The “Crouching Hedgehog Hidden Dragon” Crouching Hedgehog Hidden Dragon II - Sonic the Hedgehog #107
So last we left off the Freedom Fighters agree to help Station Square get rid of a dragon that’s been terrorizing them in exchange with help for the Overlander refugees. Only for some reason not all of the FFs are going. Instead we get Sonic, Tails, and Bunnie on their own. Which I’m cool with; this is a team we don’t get to see often.
Shame they don’t do anything with them though. For you see, the writers have to shore horn GUN into this instead.
No one likes G.U.N.
No one.
GUN are assholes to everybody, even their own Team Dark, in what is quickly becoming a comic filled with nothing but jerks.
Don’t believe me? Meet the dragon, Zan.
Zan has a legitimate complaint against Station Square’s authorities. Cause GUN are bunch of dicks who want to destroy his home and use it as a military weapons testing site. Unfortunately, Zan is also an abusive unreasonable bastard who loses any and all sympathy from the viewer and therefore any interest in the on going conflict.
The comic is trying to do too much here. It’s having to establish, GUN, Zan, their conflict with each other, while also reintroducing Dulcy and her relationship and conflict with Zan. Either one of these conflicts could have sufficed for the arc on it’s own, but together they cheapen the emotional drama.
It’s hard to care for Dulcy’s plight because we never see the other side of their relationship. The side that would trick her into staying with him. So she comes across not as a victim but as an idiot. Meanwhile it’s hard to give a damn about GUN and Zan’s bullshit cause we never hear their reasoning. They’re just generic angry douches threatening to kill one another. There’s nothing interesting in that.
But there is one redeeming feature to this mess and that’s Bunnie.
Bunnie is perhaps one of the best people right now to talk to Dulcy about this. For starters, she and Antoine have, by far, the healthiest relationship in the entire comic. While she may not understand what Dulcy is going though personally, she does understand what makes for a good relationship and what doesn’t. She also has, through her relationship with Antoine, experience in positive enforcement to combat insecurities. She knows that Dulcy needs to hear that she’s beautiful and such, cause without self esteem it’s hard to leave the things that hold us down; weather that be abusive spouses, personal jackass behavior, or negative body images.
Unfortunately there is no satisfying pay-off for all of this, cause Zan dies.
I want to say “unceremoniously dies”, but that’s not true. The comic does take the time to reflect upon his death and attempts to make all of this seam sad, but I just can’t bring myself to care.
Zan’s too unsympathetic a character and while it might be sad for Ducly right now, we all know she’s better off without him anyways. So no, this isn’t bittersweet at all.
It is however an infuriating ending. This is the fourth abusive relationship to be shown in the comic. Of those four, only two have been confirmed as abuse by the comic itself and only one has had the victim willingly leave their abuser for good. What I’m saying is that this is becoming an annoying habit in the comic, and the writers don’t seem to understand that emotional abuse is just as every bit as bad as physical.
The second issue is more timey-wimey adventures with Green Knuckles and his daughter Lara-Su.
However before I sign off I’d like to wish all of my American readers a Happy Thanksgiving and the rest of you a wonderful weekend. I’ll see you all after the holidays.
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