Media Essays: A Way Past Cool Retrospective (Archie Sonic Issues 160-170)

I'll never forget how for a period of my life, I was actually a fan of Archie's Sonic the Hedgehog comic book. It was around the 2010's period when I first discovered this comic. Around 2010 or so, I got back into the Sonic franchise and just wanted to consume all things Sonic related (don't take that the wrong way). I began rewatching Sonic X, I played several games I'd never played before, including the infamous Sonic the Hedgehog 2006 game, I began regularly reading the Sonic wiki over and over and I even began drawing and drawing and drawing all kinds of Sonic fanart. It was during my Sonic obsession that I ended up discovering that the franchise had its own comic series. I remember being on holiday in Portugal back in 2010 and I just randomly found an issue of the comic in a store somewhere, and printed in English no less. You'd think the writing would've been in Portuguese. XD The issue in particular was Issue 214. Yeah...not a great jumping on point.

After that, I just wanted to read more of the comic and thankfully, I found ways to read it online and became hooked. So hooked in fact that I even used the comic as my primary inspiration to become a writer with head writer Ian Flynn as my go-to-example on how to write (I was a poor judge of character back then, sue me...). I even remember it was reading online fan discourse around the comic as to why I joined DeviantArt back in 2012 and joined in with the discussions while also doing my own reviews and fanart at the time. I even made some friends over my love of Sonic at the time that I'm still friends with even to this day. For those people, you know who you are and I'm grateful to still have you in my life even after leaving DeviantArt. ^^ So yeah, good times...well, sort of. I didn't much enjoy bickering with the naysayers at the time and I must sadly confess I was quite guilty of being immature to some of them back in the day. My behaviour was wrong then and it's still wrong now. So to anyone who I insulted and was horrible to back in the day, I know it's a very long overdue apology, but I'm sorry and I wish I could take it all back.

Anyway, then the Ken Penders lawsuit happened and screwed everything over, and thus we got a mediocre reboot that killed my interest in Archie Sonic, then the comic itself got cancelled and then we got the IDW series which failed to grab me and I was pretty much done with it after the atrocious Metal Virus arc was over. And from what I can tell, I'm not missing much.

Now I find myself reflecting on those days of my life that have come and gone and ask myself...were the Sonic comics I read any good? Do they still hold up, or are they just from a period of my life that is best kept as a nostalgic memory? That's why I'm doing this retrospective. I want to look back on my experiences with Archie Sonic and see what I think to them nowadays. I'll be covering issues 160 - 247 of the original universe and also the reboot from up until the comic's cancellation. That was my Archie Sonic, not anything that came before it, so this retrospective will only be covering those issues.

So let's put on our red sneakers and speed into this, A Way Past Cool Retrospective...

Issues 160-161

Issue 160 was a turning point for the Archie Sonic series at the time. Out of the writer's chair was long time writer and artist Ken Penders (and all for the best too) and in came new writer Ian Flynn, a man who has certainly made a name of himself in the Sonic the Hedgehog fandom...and not always for good reasons. But that's a topic for another kind of post. I want to keep focused entirely on the comics and the stories these issues told, so let's get into it. Ian Flynn would remain the head writer of Archie Sonic up until its demise during the reboot era and to this day, he's still writing Sonic comics over at IDW. I dunno if that's impressive or sad honestly...

Issue 160 is all about Sonic and Evil Sonic's birthdays and what they get up to. These two issues are notable for a couple of things. One was the introduction of Bean the Dynamite and Bark the Polar Bear, two obscure characters from Sonic the Fighters that ended up regaining newfound popularity because of Ian Flynn's take on the duo. Bean is a crazy loon who whips bombs out of nowhere and loves shiny objects while Bark is the strong but silent type. This issue also reveals that Fiona Fox knows who they are too (and it's further explained later in issue 165), which gives the duo more of a sense of belonging into this universe. Much like everybody else, I ended up liking these versions of Bean and Bark and this comic is what introduced me to them in the first place since I haven't played Sonic the Fighters. Bean is hilarious and whenever he's around, we get some of the most fun moments of the comic. The duo burst in and cause havoc at Sonic's birthday party with Bean throwing bombs everywhere and Bark showing how strong he is, but Fiona distracts Bean with keys and Bark is forced to stand down once he sees he's outnumbered. Sally confronts Fiona about how she knows the duo, which has Fiona sadly lament about her chequered past and Sonic kindly reassures her she's a welcome part of the team. Aww, how sweet...too bad issue 172 ruins all that. X( Shadow the Hedgehog also shows up in order to thank Sonic for events in the previous issue. I haven't read Issue 159, but the dialogue gives me an idea on what went down. Something to do with Metal Sonic troopers and how they would've killed Hope Kintobor, so Shadow's grateful to Sonic for preventing that. Bean somehow manages to get past everybody and use Freedom HQ's computer to contact Dr. Eggman and let him know what's gone down. This leads to Eggman sending one of his goons to deal with the blue blur...

