#module3

SONIC THE HEDGEHOG #29: “STEEL-BELTED SALLY” & SONIC THE HEDGEHOG #30: “KNUCKLES’ CHAOTIX SNEAK PEEK!”

TIMELINE: 3235 (1 YEAR AFTER SONIC #1) Welcome back to ArchieSonic 101, where we visit your worst nightmares in the name of entertainment! Tails is home after his adventure abroad and is no doubt looking to spend time with his friends and recover from the multiple beatings he experienced. So what’s going to happen today?

...ahh. More trauma then? Cool cool, cool cool cool cool cool. Okay, let’s get into it.

Well this is a bit of a curveball - based on the cover, you probably weren’t expecting this story to open with the backstory and introduction of canon immigrant Dulcy. Although she is there on the cover, the readers’ eyes are more naturally drawn towards Sally’s robotic transformation. For those of you not familiar with this character, Dulcy was introduced in season 2 of SatAM. She was mainly used as a source of transportation for the Freedom Fighters as well as a source of comic relief, due to her habit of crashing every single time she came in for a landing. I hadn’t actually seen any of season 2 at the time this comic came out, so I didn’t really have any context for her. I liked her well enough though. Sadly she’s pretty underused in the comic series, considering how she was a member of the main cast for half of the cartoon. There are also some stories about her in future issues that are... well, we'll worry about that later.

This does feel like it could be an opening scene from a SatAM episode, except that this chase would probably take place at night rather than during daylight. And Sonic's arms wouldn't be blue. :P

Where’s the kaboom? Wouldn't there usually be a hovercraft-shattering kaboom? It's very convenient that the hovercraft didn’t just explode after hitting that wall. Or possibly inconvenient, considering what will happen as a result.

Ahhh, there’s the kaboom! Good ol’ Robotnik, building his planes out of explodium. I knew he wouldn’t let us down.

Heh, there’s a lot of good jokes at Antoine’s expense on this page.

So, I feel like Sally had the right idea at first, wanting to deroboticize Bunnie. But then when Bunnie raised the idea of having one of them get roboticized, I kinda feel like Sally stole her moment. Let’s have a look at the next page where the plan is fleshed out a bit more, and then I’ll go into a bit more detail with my problem with it.

Okay, so all in all not a bad plan. Sally tricks Robotnik into roboticizing her, but she secretly keeps her free will. Obviously after she’d completed her mission of unspecified sabotage, the Freedom Fighters would use the deroboticizer to transform Sally back to normal. Does this sound familiar at all? It should - Sally had a very similar plan way back in issue #1 of the original Sonic mini series. The main differences here are that this time Sally has let the rest of the team in on the plan, and they have a way to turn Sally back to normal.

So here’s my problem - why couldn’t Bunnie have done this? This could have been a great opportunity for Bunnie - getting one more opportunity to do some critical damage with her robotic parts before being transformed back to normal. But then Sally swooped in and decided she was going to be the one to take the mission instead. Now sure, Bunnie didn’t specify that she should be the one to do it, and there could have been any number of reasons why they decided to go with Sally instead. Maybe Bunnie decided she was of more use to the team if she remained a cyborg. Maybe Sally, being the leader of the Freedom Fighters, didn’t want to have any of her teammates take such a big risk. Maybe they all figured that the Princess would be a more enticing target than Bunnie, making Robotnik more likely to take the bait and less likely to look for a trap. For all we know, the team sat down together and had a long discussion about this plan, weighing up the pros and cons, and Sally and Bunnie had a heart to heart about whether now was the right time to restore Bunnie to normal. My problem is: we didn’t get to see any discussion about it. The way it’s presented, Sally says they should make Bunnie whole again, Bunnie suggests that they turn that opportunity into a sabotage mission, and Sally takes away this very rare opportunity for Bunnie to get her body back by taking the mission instead. This may once again be a case of me thinking too hard, but even though Bunnie is actually in this story, I feel obligated to use this:

From a story-telling perspective, I get it. It makes sense to use Sally for this story, as her close relationship with Sonic means it will hit that much harder when everything inevitably goes wrong. On top of that, it’d change the status quo if this story ended with Bunnie being completely deroboticized. And while the possibility of deroboticizing Bunnie has to be addressed - it would be a pretty obvious elephant in the room to avoid - using Sally instead also prevents the writer from having to address the awkward question of how Robotnik would even roboticize Bunnie anyway. Don't forget - we learned in the Princess Sally mini series that robots explode if you attempt to roboticize them. Would Robotnik have to design a unique roboticizer that was built only around Bunnie's upper body and right arm? Or would he detach her robotic parts and throw her into the roboticizer without legs and an arm? …yeah, it’d probably be that one, with him taunting her for good measure by calling her, “Torso Girl.” Pretty horrifying stuff, tbh.

These Swatbots were alarmingly close to spotting the entire team, not just Sally. They’re clearly not too smart though, as Sally was obviously waving and talking to someone when they spotted her on the previous page. Shouldn’t they have searched the immediate area for other intruders?

…uh-oh.

It’s interesting that this version of Robotnik is happy to reduce Sally to nothing more than a serial number. The way I see it, this is either because he has no interest in her beyond undermining the Freedom Fighters’ current plans and will likely just assign her to mindless menial tasks afterward, or because he wants to further humiliate her and outrage the other Freedom Fighters. Or both, both is good.

When Sally is later roboticized again by Robotnik’s successor, he’ll go in the exact opposite direction and upgrade her to be his enforcer and weapon against the Freedom Fighters.

It occurs to me that we don’t really know what Sally's mission was supposed to be once she became a robot, other than the vague description of “sabotage.” Was she going to access all of Robotnik’s computer files to learn what his upcoming evil plans were, then install a computer virus to completely wipe out his entire system infrastructure? Plant bombs on all of Robotnik’s aircraft? Use her new robotic strength to tear the building apart and/or toss Robotnik out the window of the 25th floor? D, all of the above? In the end I guess it doesn’t really matter that much, as Sally never got the chance to do whatever it was she was going to do, but I still would like to know just what kind of sabotage they had in mind that could only be done by a robot.

