“Dragon’s Lair” Crouching Hedgehog Hidden Dragon I - Sonic the Hedgehog #106
Last issue, which we didn’t cover, featured Eggman murdering Snively’s dad, robotizing Snively himself, and Sonic and Sally freeing the rest of the Overlanders along with Snively’s sister, Hope. Today the Freedom Fighters are on their way to Station Square (The Hidden City of the Ancients) to ask the humans to take the Overlanders in. On their way way there, this happens.
So I understand what Bollers is trying to do here. He’s trying to have the FFs act more like a team by giving everybody something to do. Antoine’s the group’s pilot so what’s better than having him show off his skills and save everyone from crashing? The problem is the way it’s presented though.
For starters the layout is bland and confusing. Add in the vague, generic dialogue and it’s hard for the readers to understand what’s going on. There’s no real reason given on screen for Antoine to have such trouble flying. And yes I know Ant says he’s just as a confused as to what happened, but the audience should at least be given a hint. Otherwise it just looks like Twan’s purposefully dicking around to annoy his friends.
Also that call back to the love triangle is misplaced and ruins the pacing of the scene. Like why do we need two close calls with the plane acting up back to back?
So every one arrives in one piece and the president agrees to take in the refugees if the Freedom Fighters help them get rid of a dragon who’s attacking the city.
The second story picks back up the Green Knuckles arc and we’re introduced to everyone’s “favorite” mary sue….. Lara-Su.
“Enter: Robolactus” Freedom Fighters of the Galaxy II - Sonic the Hedgehog #104
Today’s review will be a short one. Mainly cause neither Twan-Du nor Bunni, get much of anything to do. In fact none of the heroes accomplish anything useful this issue.
First Silver Snively kicks everbody’s asses.
Sonic, now called Sonik for some reason, defeats him but only cause he didn’t get anything to do last issue. He also takes up the leader role for no other reason than virtue of being the main character.
I see Bunni has a cute nickname for 27; anybody else ready to ship them too?
But then Robolactus shows up to eat Saleta’s planet. (not to be confused with StH 38′s Robotnicus; even though they are both essentially the same character)
One’s mildly less stupid than the other, cause one is a make-believe character created by an 8 year old and the other is meant to be cannon.
Robolactus beats up everybody, including Sonik, an the day is saved by Silver Snively, for no apparent reason, suddenly growing to Robolactus size and talking him into eating the Shark’s planet instead.
Silver Snively has no motivation for his heel-face turn, and it’s never hinted at through out the comic. Just three pages before this he was gleefully monologueing to thin air about how all of the Galaxy FFs were going to die. So why would he care to stop Robolactus now?
All of the Galaxy FFs are useless this issue. There’s a difference between making your big bad a threat and completely steamrolling your own heroes. They serve no purpose if the day is saved by someone else without their input.
HawkHawk is a dumb name and he is even extra pointless here than the rest of the FFs. He accomplishes nothing, is unlikable and doesn’t get along with the other team members, and he’s not a descendant nor a AU version of any of the Archie cast. So what was the point of including him?
And don’t give me, “to parody *insert name of Marvel/DC character here* “ The parody was already screwed with they decided to rehash an older issue and combine the Fantastic Four mythos with their tribute to Guardians of the Galaxy. Not to mention that just about any other previously established character could have fulfilled this role.
The heroes willfully cheer on the big bad to murder an entire planet. But hey it’s ok cause all Sharks are assholes, am I right? Never mind that there are surely innocents, such as children and other wildlife on that planet that will die too.
This won’t stop Robolactus. After he’s done with that planet he’ll be back again or off to destroy someone else.
Anything else? umm…Twan-Du is in charge of flying the spaceship and managing the teleports. He’s the Archie Sonic version of Scotty, I guess.
The second story this issue is the second part to the Downunda FFs solo story.
“Quantum Leap” Freedom Fighters of the Galaxy I - Sonic the Hedgehog #103
In this retrospective I’m covering not just our main heroes journeys, but also any and all alternate universe/timeline versions of them as well. Including today’s really out place “Zone Wars” story.
