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 16
I forgot about a bunch of
stuff that happened while Running Wild/Heroes & Villains and Future Shock
were still going on, and I spent way to long talking about Running Wild last
part and thus have to make up for it with this, so it’s just a short one today,
my thinking is this all takes place about the same time as each other, after
Heroes & Villains but before The Tomb:
Troubled Waters (Knuckles strip, issues 82-83)
Quick Summary: While crossing the Mobian Channel,
taking his chest of paperwork on the Floating Island home after The Ghost Ship,
Knuckles is sunk by eight Badniks – or so he thinks- they’re actually the arms
of The Octonaught, the ship of Captain Claw. The arms wreck Knuckles’ boat
(though he saves the chest) and near enough drown him before Claw makes an
appearance in person, he wants the reward Eggman’s put on Knuckles head. Claw is absolutely delighted that Knuckles
resists, he doesn’t get to use the Octonaught much (no, really), but Knuckles
can’t dent the ship, fleeing up a rocky protuberance the guardian takes a leaf
out of Tails’ book and lucks into a victory as Claw destroys all the rocks in
the circle around him, dropping the last one on the Octoanught and scuttling
it. Knuckles has him row them to safety as penance for being a dick.
While the weakest of
Knuckles ‘world tour’ arc, Troubled Waters is still a nice little story:
Dobyn’s art is gorgeous as ever, with his water and red skies making what is a
fairly simple little 2-parter into something firmly more epic feeling and
Kitching provides us with a few genuinely funny moments and a few good action
scenes. On the downside there’s a little bit too much ‘telling while showing’
(well, for a Kitching strip, if this was Lew Stringer it wouldn’t even
register) and Claw, while a fun character, really has a jarring design – he’s a
realistic crab in a hat, no attempt at all has been made by Dobyn to make him a
Mobian (unlike, say Razor the Shark’s lot from Archie) though he is still more
Mobian than the Forty Fathom Freedom Fighters I suppose. Not much else to say
really – NEXT!
Village of the Damned (Knuckles strip, issues 84-86)
Oooh it’s my favourite! Quick Summary: It’s the Wicker Man, with
Knuckles instead of Edward Woodward, only Knuckles doesn’t die and Britt
Ekkland’s stand-in doesn’t slap her arse while singing.
Ok, Ok
While dragging his chest of documents, Knuckles finds a
small village and gets a room for the night at the local tavern from a friendly
Inn Keeper, but the second he’s upstairs a mysterious goat says ‘He’s the One’
and everyone agrees. Later Knuckles wakes to the sound to screaming, but it’s
only an owl, then there’s the sound of screaming. Seeing what he thinks is a
parade, he then realises it’s a ritual sacrifice and saves the very hot sheep
lady up for the chop. Hiding in a barn she convinces him to sleep for a while,
when he wakes though the mysterious goat – Mesmer – and the villagers have
found him, how? The sacrifice told them. Setting Knuckles in a wicker egg (I
just got that!) they plan to burn him, Knuckles figures out that Mesmer’s staff
is behind everything, rolls the flaming wicker egg down a hill to a river and
breaks free, then breaks Mesmer’s control, he doesn’t break Mesmer’s staff
though. Eggman reveals himself to be the landlord and explains this was a test
for Mesmer, with the only option being to walk away or kill Robotnik, Knuckles
walks away, reluctantly.
Right, this story; I have a
strange obsession with this story and have had since I was in junior school,
and it’s not just because I really, really find the sacrifice attractive; when
I first read the book I didn’t know the Wicker Man existed and I found it
utterly enthralling (so I was bit bitter when I saw the Wicker Man, and thought
“this is a lot like that Knuckles… you bastard Kitching, you thieving, clever
bastard”) it is a very atmospheric
story, I use that word a lot because
atmosphere is something I find very important, a lot of that is due to
Dobbyn’s art, especially his colouring, he has clearly been in many a country
pub/ village at night, it’s incredibly authentic, his use of lighting is
fantastic, his use of angles is also fantastic actually, the villagers feel
very imposing once masked (and the sacrifice is fucking hot) and that’s all
down to how you angle and light something. But that’s not why I have this thing
about it. Why I have this thing about it is because one day at school I started
seeing the characters from this strip – not Mesmer, but the villagers – fucking
hell it freaked me out. The story must have just wrapped up so it would have
been mid-September’96, making me 10, I was very naive until I went to Senior
School but not naïve enough to think comic characters could be real so I
thought I was just going mental. It turns out I had an incredibly high fever –
I had a bath, got out and couldn’t stop shaking – I’d been hallucinating all day. I can still see them now, bobbing
past empty classroom and toilet windows, masks and hats and torches.
