Media Essays: A Way Past Cool Retrospective (Archie Sonic Issues 171-179)

Part 1 here.

Greetings Sonic fans! Welcome back to the Way Past Cool Retrospective! Last time, I covered Issues 160-170. They weren't very good. So hopefully this batch of issues will be an improvement. For this line-up, we're covering Issues 171-179. For these issues, we have Shadow's backstory being explored, Fiona turning traitor, the marriage of Bunnie and Antoine, Flynn's first milestone issue and a two-parter about Sonic and Tails fighting each other!

...

Wait, what was that last part?

Looks like I'm not getting my wish for this one. Still, the 170s aren't all bad, but the bad issues here are REALLY bad, so it's still going to be tough to get through.

Anyhow, let's dive in...

Issues 171-172: Shadow Learns His Past and Fiona Nonsensically Turns Traitor

Issue 171 picks up where the previous issue ended with Shadow confronting Eggman about keeping Professor Gerald's diary from him. He manages to coax the information out of Snively and also rips his last remaining hairs off out of spite. Shadow finds the diary and goes to Freedom HQ since that's the safest place he can access the diary. Sonic and Tails let Shadow inside and with help from Nicole, they physically interface with the diary so Shadow can learn who he truly is.

This issue is notable for marking the return of Nicole's new holo-lynx avatar we first saw in Issue 151, so props to Flynn for not leaving that concept dead and buried and keeping it going. I also love how Sonic compliments her about it. Like you Sonic, we like Nicole's look too. The issue is also notable for bringing the Black Arms into the Archie-verse...sort of. They were mentioned in Issue 170 last time and get a mention here with one panel giving us a shot of Black Doom as Gerald explains Shadow's past to him. At the time, Flynn wasn't allowed to actually use the Black Arms, so a passing mention and an in-universe explanation of why they're taking so long to show up (they're warring with the Xorda) was all he could get away with. Too bad when the Black Arms actually did show up in the comics years later for a Sonic Universe arc, it ended up being underwhelming. :/

Anyhow, this issue is a weird anomaly to me. It's a standalone issue that has nothing really to do with anything else that's been going on in the comics at this point and it merely exists just to bring Shadow's arc to a hasty conclusion. Again, it really does feel like in these early issues that Ian Flynn had no real plans for the comic and was using these stories as excuses to rush them to a conclusion so he can get all the baggage out the way and start telling the stories he wants to tell. As a result, what should've felt like Shadow getting a resolution to his story just felt so underwhelming here. There was no build-up to it and it kinda just happens because Flynn wanted to get it over and done with. As is, I like how Shadow comes to realize how reliable the Freedom Fighters are, the return of Nicole's avatar was welcome and Shadow saying goodbye to Maria was pretty effective.

Oh and this panel is hilarious:

(chef's kiss) I love it! So funny! XD Though Knuckles comes off as a bit prejudiced saying "He's Eggman's nephew, they're all insane!" He does remember who Hope Kintobor is, right? She's Eggman's niece and the half-sister of Snively and she's nothing like Eggman at all, so screw you Knuckles. =P

The issue also has a second story that sees Dr. Finitevus manipulate Locke into letting him watch over the Master Emerald in order to set up the upcoming Enerjak: Reborn saga. We also get to see the return of Dimitri, a character who has had a LOOOOONG history in the comics that I'll go over when we get to Enerjak: Reborn. Unlike the first story, the second story doesn't feel so out of nowhere and feels like it has more of a purpose to the main story at hand as it sows the seeds for future events while also showing us more of Finitevus' personality under Flynn's pen. Needless to say, he's been making a strong impression and I'll forever be grateful that Flynn took what was originally a nothing character and made him one of the best Sonic villains ever.

Unfortunately, it is time I covered this infamous issue. An issue so infamous even Flynn himself regrets the way it turned out. (sigh) Well...here we go.