Yeah, ya see this issue and next one were originally written to be a part of the Sonic Super Special series before it got canceled, back when the Zone Wars was still a thing. According to the news letter in the back of the comic, Penders was really sick at this time, surgery and multiple doctor visits and all that jazz, so they put all of the on going story arcs on hold and pulled this unprinted issue out instead. And I get it, life happens and you got to still make the deadlines somehow, and it’s nice that we get to see these stories rather then have them buried in the archives forever, but this era will continue to be plagued by mismanagement like this through out its tenure and they won’t always have unused stories conventionally lying around.
Anyways we open up with Zonic the Zone Cop explaining his mission and how the multiverse works, and my brain is already beginning to hurt.
So wait, are alternate timelines the same thing as alternate universes then? Cause all of the various timelines we see can’t be interacted with by anyone in the comic other than Silver and other specified time travelers. But anyone can travel to an alternate dimension, even without the Zone Cops’ approval, and all of the alternate zones that everyone’s interacted with have been roughly the same time period as Mobius prime.
Also time can be changed and influenced in the comic and that causes butterfly effects and grandfather paradoxes not alternate worlds. Cause if we follow the theory that all alternate universes are divergent timelines than that means that there a some worlds where Sonic was never born and therefore would debunk the need of a Mobius Prime, or that Sonic’s trips to modern day Earth where he’s a video game/comic book character were not crossovers with other worlds but him traveling to an alternate past, or that worlds like Anti-Mobius has it’s own set of multiple timelines/divergent worlds of its own; including one where the characters’ pasts remain the same but they wound up good anyways.
Moving right along, in this world’s timeline Sonic was captured by Robotnik and flung into space. There he stayed in cryogenic sleep for a thousand years before returning back to Mobius where he runs into the descendants of the Freedom Fighters; who all conveniently look like their ancestors.
So in case the title didn’t give it away, this story is meant to be a parody of Guardians of the Galaxy, and not the “We are Groot” kind either. No, this a parody of the original classic team team that never got popular and therefore I know nothing about them cause I’m only familiar the MCU versions. Any gags or references are going to go over mine and most casual readers’ heads. Sorry.
The new gang gets a few pages to show off their powers; all the while making bad puns cause today’s writer is Gallagher.
Further proof that Antoine is really the Hawkeye of the Archie Sonic universe and not the Gambit.
Also, fun fact, today’s artist is Jim Valentino. Before working with Sonic and Archie, Valentino worked with Marvel and had a very long and notable run with, you guessed it, Guardians of the Galaxy. In fact some of the characters he’s parodying here are his own creations.
That line makes no sense what so ever. It’s over four thousand years after the destruction of America and this particular character is from an entirely different planet!
Yeah that’s right, none of the Galaxy FFs are from Mobius save Sonic and Tails’s descendant, Tailon.
They took others with them right? Cause four people wouldn’t be able to repopulate an entire species alone. Heck, Bunnie can’t even have kids, unless in this world her cybernetics work differently or they ran into the Bem while out in space. Another option is cloning, I guess, which would explain why everyone looks exactly like their ancestors, but where would they get the resources and knowledge to achieve that? It also wouldn’t explain Tailon, who must be a descendant of Tails; which means other Mobians manage to survive on Mobius anyways making the original FFs space voyage pointless.
Also is Bunnie and Antoine a couple in this world? Are Twan-Du and Bunni distance cousins? I want to say no, cause right afterwards the Galaxy FFs explain that the original refugees split up to colonize different worlds and I can’t imagine Ant or Buns willingly leaving the other behind if they were dating.
The mohawk look doesn’t look good on you honey Twan. What ever were ya’ll thinking?
So others had to have been on those ships right? Cause it says right there that the Shark are descendants of the Forty Fathom Freedom Fighters. I mean it makes no sense for there not to be other survives. The original FFs had to have had followers, enough to at least split up like the did in order to become rulers of their own planets…. And man is this all so stupid! And not in a silly fun way; in more of a makes your head hurt way. There’s no logical reason for the refugees to have split up the way they did. I don’t care if that was something that happened in the original GotG in this context it’s pointless.
So the story ends on a cliffhanger when, I kid you not, Silver Snively shows up.
Is this a Guardians of the Galaxy parody or Fanatic Four parody? And don’t tell me both cause we already had our shitty F4 parody back in StH 38!
