Tuesday, December 27, 2016

The Antoine and Bunnie Retrospective - 118

“Alpha” Sonic Adventure 2.5 Part I - Sonic the Hedgehog #124 

First, I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas weekend and welcome back to the retrospective. Second, I hope to finish up this era before New Years Eve. Only two more issues and the era wrap up to go, so without further a due lets get on it. 

Today’s issue doesn’t really feature Bunnie and Antoine but it does include important developments that impact the entire comic; as is the case with event arcs. 

This particular arc is meant to be a sequel to Sonic Adventure 2, but considering we didn’t get a full adaption of SA2 the first half is more exposition and a recap of the game. 

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Which brings into question just how much of the game happened in the comic. Because Knuckles, Tails, and Amy Rose were all occupied elsewhere when these events happened. 

Anyways, they bring back Shadow the Hedgehog a near year before Sonic Heroes did and to be honest they do a better job of it then the actual games.   

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No stupid clone business dragged out over the course of several years, no “Gerald Robotnik was good all along” retcon, no guns and cussing in order to look “edgy”. Though there are still aliens. 

The Bem we’ve already met, but this “new threat” Shadow speaks of are the Xorda. They’re more or less the archie equivalent of the Black Doom, but only more threatening (IMHO) and without the connection to Shadow. 

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The Xorda officially reveal Mobius’s origins as Earth. It’s an idea that’s been hinted at ever since the beginning of the comic. From reverences here and there to earth culture such as songs being quoted, the fact that they celebrate Christmas, every time Sonic visits another world it’s either called Mobius or Earth, to seeing bits and pieces of surviving Earth artifacts like the novel 2001: Space Odyssey and a broken down Statue of Liberty.    
It’s an interesting idea, one that makes a lot of sense and helps to explain some of the pop culture humor of the earlier comic. But it’s unfortunately never explored in full. After this story arc it’s more or less ignored. And I get it, this is an action adventure comic for children, deep mussings on the evolution of culture isn’t something that can often be integrated naturally into such stories. But it’s frustrating to see such a large development be slowly introduced for years only to be completely dropped after it’s final reveal.    
So I guess it’s up to us fans to write fan-fiction on it. So here are some of my fan theories  on the subject. 

In addition to new religions revolving around the Ancient Walkers, Aurora, and other powerful beings that can absorb chaos emeralds springing up. Ancient remnants of Earth’s previous religions have survived and various aspects have merged and coalesced into one major religion. 

For example major holidays centering around monolithic religion are still in practice, such as Christmas, and Antoine has been known to say “mon Dieu” from time which means “my God” which suggests that the belief in a monolithic god exists with in this world, but how they perceive that god and their traditions have transformed and intermingled with that of other non-Abrahamic faiths. 

What if the visual representations and religious texts of different gods that have survived around the world has informed the belief that there is one god that continually reappears on Mobius through out history taking on various forms and names. And which form you worship will be dependent upon your geographical location. Monkey Khan may see god as a large blue overlander called Buddha, Antoine sees a bearded overlander called Jesus, Bunnie worships a giant fish called Christ, while the people who live in what was once North Africa view him as a mobian jackal or eagle, and so on and so forth. But all agree that they are one and the same and that “God” will reappear again in a new form with a new name when needed. Though no one knows when that will be. 

There’s also the fact that the humans of Station Square have better maintained the traditions of old and have more complete and separate texts of the various regions and cultures without combining them all into one. Meaning you’re more likely to find still practicing Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindu, ect. ect. there than on the surface even though traditions from those various cultures have survived there but without their original context.   

I’ve also come up with a theory to explain a lot of the fourth wall breaking in the early issues. Blogs! 


Back in the early years of the war there was a primitive form of underground internet used by refugees and Freedom Fighters. It was meant to be a form of incryptic code that Robotnik couldn’t hack in order to communicate and send messages. But the public got a hold of it and started using it for useless shit like posting what they ate for dinner or fandom debates over Kriby’s lost novels ect. ect. And the FFs, being kids and teenagers at the time, made use of it to post abut their hobbies and make vlogs. 

And that’s all I got. Do any of you have some fan theories you’d like to share about Old Mobius? 

The rest of the comic winds up Green Knuckles arc, finally, and oh, Sonic and Sally got engaged in this story,  though that’s a plot point that won’t go anywhere.   

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