...which is this thing, a hybrid between Crocobot and Octobot, two previous Eggman robots that have been around in previous issues. Not sure why Flynn felt the need to bring them back, especially since they get scrapped immediately in the next issue.

There's also a subplot involving Evil Sonic and Rouge the Bat trying to steal the Master Emerald, only for Knuckles' father Locke to get in their way. This is a follow-up to Issues 150 and 151 (two VERY atrocious issues!) in where they tried that last time and it didn't end well for them. However, things go differently when Evil Sonic gets atop the Master Emerald and attempts to power himself up. He's interrupted, but what he got was enough to change him...

...into Scourge the Hedgehog.

Can I just say I LOVE that as a name for an evil version of Sonic? Too bad the character himself is all kinds of icky given some...unfortunate conclusions the fans can come to thanks to how Ken Penders handled him back in issue 150. Even I have to agree that it's pretty hard to ignore how Scourge is a rapist (Penders confirmed himself that Evil Sonic and Bunnie slept together, ergo confirming Scourge raped her) and the fact Flynn is strangely quiet about the issue doesn't make it any better. Now here he is trying to reinvent Evil Sonic and make him out to be this uber-badass unstoppable villain who kicks ass and takes names just because the writer says he can. The next issue especially takes the mickey in this scenario.

See what I mean? Like, I can imagine Scourge holding his own against Sonic or Shadow individually, but BOTH AT ONCE? This is bad fanfic levels of writing, which is fitting since Ian Flynn started out that way. In a pathetic attempt to convince the readers Scourge is a badass, he just makes him uber powerful right off the bat and has him beat Sonic and Shadow in a fight solely just to make him look cool. It doesn't, it just makes the writing look childish and again is akin to a bad fanfic in where the author's pet OC is just more powerful than everybody else. It's why the villains of RWBY don't work for me or why I can't stand Roy in the later seasons of Pokémon Horizons. Making your character look uber powerful at the expense of everybody else and also contriving the story in ridiculous ways to benefit them doesn't make them look any better, it makes them annoying to watch and feels as if the story is being written by a rabid fan who just wants their favourite characters to win all the time. It's even weirder in Scourge's case because in later issues, he's NEVER depicted as being this powerful again!

Anyway, Issue 162 is a very bloated, very rushed conclusion to the two-parter in where Croctobot is taken out in seconds, Bean and Bark just exit the story because I guess Ian didn't have anything else for them to do, Scourge curb-stomps Sonic and Shadow just so Ian can make him seem "cool", then Scourge and Rouge run away because the other Freedom Fighters are joining in, then Scourge and Rouge end up going through a warp ring and get recruited by Dr. Finitevus, who for some reason is drawn as if he's sitting on his throne but as you can see in the panel the throne's too far away so he looks like he's sitting on air. The End. At the time, Finitevus' return was a big surprise since it was presumed he died during the events of Issue 141, but now this issue confirms he's actually alive, and all for the better in my eyes for Flynn took this nothing character and made him one of the best Sonic villains to date, but we'll talk more about that later.

Both issues have a second two-parter which only exists just to promote the upcoming Sonic Rush game at the time and introduce Blaze into the Archie-verse. There's nothing else that needs saying about them other than Blaze gets knocked out...by a SWAT-bot. A SWAT-BOT! Talk about a bad first impression for such an awesome character! You do NOT introduce Blaze in such a humiliating fashion! That'd be like writing a Transformers comic and you bring in fan-favourite bounty hunter Lockdown...and his first appearance shows him getting knocked out by a Mini-Con. If this was meant to introduce us to Blaze and hype up Sonic Rush, then having her get knocked out and kidnapped was the wrong way to do it. And sadly, Sonic Universe would continue this trend of Blaze being done dirty. It still amazes me how IDW Sonic the Hedgehog hasn't been keeping this up, but I digress.