Where is the usual Swatbot army? Did Robotnik really not send anyone else to capture the entire core Freedom Fighter group? Certainly Mecha Sally had the element of surprise, but that can only carry you so far. I feel like once they realised what was going on, Tails and Bunnie at least would have tried to resist. And certainly Robotnik would need a bigger force to bring in Sonic, when he showed up. …right?

...right?!

You’re kidding me - Sonic surrendered without putting up a fight too?! He was only facing a single armed robot - surely he could have sped the rest of his team to safety before Sally could have shot any of them? Or grabbed the blaster off her? Snively said that the prisoners are all headed for the roboticizer anyway, so why not try to escape? Even after Sonic had been handcuffed, he could still run, right?

…I will forgive this though, because I enjoyed Sonic’s joke about blowing his nose on Robotnik’s photo so much. Nice save, Angelo Decasare! xD

It sure is lucky that Dulcy was introduced in this issue, considering that everyone else has been captured!

…huh. Well, so much for trying to figure out how to roboticize Bunnie, who already has robotic limbs. This must have been an oversight, huh?

Geeze Sonic, are you really going to wait until the last possible second to try to appeal to Sally’s true self? Where was this, “I know the real you is still in there,” attitude back when the Freedom Fighters were being held at gunpoint?

That centre panel feels very authentic to SatAM. Dulcy always had to do a massive inhale and chest-puff right before breathing fire or ice in the cartoon.

Cue the freeze frame and sitcom credits rolling.

…although I guess every panel of a comic book is technically a freeze frame, isn’t it?

I’ve been pretty harsh on this Angelo Decasare story today, lest you think I only criticise Ken Penders’ writing. :P The truth is that I quite like this story - Art Mawhinney’s pencils are always great, and the stakes are extremely high as the Freedom Fighters only just escape by the skin of their teeth. But as you can probably tell from all the ranting I’ve been doing today, I think there’s some room for improvement with the writing.

Let’s change things up here for a minute by talking about one of the episodes from season 1 of SatAM, Sonic’s Nightmare. It’s an episode where Sonic was having a recurring nightmare of being unable to save Sally from being roboticized.

In my opinion it’s one of the better episodes of season 1, as it shows that for all his usual bravado, Sonic is terrified of losing his loved ones just like everyone else is. It’s not just the idea of Sonic’s closest friend getting roboticized that makes this such an interesting episode, but it’s also how Sonic reacts to this nightmare he keeps having. He’s worried, he’s stressed, he’s asking Rotor for advice, and his anxiety grows throughout the episode until it comes to a head when he starts having the nightmare as a daydream while he’s wide awake and facing Robotnik’s forces.

At the end of the episode Sonic is all the more triumphant for having conquered his fear.

This is what I think is maybe missing from the story we just read in the comic - it just doesn’t have that kind of emotion in it. How do the Freedom Fighters feel about Sally taking on such a dangerous mission? How does Sally herself feel? None of this gets explored aside from Sonic and Antoine both saying that they think it’s a bad idea but then dropping it. What about when Sally is revealed to have lost her free will to Robotnik - how do the Freedom Fighters feel about that, knowing they’ve lost their friend and are about to face the same fate? None of that kind of thing gets explored at all, and I think it makes the story a little unsatisfying. The stakes are high and it’s a narrow escape for our heroes, but there’s no time to reflect on how any of them feel about what’s going on.

Years later when Ian Flynn would re-explore roboticizing Sally, he had a massive advantage that this story does not: Ian got multiple issues to work with where he could more properly explore the effect losing Sally had on her friends. While I don’t think this particular story needed an entire multi-issue arc, I do think that it might have benefited from having a few more pages to expand in (and also, then there might have had the time to explain what the plan was for Sally to do as a robot). Unfortunately the rest of the issue was dedicated to part two of Tails’ battle with LMD Fiona (man, the kid had a rough issue - he got trapped in a roboticizer in BOTH stories!). Maybe they should have waited on this story until they had the room to use a full issue for it?

Before we finish up today’s class, we have another 48 page special preview to check out! This comes from the next issue, Sonic #30, but as the Chaotix special is next in our timeline we’re going to have a look at the preview now.

So yeah, there’s not a whole lot going on here - it’s essentially just name drops of the cast of the Chaotix game, with the addition of comic original character Renfield the Rodent (do not steal). 

Disclaimer

The posts on each idea are going to be quite short. I am running low on time.. Trying to cram finish my assignment for 2511 3 days early (for the first time ever!!1111!one!! (yay))

Human Weakness - Corruption

There's corruption everywhere. Humans are naturally inclined to choose the option which best benefits their self interest. However, this also means that it is easy to get what you want once you have identified what someone else wants. Noone wants a lose lose deal.

It is easy to exploit our natually corruptive tendencies through manipulating human emotions. I.e. Once you have convinced someone that you two have the same motives or interests they are most likely to trust you and do what you want them to do for you.

A big flaw in the idea of communism is expecting us to follow the idealogies behind the ant colony. This structure has a drumroll, that's right! Single point of failure!! DING DING DING

Once one level is corrupt, it is very difficult to fix the system. Even in the capatalist system, people desire money and status, and without doubt, there are always some levels of corruption at play around us.

Human Weekness - Selfishness

mfw I'm still doing last week's one. THATS OK! THE POINT IS THAT I'VE DONE IT RIGHT?

Selfish desires are very closely linked to corruption. In fact, they are probably what instigates corruption. Even if we don't want to, we probably act on our self interest.

Self-interset has the capability to fuel our brain and convince us that desire of corruption are feasible and amicable. It's the actions we take in our own self-interest which lead to corruption.

We all go around saying people are selfish. But is selfish necessarily bad?

Balance in all things.. Sometimes your actions are more aligned with your self-interest, and sometimes you need to take a few steps back to reconsider what is best and how to possibly get the best outcome.

