Tuesday, June 14, 2016

The Antoine and Bunnie Retrospective - 30

“Saturday Night’s Alright for a Fight” Sonic the Hedgehog Goes Hog Wild - Sonic the Hedgehog #28   

Looky, Ant’s finally made it on to one of those cover stamp thingys 

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So when we left off last time, Sonic had bumped his head and got amnesia. Using this to his advantage, Robotnik, convinces Sonic that he’s the good guy and the Freedom Fighters are a terrorist group.

Sonic’s just infiltrated FF headquarters and takes Bunnie, Sally, Tails, and Rotor head on. 

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I can think of a few guys out there that would love to be on the receiving end of one of Bunnie’s TLCs ;) 

The gang are able to hold their own and defend themselves for a time, but eventually Sonic over powers them. 

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 Which begs the question: is Sonic really more powerful than his friends, or are they holding back in fear of harming him? It could go either way really.

“But wait where is Antoine?” you may ask. Oh he’s just getting ready to save the day!  That’s where. 

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Gathering up the Substitute Freedom Fighters, (They first appeared during Sally’s miniseries, which I didn’t cover) Antoine decides to use his brains rather than his brawn. He turns out the lights and uses the element of surprise to catch Sonic off guard.

Though nothing is that easy, and Antoine has to go mono e mono against his rival. 

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  (I think this is the first time he’s ever used his sword for any real fighting) 

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Fortunately this is enough of a distraction for the SFFs to get the drop on Sonic and knock him out cold.  

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What I really love about this story is not only does Ant get to save the day, but it also shows him interacting with other people besides the core FF. Sonic and Rotor may tease him to no end, while the others get more than a little exasperated with him at times, but the general public and soon to be soldiers respect him. Look up to him even.

They know he risks his life on a regular basis to protect them. They know he has experience and skills they don’t. They trust him. He gives orders and they follow. There should be no doubt by now that Antoine does have leadership capabilities. He just needs to over come his own personal insecurities so his peers can see that side of him too.

Anyways, the second bump on the head gives Sonic his memories back (As they usually do in these types of stories) and he takes advantage of the falutly transmission signals to lead Robotnik astray so he doesn’t discover Knothole.

Once again, despite the cheesy premise and by the numbers ending I really enjoyed this one. Everyone was presented as intelligent capable people and all got the chance to shine individually. Sadly such equal treatment is a rarity in the comic, especially in the early years, so I appreciate this arc immensely.

The rest of the comic features the first part of a Tails solo story, where we meat Fiona Fox for the first time. 

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