These issues...aren't that great. They're NOT a good first impression from Flynn at all. What we have is a very bloated two-parter that tries doing too much at once and ends as quickly as it begins. We have Sonic's birthday, we have Evil Sonic's birthday, we have Shadow showing up, we have the introduction of Bean and Bark, we have Crocotobot being introduced and discarded just as quickly and then we have set up for future issues with Dr. Finitevus at the end. Why Flynn felt the need to do so much at once, I'll never understand. One can't deny he quickly made his mark with his debut issues though for Evil Sonic was never the same after this two-parter. He became Scourge from here on out, and then there's how Flynn reinvented Bean and Bark to the point this comic is used as the example to follow for how they're depicted. As is, Flynn still didn't get off to a good start here, and this'll be a recurring problem of his through the 160s portion of the comic. Oh and this two-parter gives Tails the middle finger too, and as a Tails fan I'm NOT down with that. What do I mean? Crocbot and Octobot were both enemies Tails fought and defeated in the past. He even lampshades this in Issue 161. Yet in this story that has nothing to do with him, the two come back as a weird hybrid thing and Tails isn't the one who gets to defeat them. Sonic, Shadow and Scourge hog (no pun intended) all the glory. In this retrospective, you better get used to Tails being done dirty, because Flynn LOVES doing this for some reason. I know he hasn't said as such, but his writing back during these issues give a very unfavourable impression that he hates Tails and loves making him suffer for some reason.

Oh and Tracy Yardley's artwork is...yeah, early Tracy Yardley is pretty painful to look at, sorry to say. This art did not age well. Thankfully, he would go on to produce MUCH better artwork as time went on...

Issues 162-164: The Darkest Storm Saga

Next up is the three part Darkest Storm saga. Even when I used to be a fan of the comic, this saga was always a weird anomaly to me. What do I mean? The fact that I can never really remember what happens in this story. It just exists and I never find myself reflecting on it much after it's over. It's weird too, because a lot DOES actually happen in the story. We have ADAM setting things up for later, we have Merlin Prower meeting Tails at last, we have Mammoth Mogul and Ixis Naugus duking it out, we have ADAM framing his sister M which leads to Eggman ordering her to kill herself (that's dark), he Ancient Walkers are killed, Sir Connery also ends up dead and we learn Mammoth Mogul is an Ixis wizard. So why does this story leave me feeling nothing in the end? I never really knew why before I did this retrospective, but I think I might know now I've reread it again.

This story's biggest problem is that it's basically a sequel to several plot threads I don't know about and still don't care to know about and the story's less its own thing and more just wrapping up all these plot threads. This is NOT the kind of story that should serve as a jumping on point for any reader of this comic. And despite there being a lot going on, I struggle to care about what's happening because none of it's really that interesting to me. Also the story really stretches credibility with the fact everything that is going on here is "all according to plan" as ADAM keeps gloating about. OK, so ADAM sabotages the Egg Grapes so that Ixis Naugus and Uma Arachnis' children are set free, then he somehow kills the Ancient Walkers (seriously, even after re-reading the story I still don't get how it happened), then Mammoth Mogul is set free, then Mogul and Naugus fight each other until Naugus learns that Mogul was Ixis Mogul and joins his side, then he frames M for conspiring with Anonymous and in the end, the outcome is that Sir Connery is dead, the Source of All is destroyed and Mogul and Naugus end up captured. I can't wrap my head around this, there's way too many steps here! We're seriously supposed to believe ADAM planned all this? Even Mogul and Naugus teaming up? This plan is way too convoluted to be believable and it's probably why this story left no impact on me. There's way too much exposition so it simultaneously feels like the story is moving at a snail's pace despite there being a lot going on and ADAM's plan is so overly convoluted that I can't believe for a minute he totally planned all this. Put all this together along with the story's primary purpose being wrapping up several plot threads that require extensive amounts of research to understand what's going on and you have a story that's impregnable to newcomers. It's just a boring, forgettable slog to me.

Oh and this panel at the end of Part 3? A total red herring. This silhouette was supposed to hint that the mysterious Anonymous was the original Dr. Robotnik somehow coming back (long story, can't be arsed to explain it here). As we find out in Issue 168, ADAM is Anonymous, so this panel was nothing more than a flat-out lie just to deceive the audience. Fans who have been with the comic since Issue 1 no doubt felt cheated because it seemed the original Robotnik was coming back, but that doesn't happen. Why even show this image if it's nothing more than a lie? Well...it wasn't meant to be a red herring, that's why. One of the original writers of the comic, Romy Chacon, was going to have it turn out that Anonymous was Robotnik Prime, back from the dead for real this time after he was killed off during the atrocious Endgame saga. Flynn even wanted to go with that idea, but SEGA forbid it, probably because they didn't want two Robotniks around at the same time, so this ended up going nowhere in the end. Damn executive meddling...

So yeah, even now The Darkest Storm saga doesn't do it for me. The story is boring, the artwork by James Fry is atrocious, ADAM's plan is too unbelievable and it flat out lies about the potential identity of Anonymous at the end. Just an utterly disposal three parter in my eyes.

