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.
< Part 7
The Disaster is upon us. I
am so excited to be re-reading this story. The Sonic strips covered here make
up the Sonic & Knuckles adaptation (with one filler) and I’m trying not to
hype the story too much in case anyone is reading these posts and wants to read
the story so let’s just get on with it.
Day of the Death Egg (Sonic strip, issue 45)
Quick Summary: The Death Egg is launched. In the
Emerald Hill Zone Tails and Sonic are fighting badniks, Sonic encounters a new
badnik: Rhinobot but defeats him easily wishing for a more challenging threat
from Robotnik, then the sky goes dark, the Death Egg has blocked out the sun. Its
lasers wreck a portion of the Emerald Hill Zone in one blast and Eggman calls
for them to bring him Sonic, who was already on his way anyway. Tails rushes
headlong at the Death Egg – and is disintegrated. Calling Eggman a murderer
Sonic goes to attack the ship, but the rotund dictator sets the lasers on a
wide setting and destroys the entire zone, Sonic with it; with see his gloves
and trademark shoes being burnt off him as he’s caught in the black. Cut to the
Launch Base Zone, it was, thankfully, only a simulation of Grimer’s, the Death
Egg has received its missing main thruster and in a few weeks the Death Egg
will launch for real.
This was a fucking
Valentine’s Day issue! The cover has a smiling Sonic head with hearts all over
the background! But inside is one of if not the
most disturbing fake-outs I’ve read, and I’ve read literally thousands of
comics. This book is for the under tens, and Kitching kills both main
characters on-panel, there is no indication that this is a simulation (well
there might be, the dialogue is a little stilted and some random Badniks appear
instead of Emerald Hill Zone Badniks, but that’s pretty subtle, especially for
6 year olds) until you’ve read the gruesome deaths of Sonic and Tails. I want
to know how many kids read this and were terrified, I was, but I was a gullible
little child with no genre savvy at all, I want to know how many intelligent
children read this and shat their pants. This story is virtually perfect, made
even more so by emotionally scarring 90s children.
Issue 46’s Sonic strip is The Big Con, it’s by Lew
Stringer, seems to be an inventory story (as Eggman is still based in the
Special Zone) and makes little sense, it is however drawn by Rob Corona, who
turns in some brilliantly atmospheric art, I believe that this is a terrible
thing happening in a rainy factory zone, well done Rob. Basically hordes of
Mobians are being forced to go a ‘convention’ in honour of Dr Robotnik and he’s
even dressing up for it, but there is no convention, there isn’t even a fake
convention, the ‘convention centre’ is just filled with arms that put you in
Badniks, Sonic shows up (still as Bob Beaky, not Bob Beaky: Ringmaster, more
clues this is an inventory story), loses his patience in line, drops a statue
on the convention centre, Eggman hates that hedgehog. Again I repeat my
question from Doctor Sun – WHY? Why the convention ruse? Why if it’s a ruse is
Eggman dressing up for it when he knows there’s no convention, just rain and a
huge factory? The amount of troopers used to control the line would be enough
to round up this amount of people and just heard them into a badnik processing
factory, Eggman can do that, he runs the fucking planet – in fact you could
just rewrite the dialogue, remove all references to the convention ruse and the
story would make sense. I have a feeling Stringer was bored at a convention one
day. Back to the good shit:
Mystery of the Sandopolis Zone (Sonic strips, issues 47-48)
Quick Summary: Sonic arrives on the Floating Island;
specifically the Sandopolis Zone (Sonic & Knuckles), as it allows a good
view of the Death Egg he’s intending to take out. While getting attacked by a
Sandworm he meets up with an unhappy Knuckles and continuity gets a little
hazy, and then Knuckles get even more unhappy because Captain Plunder has
arrived. Plunder raises the Lost Pyramid of Sandopolis, basically the second
act of the Sandopolis Zone in the game, using an old map he’s had for ages but
never took seriously until Robotnik revealed the Floating Island was real.
While Sonic and Knuckles deal with the Guardian - well while Sonic does what
you did when the first faced that particular sub-boss and just spin attacks it
to no avail, Knuckles lures it into quick-sand and gets rid of it – Plunder and
crew sneak off to the Pyramid and find the treasures within. Knuckles seems
oddly calm when the lights go out, turns out he knew about the curse of the
place all along, and the Hyudoros manifest and chase Plunder and co out.
Knuckles breaks a seal, lets the sand in and takes Sonic to the surface as the
pyramid returns to the sands, this time for good.
You know what, I’m starting
to notice a trend with Kitching – he does love shoehorning in his own
characters in adaptations, this is the second adaptation that’s had Captain
Plunder, and he’s used the Marxios twice too. Still at least here (and with
Carnival Night Conspiracy) the original characters serve a purpose in
explaining why and how something from the games happened (in S&K the
pyramid rises seemingly because it realises you need a second act to play through).
Plus it’s really good to see so many things from the actual zone appear, even
the handle Plunder pulls to reach the tomb is based on the one in the game that
turns the lights back on, the Hyudoros aren’t named but manifest exactly how
they do in the game and look terrifying and the Stone Guardian is dispatched
exactly the way you have to defeat him in the game. Better than all that is
that it all feels like a story is being told, not just a series of moments from
a game is being shown to you, so I can forgive the Plunder, in fact maybe even
praise his appearance a little, as it’s his bad pirating that turns things from
a series of events into a story by giving us a reason for everything to happen
and providing a narrative, Penders should have taken notes, this is how you shoe
horn in an original character.