Make a data-breach prediction

So, remember how snapchat was a thing? (Ok maybe it still is but.. IS IT REALLY?)

On snapchat, you can save your photos to a cloud file called 'memories.' Is that secure???

DUNDUNDUNDUN

I predict that it will leak into the world, causing a major data breach.

Make a bold prediction

FIRST OF ALL, I can't even predict what I'm eating for the next meal. Sometimes I get in queue 100% sure that I'm going to order NOT nachoes this time, but I end up ordering it anyways.

Bold prediction of the day: My email is secure.

It probably isn't.. the amount of times I've given it away for random things, and the fact that I change the password once every 5 years makes it super insecure. But the real question is, does that change how I interact with gmail? Well, no, because I somehow trust that google and gmail by extension is relatively safe.

HAHA! That's where you're wrong. I can't wait to feel insecure and vulnerable as the end of the term approaches.

Security Everywhere

This was mentioned in the lecture. In the recent Hong Kong petition with millions of people walking through the streets, there were quite a few people who were injured and had to be registered into the hospital. However, their information was passed onto the police and they were arrested coming out of the hospital.

This is a massive data breach. Essentially the hospital has turned them in and now there is a lack of trust between doctors and patients. This will mean that patients will refuse to give doctors relevant information, doctors will no be able to assist and governments will have citizens without proper medical care. This chain of events all be derived from data breach.

Which brings me to a point. The NSA was literally accused of monitoring US citizens and here is Trump, assuing China of doing the exact same thing. This guy just wants China to die no matter the expense - even if it means sacrificing your own country. #self-interest #corruption

TAILS MINI SERIES #3

TIMELINE: 3235 (1 YEAR AFTER SONIC #1)

Welcome back to ArchieSonic 101, my friends! You all know why we’re here, so let’s just jump straight in and see how Tails is going to manage to save the day when half of his bones are broken!

This is a pretty dramatic cover, drawn beautifully by Spaziante. Tails seems to be in some real trtouble, but I have no idea what Athair is doing here. Is he trying to sabotage the tank or something? Just holding on and enjoying the ride? It’s not really clear. Maybe we’ll get some answers by reading the issue?

I don’t have much to say about this splash page. It looks good, but there’s not a whole lot going on here other than showing off the new characters. Although… are they all just running through the clouds here? That’s a bit weird.

Haha, I had to. I quite like how they recap the story with these comics drawn by Tails himself (once again drawn by writer Mike Gallagher). It’s a shame we don’t get to see any more of these after the end of the mini series, because they’re quite fun. At least this time around Tails has gone for a more honest approach than in previous issues. Either the latest in his series of butt-kickings has finally given him some humility, or Gallagher just didn’t want to take a few panels for Tails to admit that he’s a big, fat, liar-pants like he did last issue.

Tails is being awfully casual about this whole scenario. “Oh, you’re Knuckles’ ancestor, even though we thought he was the last echidna? And you think I’m the chosen one? That’s neat and all, but I really need to take half an hour to work on my comic book. Do you mind waiting?”

Soooo... what do you think these old weirdos what they want this time?

Oh sure, now Tails is in a hurry to get out of there.

That said, this little history lesson is neat. It makes sense that Angel the Floating Island originally came from Downunda, as all the inhabitants we’ve seen there in the Sonic & Knuckles and Triple Trouble specials seem to be Australian animals - kangaroos, dingos, cockatoos, and of course, Knuckles the Echidna and Vector the Crocodile. Although we will later learn that Vector wasn’t actually born on the island. Spoiler alert, I guess. :P

Whoops, I got so distracted by the revelation that the Floating Island came from Downunda that I overlooked the fact that we’re getting echidna lore here. That’s quite an unexpected twist in a story that’s not about Knuckles and not written by Ken Penders. As the editor notes on the previous page said, we’ll be getting more details about the comet incident in upcoming issues, and those will most definitely be written by Penders. But here we also get our first look at Knuckles’ father Locke (not counting the Sonic Kids story he was in, as that issue wasn’t out yet at the time this issue was published), as well as his grandfather Sabre, who will look nothing like this when he is introduced later in the series. I’m assuming that Sabre wasn’t actually intended to be a character back in these early days, hence his placeholder portrait of generic echidna #652.

Yes, stake Tails through the heart, it’s the only away to stop the echidna lor-

…wait. :P

Seriously though, why do these guys keep threatening the main characters of the series with pointy sticks?

“Ah man, 150 different channels and none of them have anything good on!”

The insertion of this CD requires our villain to put on an Akubra. However this does increase his coolness factor by 73%, and his Australianness factor by 300%.

The heroes are not off to a promising start in this battle. Also, I don’t think the editor’s note was strictly necessary for this one. I feel like the kids could have figured that one out by themselves. :P 

I feel like this is a case of Tails, being completely confused with what Athair and the Walkers were trying to tell him, said, “Okay, okay, why don’t you start at the beginning?” And so they started at the literal beginning. :P

Also, props to the creative team here who decided that the Chaos Emeralds came from space, decades before that was retroactively made canon in Sonic Frontiers.

Who keeps putting echidna lore in my Tails story?!

But okay, there is an interesting revelation here - the Walkers are dinosaurs who got their hands on some Chaos Emeralds and apparently became divine beings as a result?

Was there really any need for Athair to gaslight Tails here, other than for his own personal amusement?

KOALAS ARE NOT BEARS THEY’RE MARSUPIALS AAAARGGHHHHH

Ahem. Seriously though, this is something I used to see books and tv shows and movies do all the time back in the day - call them “koala bears.” Is this still a common error these days, or am I showing my age again?

It seems that Athair went to the same ninja school of dramatic exits that Batman did.

I do question the idea of fitting an explosive into a boomerang, considering that those things are designed to COME BACK TO THE PERSON WHO THREW THEM. But on the other hand, every time I’ve thrown one of those things I’ve never been able to make it fly back to me, so what would I know?

