Media Essays: A Way Past Cool Retrospective (Archie Sonic Issues 213-229)

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4 here.

Last time we saw the fall of Dr. Eggman, the rise of Snively, the formation of the Iron Dominion and the fall of said dominion. As of now, things are unsettled in New Mobotropolis thanks to Nicole being corrupted, Eggman's back in charge and Sonic and Sally are a couple again. So how does this next batch of issues turn out? Let's dive in, and I'm covering quite a lot of them today. We're going over issues which introduced more chapters of the Dark Egg Legion, the return of Ixis Naugus, Dr. Eggman making his triumphant return, the next milestone epic that was Issue 225 and the comic doing its own 20th Anniversary celebration for the Sonic franchise.

So many issues to cover, so little time, so let's do it to it!

Issues 213-218: Freedom Fighters vs. The Dark Egg Legion

For this period of the comic, we had a series of two-parters that all have the same pattern to them: Sonic teams up with a friend to stop a local Dark Egg Legion chapter, we meet the Grandmaster of said chapter, a battle ensues, the heroes win, the end. It's very formulaic and out of these two-parters, I'd say Issues 217 and 218 are the best while 213 & 214 are the worst. For the stories, Issues 213 and 214 see the return of the Wolf Pack and we learn that Drago Wolf and Razorklaw are the Grandmasters of the Wolf and Feline D.E.L chapters.

Drago Wolf has a long history in the book, debuting just before the Endgame saga happened and he's among the least popular characters in the book due to being a poorly written treacherous character who's abuse of Hershey the Cat hits WAY too close to home for many. Even Ian Flynn hates the guy and has Drago show up just to get punched in the face. Here, he's finally found some use for him as a D.E.L. Grandmaster, but even then he still makes Drago an absolute joke who gets punched in the face. It's a pity too, because I love Drago's Grandmaster redesign here. He looks incredibly badass and threatening with those cyborg arms, but Flynn still makes him a pathetic joke. Had I been writer of the comic, Drago would've been a much more threatening character. As for Razorklaw, he's yet another deep cut for this character appeared WAAAAAAAAAY back in Issue 84 where he got his ass kicked by Locke. Now Flynn decided to bring him back as a D.E.L Grandmaster and...he's just really boring. He barely has a personality, he barely even speaks and like Drago, he's not even a credible threat. Why did Flynn bother to bring him back if he was going to do the bare minimum? I get he needed someone to represent the felines, but still. These issues also brought Big the Cat back...for some reason. Seriously, I have no idea why. This was before Big's weird resurgence in popularity during the 2020's, so I have no idea why he was brought back here.

Oh and fun fact, Issue 214 was the FIRST EVER ISSUE I read of this comic. Talk about a bad place to start! I got the second half of a two-parter, and not a very good one at that. It feels like barely anything happens in these two issues and nothing really gets accomplished aside from somewhat bringing peace between the Wolf Pack and Felidae. I'd say these issues you can skip easily and not miss much.

Issues 215 and 216 are much more interesting. These issues see Sonic and Rotor team up with the Arctic Freedom Fighters to stop the local D.E.L. chapter from brainwashing all the walruses, including Rotor's family. It was so nice that Flynn bothered to do a Rotor focused story again and show that despite him being crippled now, he still has some tricks up his sleeve. Case in point, the Iron Rotor suit you see above. The suit mitigates his back injury and allows him to fight and fly with no ill effect.

These issues also introduce us to Akhlut the Orca, another D.E.L. Grandmaster and unlike Drago and Razorklaw, he is NOT a returning character. Flynn created him from the ground up for this story. He's just a generic Eggman grunt and he doesn't set up much of a first impression. Not only does his design look incredibly out of place in the Sonic universe, but all he does is talk a lot and fire psychic waves at the Arctic Freedom Fighters. He yaks about there being conflicts between the orcas and walruses, but it's all just background details we don't really need to know. Thankfully, the reboot gave Akhlut a much better design that has him better fit into the Sonic world and gave a little more depth to him thanks to him having a rivalry with Tundra Walrus, Rotor's asshole father, but that's not saying much since the comic's cancellation meant Flynn still didn't get a chance to do much with him.

Issues 215 & 216 continues Silver's subplot of him trying to find the traitor to the Freedom Fighters, and also surprisingly reveals to us that Silver is being mentored by a still alive Mammoth Mogul in the future. Yeah, Mogul seems to have performed a heel-turn in this desolate future. He really is like Vandal Savage! XD

Issues 217 & 218 are the best of the bunch for me. Not only was it great to have a Bunnie Rabbot focused story for a change, but we also got the introduction of her uncle Beauregard Rabbot, one of my favourite Archie exclusive characters. I love this guy. He may be working for Eggman, but he's not evil in the slightest. He's just trying to help out the people of Sand Blast City as they're being oppressed by the Sand Blast Freedom Fighters. Yeah, there's actually a group of Freedom Fighters who are more like villains, go figure. Also they're walking, talking Looney Tunes references too, though they're anything but funny. There's a lot of characters in the comic I'll forever resent Ken Penders for causing the reboot to erase, and Beauregard is one of them. Noble, kind and genuinely loving his niece, but also knows when to get serious, this guy was great and he makes this two-parter for me.

