2016 is Sonic the Hedgehog’s 25th
Anniversary and I’ve been around since (almost) the start, in celebration of
Sonic lasting so long I’m going to be posting a Long Look At Sonic the Comic
issues 1 to 100, my favourite time period on one of my favourite comics and one
of my favourite things about one of my favourite things – that’d be the Sonic
the Hedgehog franchise- and this is that Long Look At.
It’s here, it’s finally
here, after three entries and having to talk about Mark Millar’s crap one-off
stories and boring you with things you need to know but don’t really care about
the first Sonic the Comic epic has arrived to reward me and save you from
tedium. The Sonic Terminator arc (or Sonic
CD arc if you prefer) runs from issues 21 through 28 encompassing three Sonic
strip stories ‘Girl Trouble’ (21-22) ‘Pirates of the Mystic Caves’ (23) and
‘The Sonic Terminator’ (24-28), it further builds on what Kitching’s been doing
and introduces elements and characters that will be built on or used for years
to come, some right up until the end of the book and still manages to be a
pretty decent adaptation of Sonic the Hedgehog CD.
Girl Trouble (Sonic the Hedgehog strips, issues 21-22)
Quick Summary: Amy has been going around saying she’s
Sonic’s girlfriend, so Eggman sends Troopers to arrest her, it’s a dictatorship
and Sonic’s a wanted man, what did she (or you) expect? Unable to stop her
being taken, Sonic and Johnny Lightfoot go to Eggman’s Special Zone base to
rescue her, but with Robotnik going through a metamorphosis dealing with them
comes down to his chief scientist Grimer. Captured in a bubble-like prison
because Sonic blundered in in another example of his ‘fuck it, it’ll be fine
cos I’m awesome’ outlook on, well, everything. All three are set to become a
new type of Super Badnik until Sonic uses his head and the bubble prison to
escape, destroying the Suepr Badnik prototype as he goes, with Grimer having
smashed the Toopers that could prevent such a thing out of sheer frustration.
Amy is forced to stay with the Freedom Fighters for her own protection, Sonic
isn’t happy.
Girl Trouble is fantastic, it’s
exactly the right mix of action and humour (see: what Ian Flynn’s been doing on
the Archie comic for years) for Sonic and that humour is genuinely humorous.
Kitching has really perfected Sonic’s character and his interaction with his
allies so the dialogue’s sharp as, well, the spines on a 4 foot blue hedgehog.
It’s also cleverly written – and clever writing makes the hero and villain look
clever and that is no bad thing, Weapon X (not that one) is a smart device from
Eggman – it shoots spikes around its target, endangering civilians instead,
perfect to distract a super-fast target that can dodge a blast, but will still
take some time to catch all the spikes (that’s how they get away with Amy btw).
More important characters arrive as well, Amy Rose obviously (though she still
has a lot of character development before she’s the ‘StC Amy’) and Grimer; fun
fact – Grimer was supposed to be Snively from SatAM, Kitching was under the
impression that he HAD to use Snively and in fact the script for Girl Trouble
Part 1 has all of Grimer’s lines attributed to Snively. It turned out he didn’t
have to and in fact couldn’t use Snivelkins because Fleetway didn’t have the
rights to those characters (I’m not sure how that works, but it does explain
why none of the SatAM cast showed up in StC)1 so Grimer was
substituted, and honestly? I like them both about the same, Grimer is
completely different of course, being loyal and more subtle with his humour,
wry and sarcastic compared Snively’s deviousness, tantrums and slapstick but
both fulfil their role well and they could both easily co-exist in the same
universe and not make the other feel redundant.
‘Pirates of the Mystic Caves’ (issue 22) follows. Amy has been captured because
Captain Plunder, leader of the titular buccaneers, wants the Chaos Emeralds –
why? Is he in cahoots with Robotnik? Does he want unlimited energy or Chaos
magic? Nope, it’s cos he’s a pirate and he likes gems and you don’t get much
rarer gems than Chaos Emeralds (in the StC cannon there’s only two sets, and
they eventually join into just one set). I love Captain Plunder, he’ll get even
better as the series goes on and he becomes a bit of what I shall a call a
‘fearsome stooge’. In a nice play on reader’s expectations Amy proves her worth
by negotiating with Plunder and Tails gets out of being held captive all by
himself. Although it doesn’t fit with the Sonic CD game’s backstory, I fully
endorse the idea of having Amy around for a couple of stories prior to her being
kidnapped by Metal Sonic, it gives the situation from that game a bit more
weight if it’s an already established character being kidnapped. And now the pay off…
The Sonic Terminator (Sonic the Hedgehog strips, issues 24-28)
Quick(ish) Summary: Something fast and deadly gets the drop on
Sonic, but it’s only a demonstration session for some new deadly creation of
Grimer and Eggman. Over the Emerald Hill Zone the Pirates of the Mystic Cave
make good on the deal they made with Sonic last issue and stop Robotnik Ship,
but Filch (Captain Plunder’s second-in-command, a ghost who Plunder shot
himself) tricks Porker Lewis into revealing the location of the Chaos Emeralds.
At said location, The Frozen Zone2, Plunder and the Freedom Fighters
rumble but Tails gets himself caught and is exchanged for the Chaos Emeralds.
Not wanting to let them get away with ‘em, Sonic caches up with their ship only
to find the Chaos Emeralds have absorbed all their ‘evil’ and turned them into
hippies (the fuck?), meanwhile Metal Sonic descends on the Emerald Hill Zone –
for absolutely no discernible reason.