A perfectly timed attack and quip from Tails! Our boy is growing up!

If this comic had come out about seven years later, I feel like Tails would have said, “See ya later, boi!”

Is this page making light of the Hindenburg disaster? How long does it take for, “Too soon,” to no longer apply?

Ouch, that looked like it hurt. 

…why didn’t Crocbot just use the same door his giant rambot did, rather than smashing through the wall?

Guru’s change in philosophy certainly came about suddenly. Just one page ago he was singing about giving peace a chance.

The power of Crocbot’s nuclear tank is no match for the power of Athair’s medicinal marijuana! This is why supervillains should invest in renewable energies. :P 

...I know, what I just said makes no sense. But neither does that cloud.

Tails never actually met Bottlenose back when the Forty Fathoms Freedom Fighters showed up to save his butt back in issue 1 - he was a little preoccupied with drowning. But with a name like Bottlenose, I guess it wouldn’t have been too difficult to figure out that they were a dolphin.

We can make it if we all stick together! We won't give up, not ever! It's easier with my friends by my side!

Also, I must applaud Tails’ dedication to storytelling - getting “The End” tattooed on his tails and/or butt is very impressive.

While I do enjoy the conclusion of this story, once again I feel like having Tails absent for a large chunk of the action in a book with his name on the comic isn’t the best choice. While the Downunda Freedom Fighters are off fighting for their lives, Tails is on a hippie trail, head full of zombie (at least Guru Emu would approve though).

That said, I still quite like this final issue, and the mini series as a whole too. The idea of Tails being “the chosen one,” is an interesting one - you would expect a chosen one prophecy to be about Sonic, not his (sort of) humble sidekick. However I think this issue shows that Tails actually has learned some humility from his experiences on this adventure. Getting beaten up and nearly killed multiple times seems to have taught him that he does still have a long way to go, and that it’s okay to ask others for help rather than trying to save the day all by himself. Indeed, when he teams up with the DFF in this issue he finds that he does a lot better than when he tried to take on the bad guys singlehandedly (Crocbot-induced migraine aside). While it could have been fun to see Tails winning more of his battles rather than getting beaten within an inch of his life multiple times, I think this mini series serves as an excellent first step on his hero’s journey.

SONIC THE HEDGEHOG #28

TIMELINE: 3235 (1 YEAR AFTER SONIC #1)

Welcome back to ArchieSonic 101, everyone! Last time, Sonic got conked on the head and was tricked into working for Dr. Robotnik! But don’t worry, I’m sure his friends will be able to stop him and bring him back to his senses, right?

…oh. Well, that’s not great. Shall we open up the issue and see how things go then?

Hmmmm. I wonder if the title of this story is an Elton John reference?

SONIC YOU BAD MAN YOU LEAVE ROTOR ALONE HE NEVER EVEN HURT A FLY

…a salamander, maybe, but not a fly! Never a fly!

Sally is doing more fighting on this one page than she did in her entire mini series.

Holy crap, they’re actually letting Bunnie do something in this issue?! What magical miracle is this?! I wonder if the reason she was missing for so long was because she was busy warning people not to go chasing waterfalls?

Wow, Sonic managed to throw all three of them off him with one move. That’s even more impressive when you take the weight of Bunnie’s metallic limbs into account. It’s also a stroke of luck for him that this fight took place in a room with lots of monitors he could use to deal out concussions with. :P

One thing I find a little weird is that Tails and Bunnie immediately take Sally’s side in the fight, with absolutely no context for what’s going on. They had no idea that Sonic had turned on them - all they could see was Sonic and Sally going at it while Rotor lay unconscious on the floor. I find it a bit odd that Tails, who idolises Sonic, would be so quick to grab him. Maybe it’s possible that they were just trying to separate Sonic and Sally until they figured out what was going on, and the best way to do that was to try and restrain the more powerful of the two? But then Tails said, “Say it ain’t so, Sonic,” which indicates he’d already assumed the worst of his friend.

I think what Sonic is trying to say to Tails is:

So here’s a question that I didn’t ask last issue - what’s going on with the video footage Robotnik and Snively are getting? Sometimes it’s been shown from Sonic’s point of view, which would make sense if it was coming from the transmitter they planted on him. But other times, such as on this page - Sonic was shown in third person. Has there been an invisible drone following him this entire time?

Snively, there’s a time and a place for everything. This is a time for panic, not a time for please.

Also, the Freedom Fighters’ low-level jammer seems to be very inconsistent. Sometimes the signal is blocked and sometimes it’s not. This usually changes when it’s most convenient for the plot. :P 

Look who’s back - it’s Sally's merry band of misfits from her mini series. Let’s see if they learned anything useful during those three issues.

Wouldn’t being blind but fast just make Sonic more likely to crash into a wall?

When you started reading this issue about the Freedom Fighters fighting Sonic, I bet you didn’t expect the one to take him down would be a character who previously only appeared in a three issue mini series and didn’t really do much during it.

Oh sure, now Sally is fretting about almost drowning Sonic in the collapsed tunnel.

Also, considering that Sally and Rotor previously assumed the worst of Sonic, shouldn’t he be restrained in some way? How did they know that he wouldn’t attack them all again when he regained consciousness?

Hey, what happened to Sonic’s laser blaster that was installed in his glove last issue? If you think Rotor removed it while Sonic was unconscious, think again - look back over this whole issue and you’ll see that Art Mawhinney didn’t draw it at all. But I guess that’s a fairly minor continuity error.

Sonic pops his head out of the stump, pops back in again, and Robotnik immediately takes the schmuck bait. IQ of 300, my hairy butt.

I feel like Sonic could have buzz-sawed a new tunnel faster than these guys with the pick-axes, but I’m sure he appreciated the help nonetheless.

There we go then. Status quo restored, I guess. With no hard feelings from anyone, right?

…right?

