#sth 13

This Island Hedgehog

Writers: Mike Kanterovich and Ken Penders Pencils: Dave Manak Colors: Barry Grossman

Oh goodie everyone! Are we ready? Guess who's about to make his very first appearance!

So first off, we see that despite his not-yet-genius status, Tails is still able to fly a plane competently. He and Sonic are out and about flying when they encounter a mysterious floating island in the sky. Hmm… wonder what that could be all about? Anyway, a missile comes out of nowhere to shoot them down onto the island, and they find themselves attacked by machines from all angles until they dive underwater and proceed to black out from lack of air. Great job, guys!

Sonic and Tails awaken later to find themselves tied up in a dark room, and who steps out of the shadows but:

That's right! It's everyone's favorite last-of-his-kind echidna, Knuckles! And he, uh, talks like an idiot! Seriously, who let Kenders write dialogue?

It's a fairly similar plot to that of Sonic 3 & Knuckles, except with one very important detail changed. You see… Robotnik isn't after the Master Emerald. Why? Well, that's because the Master Emerald doesn't freaking exist! That's right, the island is held aloft only by one single Chaos Emerald, and the Master Emerald is nowhere to be found. Remember how in this universe there's an infinite amount of green Chaos Emeralds? Well, this is where that kind of becomes relevant. Obviously this kind of flies directly in the face of how the emeralds work in both the games and anime, so we're gonna be seeing a lot of really awkward scrambling much later on to make this all make sense.

Once Sonic and Knuckles have teamed up to fight off Robotnik, Sonic and Tails leave Angel Island peacefully, and Knuckles gets his chance to spout off more incredibly tortured dialogue. Wonder when we'll be seeing him again?

Space in Yo' Face!

Writer: Angelo DeCesare Pencils: Art Mawhinney Colors: Barry Grossman

So this story is interesting, as it's actually kind of the precursor to a plotline that appeared in some of the final issues of the comic - the idea of mass roboticization from space.

Of course, Sonic and gang aren't too thrilled with this idea, so they take over Robotnik's space pod thingy to prevent him from firing off the beam, and fly it into space. From there, Tails looks out the window and HWOHAOWHWHOAWO WAIT WHAT?!

First of all that's not how space works and second of all Mobius has ONE HUNDRED MOONS? How come we never see this from the planet's surface? Where did they come from? How do they all stay in a stable orbit? What is going on here?!

Whoof. Well anyway, aside from that absolutely insane revelation about their planet, both ships eventually crash-land on "Muckury," one of the moons that's covered in muck. A rather pathetic chase through the dangerously thin atmosphere takes place, and it ends when Sonic distracts Robotnik by carving a statue of him out of the muck, only to drop it on his head when he's distracted by his own immense beauty.