she makes jet begrudgingly watch LOL 💚

i love seeing them using their gear more, it fuels my autism 💚💚💚

THIS IS SO FREAKING FUNNY I LOVE IT, AND HOW DARE SHE CRASH IN JETS GEAR!! anyway love him /p 💚

AMAZING I WANNA SEE HIM ANGRYYY, BEAT THEM UP JET!!! 💚100 gonna use this part for art ref because it looks so good

the silence is so loud in this picture i love it, i wonder what jets gonna do? 😊

oh my gosh this is so heartbreaking actually what the heck- ALSO WAVE TELLING JET TO RUN IS SO ON POINT

the story telling via art is on point, theres not much words needed to convey the emotions the characters are feeling

THEY HAVE A NEW ROOM, I REPEAT THEY HAVE A KITCHEEEEEEEEN, storm being the cook fits so well i love it.

the food (curry im guessing) fits their background and double points for looking extra yummy.

jet's first sentence fits him so well, im really glad they're doing good depiction with him and everything relating to them, considering the idw special where jewel broke her wing SUCKED because of idw ppl not thinking about where jet lives on the ship, so they made it SUPER inacurate.

it makes me happy to see storm contributing and not being a stupid fat joke like in free riders. we need to appreciate this silly guy who got brain damage from amy hitting him many times, and he still manages to fulfil jets orders.

storm doing this with his eyes is as good as his eyes in free riders, but way better than his weird blink in the zero gravity black hole cutscene

jet being ahead of the game and i love it!!! NEW MISSION LETS GOOO!!!!!! 💚💚💚💚

these riders designs are really helping me in the future with my own oc 🫶

OMG THE WIFE OF THE TRAIN CONDUCTOR FROM MURDER OF SONIC THE HEDGEHOG!!!

ouch my heart

oh gosh thats so sweet but sad ugh

jet has become more thoughtful! i just hope he doesn't lose his edge, but even if he does i'll love him anyway /p 💚

i love how much talented ppl are in this community, im so glad for more jet content via idw and fan creations. jet needs all the praise and love. 💚

Overall i loved this idw issue, i can always make the excuse " use more jet content!" but they did a really good job with expressing all the characters fairly. (still, i still want more jet tho :P)

i waited so long for this issue its crazy, idk why it took so long to come out digitally since i don't have the money to buy them in person.

knowing more rooms, might create an accurate layout of their blimp soon!

I absolutely would have continued putting this off, but then I found out that the 2024 Annual releases tomorrow, so I'd better get my ass in gear.

Issue #71 marks the end of the Extreme Competition arc... sorta. Evan has stated that she sees Issues #69-#75 all as the Phantom Riders arc. The Trade Paperback titles, however, refer to #69-#71 under the Extreme Competition name, so I'll keep using that for the time being, just to keep consistent with the release titles.

#71, like #s 70 and 69 before it, is an absolute banger. We've got Min Ho Kim back for pencils, really giving us a nice look at what they're capable of when handling action scenes - with the bulk of this issue taking place during a sort of Extreme Gear Dodgeball Match.

While most of the action is very clear and readable, there was one scene that I did have to glance at couple times to figure out what was going on.

I'm sure part of it was due to my colorblindness (deutan gang rise up), but I did not realize at first that this was meant to show a second Phantom Rider entering the scene. I thought for a moment Sonic had just rushed the field and was wondering why he had Duo's scarf. As soon as I realized it was a different guy entirely, it wasn't hard to piece together that this was Duo... or rather, it was Mimic. Who is Duo. Tomato tomato.

This second Phantom Rider is the source of pretty much all of this issue's juicy drama.

Using his clever disguise, Mimic throws Sonic off his game while riling everybody else up - Surge, Jet, Lanolin, all of them are dead set on catching this guy. He even switches forms over to Surge for a moment to set Whisper off and get everyone fighting each other.

It actually kind of goes to show that Mimic is a lot better at being the Phantom Rider than Sonic ever was, with Sonic's intentions behind adopting the persona being to throw off everyone's focus and cause a distraction. With Mimic throwing everyone's actions into disarray, he gets Sonic distracted long enough to unmask him.

An unintended consequence of this is that, while he escapes without being spotted himself, Tangle, Whisper, Surge, Kit, Jet, Wave, and Storm all see Sonic without his helmet.