Oops, looks like there were some hard feelings after all. There’s something off here though, because when we saw Tails a few [ages ago he was perfectly fine and seemed to understand that Sonic was back on their side again - although I guess he could have just been putting his personal feelings aside to report to Sally what was going on. The biggest question here is why Tails is suddenly covered in bruises. It’s a well-known fact that Ken Penders did not collaborate well with his fellow writers so this might possibly be as a result of that, or maybe they decided to show Tails banged up just for story purposes. I suppose a darker theory is that after the situation with the tanks homing in on Knothole was resolved that Tails confronted Sonic and it turned into a physical fight, but I think that’s a bit of a stretch. Maybe he tripped and decided to take out his frustration on Sonic?

We’ve seen Tails be frustrated about being treated as a lesser member of the Freedom Fighters (at least in his own eyes) for awhile now - particular in Sonic #14 and the Triple Trouble special. That now seems to be coming to a head after Sonic kicked his butt earlier in the issue. This is in spite of the fact that Sonic didn’t single him out in particular and was in fact fighting ALL of the Freedom Fighters, but Tails clearly isn’t thinking too clearly at the moment.

Oh boy. Here we go...

As if this wasn't bad enough, the narrator is channeling their inner Elphaba:

“Hands touch, Eyes meet, Sudden silence, Sudden heat. Hearts leap in a giddy whirl, He could be that boy, I am not that girl…”

I think I got a toothache from how sickeningly sweet this is…

Oh, thank god. Yes, please spring the trap. I don’t think I can take much more of this. Tails is far too young to be calling anyone, “Darling.” Actually now that I think about it, I don’t think any character from the Sonic series would naturally call someone Darling.

…okay, maybe Amy.

Woof, this is brutal. I wasn’t a fan of the ten year-old having this ridiculous love plot, but at the same time I don’t feel like they needed to rip Tails’ heart out, throw it on the ground, stomp on it and then set it on fire.

No surprise here that Robotnik would harm a child, he’s a complete monster even when he’s being goofy. The more important question is: is that just a tiny hint of regret from Fiona in the last panel? 

As with many of Ken Penders’ issues, I have mixed feelings about this one. Getting to see Sonic take on the Freedom Fighters is pretty cool - especially getting to see Sally hold her own against him before Bunnie and Tails joined the fray. But as I mentioned before, I felt like at multiple times (in this issue AND the previous one) the Freedom Fighters understood what was going on for no other reason than the plot demanded it. Bunnie and Tails saw Sonic and Sally fighting with no context and immediately knew that Sonic was the threat somehow. Similarly, Sally and Rotor somehow knew that Sonic getting headbutted and knocked unconscious would make him good again and didn’t bother to restrain him or take any precautions in case he tried to attack them again.

And then there’s the very odd decision to have Dylan of all people be the one to stop Sonic. It feels like it comes out of nowhere, but on the other hand you may recall that back in issue 1 of the Princess Sally mini series that I pointed out he seemed to be introduced as a more cautious character who would perhaps analyse a situation from different angles before jumping into battle. So maybe that’s what Penders was going for here? It was certainly a surprise twist if nothing else.

Moving on, we next have Mike Gallagher’s story where he decides to set ten year-old Tails up with a honeypot. That’s kind of gross, honestly. I’m not saying Tails can’t have a love interest - I thought his relationship with Cosmo in Sonic X was very well done - but this particular story just doesn’t sit well with me. Tails is so consumed by his own hormones that he never even questions how Fiona got tied up in the first place, or if there might be some kind of threat he needs to be on guard for. A lot of the imagery of Tails being absolutely smitten is meant to be comedic - like the panel of Robotnik spying on him through the telescope - but it just feels wrong these 30+ years later.

SONIC & KNUCKLES #1 (PART 1)

TIMELINE: 3235 (1 YEAR AFTER SONIC #1)

Welcome back to ArchieSonic 101, everyone! We’ve got a big issue today - one that is an important turning point in the series. And that means it’s time to begin our next course module!

MODULE 3: KEN PENDERS’ ECHIDNA OBSESSION BEGINS…

Ken Penders and Knuckles the Echidna - a combination that should fill you with dread.

So it looks like I got a little ahead of myself when I said that Sonic #24 was the last issue we’d be seeing co-written by Mike Kanterovich. Ken Penders worked on the first story of this issue with Mike Kanterovich as usual, however the remaining two stories were written by Penders alone. If you’re not already afraid, you should be…

Anyway, let’s take a look at the issue.

Once again, I’m not really sure we need these splash pages. Everything it has to tell us about Knuckles and the Floating Island (not to be confused with Angel Island) is going to be exposited on the next few pages anyway.

Oh look, it’s Sally’s team of former trainees (and a couple of randos)! Apparently they’ve been shipped out to the west coast. Maybe they’re on vacation? Or maybe they were exiled for crimes of blandness.

What are they freaking out for?  Have they never seen a massive island floating in the sky before?

Considering that we’ve already seen Sally interacting with Knuckles when they were younger, right now she’s doing a very good job of pretending she has no idea what she’s looking at here. This is actually a retcon though - don’t forget that the Sonic Kids stories came out much later than this. The reveal that Sally and Knuckles already know each other is coming in a later special.

Also, Bunnie’s role in this story has been upgraded from “complete no show,” to “background extra with no dialogue.” Baby steps, I guess.

...nah, I'm still breaking it out.

You may recall that my first issue was Sonic #16. Because of that I hadn’t read that first Knuckles story when I got this special. At the time I assumed that Sonic and Tails being trapped in the dark with Knuckles in the spotlight was just for dramatic flashback effect, but nope, that’s what the original story actually looked like!

Err… where did this new plane come from? And why is it here? It looks a bit more high-tech than you’d expect Rotor to have been capable of building in the rustic woodland settings of Knothole. Is there any reason Sonic and Tails couldn’t have just flown out here in the pre-Tornado again?

Sonic to Knuckles: “Oh, you’ve redecorated. I don’t like it.”