This is the issue in where Fiona turns out to be a traitor who's two-timing Sonic with Scourge. Back in the day, I used to defend this change in Fiona's character due to finding Fiona a bland character with no real personality during her days as a Freedom Fighter. Nowadays, I'm in NO mood to defend this complete and utter character assassination of Fiona. Not only does the story not make sense in the first place because we never saw Scourge (as Evil Sonic back then) hit on Fiona in issue 150, so this entire issue hinges on something having happened off-panel in order to happen, but it's also all kinds of wrong to pair Fiona up with a character who is a rapist. And before anyone dares to try and tell me I'm reaching for conclusions here, no, Penders himself confirmed that Evil Sonic and Bunnie slept together in Issue 150 over on his Twitter account. Don't believe me? This video shows the tweet in question. Remember, he was pretending to be Sonic at the time and sex under false pretences equals rape. SCOURGE. IS. A. RAPIST! And on top of it, he's kind of paedophilic too. What do I mean? An earlier issue of Archie Sonic had Amy Rose use a magical ring to artificially age herself up as an in-universe explanation for her redesign after the Adventure games. Amy is physically older but is mentally still a pre-teen, which is all kinds of weird. She mentions in Issue 152 that Scourge kissed her, so Scourge literally kissed a pre-teen. Gross. X( Now granted, Scourge wouldn't have known that since he wasn't there when Amy aged herself up, so it's not like he knowingly kissed a pre-teen. What makes this problematic is that Flynn doesn't acknowledge this and keeps glazing Scourge regardless, which doesn't paint him in a good light. And Flynn somehow thought this was the best way to handle Fiona's character? Have her run off with said rapist? Also Scourge is a womanizing pervert who hit on just about every woman he met during his masquerade as Sonic, why the hell would Fiona ever trust anyone who's this unfaithful? She does realize there's every chance he could two-time her as well? In fact, HE ALREADY DID!!! Since he supposedly flirted with Fiona off-panel during Issue 150, that means he hit on her and then continued to hit on all the other girls, including Rouge the Bat. This should feel like a slap in the face to Fiona because Issue 165 revealed she and Rouge have a pretty fierce rivalry during her days as a bounty hunter. Why Fiona didn't slap Scourge across the face for two-timing her WITH HER HATED RIVAL is a mystery for the ages. Why did I ever try to defend this nonsense?

Oh and Flynn apparently intended for Fiona to turn on Scourge after realizing how toxic he is and break off on her own to become her own villainess. Lovely, so Flynn never had any plans for Fiona to have a redemption arc. He turned her evil and intended for her to stay that way with no chance at redemption. Just...wonderful (sarcasm). And Fiona's heel-turn goes against the character she's supposed to be. She has trust issues, yet she's fine with trusting Scourge, who is the least trustworthy guy she knows? And she turns on the heroes because they won't kill Dr. Eggman, the guy who ruined her childhood and terrorises her home planet on a regular basis, yet in later issues she helps Scourge conquer his own planet. Are we sure this is even Fiona Fox anymore? This Fiona feels like a completely different character from the Fiona we had before, hence why I call this character assassination. Flynn completely ignored everything about Fiona's character and her past just so he can give us this new evil Fiona that's a different character to the point she may as well have been a new character instead.

That, plus the fact Flynn at no point mentions the age issue with Fiona, whose aging is incredibly strange and only makes her relationship with Scourge more uncomfortable. If he's hoping we'd forget about that, he's sorely mistaken. =P

Oh and this is the issue where Fiona commits child abuse by slapping Tails across the face for literally no reason whatsoever. No really, she LITERALLY had no reason to do that! Flynn made her do it just for tasteless shock value! In the interests of good taste and decency and to avoid triggering my audience, I will NOT be showing that panel. Flynn, you should be ashamed of yourself for typing this into the script and Tracy Yardley should be ashamed he had to draw it. This is edge-lord grimdark fanfic levels of writing and has no business being in a comic for all ages. Utterly despicable if you ask me. X( Making things worse is that we don't even get to see Fiona suffer any comeuppance for such a horrible act. She and Scourge get away scot-free with only Scourge kinda suffering a blow to his pride when Sonic rejects Scourge's "one bad day" speech and points out how if Scourge had a heart, he'd be just like him. So yeah, thanks Flynn. You character assassinated Fiona, had her commit child abuse and suffer no consequences for her actions. Why did I ever think this guy was a good writer?

The second story is a training session between Amy Rose and Julie-Su, and is way more enjoyable than this one for sure! The bit where a sleepy Amy walks into a river despite Julie-Su's warning always makes me laugh. XD But that's not saying much as it really felt like filler in the long run with artwork that isn't suited for the Sonic style and Amy showing off the worst of her Sonic fangirl behaviour she was stuck with back in the day.

I'm done here, I don't want to talk about this horrible issue anymore. Let's move on to the next one.