And all of them have pretty interesting reactions to the whole thing!

Surge broods about it a bit, but is quickly distracted by meeting an adoring young fan.

Now, some of the eagle-eyed among you may notice - the little girl's mother is the Conductor's wife from The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog! It's a little weird that she's here, as SEGA continues to be fairly insistent that TMoStH is non-canon, but Evan Stanley, when asked about the appearance of characters from said game in IDW, has said that she simply thinks a similar event occurred at some point in this world.

Personally, my theory is that SEGA is eventually gonna just... change their mind and canonize it, and when that time comes, we'll probably get some retroactive explanation that all of this happens before that.

Anyway, in terms of what the encounter means to this story, it's neat to see Surge, who has been so caught up in the Hero Worship she's been receiving this arc, receive a more innocent adoration from a child who genuinely looks up to her. It gets her thinking for the first time about whether she deserves the praise she's sought as long as she can remember. This drives her and Kit to resolve to go straight and become heroes for real.

This is really cool! I didn't think we'd ever get any form of redemption arc for Surge, especially since I believe Ian Flynn stated at one point that it wasn't in the cards, that she was intended to be a villain always. And, to be honest, I don't know if it'll work out even with her trying. Clutch has got her and Kit on a pretty tight leash, and he's bound to do whatever he has to in order to reel them in if they start to get out of line. If the next issue previews are any indication, anyway.

Tangle and Whisper have kept quiet about what they saw to Lanolin, which Mimic/Duo seems to have picked up on, and appears to be attempting to use this information to drive a wedge between the Diamond Cutters and their leader. Meanwhile Tangle and Whisper have been trying to sort through things on their own, with the two of them making a couple observations to realize that there were, in fact, two Phantom Riders.

With this in mind, it looks like the two of them will be quietly looking into the matter on their own. I'm pretty sure they've largely pieced together that the second Rider is Mimic. If not, they'll have it worked out before long.

The reaction I find most interesting, though, is that of the Babylon Rogues.

Barely any time passes before, just using their heads, they work out almost exactly what's going on. And, while their motivation is entirely ego-centric, they resolve to uncover the foul play (heh) at hand and expose whoever's behind it. It's surprisingly cogent for them!

Then there's Clutch.

He's... upset. But of course. He's spent a good deal of effort to stay off Sonic's radar so he could avoid dealing with him until he was ready to do so. Now the world's greatest hero, who had no idea until recently that his operation even existed, is on his trail. One might understand why he's a touch unhappy. And honestly, I think the anger he shows here might be the most vicious side of Clutch we've seen. He doesn't normally have this much trouble maintaining his composure. It's interesting to see how badly he loses his cool when the house of cards he's built begins to tremble. I'm excited to see what the depths of that ferocity are in the upcoming issues.

Once again, the art, the writing, the plot, the colors, every aspect of this issue firmly slaps. I really, really enjoyed this arc, and I've become even more excited for upcoming material after finding out that every issue from 69 onward has been helmed solely by Evan! Not that I don't adore Ian and his writing, but if this is the standard we can expect when Evan gets to work on her own, I can hardly wait to see what she's cooking next. She certainly sounds eager for it, so I am, too!

Last thing to note, once again the fan mail section caught my attention, when at the very end, I noticed something:

They say that, next time, a "certain journalist" will get involved. The thing is, I'm really not sure who this could be. It sounds like it'd be an established character but... do we know any journalists in the Sonic franchise?

Maybe Omochao? Or Nite? They both work in TV and radio, but neither is really a journalist, per se.

The only actual reporter I can think of is Brenda Hernandez from Sonic Unleashed, but... she's a human! IDW has always appeared to be strictly forbidden from using human characters outside of Eggman. Though, a couple of them have been mentioned recently. To date, however, none have actually appeared. Could this be IDW finally shaking off some of SEGA's restrictions to play around with the bigger world a little bit? One can hope!

"There's a bit in [Tom Sawyer] where these kids turn up halfway through their own funeral.

"I was just thinking. Maybe HE'LL walk in halfway through the service.

"'The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated, Matthew,' he'll say."

“Can she really be that unflappable [with a bomb strapped to her neck]? Was she raised by an assassin or something?!”