There’s some slight shades of Fleetway’s Sonic the Comic here, with Sonic being just a little bit of a jerk to Tails. Let’s keep in mind that Sonic was a bit more of an in-your-face character back in the ‘90s. He’s mellowed a bit in his old age.

It took them 10 pages to get some Sonic & Knuckles into this Sonic & Knuckles adaptation. Even then, the mushrooms are the wrong colour. And for some reason, Sonic knows exactly what species of mushrooms they are.

…well that was random. I dig it, but it certainly came out of nowhere.

Now we’re talking, this feels more like the game!

Yeah, this boss fight is over about as quickly as it is in the game too.

I really like the shading done on Knuckles’ silhouette in that last panel. It definitely gives him a menacing aura.

Oh shoot, they changed artists partway through the story again. This means that Art Mawhinney doesn’t actually get to fully draw Knuckles at all in this issue (except for the flashback panels), as we’ve now switched out to Dave Manak for the rest of the story. Oh well. Next time, Art. ...wait, the next special is Triple Trouble. Um, maybe the time after that?

Did Sonic & Knuckles use a level select code to get from Mushroom Hill to Lava Reef so quickly? That would be an awfully helpful shortcut in the game.

Aww, look! Sonic learned a lesson in humility! …I bet it won’t stick.

Angel Island does canonically have a flight path that it follows across the planet, so that means the stars would be in different positions from Knuckles’ point of view on a regular basis anyway. But who knows, maybe he has the entire star map memorised for every step of the island’s migration path? Or for a simpler solution, he could have been looking at the stars the previous night and noticed the change is more different than a regular day of travel would cause.

Look, I’m not saying that Knuckles isn’t dumb enough to get shocked like this. What I am saying is that the conversation probably would have gone more like this: Knuckles: Energy syphons? Drawing power from the emerald?! Sonic: You should try punching them. No, first you should rub your face up against them, then punch them! Knuckles: Good idea! (ZZORRCH!)

It seems very unlikely that Knuckles wouldn’t have noticed this at any point. It must have taken at least a day or two to divert Angel Island from its regular flight path towards Knothole, at a minimum. Even if Knuckles couldn’t see Robotnik’s approach because he came via the underside of the island, you’d think he’d have noticed seismic activity with Robotnik drilling through the bedrock. At the very least, can you honestly tell me that Knuckles never checked on the Chaos Emerald chamber at any point during this hostile takeover? You’d think it would be a regular stop on his patrol of the island.

How is it that Robotnik suddenly knows where Knothole is? The point of the Freedom Fighters having a hidden base is that Robotnik doesn’t know where it is. If he’d said he was going to burn down the entire Great Forest that would be different, but no, he specified Knothole.

Whoa, this is hardcore. And it predates Sonic Adventure 2 by about 6 years!

Robotnik might be laughing now at all the ammunition and flamethrower fuel he’ll save, but those weapons are going to be destroyed in the crash anyway, so the joke is really on him!

So once again we have to keep in mind here that Chaos Emeralds are rare but can be found in this universe. There’s a lot more than just seven lying around, at any rate.

This one I’m a little more confused over. Where in the hicketty-heck did Knuckles get a fake Chaos Emerald? It’s not like Tails would have made one for him. I honestly would have found it easier to believe that Knuckles had a spare real Chaos Emerald than a fake one.

Oh look, Knuckles is saying goodbye by putting on a laser light show of himself, as drawn by Patrick Spaziante! Also, purple-muzzled Rotor scares me. And what is this random clifftop they're meeting on? Do they have a lot of cliffs in the Great Forest?

TAILS MINI SERIES #2

TIMELINE: 3235 (1 YEAR AFTER SONIC #1)

Welcome back to ArchieSonic 101, where today we’ll be throwing a shrimp on the barbie!

…I hate that stereotype. We don't even call them shrimps! Let us never speak of this again. :P

Anyway! Last time we gathered, we saw Tails take on an important mission all by himself! Results were…

…mixed. But will he fare any better today?

From this cover  - another fantastic piece by Patrick Spaziante - it’s safe to assume that Tails will make it to Downunda in this issue and also meet some new characters! But let’s open up today’s textbook and see for ourselves.

This splash page is pretty, but it's more representative of the content from the previous issue than this one. It also shows something that didn’t actually happen - Tails hasn’t even met most of these characters aside from Ray. And it’s not like Tails stopped for a snorkelling break on the way to Downunda - as we’re about to see, Ray is the only one accompanying him and Fluke. Even if the others had come along, they wouldn’t have brought Octobot’s mangled corpse with them. And then we have this ridiculous use of a snorkel. The entire point of using a snorkel is to have a breathing tube that is sticking out of the water, so that you’re still getting air while your face is submerged. Using a snorkel like this while completely underwater defeats the purpose of using a snorkel in the first place! I see this kind of thing in media from time to time, and maybe it’s easier for the artists to draw a snorkel than full scuba gear, but it still drives me nuts. :P 

We open once again with Tails’ self-drawn comic, drawn by writer Mike Gallagher. Tails might be having a slight case of ego here. Just a little.

Well, at least Tails is acknowledging that his comic is full of lies. I’m not sure I can get on board with Ray hand-waving (fin-waving?) the historical inaccuracies of Disney’s Pocahontas, but that’s a whole other web to untangle.

I’m trying to decide what song would make the best soundtrack for this page. “Great Southern Land” by Icehouse? “Sounds of Then (This is Australia)” by Ganggajang? We can’t just use “Down Under” by Men at Work all the time, you know. Gotta have a little bit of variety.

I do love a good Gilligan cut. I believe this will be Tails’ second time falling victim to such a gag, after his failed stealth mission in Sonic #25.

Am I the only one curious as to how Crocbot got to the point where he decided he wanted to overthrow Robotnik? Presumably Robotnik programmed him to be loyal, so what do you think went wrong? Could this possibly be some early sabotage courtesy of Snively? Or am I thinking too hard about this? …I’m usually thinking too hard about this.

