“Sonic’s Angels” - Sonic the Hedgehog #152
So this is quite the controversial issue for many reasons. Mainly because of the way it resolves the whole Evil Sonic mucking with Sonic’s love life plot. In that it doesn’t resolve anything.
The freedom fighters are sent on a mission to stop a bunch of nanites from destroying the ecosystem. And the group is split into two teams, the “brain trust” (ie the smart guys) and the psychical fighters. Only without the Chaotix or Antoine around, most of the heavy hitters are all women save Sonic himself.
This leads into my first problem with story and possibility with the whole of the Sonic franchise. There aren’t any super smart women!
In all of the games, cartoons, and the majority of the comics (I haven’t read Fleetway so forgive me if I’m wrong) most women in the franchise can be roughly categorized into five groups.
- The Cute Bruiser or Action Girl - Amy, Bunnie, Julie-Su, Barby ect.
- The Serious No Nonsense Leader or Loner - Lupe, Sally, Madonna, Topaz, Blaze, Shade ect.
- The Innocent - Hope, Maria, Cream, Elise, Tikal, Mina, That genie from Sonic and Secret Rings, ect.
- The Femme Fatale - Rouge, Breezie, Fiona, Lin-da ect.
- The Mothers - Vanilla, Rosie, Bernie, Lara-Le, Aleena ect.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with any the above tropes and it’s good there are enough differences between theses characters to make them unique from one another. But it’s telling that the only genius women, like Wave and Relic, are fairly new additions to the franchise. ( I think Fleetway has one, Tenko, I believe?) And anyone else who doesn’t fit into theses categories are often outliers like Sarah, Merlina, Regina, Sonia, Marine, or Sticks. (though Sticks is becoming more prominent)
Basically what I’m getting at is, due to the nature of the series, there’s an over abundance of psychically strong women and few that have equal but differentiating strengths. Especially since the innocents tend to be plot points and/or motivators for male characters. Cream and Mina being the exceptions.
So I can’t really fault Penders for wanting to do a story that highlights the fact that over half of the comic’s warriors are women. But I can gripe about how he merely uses them to further forced relationship drama and how none of them, save Bunnie, actually do anything productive. With character’s like Mina being outright redundant with the comic actually stating that she is.
So what does Bunnie do? Well she get captured by the nanites who thinks she can be converted into the collective because of her cybernetic limbs.
Now I don’t have a problem with this scene necessarily, unlike many others who seem to, and here’s why….
- It’s a logical conflict that’s true to the unique nature of the characters. Robotization already involves natnite technology and Bunnie is one of only two people in the world who still has this technology present in their biological system.
- This ties into Bunnie’s already established internal conflict about her identity but puts a new spin on it where she realizes that who she is now is better then some of the other alternatives out there. This could also potentially tie into future conflicts as her cybernetics could be considered a danger to herself but it’s not one that’ll come up often.
- Some have argued this scene is too “intense” for children but I grew up with late 80s/early 90s cartoons where crap like this was deemed ok.
- I’m of the mind that as long as it doesn’t involve outright gore and has a happy ending you can go as dark as you want with kids and they’ll be fine. Usually. I do recognize that there are exceptions to this rule.
- Last off, there is a happy ending and she’s not permanently psychically harmed by the event.
No, what I have a problem with is what happens after she’s freed.
Ya see Sonic outwits the nanties with logic in order to free Bunnie.
Grateful and relieved to be herself once more, Bunnie gives him a kiss.
Now this isn’t a problem within of itself so much as every thing revolving around it is awful. Bunnie’s already interested and Sonic and believes he has feelings for her because of Scourge lying to her and Sonic himself is unaware of both Scourge’s actions and Bunnie’s new found feelings. So instead of responding to this action in an believable manner or trying to to set the record straight he just goes along with it. So I guess they’re dating now, only no, wait, they’re not, because they never follow up on this ever!
This is indicative of a larger problem within the Sonic franchise as whole. I mean, yes, it’s also because Penders is mainly a shit writer, but hear me out. From Ben Hurst to Pontaff, 90% of conflicts in Sonic are reactionary. Most characters simply react or respond to events going on around them. Rarely does a character initiate conflict themselves. The few that do, Eggman, Lyric, Metal Sonic, ect. often have very base motivations and rely heavily on mindless monsters to do their dirty work.