Oh and I'd be amiss if I didn't bring this up: this two-parter also introduced Matilda the Armadillo, who is later revealed to be Mighty's missing sister that Espio brought up in Issue 212. Mighty would reunite with her in a Sonic Universe arc later down the line, but that's another story.

And of course, Issue 217 FINALLY introduced Cream the Rabbit into the comics via a second story. Seriously, it took them until NOW to introduce Cream? What took them so long?

While issues 217 & 218 are the best issues of these two-parters, I still shake my head at that forced as hell conflict between Sonic and Bunnie. That was unnecessary, we didn't need the two to be fighting each other like that. While it was WAY better handled than in House of Cards, it still felt like Flynn made it happen just for the sake of it. As is, I still think these issues were the best of this batch and ones I'll happily revisit.

After that, Flynn began to pave the way for Issue 225 with this next batch of issues really shaking things up...

Issues 219-225: The Return of Ixis Naugus and Dr. Eggman

Issues 219 and 220 are yet another two-parter, but Flynn breaks the "D.E.L. chapter of the week" formula and instead gives us a story in where Sonic has to team up with Geoffrey St. John in order to get a Chaos Emerald from the Special Zone since King Max wants a way to restore the monarchy. The two go into the Special Zone and run into Feist, who speaks in the third person now when he didn't do so before. He makes the two run a race to get the purple Chaos Emerald. Sonic wins, but then this happens:

Geoffrey shoots Sonic in the back, kicks Sonic into the abyss and then makes off the Chaos Emerald. He doesn't take it to King Max...

...but to Ixis Naugus instead. It turns out that Geoffrey has been a double agent this entire time and is working for Ixis Naugus. Is it just me, or does Ian Flynn REALLY have this weird obsession with characters betraying one another? Seriously, how many times have characters betrayed each other since he took over as head writer? Fiona Fox turned on the Freedom Fighters, the Suppression Squad betray Scourge and Fiona, Lien-Da is constantly betraying people for her own benefit, Mammoth Mogul mind-controls Tails, Mina and Mighty and has them fight Sonic, Espio betrays the Chaotix during the Iron Dominion's takeover and now we have Geoffrey being a double agent for Naugus! Does he still do this in IDW Sonic? I don't read that comic, so I dunno.

Anyhow, this revelation of Geoffrey being Naugus' apprentice...is questionable at best. Apparently, Flynn's reason for retconning Geoffrey into being a double agent is that it's meant to explain his inconsistent portrayals in previous issues. I don't see how that's supposed to solve anything and all it does is raise legitimate questions such as "Why didn't Geoffrey act during this moment or that moment" and especially why Geoffrey has never displayed any Ixis magic abilities at any point during the comic. While I personally feel Flynn made Geoffrey a more interesting character with this retcon, all it does is make the character even more confusing when you think about past events and how the stories played out.

Anyhow, Geoffrey gives Naugus the Chaos Emerald, his mind is restored at long last, Naugus then grows a spiffy looking staff out of nowhere and uses it as a means to carry the Chaos Emerald around and now he and Geoffrey are free to cause trouble. As if Sonic's day couldn't get any worse...

There's also a subplot in these issues in where Mina Mongoose is suffering from PTSD as a result of Nicole's corruption at the hands of the Iron Queen and her asshole boyfriend Ash Mongoose gives her an idea to send a message to the people of New Mobotropolis. This feeds directly into Issue 221 in where Mina performs a song that causes everybody to get riled up even more against Nicole with some subtle manipulations from Naugus' magic also amplifying everyone's emotions.

This entire subplot with Mina and the resulting issue is borderline asinine by how much things don't add up or how much the characters lose their brains just so this dumbass story can happen. Once again, I'll have to break it down into bullet points:

• First of all, Mina wasn't there at New Mobotropolis during the Iron Dominion's invasion in Issues 208-211. We NEVER saw her at ANY point in those issues and we never once saw her being terrorized by Nicole. And yet we're supposed to accept that this event that Mina was clearly never present for is what's causing all of this. This entire subplot requires us to accept this nonsense happened off-panel just so we can have it occur. If we saw Mina at least once in the previous issues, then I wouldn't have such an issue with it, but I've re-read them all for this retrospective. WE. NEVER. SEE. HER. AT. ANY. POINT. So Flynn literally pulled this out of nowhere just so this story can happen, and that's unbelievably sloppy writing from a so-called professional.