Issue 162's second story brings Snively back to Dr. Eggman's side, putting to rest that subplot that started of him joining the Freedom Fighters for some time while also giving Flynn a convenient excuse to write Hope Kintobor out of the story for a while while Issues 163 and 164 have a Sonic Riders tie-in story. Nothing more to say there other than I love how Tracy Yardley manages to mimic the Sonic Riders art-style to a tee. That's really cool. What's NOT really cool is what's next in this retrospective...

Issues 165-167: Mobius: 25 Years Later's conclusion

Issue 165 is a stand-alone issue that is completely disposable. All it does is show the Freedom Fighters interrogating Rouge, Rouge explaining off-screen stuff that happened, Sonic and Scourge fighting each other for a bit and then we have hints that Fiona might be cheating on Sonic with Scourge. Wonderful. I can't for the life of me understand why Ian wrote the issue this way. Why not devote some time to the events Rouge was talking about instead of cramming it all into a length exposition/flashback dump? And then there's Tails being done dirty (again) because somehow Sleuth Dawg of all characters managed to get the drop on him and is holding him at gunpoint. I remind you all, this version of Tails has gone up against Mammoth Mogul and defeated him. TWICE! Yet somehow Sleuth Dawg got the drop on him despite being a normal non-powered Mobian? Utter nonsense if you ask me. Tails would've floored Sleuth in seconds. Oh and remember what I said about Scourge earlier? In this issue, Sonic is able to beat him by himself despite Scourge holding his own against Sonic and Shadow simultaneously last time. What's that about? I do like the tree-top battle with Sonic and Scourge though, that was cool to look at and Tracy Yardley drew it brilliantly. Aside from that? Nothing else. The second story features Knuckles and Locke falling out with one another for reasons I don't care about.

Issues 166 and 167 are more important to talk about, mainly because they serve as the conclusion to Ken Penders' atrocious Mobius: 25 Years Later saga. Why Flynn felt the need to waste two issues on this crap, I have no idea. Nobody cares about Mobius: 25 Years Later and nobody was enjoying it. The arc had been panned heavily for its abysmally slow pace, over-focus on Knuckles and his family and random love drama that has no place in a Sonic comic. So why did Flynn think deviating from the main story to give us a conclusion nobody was asking for was a good idea? It's not even a good conclusion either. What we have is YET ANOTHER rushed two-parter that hastily wraps everything up in an anti-climactic way with Lara-Su not beating the Mary-Sue allegations anytime soon because somehow she of all people defeats Shadow. Not Sonic, not Tails, not Knuckles, LARA-SU! Even if Ken Penders didn't write this, I can totally see him doing the same thing with this conclusion, so I guess it's appropriate the story should end this way? But that's not the only thing this two-parter did terribly. Anti-climactic ending is one thing, but the biggest sin of this story is the complete and utter character assassination of Shadow the Hedgehog. For reasons that make sense only to aliens from outer space, Flynn portrays Shadow in this distant future as a dictatorial tyrant who makes Maria this religious figure to be worshipped and doesn't act anything like Shadow. I know SEGA has strict mandates on how Shadow should be portrayed, but that's no excuse to make him this out-of-character. And don't give me any bull about "Sonic accidentally altered the timeline, this is an alternate future!" because shut up. Nobody's giving Wonder Woman from the Injustice universe the benefit of the doubt despite this being an alternate Wonder Woman, so why should we give Shadow a free pass because this is an "alternate timeline"? No, this is character assassination, plain and simple. There is NEVER a universe or a timeline where Shadow would be an evil dictator.

So yeah, these two issues suck, plain and simple. It's a conclusion nobody was asking for to a story nobody even cared for in the first place, it's incredibly rushed due to being a two-parter, Shadow is character assassinated and it ends on a massive anti-climax that just kisses Lara-Su's ass some more. Two very disposable issues that aren't worth your time at all...

Issues 168-169: ADAM's plot concludes

Issues 168 and 169 are a two-parter that resolves the Anonymous conspiracy that's been hanging over the comic for a while. As mentioned earlier, Anonymous turns out to be ADAM this whole time and the original Dr. Robotnik has nothing to do with it, which once again has me wondering why the last panel of Issue 164 flat-out lied to us. Anyhow, Dr. Eggman figures out who ADAM was and he tries to have him deleted, but ADAM has uploaded his consciousness into a batch of nanites that are in Tommy Turtle's shell and he's able to control him as a result. He then captures Tails and Shadow so he can use them to bring forth every single Chaos Emerald in the universe. Before you ask, the Archie-verse had it so multiple Chaos Emeralds exist, not just seven, and each colour comes from a different planet. ADAM gathers them all together to obtain ultimate power and also make Eggman proud. Eggman...for some reason isn't proud of ADAM for doing this and wants him destroyed. This, I don't get. While yes ADAM did manipulate him and pull some strings behind his back to pull off his plan, but Eggman: HE'S GATHERED TOGETHER EVERY SINGLE CHAOS EMERALD IN THE UNIVERSE FOR YOU! Why are you not happy with him for doing this? If I were ADAM, I'd be breaking into King Magnifico's "This Is The Thanks I Get?!" song in response to such ingratitude!