Anyways the backup story for this issue follows the Downunda Freedom Fighters and I enjoy it, if only because Dave Manak is back for pencils. I won’t lie, he’s easily one of my favorite artists to ever work on the book. If I could go back and do it again, I would have given him the artist award for the first era and left the 2nd era to Art Mawhinney.
So the long-ass “Sword of Acorns” arc finally comes to an end. The Freedom fighters return to Knothole with the Robians in tow; reuniting everyone’s families including…
It’s been over two eras, nearly three years in real time, and at least 6 months or more in comic time since General D’Coolette was discovered to still be alive. Seeing Antoine finally reunited with his dad is perhaps the single best pay off for a long running sub-plot that this comic has ever had. Though it is brief, only three pages are dedicated to it, it’s still no less satisfying and heartwarming to see.
You know what else is satisfying? Finally seeing Sally and Elias stand up to their parents and let them know what’s really going on.
Says the controlling abusive asshat :P
As you saw above, only Sally can use the Sword of Acorns. This is because she rejected the Source of All which, being the manipulative bastard that it is, is trying to seduce her through the power of the sword. This goes absolutely nowhere and is never brought up again. But what does happen is Elias runs away from home and Sally proves to he parents that she is capable of ruling. That doesn’t mean the abuse will magically stop, but she and her brother at least can have some control over their lives now.
The only other relevant thing I need to point out is that Geoffrey St. John and the rest of the Secret Service take an extended leave of absence. Turns out Eggman had captured them and poisoned their blood stream with nanites. He also reprogrammed Heavy and Bomb to be sleeper agents who attack the royal family.
This is an important development for Geoffrey which in turn will effect both Bunnie and Antoine later on down the line. With his illness and the lost of his puppet king old Geoff will need to take some time to rethink his life.
The second story is still following Green Knuckles’ misadventures through time. As much as I and many others rightfully hate the Green Knuckles arc, this story has a sliver of enjoyably to it. If only to see our all powerful hero constantly fuck up over and over again is mildly amusing.
Last we left off Sonic and the Freedom Fighters had rescued the Robians from Robotropolis. However Nate Morgan stayed behind to assure everyone’s escape and was murdered by Eggman for his troubles. Unable to accept his lost, Sonic tries to rescue him only for everything to go topsy turvy as reality beings to warp.
First everyone is thrown into the Sonic OVA movie.
Witness the one and only appearance of Princess Sara. Shame really, as this cameo doesn’t highlight what makes her awesome nor her fantastic chemistry with Robotnik. Oh well, the acknowledgment that she even exists is appreciated anyways.
Yes, I’m an Eggsara shipper; what of it?
Then the world changes again as we’re thrown into a different timeline. This time Robotnik was jailed and never came to power. Jules is the only Robian, everyone has their families, and Sally and Knux are engaged.
But this world has a bittersweet lining, and not just cause Sonally isn’t endgame. Without the war or the FFs, Antoine never met Bunnie, never grew into a hero, and never got over his crush on Sally. Cause of this I actually consider this to be the saddest of the alternate timelines.
But time is still not done playing jump rope with our heroes. The next timeline features a world where “Endgame” never happened and Robotnik never died. Our heroes get to spend some panel time doing what they do best; working as a team and kicking butt. It’s a nice reminder of simpler and funner times. *sighs wistfully*
But as Sally and Sonic start to catch on that not everything is as it seems, they’re sent to yet another timeline. One where Sally did die during “Endgame”.
I’m not sure what to think about Bunnie’s get-up here. She looks good in black but going with her usual leotard doesn’t seem formal enough for a funeral.
Just as Sonic starts to go off the deep end from all of this mind fuckery, we land back into the real timeline again. Sort of, Nate reappears as a time/space apparition to give us an info dump about what’s been going on, before fading away forever. Sonic finally accepts his death and moves on.
So we can now finally say good bye to Bollers’s pointless self insert character for good.
“But wait, what exactly did happen?” I hear you say. Well turns out Green Knuckles is basically god and he tried to change time in the back story for this issue. Each time with disastrous results; but more on that later folks.
For now lets take a look at a bonus page and all the stupidity there in.