(Note: I do know there are exceptions to this rule such as Shadow in SA2 or Merlina in SatBK)
In short most Sonic stories tend to be Overcoming the Monster plots. Therefore, external conflicts like Man vs Technology or Man vs Supernatural works for the most part. However when trying to introduce any other potential conflicts, like say love triangles, the writers tend to cock it all up because they’re still running off of that reactionary mindset.
In order for a Man vs Man conflict to work, which is what relationship drama is based off of, then characters have to have basic motivations, make consciousness decisions, and initiate action. The conflict then comes from two or more characters having conflicting desires and needs.
By having outside forces like Scourge and Patch be the instigators of the love triangles you then take way any agency on behalf of the other characters involved. They merely become participants reacting to events rather then characters with real agency.
Now I still defend Penders idea to turn Evil Antoine into Anti-Antoine as Bollers original plan also had that same lack of agency problem with having the Source of All be the manipulator of events. But the entire Bunnie/Sonic/Antoine/Sally triangle is such wasted potential. Because there is a story to be told there, it just required everyone to maintain their agency.
Bare with me if you will as I explain how I would have written out this love triangle.
Sonic is believed to be dead and trapped in space as in the real comic. Meanwhile Antoine becomes more serious and over protective as he doesn’t want to lose anybody else. He spends more time training and becomes something of a workaholic. He also becomes more attentive of Sally as she’s in mourning and in need of friend. He and Bunnie grow ever more distant as his new goals shifts his focus away from her. It’s not that he’s become colder or uncaring, the opposite in fact, but rather they just start spending less and less time with one another.
When Bunnie confronts him over his obsession, they eventual, but reluctantly, agree that things aren’t working out like the once were and break up. Or at the very least agree to give each other some space to figure things out. During all of this Sally and Antoine become even closer as they find they confine in each other about their problems. Then Sonic returns.
Every thing in Home plays out more or less the same minus some bitching between Bunnie and Antoine and less slapping on Sally’s part.But the end result is Sally realizing that, while she does still love Sonic, they have very different goals in life and he’s not ready to commit the way she needs him to. But Antoine is. He’s been the study rock she’s leaned on and her shoulder to cry on for nearly a year now. And after his break up with Bunnie they’ve only gotten closer. So eventually after her break up with Sonic, they start dating.
So that leaves Bunnie and Sonic both feeling lonely and dejected. Since they’re already friends and now have some common ground with their former significant others braking things often to date each other. Well you could see how they would eventually become closer, and may even agree to try dating one another.
From there you have multiple ways which this could pan out. You could have the clean “happy” ending where everyone eventually realizes who they really love and both couples return to the original status quo. You could have the bitter sweet complex ending where only one couple works out and the others are left to grow from their experiences. Either Bunnie and Antoine get back together, leaving Sonic and Sally to press on, or have Sally and Antoine remain a couple and Sonic and Bunnie break up to figure out who they are without a relationship to depend on. You could also have Sonic wind up permanently with either Sally or Bunnie and leave Antoine and one of the other girls alone, but knowing Sonic it seems unlikely. Finally you can have the unhappy ending where none of the potential pairings work out.
Either way, regardless of the outcome, the story becomes more compelling as the motivations involved stem from real issues, not evil forces manipulating events. No one turning out to be evil, no one losing their shit and slapping someone just force a plot point, no miscommunication driving the conflict, and no one responding to events just because, but rather making active decisions. It’s people learning to deal with life and how it changes both themselves and others. Its real, complex, and mature. And because all of the people involved are already close friends with established histories and chemistry; any of the potential outcomes makes internal sense regarding the characters.
Well enough fanfiction, back to the issue at hand.
Since Sonic “out logic-ed” the nanites they release everybody. Meaning the rest of the girls didn’t have use Snively’s plan to short circuit the city. Oh yes, did I not mention that Sinvely’s in this and by the end he’s now joined the Freedom Ftighers? Yeah he’s here now and no one manages to accomplish anything, making the rest of girls completely pointless and the “brain trust” a good three or four too many.
That’s it for this weeks review so tune in next time on the retrospective as we dive even deeper into the final days of Penders run.
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