Saturday, October 15, 2016

The Antoine and Bunnie Retrospective - 96

“The Messenger” - Sonic the Hedgehog #96

So this story does have Bunnie in it, and she does help out plot wise, but its very minimal because this is actually yet more build up to the event issue that they have every 25 issues. But since we will be covering that story arc, I thought it pertinent to cover its prelude. 

So a bot attacks the school. Sonic tries to get everyone to safety while Bunnie fights it. 
But as it turns out, said shadowbot was reprogrammed by Uncle Chuck in order for him to communicate with Sonic.   
Chuck informs Sonic of what we the audience has known all along, the sword of acorns does indeed restore robians’ minds and the fact that Eggman no longer has the sword in his possession because Arachnis stole it. 

But Geoffrey comes in, shoots the robot before it can finish delivering the message, and then proceeds to tell Sonic to keep his own nose out of the investigation.  
Geoffrey has been becoming more and more dickish through the latter half of this era. So much so, that it’s implied that it’s secretly him that’s keeping Sally isolated from her friends. 
One has to question why though. It can’t be because of jealousy, because he and Sally ended their relationship long ago and on good terms. Plus Hershey is now being set up as his love interest. It also can’t be out of petty spite neither. Geoffrey and Sonic aren’t the best of friends or anything, but they did bury the hatchet just a few months back and at least respect one another now. 

No, I suspect it’s due to his political motivations. Without giving too much away, I hope, Geoffrey is a double agent who actively hates the monarchy. He’s working from within to bring them down. My guess is he’s trying to bring a wedge between Sally and her brother, by further exacerbating their dysfunctional family.  

Max is obviously abusive, and for a time, Elias and Sally only had each other to turn to for help. By keeping them separate, by tricking Elias into continuing Sally’s abuse, and by playing upon Sally’s own desires to rule, he is no doubt hoping to start a power struggle between them. 

It won’t work though because he’s misjudged their priorities, but it’s an explanation for all this evil bullshit. 

Anyways Sonic’s all bummed out cause he still’s “grounded” and isn’t allowed to be a hero. His friends come over to cheer him up, and….and…
… and I’m sorry but I just can’t ignore this stupid design any more. Who the fuck thought this was a good idea? It’s so fucking unbalanced, too busy, with such a clashing color palette, and based off an age old hillbilly stereotype. Ugh! And that hair style is not flattering in the least. 

And it’s never more obvious than when someone other than Fry is drawing it. Today’s artist is Nelson Ribeiro, and he’s not bad, not by any means. He has a few wired quirks, like how he draws lips sometimes, but it’s not bad. But he can’t rescue this design. No one can, save perhaps Fry, and even then his take on it isn’t as good as his other renditions of Bunnie’s previous designs. 

Anyways, Sonic mopes around a bit before deciding to get off his ass and find Uncle Chuck and the Sword of Acorns on his own. This leads into two other stories that I won’t be covering but here’s a brief summery… 

Issue #97 - Sonic becomes “The Streak”, and unnecessary superhero identity for someone who’s arguably already a superhero.   

Issue #98 - A brief one issue adaptation of Sonic Adventure 2. I’m sure why we got half an era’s worth of Sonic Adventure 1 that incorporated the entire comic’s cast and then only half an issue’s worth of recap of it’s sequel with only Sonic and Shadow present, but there ya go.  

The second story this issue is the continued fight between Green Knuckles and Turbo Tails. It’s alright. 

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