Seriously, he really needs to shorten that superhero name.

Having Crocbot’s goons be winged dingoes was an interesting choice. I’m guessing that Mike Gallagher wanted to go for a similar vibe to the Wicked Witch of the West’s flying monkeys, just… you know, Australian. I do wonder if this was also meant to reference that whole “a dingo took my baby,” thing, what with Tails being the baby of the Freedom Fighters. :P 

Oh crap, the dingoes really are going to eat the baby. D:

And here is our second new group of Freedom Fighters for this mini series! This may be personal bias as an Australian, but I like these guys a lot more than the Forty Fathoms Freedom Fighters. I just think they’re a lot more interesting.

If you’ll indulge my local knowledge here, I feel like there are some odd choices with the cast of this new team. Wombat Stu (which is an excellent pun on a famous Australian children’s book) works well enough as the younger, less experienced member of the team, as wombats are usually docile but can turn aggressive if they feel threatened. They’re better known for their defensive tactics though, as their buns of steel are nigh-impervious to predators. “Bill” Platypus feels believable enough too, especially as there’s a much more famous ass-kicking platypus in popular culture nowadays.

A lot of people see footage of platypuses swimming peacefully and think they must be docile, unaware of their poisonous spurs. So sure, let’s have a platypus warrior!

But it’s the other three members of the team that have me scratching my head. An emu is an extremely bizarre choice for a pacifist, as they are definitely not peaceful birds. In fact, to this day they remain the only bird that the people of Australia have lost a war to.

…no, really. Go read up on the Great Emu War, it’s bizarre. I'll be here when you get back.

Equally confusing is the choice of a koala of all animals to be a total badass, considering they spend approximately 18 hours a day sleeping and the other six eating and… well, that’s about it. Their lifestyle is very similar to that of a sloth - mostly just hanging around and chilling. Honestly, it would have made more sense for the emu to be the fighter and the koala to be the hippie, but maybe that’s an intentional joke on the part of the writer?

As for Walt Wallaby, I’m a little confused why the male wallaby has a pouch. …unless …could Walt be the first stealth transgender Sonic character? If so, mad respect. But I’d say the more likely explanation is that this was a case of the writer either not being aware that only female wallabies and kangaroos have pouches, or being aware but deciding that it didn’t matter for the purposes of a fictional story about a two-tailed fox. Either way, I have chosen to imagine Walt’s voice is the same as Jeice from Dragonball Z Abridged. I wonder if his hometown is Space Mobius Brisbane?

See, this is exactly why wombats hide in their burrows with their impervious butts facing outwards - so that they don’t get dragged away by robotic winged dingoes.

It’s also very funny to me that Guru’s stoner brain isn’t phased by Tails’ two tails, but instead he’s surprised that Tails spoke. “Whoa, dudes! How much of the mary jane have I smoked today?!”

I don’t know why, but I find the imagery of the winged dingo slamming partially through the wall very amusing. :) 

Quick, Wombat Stu! Swivel around and slam into Crocbot with your impervious butt!

I do wonder how much the locals in Downunda know about Robotnik. Do they even know he’s taken over most of the planet, or are they only aware of his local enforcer, Crocbot?

Crocbot’s base is the Sydney Opera House, because of course it is. It would be more fitting for an evil ruler to operate out of Canberra’s Parliament House, but I do understand that only a very small percentage of the readerbase of this comic would recognise that building if they saw it here.

It makes sense that Guru Emu is a fan of Led Zeppelin, but this feels like a very unnatural way of communicating that. But if Guru is as high as I think he is, he probably thinks he’s making total sense.

Yeah, I’m still hearing Walt’s voice as Jeice in my head. Now I want to see a gif of Walt Wallaby repeatedly being punched in the nose by Goku. :P 

Man, the acoustics in that Opera House must be fantastic. I’ve never actually seen a performance there myself, sadly.

Err… how exactly did Walt get Tails down to the bottom of that enormous crater? Did he lower him on a fishing pole or something?

Can someone PLEASE give Tails a sensu bean before his friends blast off to Namek without him?

...I've been watching a lot of Dragonball Z lately.

Oh look, those ancient weirdos from the Triple Trouble special are back. And it seems that there’s a new ancient weirdo joining them this time…

H’okay, so. One of the most well-known things about Ken Penders is that he created like a zillion superfluous echidna characters. But what a lot of people don’t realise is that the first OG echidna to be introduced in this series was not created by Ken Penders at all, but actually by Mike Gallagher! On top of being the first echidna OC out the gate, Athair would go on to also be one of the most prominent echidna characters. He would appear in many Knuckles stories (despite Ken Penders’ claims of not using other writers’ characters) and showed particular interest in Tails, for reasons we’ll better understand next issue. Most bizarrely of all, Athair broke loose of the shackles of ArchieSonic to appear in other Sonic media! He made an extremely unlikely appearance in the Sonic Underground cartoon, made even stranger by his Sean Connery-like accent!

Weird, right?

Looking at the issue as a whole, Tails #2 has a similar problem to the Princess Sally mini series: the title character is incapacitated for a large chunk of the issue. Fortunately this gives the writer a chance to avoid the other big misstep the Sally mini made, by spending more time showcasing the new characters. Crocbot is fine, I guess - he's essentially the Starscream to Robotnik's Megatron. But I think the Downunda Freedom Fighters are fun! They all show off that they’re capable fighters - well, except for Guru Emu, but he’s got a fun personality, so he’s still entertaining. I feel like Guru and Walt got the most fleshing out - my being able to hear Walt’s Australian accent so clearly in my head is definitely a sign of that. Overall I liked the issue, I just wish Tails had gotten to do more in it.

TAILS MINI SERIES #1

TIMELINE: 3235 (1 YEAR AFTER SONIC #1)

Welcome back to ArchieSonic 101, my friends! Last time we gathered, Tails suffered a broken heart and very nearly a broken-everything else too. But he also found an opportunity for growth when he stumbled onto Robotnik’s latest scheme for world domination, and decided to take on this particular mission by himself rather than alert the other Freedom Fighters. Which leads us into his very own mini series!

