“Line of Succession Part 2″ - Line of Succession II - Sonic the Hedgehog #156
I’m back!
Been real busy as of late and things are about to get even busier for me so I might have to reschedule what days I post the reviews on. Though for now, I had a real tough time with this particular issue. I feel like I covered most of the points I wanted to talk about in the last review and I didn’t really want to repeat myself so here are the edited highlights.
Antoine and Sally go through with the wedding ceremony while Sonic runs off to see a “mysterious” person about helping him stop it. This person chooses not to help and Sonic rushes back to find out he’s too late.
I want you to remember this line right here viewers because I’m going to come back to it at the end.
He crashes the reception and “Antoine” has him thrown out and we see just how whipped Sally has become.
I’ve defended Sally’s actions or lack there of in the past mainly because of her father’s involvement. Bowing to the wishes of you’re abusive dad is one thing, blindly following the orders of a childhood friend is entirely another. Marriage or no, Sally wouldn’t just sit and do nothing while “Antoine” bossed everyone around instead. The only explanation I can come up with is that she’s regressing into depression again. Something she struggled with back when Sonic was lost in space. She’s both mentally and emotionally “shut down” so to speak.
But what of the “mysterious stranger” Sonic spoke to?
I’m more interested in the how more then the why honestly. Sonic has super speed, that’s how he got back in time for the reception, yet Elias makes it back in time for the reception as well despite taking the the time to have a serious talk with his wife and riding back on “horse back” (or what ever Penders calls those things). He was literally only ten minutes behind Sonic, meaning he must have changed his mind pretty damn fast.
Though it’s interesting to hear that Elias’s motivation for taking back the throne is because he doesn’t trust Antoine. Remember no-one knows that it’s really Patch in disguise yet, and at this point Elias only knows Twan as a Freedom Fighter and Sally’s friend.So really there’s no real reason for Elias’s suspicion and even Sonic is taken aback by this assumption. But oh how Elias will reverse this opinion once he get to know the real Antoine. But that’s much later folks.
However this exchange causes Sonic to start questioning “Antoine” and his motivations.
And once again Patch just proves how competent he is a villain because even with this upset in his plans he still never drops his facade. Sonic still can’t quite believe Elias’s assumptions. In fact the only time Patch screws up is when he gets too impatient.
I’m not entirely sure what Patch’s line of thinking is suppose to be here. First, it takes more then one dose of that poison to kill a person. Second, why try to poison him in front of everyone? Why not just wait until a more opportune moment when you’re alone with him and set up an “accident”? After all one of Patch’s greatest strengths as a character (and Antoine’s as well for that matter) is his perseverance. Both are persistent in their goals and patient enough to stick with it despite multiple set backs and failures. The difference between the two is how they apply that strength, Antoine to better himself and Patch to further his ambitions.
Anyways this leads to Sonic figuring out who Patch really is.
Boy that sure is a lot leaps in logic there, Sonic. Yeah, he is technically right but none of those points he made lead naturally to that conclusion. For starters Antoine is very much a competent fighter and has been for years; kicking both Scourge’s and Sonic’s asses on some occasions and fighting robots for heaven knows how long. He totally did have a killer instinct when thought you were Scourge and almost did you in. Though granted before his time on Anti-Mobius he wasn’t prone to violence but it’s not out of the realm of possibility that character development could be in play here. And last off, while the scar is the most tangible physical difference between the two it’s still not much in the way of evidence. No one on regular Mobius knew that Patch’s eye patch was fake and just because Bunnie didn’t know where he got the scar doesn’t mean he couldn’t be the real Antoine.
This is why I claim Patch’s defeat as a plot contrivance. First there’s Elias’s unfounded suspicion being the catalyst rather then coming from someone who actually knows Antoine like Sally or Sonic. Second there’s that out of character lapse in judgment where Patch gets caught trying to kill Elias in front of everyone. And then Sonic figuring everything out in two minutes using flimsy deduction despite Patch fooling everyone one, even his own father, for over six months.
It’s a pretty weak conclusion to a very potentially interesting long running development. However not all is wasted as Patch is a delight through out, Elias becomes the new ruler of the kingdom, a decision that would ultimately prove to be for the best, and we finally get the real Antoine back.
Unfortunately, all of this good will I have for this story is nearly completely thrown out the window by Penders’ dumbass ideas involving romance.
Not only is the Fiona/Sonic pairing poorly developed and badly established but it clashes narratively with the on going story. Remember just ten pages ago when Sonic was claiming how he should be with Sally? Remember how preventing her from marrying someone else was his enter motivation for two issues now? Remember how he kept going on and on about how Sally should have communicated with him better back in 155? Well Penders sure as fucking didn’t!
I mean what kind of logic involves him completely ignoring the object of his affections and forgetting his primary goal of the story, only to go out with someone else? Someone he barely fucking knows. The least he could have done was go talk to Sally. See how she was doing, maybe discuss their relationship first and the problems they’ve been having, like he’s clearly been wanting to, before going off with another girl.
Blah!
The second story continues Dulcy’s origin story. It’s boring and pointless. Fortunately will be moving on to some good stuff after this. See ya’ll later.
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