Issues 173-174: Bunnie and Antoine's Wedding

After that mean-spirited dreck, the next two issues give us a far more pleasant story in where Antoine proposes to Bunnie. While a sweet idea for a story, the context is pretty ridiculous when you think about it. You see, Issue 172 literally concludes with Sonic and Amy telling Antoine about Fiona's treachery and he says "Our enemies grow in zere numbers! Sonic, Amy, come with me sil vous plait" and when Sonic asks what he's going to do, Antoine says "Sometink I should've done a long time ago!"...and then proposes to Bunnie. I...I can't even make sense of this. Why was this Antoine's response to hearing such news? He hears Fiona's a traitor and decides to propose to Bunnie? What? It just comes off as severe Mood Whiplash to me. We go from a heart-breaking betrayal that sees Sonic's girlfriend dump him and his best friend get slapped across the face to Antoine proposing marriage? This doesn't feel like a natural follow-up from the previous issue, this feels like a follow-up from a completely different issue!

Issue 173 isn't even very good regardless of the terrible set-up. Instead of being focused on Antoine proposing to Bunnie, it's focused on the Freedom Fighters dealing with several villains and capturing them. Why? I have no idea, Flynn has his story-telling priorities all mixed up here! What the hell did the plot of the FFs fighting Nack, Bean, Bark, Mogul and Naugus have to do with Antoine and Bunnie getting married? These two plots feel completely disconnected from one another and thus gives us this mess of an issue that seems conflicted on what story it wants to tell. It also doesn't help that the villains are all taken out in like one or two panels (In Nack's case, he's taken out OFF PANEL!!!) and very easily. Mogul and Naugus especially feel insulting because they're two of the most powerful characters in the comic, yet both of them go down after a single blow. I know they've both been weakened, but come on! You shouldn't disrespect two powerful villains like that!

Issue 174 thankfully has better pacing and two plots that work together better with one half being Antoine and Bunnie's wedding and the other half being set-up for Issue 175. The main plot is pretty sweet as we get the preparations for the wedding and the actual wedding itself. While it was poorly set-up in the previous issue, the payoff works well enough for me and it's so nice that after so much teasing between the two that Bunnie and Antoine get to finally progress with their relationship and marry. Lord knows we'll never get anything like this again in the comic! It's also a really nice calm before the storm moment as we reach Issue 175. The subplot is well done too with Espio discovering what Eggman's plan is and we get a tease of what's to come when he sees the Egg Beater armour Eggman will use in the next issue. While I found it stupid how he panicked and got himself caught (seriously, Espio should be disciplined enough to know not to do that), it did give us one hell of an intense cliff-hanger when Eggman corners Espio and seemingly disintegrates him on the spot. Obviously we know Espio won't die, but it still makes you want to pick up the next issue and see what happens next and if Sonic can stop Eggman's plan, whatever it is.

Issues 173 and 174 have a secondary two-parter which introduces Chao and the Chao Garden to the comic universe. It's completely disposable and I don't know why Flynn wasted several pages on this story when he could've devoted more of them to the main stories of both issues. Again, this guy really has strange story-telling priorities I swear.

Issues 175-177: The Fall of Knothole and the Rise of New Mobotropolis

Issue 175 was Flynn's first ever milestone issue and one of the most memorable and iconic issues in the comic's history, and for damn good reason. This issue went all out by giving us the destruction of Knothole and an epic showdown with Sonic and Eggman that sees Eggman victorious for once. Sometimes in ongoing media, it is nice to let the villains win every now and then. It keeps things interesting and stops your series feeling stale. Issue 175 I'd say is the first issue since Flynn took over that can ACTUALLY be considered great. Not good, not OK, GREAT. The build-up was perfect with several issues and even a Free Comic Book Day issue building up to all this and the payoff is a huge punch to the feels where our heroes well and truly experience their first big loss they've had in a while. Eggman's fleet razes Knothole to the ground and everybody aside from Sonic, Tails, Knuckles and Amy get captured by Eggman, who reveals his Egg Beater hasn't disintegrated everybody, but teleported them to his Egg Grapes. Huh, now I'm getting Doctor Who vibes, specifically the episode "Bad Wolf" which had a similar twist. The only thing wrong with Issue 175 is the ridiculous conclusion. Eggman truly has Sonic beaten and at his mercy and instead of teleporting him to the Egg Grapes like with everyone else, he just flies away and leaves Sonic behind. Just...why? Was it too hard for Flynn to find some other way that Sonic could be spared from such a fate? Why didn't he have Tails, Amy and Knuckles arrive in time to help and Eggman's forced to retreat because of the damage Sonic inflicted to the suit? That would've made more sense as an ending. As is, unlike most of the issues in this retrospective, this one still holds up for me and is one of Ian Flynn's few good comics he's written.