I would have liked the
story to have been three parts though, the ending feels a little rushed, it
would have been nice to have had an issue for the Stone Guardian and then an
issue for the escape, I would also have liked a panel in part 2 showing Sonic
getting down from the pyramid after part 1’s funny cliffhanger, in part 2 he’s
just on the ground again. I know he’s super-fast and probably just ran down but
I would have liked to have been shown that, if only so it doesn’t look like a
continuity error.
 |
| ghost racism? |
Quick Summary: The Death Egg is fixed, now all it needs
is a power source – the Master Emerald; Robotnik dispatches an unseen Badnik to
retrieve it. below Sonic & Knuckles come up under the Death Egg via the
Larva Reef Zone only to be attacked by Eggrobos, while boiling them to death
with lava Knuckles thinks of something bad, so the two rush to the Hidden
Palace. There they find it’s been ransacked and the culprit, and the Emerald,
are just leaving: the unseen Badnik was Metallix – the Metal Sonic! A next
generation model and curiously he says he’s part of an elite brotherhood of
badniks, hmm. Metallix wants revenge for his fallen brother and leaves the
Master Emerald on a teleporter in the Sky Sanctuary Zone to beat the shit out
of Sonic & Knuckles, Knuckles is knocked out, and Sonic isn’t powerful
enough, or fast enough, to stand up against his metal doppleganger.
Fortuitously a blow from Metal Sonic knocks the blue blur straight onto the
Master Emerald – and Super Sonic is unleashed; Metallix may be a match for
Sonic, but the chaos demon demolishes him, and then wails on Knuckles too.
While he’s doing this, Eggman teleports the Master Emerald to the Death Egg,
with Sonic back to normal the Sky Sanctuary Zone is falling apart now the
Master Emerald’s power isn’t here to keep it together, and there’s a sound
approaching, a sound like thunder.
 |
| They were making jokes about this then! |
Disaster! (Sonic strips, issues 51-53)
It’s time for one awesome
thing after another, it’s time for the Disaster. Quick-ish Summary: The Death Egg is active and the Sky Sanctuary is
little more than one lone crumbling pillar, Knuckles is able to glide with
Sonic on his back but they’re left sitting ducks for a fresh wave of Eggrobos.
Sonic is no-one’s sitting duck though and breaks into the Death Egg by bouncing
from one Eggrobo to another, inventing the Homing Attack half a decade early,
Knuckles returns to the Floating Island, he has a plan. On the Death Egg Sonic
is lost, luckily the ship’s security system – the Spikebonkers – turn up, Sonic
makes fun of their ridiculous and ‘lets them take him to Eggman’ (read: gets
overpowered). In an old chamber Knuckles fires up some ancient machinery and…the
Floating Island begins to move? Knuckles is coming for Robotnik. Speaking of
egg-shaped overlords, he’s gloating to Sonic and targets the disintegrator
beams on the Emerald Hill Zone, Sonic tries to get to the Master Emerald in the
10 seconds it’ll take to warm up, but it looks like just once he’s too slow,
then a huge beam hits the Death Egg – Knuckles is attacking the ship with a
fucking island, holy shit, I love this writer. As the Floating Island and the
Death Egg have a shoot-out (and I squee) Sonic retrieves the Mater Emerald but
gets himself and said emerald knocked out of a window, luckily he remains calm
and steals an Egg robo’s rocket back and rides it to the surface, sonic has
never been cooler than he is right now. Eggman bails out and the Death Egg goes
down, but Robotnik’s not about to quit yet and jumps Sonic in the Kyodai Eggman
Robo. Sonic has had enough and savagely beats the Death Egg Robot’s successor
to pieces, accidentally causing it to fall form the island, Eggman has enough
thruster to survive though, and swears to destroy the Emerald Hill Zone.
Knuckles arrives having exhausted his awesome points for the story and wants
his emerald back please, Sonic says sure, but he wants a favour, the story ends
with the Emerald Hill Zone being completely evacuated to the Mushroom Hill
Zone.
Disaster is excellent. It
really is one awesome moment after another, there are no plot holes, everything
feels like it makes sense, the Floating Island is a fitting choice to take down
the Death Egg, especially after it’s been hyped as being unbeatable by
conventional means (and Sonic), it’s also the end to the stories started way
back in the 1994 Sonic Super Special (almost exactly a year’s worth of comics)
so it needed to be something epic, and epic it was. I don’t know exactly why
Kitching chose the Island Attacks finale over the space battle of Sonic &
Knuckles (because it’s way cooler maybe?), but either ending also needed to be epic, and
Kitching and Elson succeeded, with the Death Egg’s defeat being the comics first two-page spread. I suppose you could argue that the Floating
Island being able to move and having a death ray is a bit of an arse-pull, and
I’d accept that argument, especially as it’s no longer powered by the Master
Emerald (though it does still have the Super Emeralds powering it, which is,
presumably, slowing it’s decent) but it’s such an awesome reveal and I
personally think it makes sense that when the Echidnas lifted the island they
gave it defences and a way to steer it (the Sonic Adventure origin for Angel
Island isn’t quite used in this universe). I say Disaster is excellent, it’s
good on its own, but preceded by Countdown, Mystery and the excellent prologue
Day of the Death Egg it makes up perhaps the finest of the series’ epics, there
are another contenders for that crown in fans eyes, and fittingly one such
story was teased in this, The Brotherhood of Metallix are coming, starting with
the Knuckles strip that begins in the very issue this story ends: ‘Total
Chaotix’. But I’m saving that for the part after next, mostly to give it the
focus it deserves but partly because the Sonic strips during that story’s run
aren’t remotely important (though they are far from terrible) and I need a
focal point for that part.
Next Part: Everything that happened while this was happening!
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