Cut to…. some…time…later…? Fuck it, Cut to part 3 and
Amy’s been taken hostage at Never Lake, with no Star Posts there Sonic speeds
off and the other Freedom Fighters will have to catch up (it takes them a
chapter, thus removing them and allowing a better Sonic CD adaptation). An
awesome fight scene with Metallix, the Metal Sonic, is waiting for him,
Metallix working out probabilities and matching Sonic’s speed, even when Sonic
seems to defeat him but the robot is just playing possum and takes Amy to the
Miracle Planet. The Freedom Fighters arrive just in time to see the Miracle
Planet fade, on said planet Metalllix ambushes the two, but Sonic runs
around the planet and hits him with the force he built up doing so. It’s
useless though, Metallix is one with the Miracel Planet, now robotosized, and
it’s powering him, a temporary save however comes a tiny future version of
Sonic, who shrinks down the present day Sonic and gives him a Time Stone
unfournately Metallix has repowered for the cliffhanger. Present Day Sonic runs
to the past, leaving future Sonic to deal with Metallix, there he finds a
seemingly living machine powered by… a Time Stone, he takes it and blows the
machine, running to the future to save himself and creating a stable time loop,
dodging Metallix’s blast until history catches up and he ceases to exist. There
is a downside though, Sonic and Amy are stuck on the Miracle Planet together,
alone, for a whole month!
Damn the second half of
this story is great, it’s so great that it actually causes the story to have
its only major problem – the first two parts just don’t need to exist, what
does a two-part Captain Plunder story have to do with the Sonic Terminator? Why not just make Pirates of the Mystic Caves
a three parter and The Sonic Terminator a three parter? Why sully the Sonic
Terminator with a joke about hippies? Also while we’re asking questions – why
did Metallix attack the Emerald Hill Zone in part two? Other than ‘because it
would make a cool cliff-hanger’? That’s the answer isn’t it? – Dicks.
But back to the good, I
don’t think Metal Sonic has ever been more menacing (Sonic Universe #50 is a
good contender though), he also takes enough bumps to stop him reaching
Villain-Sue levels, he seems unbeatable, he says he’s unbeatable but we know he
can be at least temporarily decked, very important that is. This story
incidentally made me a Metal Sonic fan for life, literally, other than Sonic
himself (obviously) I have more Metal Sonic merch than any other character,
more than Tails, Knuckles, Big the Cat, everyone. Oh Richard Elson’s art is
also brilliant, do I have to say that every time? I might do, just to drive the
point home and over-hype him, I do wish he’d drawn the Time Stone as a gem and
not a literal rock (lol) and drawn the Robotosizer on model to Sonic CD, but
this was 1994 and you couldn’t just pop online and find the sprites for such
things on the nearest Wiki, so I’ll forgive him.
Ooh, while we’re here we’ll
just have a look at issue 29’s Sonic strip, it’s the last of Kitching’s little
run and will turn out to be quite important post-issue 100, though no one knew
it at the time (including Kitching):
The Sentinel
(Sonic strip, issue 29)
Quick Summary: one of the periodic earthquakes in the
Aquatic Ruin Zone brings The Sentinel to the surface, Kintobor Computer picks
up on it and with everyone else busy, Sonic goes alone. He takes out some Wisps
but gets caught under some rubble underwater, only for the Sentinel to save
him. The Sentinel explains that he was built by ‘the Ancient Ones’ to guard the
city, but seeing that it’s now ruine, he commit suicide, no, really.
Those ancient ones are
gonna end up being something big. This story fascinated my ass when I was 7, I
wanted to know more, thankfully years later, while looking for inspiration
Kitching would give me my wish. Anyway the art for this is by Ferran Rodriguez
who really wasn’t used enough on the series, he draws everything virtually
perfectly on model to the games, and I like that, it’s something you so rarely
see in Sonic media today, but it was especially rare in the early 90’s. the
Sentinel by the way, is the large statue you can see in the background of the
Aquatic Ruin Zone in Sonic 2, which if you pay attention you will notice
changes to face you in the second Act, implying you’re now on the other side of
the Zone. Giving a backstory, and a tragic one at that, to that background
element I thought was genius, and as far as I can tell it did just come from
Kitching seeing the statue and wondering ‘who IS that of?’. Also a character
commits suicide, yeah it’s just a stone robot that collapses but it still
commits suicide, in a kids book – this was July 1994, what was Archie doing in
July 1994? Caveman Sonic and Eggman in Lederhosen. Although they did introduce
Larry Lynx – Superjinx in that issue, so that balances it out a little.
Next up! Tails
is back in the Nameless Zone and Lew Stringer writes the same story twice as he
becomes head writer on the Sonic strips for a while, presumably so Kitching can
charge up in his Awesome Generator Unit for the upcoming Sonic 3 adaptation.
1
this fact makes me very sad for what could have been, as great as Johnny and
Porker are it would have been great to have seen Kitching and Elson, or
Kitching and Dobbin, tackle my the SatAM Freedom Fighters, especially the
undisputed queen of my Sonic fan heart – Bunnie Rabbot. I’d’ve liked to have
seen a bit of a flirty thing going on with her and Johnny, maybe that would
have livened him up a bit and then things would have ended better for him.
2
Part 2 explains that South Island (the location for the first Sonic the
Hedgehog game on both the Mega Drive and Master System) is home to ‘The Hill
Zones’ (Green Hill, Emerald Hill, Hill Top etc) and the Frozen Zone, amongst
others, meaning that the Green Hill and Emerald Hill share a location (possibly
to remove earlier mix-ups between the two zones), which is… unique, and that
Westside Island doesn’t exist in this cannon.
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