Also, I don't know about anyone else, but I'd LOVE to see this thing be a boss fight in a Sonic game one day. It'd be such an awesome boss battle!

Issue 176 unfortunately undermines all of that by hastily rushing the conclusion. Literally the next issue, Sonic's back on his feet again and he and his friends run in, save everybody and make a fool out of Eggman when Nicole alters his teleportation beams so instead of warping everyone back to the Egg Grapes, he teleports them to the nanite city that Nicole has now taken control of off-panel. This in turn gives us the city of New Mobotropolis, the main setting for the comic up until the reboot later on. While I'm not against Sonic and friends making a comeback obviously, it's just a pity that it was so quick after Eggman won in Issue 175. Now as is well-known in the Archie Sonic fandom, this was NOT Ian Flynn's fault. As stated, SEGA have several mandates on the comic that the writers had to follow, one of those mandates being Sonic can't lose, so when Eggman won in Issue 175, he had to win immediately in the next issue after. What's weird about this mandate is that when we get to the Mecha Sally arc later down the line, Sonic ends up losing several times in that story and SEGA let Flynn get away with it, so what was going on with this one? Anyhow, I do love how Nicole comes up with the plan and she and Sonic are able to dupe Eggman to the point that he sends them to their new home instead of back to the Egg Grapes. Seeing Nicole get her big hero moment was really special, even if it felt like a deus ex machina.

What's not great though was how this issue had Charmy Bee get hurt by the Egg Grapes and the resulting damage regressed his mind to that of a child, bringing him closer to his game counterpart. You see, Charmy was older and more mature in the comics and quite different to his game counterpart. So Flynn had to change his personality so he was more like the energetic kid in the games. The way he did it...was not good. He essentially resorted to giving Charmy brain damage just to get this, which is pretty messed up when you think about it. For the rest of the comic up until the reboot, Charmy is now essentially a mentally handicapped adult or teenager, and that's just unfortunate. I think Flynn himself regrets how he handled it, and so he should. At least IDW Sonic doesn't have these unfortunate implications hanging over it...

This three-parter didn't just damage Charmy Bee though, Rotor Walrus got the short end of the stick too. In Issue 175, he pushed Tails out the way of a rock slide and some of the rocks landed on his back, which injured him real badly and so for a while, he was put on the back burner since with his crippled state, he wasn't really able to battle. Not sure why Flynn felt the need to cripple Rotor like that, but it does lead to an interesting development come Issue 215. I'll get to that one in due time...

Issue 177 is a mediocre conclusion to this three-parter. A lot of it is just our heroes standing around talking while engaging in character development, which is fine in some cases but now isn't the time to do that since Eggman's trying to blow them to smithereens, and when our heroes finally do deal with Eggman, he's taken down in seconds because the dumbass didn't make it so his suit can handle everyone, just Sonic, thus making his defeat feel very anti-climactic. And to top it all off? Instead of throwing the fat b*****d in a prison cell, Princess Sally orders him to retreat back to Megapolis. Let me repeat that:

PRINCESS. SALLY. ORDERS HIM. TO. RETREAT!!!!

My point exactly! What the hell was stopping these morons from arresting Eggman and throwing him in a cell?! Nicole wasted no time teleporting Mammoth Mogul, Naugus and Team Hooligan into a jail cell the moment they tried to take over, so why can't she do the same for Eggman?! There's no mandate saying Eggman can't be captured or arrested or anything! Later on in the Iron Dominion saga, they DO capture him and throw him in a jail cell, SO WHAT THE HELL WAS STOPPING THEM FROM DOING SO IN THIS ISSUE?!?! Again, Flynn should've had Sally declare Eggman is under arrest but an Eggman robot quickly flies in and carries Eggman away before it can happen. It might feel forced, yes, but it'd make a lot more sense if that was how it was done!

Overall, this three parter represents one of Ian's biggest flaws as a writer: he excels at set-up and execution, but pales when it comes to payoff. This story started off fantastically but just fizzled out by the end and gave us a really limp conclusion as a result. Get used to that in this retrospective, because this happens a lot...

Issues 178-179: Sonic vs. Tails

Hoo boy...now we get to this infamous two-parter. I really get the feeling that those who hate Archie Sonic use these issues to justify their hatred of the comic. I mean when you get THIS image, you can expect people to lose their minds with rage at the mere concept of Sonic and Tails fighting each other. In my case, I was more intrigued by it since I'd never seen such a story before and wanted to know what was going on. So looking back, how did this two-parter handle such a concept? BADLY!