• This flipping comic SERIOUSLY expects us to believe that not once, NOT ONE SINGLE TIME did Sally bother to tell everybody "Nicole was playing double agent this whole time, she was helping us behind the Iron Queen's back!". What the hell was stopping her from doing so?! Why didn't she or Sonic tell anybody that was the case?! They just keep acting like everybody will move on and the whole thing will blow over no problem and as a result of this stupidity, Mina got the crowd riled up and now everyone wants Nicole to be off-lined! Sonic, Sally, George Takei has a few words for you:

• Mina and Sally both bring up how people were "legionized" in public. Again, we're supposed to believe stuff happened off-panel in order for this to have any weight to it because again, we never saw that. There are no scenes whatsoever of characters being legionized in public. Yes in Issue 210, Snively was about to legionize Rotor in front of a public audience, but that whole thing was the first time he and the Iron Dominion were about to try such an idea, and it was done as a trap to draw out the resistance! And Rotor was saved before he could be legionized! So Mina and Sally are literally head-canoning events that DID NOT HAPPEN! Nobody got legionized in public and Mina wasn't there at any point during these issues! It's like we're following an entirely different story to what actually happened or something! Also, if this really did happen, then that means Sonic and friends have been sitting on their asses not doing anything about the legionized citizens, and I refuse to accept such a thing! Ain't no way these people got legionized and Sonic and the FFs haven't done anything about it! Like I said, Mina's clearly making up what happened at this point to justify her delusions, cause from what we saw, nobody got legionized during the Iron Dominion's invasion!

This is such an easy fix too. All they had to do was show Mina in the previous issues and have a line of dialogue in Issue 210 saying "Since the Dominion took over, the Iron Queen's been legionizing people and now plans to make it public!" and presto, this subplot isn't built on off-panel stuff that supposedly happened!

Issue 222 is a much needed breather issue that finally gives us a date between Sonic and Sally. Not much to really talk about other than it's a sweet, romantic downtime story that brings Sonic and Sally together at last and give us a momentary calm before the storm. It's a lot better than Issue 221 that's for sure. XD It also feels like a punch to the gut knowing what happens next...

Issues 223 and 224 are a two-parter in where we see Naugus make his move at last. He and Geoffrey show up and Geoffrey takes on the Freedom Fighters while Sonic tries to stop Naugus. For some reason, this involves him using a sword to fight the Ixis Wizard, because I guess Flynn wanted to reference Sonic and the Black Knight despite that game being two years old by the time these two issues came out? It just feels a bit random to me. It's also in these issues where we learn from Geoffrey that his wife, Hershey the Cat, is dead. I'll cover more of that in the next part. These two issues are another case of characters being idiots or things not adding up just so we can have this story happen:

• Geoffrey is somehow able to utterly curb-stomp Sally, Tails, Amy, Antoine and Bunnie simultaneously while these experienced and capable Freedom Fighters can't land a single hit on him. We're now treading across RWBY villain territory here, and that's never a good place to stand. Flynn once again seems to think in order for his villains to seem cool and badass, they have to be completely unstoppable despite the fact these characters have dealt with enemies that would destroy Geoffrey in an instant! Geoffrey shouldn't last five seconds against these characters, but somehow he can because Flynn says so. Even Roy from Pokémon Horizons isn't glazed this ludicrously when it comes to battles!

• Elias and the Council of Acorn come off as incomprehensibly stupid here. They're all against Naugus barging in and declaring they hand the crown over to him, then suddenly they flip a switch and begin bickering with one another or considering giving into Naugus' demands. And don't bother bringing up Naugus using his magic because I ain't buying that. His magic amplifies emotions, it doesn't outright mind-control anyone. This sudden shift just comes off as weird and idiotic to me. Rosemary Prower especially is just the absolute worst for even being in favour of this considering Naugus is an enemy of Sonic and her own son. While yes, she was away from Mobius for a while, I refuse to even tease the notion that Tails never once told his own damn parents about Naugus and what an evil monster he is!

None of that matters anyway since Eggman gets the blue Chaos Emerald and he uses it to power up his latest creation. It takes flight and both our heroes and the readers bear witness as we see the return...

...of the Death Egg. Eggman has been in hiding this whole time making a brand new version of his deadliest vessel. While the main plot has been a bit of a headache, this here was brilliantly handled and perfectly set-up. The previous issues subtly hinted at something big coming and Eggman biding his time had us anticipating something incredible was about to happen. Making all this build up to the return of the Death Egg? Spot on, I have no complaints here. What better way for Eggman to make his return than with this?

