#sth 30

The Return of Uncle Chuck

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

We've spent an entire era with Uncle Chuck being an occasionally-referenced background character at most, but now the comic is finally ready to bring him into play for real. Turns out, Sonic's actually quite self-aware of just how long he's taken to make good on his promise to rescue his uncle, blaming himself for procrastinating and chickening out.

However, turns out something very interesting is happening back over at Robotropolis as he and Sally speak. Robotnik has been repairing the "transdimensional transporter," the same device he used to exile Sally's father into the Zone of Silence at the beginning of the war. He plans to test it out on Uncle Chuck, but due to a mishap, he ends up being sent into the void himself. When he demands Snively bring him back, Snively triumphantly declares his independence, and his intentions to do better than Robotnik and bring the Freedom Fighters' rebellion down on his own, leaving Robotnik trapped in the void. Wonder how long that arrangement will last?

Both of them are so caught up in their own issues that neither of them notice Uncle Chuck on the ground after the mishap, disoriented and confused… and calling Sonic's name!

When Sonic visits the ruins of his uncle's old chili dog stand inside Robotropolis for a little nostalgia and reflection, he's shocked to be offered a chili dog by his uncle himself. Turns out, exposure to the strange, exotic environment of the void during the test let him regain his free will despite still being a robot, and now he's ready to be a perfect spy for the resistance, pretending to still be a slave. Their first order of business is to stop Snively from doing whatever he's doing, because despite his confidence, he's so alarmingly incompetent that even one of his evil plans would be capable of destroying the entire planet. And Antoine's allergic to total planetary destruction, so they have to do something.

Back in Robotropolis, Robotnik, watching and heckling from a monitor, is pissed that Snively has taken to wearing a miniature version of his own exceedingly ugly outfit. Sonic rushes in armed with knowledge from Uncle Chuck's spying, only to be zapped from behind into the void as well. From there, he's helpless to watch as Snively demonstrates his plans on a hapless forest, intending to take a rather horrific scorched earth approach into forcing the Freedom Fighters to surrender. Seriously, who knows how many innocent people were down there in that forest when he pulled the trigger?

Luckily, Uncle Chuck isn't content to be sitting pretty, and fires on Snively's ship from behind in a ship of his own, disabling the thrusters with the help of Sonic, who distracts Snively by eating chili dogs extremely loudly. As a last resort, Snively tries to blow up the plane, intending to send everyone into the void while leaving himself a return ticket, only for Robotnik to drop out of nowhere directly onto his head. Turns out Uncle Chuck freed him from the void knowing he would be intimidating enough to stop Snively, and was therefore currently the lesser of two evils. Sonic is pulled out by Chuck as well, and they return to Knothole while Robotnik beats the stuffing out of Snively for his insubordinations. Another day saved, and Uncle Chuck is finally safe and sound with them once again.

Who Keeps Stealing My Chaos Emeralds?!

Writer: Paul Castiglia Pencils: Pat Spaziante Colors: Barry Grossman

This entire story is rather stupid, honestly. It makes for a poor first impression for Paul, with it being (as far as I'm aware) his first time in the writer's seat and all. Robotnik is pissed that someone is stealing his emeralds, because apparently he just has an entire stash of them somewhere tucked away that we didn't know about? He's seen the perpetrator on his security cameras, but only in silhouette, and thus tasks Coconuts with finding out whodunit.

Coconuts, unfortunately, has been taking lessons from a "certain coyote" - not Antoine, coyote though he may be, but implied to be referring to Wile E Coyote from Looney Tunes, judging by the goofy nature of all his death traps. Predictably, each one backfires and injures Coconuts more and more each time, with the thief continuing to get away. Eventually Coconuts is too messed up to continue, and so he gets sent back to Robotnik in pieces, having not even managed to catch a glimpse of the thief, who turns out to be…

…Bunnie, of all people. Apparently she's just been stealing the emeralds to make literal jewelry out of them for a dance. Bunnie, seriously, what the heck? You do realize how powerful those things are, right? I mean at the very least you better be dismantling those rings and necklaces afterward to use in some Robotnik-defeating technology or something.

This issue ends with a single-page sneak peak of the upcoming Knuckles Chaotix special issue, which isn't even long enough to warrant a spot as a real "story" in this issue, so I'll just show the full thing. It depicts Robotnik staring at a bunch of monitors and basically naming off all the individuals shown on them, rambling about some kind of plan he has all set up. Guess we'll find out what that is soon enough, huh?