First of all, it happens way too soon. We just had the whole destruction of Knothole, Eggman's defeat and New Mobotropolis being set up as the new home for our heroes and Flynn follows this up immediately with a two-parter that deals with Tails' father nonsensically starting a revolution and Sonic and Tails fighting each other? At least give us a breather issue to let us catch our breath Flynn!

Second of all, the impetus is extremely weak. Again, Tails' father Amadeus Prower starts a revolution...just because and it doesn't match up with how he's been acting in previous issues. Amadeus seemed a pretty rational and stable person in previous issues, then suddenly he's pulling this crap off when there was no need for him to do so? He later explains that the whole thing is about making a Mobius that's properly lead and protected, taking inspiration from his time on Argentium since the B.E.M. showed him the power of a world run by the people. Amadeus, the B.E.M. are assholes who were going to execute one of their own just for defying orders of their council despite said B.E.M. being completely in the right for doing so. I don't think they're the guys you should follow the example of!

And third, Flynn completely butchers Sonic's character just so this dumbass story can happen. The crowning moment of character assassination happens in this panel:

No. Just no. All the noes in the history of the world! The biggest no in the history of the universe! Sonic the Hedgehog would never, EVER say anything so cruel and arrogant! He would NEVER be so dismissive towards his best friend! He would NEVER treat Tails so callously! Seriously, Sonic is so out-of-character in this story that you have to wonder if Scourge is back to impersonating him again!

Yeah, you tell him Tails! Sonic totally deserved that!

But the crowning moment of stupid from this whole story? Tails' reason for fighting Sonic hasn't got anything to do with Sonic's attitude or keeping his father in prison. No, he's kicking Sonic's ass because he went out with Fiona. Seriously? That's the reason? I get it, Penders started this whole mess in the first place by pairing Sonic and Fiona up and it ended with Tails screaming that he hates Sonic, but Flynn could've handled it way better than how he did here. Tails had much more valid reasons to beat Sonic up, but Flynn went with the worst one and thus it feels less like Tails lashing out at Sonic over several issues of tension between the two and more like Tails throwing a massive temper tantrum because Sonic dated a girl he was in to, despite said girl making it clear she wasn't interested in him because he was too young and said girl SLAPPING HIM ACROSS THE FACE BACK IN ISSUE 172!!! On top of all that, it's out-of-character for Tails to ever act this way. Tails is no pushover, yes, but he wouldn't lash out like he does here. It was wrong when Penders had him scream "I HATE YOU!!!" you to Sonic's face back in Issue 155 and it was wrong for Flynn to have Tails resort to this in response to everything that's been going on. A fight between Sonic and Tails can work and has potential for an interesting story, don't get me wrong, but the way it was handled here was just embarrassing and required both Sonic and Tails to act out-of-character to make it work. The resolution is equally as embarrassing since all it took was Sally to basically say "Oy, you two, pack it in and talk it out like gentlemen!" to Elias and Amadeus in order to get them to stop fighting too. This results in one of the worst ideas to come out of Flynn's run on the comic: the Council of Acorn. I'll cover that in the next part.

And if that wasn't bad enough, the reason this story exists is because...the editors wanted to cash in on the popularity of Marvel's Civil War event. The story was meant to be a longer, slow-burn political story when Flynn concepted it, but the editors had him quickly rework it into what we got here so they could jump on the Civil War hype train. Lovely, so a garbage story from another comic company is the reason we got this garbage story in this comic. Marvel's Civil War is just the worst I swear...

This was such a bad two-parter and the worst part is that it didn't have to be. If Sonic and Tails weren't character assassinated for the sake of the story and the impetus wasn't so weak, it could've worked. As is, we got yet another story that feels like bad fanfiction and it's a stain on the comic's legacy it'll forever live with. What a let-down...

Conclusion

And that's the 170's era of Archie Sonic. Aside from issue 175 being great, every other issue is either meh, pretty decent or downright terrible. Too many characters are butchered for nonsensical reasons in these issues, the resolution to Shadow's story feels out of place, Bunnie and Antoine's wedding feels more like it's to placate shippers than because Flynn felt it needed to happen, many of the issues end anti-climactically and we have some unfortunate decisions like Charmy getting brain damaged. Just a really bad run of issues from Flynn with only a couple of good ones.

Now the 180s...they'll be more interesting and fun to talk about. But that's another story for another day. Tune in next week when the retrospective continues...

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