All of this gives us the 225th issue. Quite a big milestone achievement for sure. And fun fact, this was my overall favourite issue of Archie Sonic back in the day. Do I still consider it as such? Let's go over it:

The issue itself, like 175 and 200, is a great story for a milestone issue. We have Sonic and friends engaged in battle against Dr. Eggman once more with a lot of fan service sprinkled in there, namely the return of the Death Egg, Sonic and Sally sharing one last kiss before they go inside the Death Egg and Sonic getting to fight a Silver Sonic robot. The stakes are massive here too as Eggman has some kind of plan, we just don't know what yet and Sonic and friends are being held up as they try to stop him. All this makes for a pretty exciting read, and it all leads up to one hell of a cliff-hanger in where Princess Sally LITERALLY GETS SHOT TO DEATH(!!!!) and Eggman presses a button that causes everything to turn white.

This was the image the issue ended on. Quite the shocking cliff-hanger, am I right? Sally appears to be dead, Eggman has triumphed and everything's disappearing in a bright white light. While in hindsight, Sally getting shot was mostly pointless shock value and didn't really need to happen since Eggman rebooted the world and Sally was brought back alive anyway, and this cliff-hanger only happens because Sonic was a dumbass who prioritized fighting Silver Sonic over getting on with the mission (for god's sake Flynn, are you physically incapable of writing a story without your characters being total morons?!?!) for some reason, it was still an ending that kept all comic reads on the edge of their seats for the months we had to wait in order to get a continuation of the story. Oh and if you're wondering, yes I still consider Issue 225 to be my favourite issue from the Flynn era of Archie Sonic. It was such an awesome issue that perfectly set-up the upcoming arc and the cliff-hanger remains one of the biggest we've had in the comic's history.

As a result of Eggman's Operation: Clean Sweep, the story took a huge detour and thus we enter...

Issues 226-229: The Genesis Saga

And here we are, the big 20th anniversary special. Man, I feel old now. I remember when this and Sonic Generations were coming out to celebrate such an occasion!

So is the Genesis saga any good? As an anniversary special...kinda? We get a lot of references to the classic Genesis era of the games with the covers referencing the classic games, Green Hill Zone and Chemical Plant Zone as locations for the story to take place in, everything going for a more classic Sonic design in terms of the visuals, classic Eggman Badniks showing up everywhere and a final showdown taking board on the Death Egg with Sonic fighting Eggman as he pilots the Death Egg Robot. This is a story that feels like it's there to celebrate the franchise's legacy by going back where it all started and telling the classic story all over again.

The only problem is...there's not much of a story to begin with. It's just Sonic teaming up with Tails, Sally, Antoine and Rotor (no Bunnie for some reason) to stop Dr. Eggman and undo Operation: Clean Sweep. The issues have this same repetitive formula to them in where our heroes go from one location to the next, dodge traps, avoid obstacles and fight Badniks. It makes what's supposed to be a big anniversary special feel very boring as a result and unlike Sonic Generations, we don't have the benefit of fun gameplay to give us something to be entertained by. Sure the artwork looks great, but it's not enough to make this story entertaining. Also it ends on a massive anti-climax. Eggman very stupidly tells Sonic his ship is powered by Chaos Emeralds and as a result, Sonic uses them to power himself up and foil Operation: Clean Sweep. Pitiful. X( That and the fact it's just an annoying roadblock that's keeping us from the actual story because SEGA demanded this to happen doesn't help either. Imagine how much better these four issues would've been if they'd been a part of the ongoing story instead of being eaten up by an anniversary special that easily could've been an entirely separate comic book? Why shove this story into the main series when it could've been a self-contained spin-off title that can get the point across and be an anniversary special without eating up time that should've been spent on the main plot itself? The fact the Genesis arc isn't even very good and feels like a waste of time at the end only adds salt to the wound. Overall, this story shouldn't be here. It should've been its own self-contained miniseries with no ties to the main comic whatsoever.

Conclusion

And that wraps up this part of the Way Past Cool Retrospective. Aside from a few diamonds in the rough, this batch of issues was pretty bad. The Naugus plot has too much stupid things about it holding it back with a really weak set-up that requires us to just accept off-panel stuff happened just so it can happen at all, the Geoffrey being a double agent retcon is questionable and the Genesis arc just barged in uninvited just so we could celebrate Sonic's 20th Anniversary, and it wasn't even a good celebration of said anniversary! As is, Issues 217 & 218 are still firm favourites for me and I still consider Issue 225 my favourite issue of the comic period. Funny how this string of bad or mediocre issues is where I can name my favourite one. If the Naugus plot had been set-up better and the Genesis arc was a separate mini-series unrelated to the main comic, then we could've had better stories here. As is, these issues are masterpieces compared to what's next.

Brace yourselves folks...we're going into the Mecha Sally arc next. Hoo boy, this will be a doozy...

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