This is a pretty exciting cover with a lot going on. We’ve got Tails riding a freaking whale, the promised return of Octobot, and some sort of ominous crocodile robot looming in the background. What do you say we open up this comic and have a look?

Tails, what are you doing?! That’s how Steve Irwin got killed!

So this intro page is really fun, portraying Tails as a Clark Kent-type character. I particularly like the transformation panel, with his tails going absolutely out of control! While the majority of this mini series was drawn by Dave Manak, this page was actually drawn by the writer of this mini series, Mike Gallagher. I really like this! It gives the page a very different kind of energy and highlights that this comic strip wasn’t drawn professionally. And this is WAY more entertaining than the giant pages of text Ken Penders put at the front of each issue of the Princess Sally mini series.

Considering that there’s probably a number of readers who picked up this book without having read the main Sonic comic, it makes sense to put in a recap page here. Thankfully, I’m pretty sure this will be the last time in the mini series that Tails dwells on Fiona’s betrayal. Hopefully he’ll be able to move on from that trauma.

…why are you laughing? :P 

BUSTED!

I do like that title though. It feels right, considering where Tails is heading - the Southern Cross is a star constellation only visible in the Southern Hemisphere, and is even displayed proudly on the Australian national flag. New Zealand’s flag too for that matter, but unless the writers decide to send Tails on a trip to Kiwiland or something, that’s probably not going to come up.

So yeah, Sally is treating Tails like a little kid here. But Tails isn’t really helping his case either by acting like this, rather than asking her to sit down and have a rational conversation about it. And let’s not forget - up until this point, Tails hasn’t really done much as a Freedom Fighter. I pointed this out back in the Triple Trouble review, but Tails’ only real wins so far have been from the In Your Face special, and now his victory over Octobot in Triple Trouble. Oh, and I guess you can also give him credit for (briefly) being the last man standing when the amnesiac Sonic attacked the Freedom Fighters in Sonic #28.

How has Tails not run out of fuel yet? I guess we don’t know how far out he went when he came across fake Fiona’s fake island - it might have been reasonably close to where the Sea Fox was docked. But how is he supposed to get all the way to Downunda with only the fuel he salvaged from a single seagull? In the real world, a flight from the US to Australia usually takes over 14 hours, and that’s a best case scenario depending on what city you’re flying out of and into. There’s no way he should have enough fuel to cover a trip that long. 

Ooooooh. That’s an impressive blimp. Very big and stuff.

Do you think Robotnik got the fuel for his blimp off of seagulls like Tails did?

Okay, so Tails may not have been planning to go all the way to the transport's final destination then, but intercept it along the way instead? That does make more sense. Also, Captain Etc. is a pretty long superhero name. If Tails were to announce himself while confronting a supervillain, the villain could have slaughtered a half dozen people before Tails finished getting the full name out.

That’s a pretty cool move from Tails! He's also clearly been taking bragging lessons from Sonic, because this is exactly the kind of thing Sonic would say when showing off his latest new attack.

Oh dear. Tails must have rolled a critical 1 on his spot check.

Well, that’s a grim ending. Do the next two issues centre around Tails’ ghost swearing revenge?

This feels like an empty threat for the Swatbot pilot. Wouldn’t an ejector seat fire the Swatbot up into the balloon and blow the entire thing up? Or is it a trapdoor-eject that would have the Swatbot fall into the ocean? Either way, I wonder if there even were any other Swatbot pilots aboard this thing that could have taken over?

Allow me to introduce you to the villain of this mini series, Crockpot - er, Crocbot! In the pantheon of ArchieSonic villains, Crocbot comes down somewhere in the middle, I guess. I don’t hate him or anything, he just doesn’t leave as big an impact as some of the other villains.

I think putting Akubras on the Swatbots would increase their coolness factor by about 73%. Also, curse your sudden yet inevitable betrayal, yadda yadda yadda.

Ray is really the best name they could come up with for this character, huh? Ninja Turtles didn't do much better with their manta character, I guess.

See, the jellyfish’s name is much more clever. Because he’s a P.B & J. Do you get it?

...do you get it?

…well I think it’s pretty good, anyway.

Sooo… did Bivalve actually contribute anything of value in this battle? Or was he (She? They? What are this clam’s pronouns?!) just there to cheer the others on?

RIP, Sea Fox. Maybe Tails should build his next one out of a robot dog. IYKYK.

…okay, that is pretty danged impressive. They definitely needed the full two pages for this reveal.

I dunno about this. Sure, Fluke can take him to Downunda, that’s not a problem. But how is Tails supposed to get back afterwards? But on the other hand, how wouldTails get home right now if he decided NOT to go to Downunda? I guess at this point his options are a little limited.

This was a promising start to the Tails mini series, but I feel like it might have been better to introduce Crocbot a little earlier in the story. Robotnik was a lot of fun in this issue, but I feel like his antics took up page time that could have been spent on building up and establishing the new villain of the story. I’m also not really a fan of the Forty Fathoms Freedom Fighters. You’d think a group of undersea freedom fighters would be pretty cool, but these guys really don’t interest me that much. They couldn’t even take down a single robot by themselves (one that Tails had absolutely no trouble defeating the last time he showed up, might I add)  and had to rely on Fluke to finish the job. The underwater Mobians will be done a lot better in the post-reboot era of the comic, if you ask me.

I liked what was done with Tails in this issue though. He got plenty of action but had to work to win his battle with the Swatbots. While he left Knothole in a huff and wanted to prove he could do everything by himself, he quickly started to realise that he might be in over his head. If Octobot hadn’t ambushed him and he’d had some time to reflect, maybe Tails would have realised that he needed some help after all and tried to contact Sonic and Sally. But with how the circumstances have turned out, Tails is now locked into seeing this mission through by himself.