There are few issues with
the writing – like why doesn’t he break
the staff!?!?! That’s bugged me for years, I think the implication is
that the staff isn’t the source of Mesmer’s ‘powers’ (he’s a hypnotist, not a
mage) but just to be sure Knux… – and Knuckles learns Mesmer’s name between
parts 2 and 3 without being told it (and then takes a minute to figure out
someone called ‘Mesmer’ might be a hypnotist) and it’s a just The Wicker Man.
There’s also a lot of good, for instance one of my problems with Doctor Sun
(and it’s rehashes) is that there is no fucking good reason for Eggman to be
disguised other than to reveal it was Eggman all along, here there is and it’s
completely explained, it’s a test for Mesmer he’s personally overseeing, and
being there as himself would ruin the test. It’s also very nicely paced –
something else I keep saying – but it’s important, this is paced like a good
horror film, if the pacing was off it would fail (and a Sonic the Hedgehog
horror film is not only a novelty but as a horror nut and a Sonic maniac
something I am convinced was designed specifically to give me a metaphorical
massive boner). And I like the final page, Robotnnik going “what are you gonna
do, kill me?” and Knuckles being forced to just walk away and leave him in
power or do something he considers morally reprehensible, you might argue ‘he
should just kill him’ and he probably should, but that would be out of
character wouldn’t it? And it would kill the main villain.
Ok we’re almost caught up
(and that was a lot of text for a three-part Knuckles strip), two more issues
until Future Shock ends. Issue 87 stars a new multi-parter for Knuckles but
otherwise it’s all stand-alones until 89 so let’s get them done. For Sonic
there’s Mister Shifter (Sonic strip, issue 87) and The Ultimate
Nightmare (Sonic strip, issue 88). ‘Shifter has Sonic
saving a woman from the titular villain, made up of
Tails meanwhile gets Easy Target (Tails strip, issue 87) and
uurrggh, Carl fucking Flint’s art has finalised into the ball of shite I
remember it being, he’s now doing the photocopied backgrounds, random goofy
Badniks (one is wearing a bowler hat!) and stupid hand gestures and he’s being
coloured by an abysmal ‘team’ called Pre-Press who apparently use only the fill
and dodge functions on Photoshop. The story also takes a whole strip to do what
one page of Village of the Damned did as Tails saves a unicorn called Forelock
who in turn gives Tails the chance to assassinate Robotnik and all the visuals
– I kid you not – are taken from the Kennedy Assassination, Tails is even in a
book depository. Tails ACTUALLY UMS AND AHHS before saying its wrong and
throwing the sniper rifle (dear god) away, which is good cos it was all a test
or some shit. The real crime here besides the colouring, is that Forelock is genuinely
interesting (“I never said I came from Mobius”) and could have been used well
in later stories, but he never shows up again and Tails never thinks to call
his very powerful mage friend again, instead Fabian Vane gets multiple stories
(don't even start me on Fabian Vane). Following Easy Target is Small Change (Tails strip,
issue 88), or ‘what writers do when they can’t think of an idea’ – it’s a
shrinking episode, only less clichéd and creatively bankrupt than the mind-swap
episode, and it introduces pointless suspiciously similar substitute Slimy –
Grimer’s brother – too. It’s worthless except for some nice colouring by Steve
White on Rob Corona’s art. Both are Lew Stringer masterpieces – you know I
actually feel bad ragging on Stringer so much, he’s a good writer (honest!) and
can write some very funny Beano/Dandy style comedy strips but these Tails
filler stories are mostly shite.
Last but definitely not
least is On The Move (Megadroid
strip, issue 83). Megadroid’s second and last story and it’s so English you
might actually spontaneously grow a teacup and a Scouse accent while reading
it. I enjoy it, it’s the sort of groan-worthy Beano/Dandy style comedy strip I
love, bad puns and British situations. Megadroid quits his job at the
(fictional) StC offices because he does all the donkey work and tries out other
jobs – where they get him to do all the donkey work. After getting thrown off a
cruise ship for breaking the forth wall and upsetting customers he ends up a
shitty UK seaside town and tries to pull a local droid, but she turns out to be
a bimbo/tart/greedy bitch so he goes home and is welcomed back with open arms –
cos it’s time for someone to put the coffee on. it’s naff but loveable filler,
it’s written and drawn by two people who weren’t regular contributors to the
series – Lynne Gibbs and Nick Abadzis – neither of whom are exactly craftsmen,
the art’s kinda amateurish and the writing is a complete Beano attempt but
again, it’s just kind of charming in its shittiness, like bootleg toys or
terrible B-Movies or Carry On films with Sid James in them.
Next Time:
Sonic dicks about on Planet Meridian a lot, Knuckles takes the long way home,
Shortfuse hooks up with the Freedom Fighters and Amy hooks up with Tekno.
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