“Mistaken Identity Crisis” - Sonic the Hedgehog #112
Isn’t this cover glorious?
So today’s story is yet another part in the Zone Wars arc, but even more importantly it’s a major event in Antoine’s on going story. One that will come to haunt him for the rest of his life.
While spending quality time with his dad. A portal opens up, scaring him.
Zonic the Zone Cop falls through the portal injured. Sonic happens by and rushes him to the hospital. Prompting Armand to complement his bravery, all while poor Antoine feels ashamed for relapsing into his old habit.
Now this may seem like a step backwards for the sake of narrative convenience. After all Antoine has proven himself very brave and had shed his cowardly reputation in the eyes of the public and his peers long ago. However, I like this relapse. Old habits die hard and Twan’s greatest strength as a character is that he fights despite being scared. There’ll always be that part of him he’ll have to overcome and he will always overcome it because he’s awesome like that.
But there’s more to this though, Twan has a lot of self esteem issues. He’ll focus on his past mistakes while ignore all of his accomplishments. Getting a little skittish when an unnatural phenomenon suddenly appears in the sky pales in comparison to taking on Robotnik and robots on a regular basis. But he’ll look upon that fact of his life as unremarkable because it’s become such normal occurrence for him.
Anyways, Armand, being the super nice person that he is, decides to give Sonic this compliment in person.
Well I wouldn’t call it “dissing” per say. I mean it’s perfectly possible to give someone a compliment without thinking less of another person. It’s not like their a finite commodity. But good on you for taking the time to be attentive of your friend’s feelings. It’s always nice to see Sonic’s and Twan’s relationship grow.
Not a hero?!
Ok, I’ll buy the fact that Twan would be oblivious to his own heroics due to his low self-esteem, but Sonic should know better. I mean lets list off all of Antoine’s heroic deeds up to this point and time in the comics, shall we?
- Saved Bunnie from a swatbot while on reconnaissance by himself.
- He willingly volunteered to help rescue Sally when she was captured by Robotnik and then held said dictator at bay with a gun until they were all safely away.
- He saved Sonic’s life when their air balloon was shot down.
- He single-handedly took on and defeated Robotnik and his entire army with nothing but a hot air balloon.
- Gathered together a group of trainees and lead them to victory against a brainwashed Sonic.
- He bravely volunteered to go behind enemy lines alone to retrieve a magic ring that was lost.
- Prevented Geoffrey from murdering Sonic.
- He again went behind enemy lines alone to reconnaissance the area and wound up saving the rest of the Freedom Fighters while at it.
- He was the first person to investigate and discover Drago’s treachery.
- Helped rescue the Downunda Freedom Fighters.
- With Bunnie’s help he infiltrated Robotnik’s headquarters and blew up his doomsday weapon.
- Helped took down a rogue combot.
- Helped Sonic defeat a bunch of Eggbots.
- He helped rescue people from drowning in Station Square when Prefect Chaos attacked, only to get a broken leg for his troubles.
And these are just the more notable examples. This isn’t counting all of numerous times he’s fraught along side the FFs on random missions, the random people he’s undoubtedly saved off panel, nor all the times he has rescued his fellow freedom fighters with his piloting skills.
Not a hero my ass! Sonic could have mentioned any one of these feats to Ant and is dad, many of which he was a personal witness to. But nooooo, he’s gotta come up with a convoluted and stupid plan to trick Armand into thinking his son is hero instead. Even though he already is a hero and I’m sure Armand is already proud of him regardless.
What is the plan? Well Sonic is going to disguise himself and pretend he’s a villain and let Antoine pretend to kick his ass. But of course if you know anything about this trope you’ll know it won’t work out that way.
So Antoine takes his dad for a walk so they can meet up with “Sonic” and along the way Twan slips back into another of his old habits.
Ahhh, the bragging. We haven’t seen him do this in a while. And once again, there’s plenty of real stories, ones where he did actually defeat Robotnik, but nope that’s not epic enough for Ant’s distorted view on what constitutes as heroic. However, given all of the true events where he’s achieved great deeds, what happens next shouldn’t be all that surprising.
Also, there’s been two Robotniks, and one didn’t have that “robotize by touch” super power so there’s an easy and obvious way out of this lie for ya Twan.
Turns out Scourge broke out of his inter-dimensional prison, which is why Zonic was here earlier. Only now, cause of their dumb plan, Antoine believes it’s the real Sonic pretending to be his evil counterpart.
Scrouge tries to pick a fight, only for Antoine to thoroughly trounce his ass with a single blow!
Guys I know everyone uses this scene to laugh at Scourge, which fair enough, Scourge is a loser by design, but honestly Antoine is not a person you should underestimate. The man’s got hidden skills and a well of personal fortitude that often surprises even his closest friends and family, let alone the countless enemies he leaves in the dust to rust. Antoine. Is. Bad. Ass! And after today few will every doubt his strength again, certainly not Scrouge who will cross his path again in the future.
Unfortunately the awesomeness of this moment is slightly ruined by the abrupt comedic ending.
What? No heart warming scene between father and son? No revelation that Armand loves him no matter what? No Antoine recognizing that he really is a hero? *Sigh* C'est la vie, I suppose. We’ll get a nice father/son heart to heart soon enough.
The second story stars Uncle Chuck, as Lupe helps him to forgive himself over the creation of the robotizer. It’s sweet.
There’s also a whole bunch of data files too, and I must say Antoine is suspiciously absent from the friends list on most of them. *grrr*
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