I and many others have discussed the awful art work up in the corner to death by now, so lets instead look at the text.
“But how could Penders fuck up something as simple as a brief summery of a character? All you gotta do is list off some of the main events in the comic and you’re done, right?”
Lets start with the KNOWN FAMILY part, shall we? In addition to her father, mother, and brother, Antoine is listed here too as her “Royal Consort”. Now for those who don’t know, *cough, Penders, cough* a consort is the legally married spouse of a ruling king or queen. They hold no official political power, hence the need for a different title rather then being called a royal themselves.
Sally is neither a queen yet, nor is she the current acting ruler of the kingdom, since her brother has been placed in charge instead. But more importantly, Sally and Antoine aren’t married! They are not related to each other in any way at this point in the comic.
Oh but they are “betrothed” according to Penders/Bollers. As stated in the fourth paragraph on this page. Only in order to be engaged both parties need to at least be aware of said engagement. Antoine hasn’t been informed of this news, is currently dating someone else, and the whole arranged marriage thing was only mentioned once by Max way back in issue 60 and it hasn’t been brought up since. This isn’t even a relevant plot point right now and won’t be for long time yet so why even bring it up here?
But the real puzzler is that picture at the bottom with Geoffrey St. John kissing Sally. His relationship with her has been over with for years now and it wasn’t even deemed important enough to mention in the summery. Hell, why not go with a shippy pic of Saltoine instead, since your pushing for it so hard here?
The worst part is that the whole Sally/Antoine triangle mess could have made for an interesting story, given their history together and the fact that everyone involved are good friends, but nope; the writers have to fuck it up six ways to Sunday before coming up with a cop-out ending. But that’s way on down the line folks.
PS: If Robotnik never came to power and Bunnie was never turned into a cyborg, does this mean she stayed with her Uncle Bo? Is he now free to peruse his overthrow of the Acrons’ rule of the southern provinces? Is a civil war brewing beneath the surface? Will She and Antoine be pitted against each other on the battle field? Will they be star-crossed lovers, doomed to die to end the conflict? Seriously, SADDEST TIMELINE EVER!!!
So if you’ve been following along with my regular posts, you’ll notice that I’m in a bit of financial trouble. I’ve lost one of my part time jobs and I still haven’t enough money saved up to purchase a new car. And while I have two other part time jobs to keep me afloat and pay most of my bills, that doesn’t leave me anything left over to save for other stuff I need. And without a car, it limits my ability to search for full time work.
So how does that concern you my dear viewers? Well I will continue this series regardless, because I enjoy it, but updates may become more infrequent as most of my time and effort must be put into job hunting and work.
That is unless you can help me continue the series and give you even more content.
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So I’ve made to the 100th issue of Sonic the Hedgehog and any sequential comics published there in for this marathon, and I have to be honest I never once thought I’d get this far. I’ve done long running marathons before but I’ve never finished them for one reason or other. Mainly because of lack of motivation or from getting fandom burnout. But this retrospective is still going strong and I have plans of quitting now.
And all this is thanks to you my loyal readers. I want to give a big thank you to everyone who has ever read, commented, liked, reblogged, lurked around my blogs, or followed me for my reviews. Your support matters a lot to me and helps to keep me going. And if you’re just now joining me, welcome. :D
I apologize in advance if I missed anybody. There’s just so many of you guys. It utterly blows my mind that so many people give crap about what I have to say about fictional characters! You guys are awesome!
A few months ago, and by a few I mean like half a year ago, I stumbled upon a great in depth breakdown of Antoine D’Coolette’s character development over the coarse of the comic. Her “Antoine D’Coolette Master Post” is what inspired me to reread through the comics again and to look back at both Bunnie’s and Antoine’s development with a more analytical eye. She’s the one responsible for the long ass marathon we’re going through today. So be sure to check her out. And you can find and read her master post here….
Now for the announcements part. I’ll be taking a short hiatus from the retrospective for a few weeks. I have some really stuff I need to do and I want to focus on my other marathon that I’m co-currently running this month. I’m hoping to finish my Month of Scooby-Doo review series by November the 2nd so I’m going to buckle down on it instead for awhile. So ya guys later.