In order to stop ADAM, Sonic uses the emeralds to go super, and so does ADAM. I LOVE the design of Super ADAM here. It looks really badass and bears a striking resemblance to Solaris from Sonic the Hedgehog (2006). The only problem is we barely see it in action because instead we're focusing on Super Shadow and Turbo Tails getting rid of all the Chaos Emeralds to the Zone of Silence. Talk about a waste of an awesome design.

Anyhow, as this is yet another rushed two-parter, the conflict wraps up insanely quickly with the Chaos Emeralds sent to another dimension and ADAM is obliterated when Tommy Turtle takes control of his body back and flies into the line of fire as Eggman's fleet shoots at him. From what I understand, Tommy Turtle was a pretty unpopular character back in the day, so I imagine this was why Flynn killed him off. I have no opinions on Tommy Turtle so this death didn't affect me. I just feel that it was...unwarranted. Like, why did this story need Tommy Turtle to die? It doesn't affect the story in anyway, his death doesn't lead to anything going forward and it's more-or-less forgotten about. It's one of those cases where we have a character death for the sake of it and it feels like Flynn playing clean-up duty rather than telling a good story.

Oh and fun fact, Issue 169 is the last issue that Ken Penders ever wrote for as he wrote the second story for this one. After that, never again would he write for this comic, and good riddance too. Flynn may be bad, but Penders was worse by a long shot...

This two-parter is the best of the stories I've covered here, but that's not saying much. Since it's a two-parter that has to make room for secondary stories, it's incredibly rushed (again) and it feels too much like Flynn clearing the deck. Granted, this comic was in such a mess by the time he took over so he probably did feel like he needed to perform clean-up duty, but there were better ways of doing this than killing off a character so needlessly and wrapping up some of these storylines so hastily. If this two-parter didn't have the secondary stories and devoted all its pages to the main plot, it might've been paced better, especially during the action scenes. As is, this did lead to one of many steps Flynn took to making the comic closer to the games...

Issue 170: The Aftermath

Issue 170 follows the aftermath of Order From Chaos in where we find out the Zone of Silence is now the Special Zone and its occupant, a giant panda named Feist, has reshaped the Chaos Emeralds so now there are only seven like in the games. Out of gratitude for what Sonic and Tails have done, Feist gives them the grey Chaos Emerald and they use it to heal King Max and also bring Tails' parents back to Mobius since they've been trapped on another planet for quite some time. Too bad later issues will ruin this tender moment by having Rosemary and Amadeus orchestrate a stupid revolution that goes nowhere and Rosemary becomes a member of the Council of Acorn, but I'm getting ahead of myself. After all that's done, Sonic ponders about Shadow's place in the Eggman Empire and the issue ends with Shadow demanding to see Professor Gerald's diary.

This issue was...fine, but nothing special. It's another example of cramming in too much at once and the cliff hanger was completely out of nowhere. We never see or learn how Shadow found out about the diary. He just...knows and we're supposed to accept it. This is yet another issue that should've devoted all its pages to this one story instead of shoving in this unnecessary story with Sonic coming across an island of Badniks so the story could've been paced better. I would've either made it solely about getting the Prowers back or focusing solely on healing King Max rather than doing both at the same time. Doing both in this one issue just means we barely have time to really feel for our heroes for achieving these two goals since there's no time to waste on that. Flynn should've picked one of those plots, not both, and had a subplot about Shadow that could've set up the ending a lot better.

Conclusion

And that's Part 1 of my Archie Sonic retrospective, and boy is it off to a disappointing start! There are too many rushed two-parters, the artwork isn't the best ever, Flynn seems more focused on clean-up duty than telling a good story and there are ideas in these issues that don't work out like ADAM's overly convoluted plan in The Darkest Storm saga or Shadow being evil in Mobius: 25 Years Later. Such a mediocre batch of issues and a poor first impression for what was then Archie Sonic's new head writer. And sadly, I don't think I'll be viewing him any more favourably as time goes on...

Next in this retrospective, we cover the 170s from 171-179. See you then media fans!

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